Short Stories

What do you like about writing short stories? What don’t you like about writing short stories? How do you think short stories differ from novels?

Bonus: What is your favorite short story anthology?

Short stories are nice when I need a break from writing a novel or editing. Sometimes novels tend to be a lot to commit to but writing a short story is exactly what I need. It's also good practice for working on concluding things. I like the simplicity of writing a short story.

But, short stories are limited. Coming up with a smaller plot tends to be harder than writing a full on novel, sometimes. Not for everyone. It's important to stay focused on the task. Since they generally have one plot and maybe one subplot - maybe - it tends to be a lot harder to conclude everything within the small word count. That's where I struggle, as I'm not a good short story writer but I try.

There are obvious differences to short stories and novels. Word count being one of them. The structure is a little different since everything has to be wrapped up at the end of the short story. The amount of characters you introduce in a short story is very limited. I could go on, but I guess it's pretty obvious. There are more limitations to writing a short story compared to writing a novel.

I don't have a favorite short story anthology.

The Editing Process: Knowing What Went Wrong

Dowsers is one of the longest novels I've written and decided to edit. There are a lot of mistakes that I need to fix before this reaches other people. Aside from the normal grammar and spelling mistakes I have, I found several things wrong with my main and sub plots.

Going through it once was enough to force me to understand where I went wrong. Thankfully, there is no insta-love. Or love triangles (I hate them). The relationship between my characters is important for their development because my characters have problems. Don't all characters, though?

I do need to redo the ending. I'm terrible at writing endings and beginnings. This is something I'm going to have to work on because it's the most important part of the book. I can't having it being lame. That just won't do.

There is also a matter of my antagonist being slightly bipolar. He really shouldn't be that way. I mean, he's good at acting because that how he gets what he wants, but he isn't bipolar. So, that is on my list of things I need to fix.

Now, the plot. I've been playing with some other options that my plot has to offer to see if they work better. It might. I might have to figure out what works best - which offers the strongest plot. It's going to be a lot of work, but it will be worth it in the end.

Pretty soon, I'll have to do some trimming...and adding. Adding is the hardest parts editing but it has to be done.

The Survival Agreement

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I thought I would post the cover art of my story, as I just published the first chapter on Wattpad last night. It was definitely outside my comfort zone but it did make it's way through a few people before I posted. Those people have been credited at the end of the chapter.

Feel free to check out my Wattpad: HERE - The first chapter of The Survival Agreement is available there. I'm hoping to update at least once a week on Sundays since this is a finished story. The only thing that takes time is when others are helping me by going through it.

This story is the first installment of my District Pluto series. And at the current moment, I'm editing the second story, The Morality Sentence. It's going to need some work - a lot of work.

Third Edits - Complete

These edits for The Survival Agreement didn't take me very long. While I know there are places that I can improve in, I need another opinion so I'll be actively looking for beta readers. I actually have a few that I've contacted but I'm waiting to hear back from them. This is the hardest part of the process for me. Finding someone to read my work.

I actually sent it to an editor. I was going to wait until after the beta readers but it already presented itself. I figured I'd see what they had to say about it until I find more beta readers. This is mostly a trial time for me. I don't know what process I would prefer first and which I would prefer second. I guess I'll see.

Second Edits - Done!

Finally! Finally my second edits are done for District Pluto: The Survival Agreement (formally known as The Sacrificial Son). I've even created a checklist for what needs to come next. My third and final round of edits (which is mostly a syntax edit) should be over quickly before I sent it out to Betas. Then I'll be editing two projects at once. The next story in the District Pluto series, Morality Sentence and my stand alone novel Dowsers. I'm hoping to get some of these out to Betas by the end of the year but I have a feeling that Dowers will take me a long time to edit but I really need to get back on it.

One thing I noticed when doing this second edit was that my characters were weak. While typing up my edits, I tried to fix this but I don't know how well I did. I guess I find out when I start the last round of my editing. If not, then hopefully my betas can help me with how they read. It occurred to me that my characters didn't even have the barest of description so I had to add that in. That was a struggle.

Overall, I'm pretty pleased with the outcome of this short story/novella (possibly a novelette). I can already see the improvements compared to my very first draft. I finally have a name for it too, as I stated above. It's no longer Sacrificial Son, it is now titled The Survival Agreement. I already have the cover art made (and fixed). Actually, I have two. I have one that I picked out but I'll also ask the people who are my betas - if they want to. I'm not going to force that on them. I already have one in mind.