Quality over Quantity: Your stories

Here is the place to discuss your short stories - what were you inspirations, how your progressing with your writing and if you feel brave perhaps post an excerpt for us to read. Just remember this is an open forum!

I have a hard time with short stories because I'm so used to using other people's characters for my stories that when it comes time to creating my own, I get a little stuck. It takes me a week just to decide what I want to name my characters, then decide where the setting should be and so on. I put a lot of research into the writing, and sometimes I wish I could jump right in and start writing.

pronetoidiocy wrote:

I have a hard time with short stories because I'm so used to using other people's characters for my stories that when it comes time to creating my own, I get a little stuck. It takes me a week just to decide what I want to name my characters, then decide where the setting should be and so on. I put a lot of research into the writing, and sometimes I wish I could jump right in and start writing.

I'm the same Prone, it took me soooo long to get myself out of the fanfic zone (and sometimes i find myself thinking of FF characters and have to stop myself). Trust me though, its worth the work when you develop something thats yours.

FF is great for building up yiour skills but eventually you have to leave it behind.

I find coming up with interesting ideas for Short stories difficult cause you have to make it soo interesting in so little space, so you have to make every sentence mean something - which freaks me out

I sometimes find Short Stories the easiest to write since I just focus on the main part. I find though, that a lot of my short stories could be expanded and become full length novels. But when I try to expand them they seem to loose the quality they originally had when short. It's the same with full length novels. If I were to try and shorten them they would seem too rushed and just loose the quality they had when long.

I don't know why that is. I think it's because the story writes itself and usually they let me know when they are done. Like the short stories, if they got longer they might loose the mystery and intrigue that they end with. And with long stories shortened they would loose some of that important detail and minor facts. It's strange...

Urgh. I'm working on several short stories for contests at the moment (which is yet another reason I'm so far behind on The Enigma) and one of them is due tomorrow. Problem is, I haven't started writing it yet...but I do have the idea (sort of) and it's only 2,500 words to knock out. The problem is keeping it under the limit. I had another idea that I just LOVED but found it impossible to keep it that short.

*Sigh* If they'd only given me five hundred more words to work with. Then I could have gone on with the first idea and not be in this situation...

Thats the thing with short stories though, its so hard to fit so much in so little space and do it properly. every sentence really counts. I submitted a short story for WD contest, it needs some serious overhawl and work but i'm hoping i might try and submit it when its polished to some magazines. Its a good way to get credentials.

I have a really hard time coming up with story ideas for short stories. All of my ideas are somehow novel length, or maybe I'm just not trying hard enough. I don't know. I had to write a couple short stories for a creative writing class I took and it was rather difficult for me.

Anyway, there is a short story competition going on that I really want to enter but I haven't been able to come up with a story for it yet. Bleh...

I know of a 'short story' generator site - i'll post the link (i'm in uni at the moment and don't have bookmarklink) although i don't find it helpful myself. I need more than three random words

I find it so hard to come up with short story ideas, but the one idea i did come up with (which i might develop later for novel) was due to poem i read that struck a cord.

Sorry if I'm stating the obvious... but does anyone do "mind mapping" before writing? I'm in the process of doing that now...

For short stories, if it is hard to get stuff into a certain amount of words it MIGHT be useful for some people (I haven't come to my own verdict yet) to break the story line into 3 to 5 blocks depending on the word count.

This is to stay focused on where you want to end the story and what you need to write in the middle to effectively get to that ending. Sort of like working backwards... Does this make any sense?
I think I need to go to sleep...it is midnight and my rambling gets way bad at this hour.

Sorry if i seem stupid, but mind mapping, what exactly is that? it sounds familiar, is it a study aid?

There is a site here http://www.mind-mapping.co.uk/mind-maps-examples.htm
that you can check out. You don't really need to buy a book or anything...you probably do it without calling it anything...
Sort of like a family tree of ideas! You could start with a main character as your root, or you could have your ending/goal of the story as a root, and then branch off from there.
Write everything down, no matter how stupid you might think it is (it could come in handy for a different story). The shorter the story, the more branches you might have to cut off later...but you haven't started the actual writing yet so it is OK.
It's like brainstorming but with yourself instead of with a group of people!

I love writing short stories as a way to take a break from my novels and actually also have some writing practice. I figured when I finished my first novel that it is very difficult to write a short story piece, but I'm trying to keep that part of me fresh. I have a couple short stories. One or two may actually turn into books later on though.

My favorite thing about writing my short stories--I can lengthen them out to be books later if I want. Basically it is somewhat of an outline in my mind. I will post a snippet of one I wrote for a creative writing class I had in college once I find where it is.

People say my short stories are too short. The ones I write tend to be more bite size stories because my original plan with them was to submit to magazines. I do write what they call one shots for my favorite show, seems like I talk about it alot, but when I get an idea I do a slice of life story for it. I do think I am more long winded generally speaking but all of my short stories are interracial stories.

Most people read my short stories and just look at me like this --> o.o

Most of my short stories just and i mean JUST {down to the number} reach the limit, but i write them in a way that there is so much depth to the story that you can't help but think what else could be happening here.

I wrote one story for Writers digest like that, and i got 101 place out of all of america and Canada, i felt really accomplished ^^ but i guess sometimes writing like that might not be good.....but oh well, right? i mean, a lot of people like that, you can't please everyone and you certainly can't do that in a short story ^^

~Akurei Enzeru

I've seen a few short story contests where the word count has to be below 2000 or something and I'm just like "but...but...my stories are all so much longer than that!" I can't help it. I feel that a story always needs to have a conflict or it isn't interesting, and you can't have a story without a beginning, middle, and end (even if they flow nicely into each other). So I've written short stories that are 7+ pages, obviously too long for many of the contests I've tried to enter... >_>;

Yeah, one contest that i entered was like 750 words O.O it was the hardest thing to do!

~Akurei Enzeru

One I was going to enter said "500" words not "5000." I was like "Awesome! And it's free to enter!" And then when I tried to enter, and it said "exceed word limit," I realized my mistake. Stupidity definitely has its drawbacks. >_>;

Oooooh that's not fun ><
The shorter the limit the harder it is, but it really brings out the best in you if you can do good with it!

~Akurei Enzeru

I've decided one my thesis is over that mon - thurs will be spent on my novel while fri-sun will be spent on writing exercises/short stories to flex my writing muscle and try new styles/dialogue and try and improve my writing and editing skilss

Maybe when i start and do a few i might start a challenge here and we can try and do same exercises? and then post on SYW thread and see how we do?

That sounds like a great idea ^^

On my website i'm going to start some contests soon too!!!


~Akurei Enzeru

Do! And let us know when you begin the contests.

Well i know we were planning on contests (eventually again) but i was thinking these might be uncontests - just exercises and that. but if people want of course they can be comps

Maybe exercises to begin with, and depending on the response, contests at a later date?

Good idea

I'm so busy editing my novel {i just sent a query to an agent and now i'm going insane with editing while waiting for a response} that my site is kinda dying v.v buuut if you guys want, just join my site and it'll kick me over to making the contests. hopefully in a few weeks ^^

go to http://bloodscroll.webs.com

~Akurei Enzeru