I love writing my Lifelight stories, in fact, I love creating plot lines that I can fill an entire book with, but I've also come to realise the value of testing my writing capabilities through smaller stories, too. The sort that can be read over a quick coffee.
As someone who loves description, the short story form is particularly challenging because I have to rein in my tendency to enrich plot and characters with lots of detail. When I'm told to keep it short, I have no option but to pare everything back, whilst still delivering a well-paced and entertaining tale.
It's not an easy thing for me, it doesn't appear to benefit my normal style, and yet I've always felt compelled to keep trying. It took me a long time to realise why that was.
Writing is a balancing act. There will always be those who can tell you the rules regarding the nuts-and-bolts of the craft, such as: NO adverbs, it's important to show not tell, the placement of commas... and so on. In my teens I willfully ignored all that, figuring (with the arrogance of youth) that these were my stories, and I'd tell them how I liked! It took me over two decades to finally accept that maybe I didn't know best... and it was time to revisit those rules. At which point I began applying them to my work with vigour; but even then, I was never happy with the outcome.
These days I realise that, whilst it's important to know the rules, it's also important to know when and when not to use them. Everything in moderation... and that goes for the form my stories take too.
You see, if I can master how to convey a story without the details I usually employ, I'm also learning how to keep a reader's attention with fewer words - and fewer words means they read it quicker. Within the context of a novel, that's a worthwhile skill to have when you need to speed up the pace (e.g. action scenes), and using short sentences will only get me so far... which brings me neatly back to why I value the challenge of a short story.
That said, I'll admit I'm not great at challenging myself - I'd much rather someone else laid down the gauntlet. Which is why I also value on-line author sites (like WeBook) that set monthly challenges with strict word counts and, recently, the local writing group I've joined, which always sets homework of around 500 words in length.
So for all those authors out there, happy to continue on with the story form they're most comfortable with, I'd like to say this: Take the challenge to switch your focus every now and then - because it can improve your understanding of the craft in ways you may not have considered.
BTW: You can read my latest attempt at a short story on the 'Free Reads' page. This was a challenge to write a story of about 500 words, based around an elderly man's birthday being interrupted by a police raid, with him and all his guests evacuated from the celebrations and told to go stand in the car park... why was this or what happened next? 'Doing the Gerbil Jive' was my response. :)
As someone who loves description, the short story form is particularly challenging because I have to rein in my tendency to enrich plot and characters with lots of detail. When I'm told to keep it short, I have no option but to pare everything back, whilst still delivering a well-paced and entertaining tale.
It's not an easy thing for me, it doesn't appear to benefit my normal style, and yet I've always felt compelled to keep trying. It took me a long time to realise why that was.
Writing is a balancing act. There will always be those who can tell you the rules regarding the nuts-and-bolts of the craft, such as: NO adverbs, it's important to show not tell, the placement of commas... and so on. In my teens I willfully ignored all that, figuring (with the arrogance of youth) that these were my stories, and I'd tell them how I liked! It took me over two decades to finally accept that maybe I didn't know best... and it was time to revisit those rules. At which point I began applying them to my work with vigour; but even then, I was never happy with the outcome.
These days I realise that, whilst it's important to know the rules, it's also important to know when and when not to use them. Everything in moderation... and that goes for the form my stories take too.
You see, if I can master how to convey a story without the details I usually employ, I'm also learning how to keep a reader's attention with fewer words - and fewer words means they read it quicker. Within the context of a novel, that's a worthwhile skill to have when you need to speed up the pace (e.g. action scenes), and using short sentences will only get me so far... which brings me neatly back to why I value the challenge of a short story.
That said, I'll admit I'm not great at challenging myself - I'd much rather someone else laid down the gauntlet. Which is why I also value on-line author sites (like WeBook) that set monthly challenges with strict word counts and, recently, the local writing group I've joined, which always sets homework of around 500 words in length.
So for all those authors out there, happy to continue on with the story form they're most comfortable with, I'd like to say this: Take the challenge to switch your focus every now and then - because it can improve your understanding of the craft in ways you may not have considered.
BTW: You can read my latest attempt at a short story on the 'Free Reads' page. This was a challenge to write a story of about 500 words, based around an elderly man's birthday being interrupted by a police raid, with him and all his guests evacuated from the celebrations and told to go stand in the car park... why was this or what happened next? 'Doing the Gerbil Jive' was my response. :)
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