Writing Short Stories When You Usually Write Novels

Writing a short story is something I feel like every writer should know how to do. It doesn't matter if you say that you "only write novels" because there is going to be a time where short stories are needed. Short stories have multiple purposes.

How Short Stories Might Benefit You:

• You want to give your readers a little extra. Your readers are important. I can't stress that enough. Sometimes giving them a little something extra isn't going to kill you. Writing a short story is a good way of doing that. Say you have a side character that your audience just loves. Why not give them a little short story in that side character's point of view. It doesn't have to be related to the original story but be sure to give it a plot on it's own.

• Helps you omit needless words. If you don't want to give into your readers, then at least use it as practice to omit needless words. It will force you to stay focused on the plot and try not to generate subplots, since it is a short story.

• It opens up other opportunities. Anthologies being one of them. Or for those who aren't published yet, short story contests. There are a lot of them. Anthologies and contests are a good way to get your name out there so use it to your advantage.

• You learn to gain control. This might sound a little weird but I was one of those people who would try to write a short story and ended up writing a whole damn novel. I learned to tone it down. It taught me how to control my story, keep things on the right path because your characters really don't have the control of the story, you do. When your character's veer off, that's you trying to explore your options or you just really have a hard time following your own directions. 

 I'm sure there are other ways that short stories can benefit but these are the immediate things that came to my head.

Now that we know how short stories can benefit you, lets move on to how to write one. I'm a novel writer. I know how hard it can be to cramp a story into a limited amount of words. But I learned.

For this short story contest I decided to enter, the guidelines for the story were:

• Any genre
• No more than 3,000 words
• Due November 31st

It was a pain in the ass.  I had a great story planned out but then I realized that it was too damn long. Something had to go but what? Everything varies for me. I don't always do the same method twice in a row but these are the basics of my process.

• Figure what I wanted from the story. That meant plot. I needed a small plot that had a lot of impact and could intrigue readers to continue. So knowing what I wanted for a general plot was important.

• Keeping characters limited. There are only two characters that the readers know the names of and one that everyone refers to as "Boss" but you don't get to know him as a character very well. Keeping characters limited means that you will have to not fill your story with a ton of characters. That will just make it drag. Keep the characters that have an important role. 

• Throw everything into an outline. I advocate outlines more than anyone I know. I love outlines. They are the way I keep everything in line. I even outline blog posts. By throwing what you have into an outline, I was able to establish three major parts of the story that were 1,000 words a piece and it was more than enough for what I was writing. It will also keep you from veering off into something that it shouldn't be.

• Write what's important. This is the only way I didn't go over the limited amount of words. I only wrote down what was important to this plot. When you have subplots or a series, you'll probably have to write a lot more than in a short story. Novels are more complex than short stories. I only have one plot for this story. Keep only what's important to the story. 

It might look like a lame little list here but it works for me. It's as simple as it can get really. It's a short story, after all.