What Is A Short Story? ~ guest post by Geoff Hoff

What is a Short Story?

Short stories are a glorious art form.

Now that I have that out of the way, let’s start talking about them behind their back.  I’ve been asked on occasion what defines a short story, and what do all short stories have in common.  The answer to that second question may seem flippant, but it is heartfelt.  The only thing they all have in common is a beginning, middle and end.

To enhance that answer, short stories are so varied, you can approach them from so many angles, that is, quite literally, the only thing they have in common.  To go even more deeply, even the beginning, middle and end can look different in different stories.  Some of my favorite stories are experimental, nontraditional or “non-linear.”  The beginning can happen in the middle.  The ending can be so vague as to seem non-existent, or can swing back to the beginning.  Richard A. Lupoff’s 12:01 PM has several beginnings, including the end.  This is one of the things I love about short stories, about story telling in general, actually, that they can be so varied and unexpected.

What defines short stories also requires a flippant sounding answer: It is a story that is shorter than a novel or a novella.  How short is up to many different standards.  Some say anything less than 9,000 words.  Some say anything less than 20,000.  Some, less than 7,000.  Some even call a story shorter than 1,000 a “short short” but I think that’s making a distinction that is entirely too fine for any practical purpose besides academia, which isn’t usually very practical at all.

Ernest Hemmingway famously won a bet by creating a short story with only six words:  “For sale. Baby shoes. Never worn.”  I shiver every time I read that one, and it always makes me think.

Most, but not all short stories have a limited number of characters.  Shirley Jackson’s wonderfully dark The Lottery, however, definitely a short story, has well over ten characters, most of them fairly well developed.  It does, of course, only have one location.  Most, but not all, short stories have a limited number of locations.  Kipling’s classic Man Who Would Be King has several, unless you consider all of India one location.  Some have defined short stories as those that have only one or a few conflicts in them, or a single plot.  Delany’s award-winning Time Considered as a Helix of Semi-Precious Stones has more complications and plot turns than some novels, although some call it a novelette, which, I suppose, is somewhere between a short story and a novella.

So what, exactly, is a short story?  That is up to the individual writer, reader, editor or publication to decide in their own, quirky, individual way.  I could be coy and say it doesn’t matter, just read them and get on with your day, but I’m much too polite to give such a response.

I like to think of them as more of a narrative sketch or study than a full painting or sculpture, more a bagatelle or caprice than a symphony or opera, more an annoying list of similes than a full-blown crazy-making analysis.  This is, of course, also insufficient.  The sketches of Dürer or Michelangelo are much more detailed and complete than the sculptures of Picasso or the paintings of Mondrian, so even my annoying similes don’t quite hit the mark.

Even so, thinking of short stories as more like sketches of events than novels (or even novellas) is as useful a distinction as any.  The characters and locations will be more sketches of people and place than would be necessary in a novel.  Communicating a central point or idea is more important than delving into specifics.

Now that we have cleared up the mystery, or, perhaps, laid more mud on it, I say go read one, then get on with your day.  Read two, they’re short.

==================================

Geoff Hoff is a best-selling author and also writes how-to writing guides.

With his writing partner, he will be giving an on-line course, “You Can Write a Short Story” that starts Thursday, January 14th.  http://www.TipsOnWriting.net/class

Apply the code WRITELIFE at checkout for $20 off the price of registration.

Learn more about the craft of writing from Geoff and his writing partner, Steve Mancini, at their Tips on Writing blog http://www.TipsOnWriting.net/blog

An Essential Book for Writers – How Stories Work

No doubt, every writing instructor has their favorite books to recommend. My own bookshelf of writing related books sags from the weight of books I love. Every one of them holds a significant message for the writer and her craft, but few capture a set of basics as well as Margaret Lucke’s basic how-to for creating compelling stories. Whether you’re new to writing, or a seasoned pro, whether you write novels, short stories, flash fiction or memoir, this one book packs the best of the basics in a slim volume of 160 pages.

HERE’S WHAT YOU’LL LEARN

1.  Writing A Short Story–Getting Started

2.  Characters–How to Create People Who Live and Breathe On the Page

3.  Conflict–How to Devise A Story That Readers Won’t Want to Put Down

4.  Plot and Structure–How To Shape Your Story and Keep It Moving Forward

5.  Setting and Atmosphere–How To Bring Readers Into A Vivid Story World

6.  Narrative Voice–How To Develop Your Individual Voice As a Writer

Includes: extensive reading list, quick guide to submitting manuscripts for publication, how to format your manuscript

BUY IT!

The Secrets of Publishing Success – Jane Friedman’s 2009 Tough Love Guide

I believe I’ve mentioned Writer’s Digest/F + W Media Publisher & Editorial Director Jane Friedman’s blog to readers before.  Jane eats, breathes, and focuses almost all her waking hours on the publishing industry.  She attends conferences, talks to agents, meets with authors, teaches classes, reads prolifically.  She’s sitting in a place of “knowing” since she leads a team of acquisitions editors.  She and I have become friends, and I respect what she says so much.

Recently, she compiled all her posts relating to publishing in one place.

She calls it The Secrets to Publishing Success (Jane’s 2009 Tough Love Guide).

Besides writing your book, there are various steps that will make you, the author, and your book more attractive for acquisition.  Use Jane’s points to start your personal to-do list.

What are your next steps?

Write them down.  Set aside time on a weekly basis to take care of more than merely writing your book to make sure you’re positioned for an immediate sale when you send out those query letters too.

Keep writing!

Video – My FAVORITE Must Have Book for Writers

When it comes to this writing tool, I’m a rabid proponent that EVERY writer MUST have the J.I. Rodale Synonym Finder on his or her bookshelf.

You’ll see why when you watch this video.

Don’t wait another minute to add this book to your Writer’s Essential Bookshelf. Frankly, I don’t know how anyone writes without a plethora of word choices right there at their fingertips. Do you?

Capture The Season – Fall

The days are getting shorter as summer wanes.  Have you noticed it?

I like the new angles the sunlight displays as it moves back northward.

Each day is a new day as I open the blind in my office. The sun casts its presence across my desk in significantly different patterns, making every day magical and different.

It’s quite inspiring when you notice these subtle changes in nature.

Even in Florida, where the midday temperatures still hover near 90 degrees Fahrenheit, there’s a sense of fall in the air.  Beyond the changes in light, what was once lush and green is now fading, as though spent from summer’s rush to vitality.

If you’re feeling stale, pay attention to what nurtures you.  Every day is different even when it seems like same old, same old.

Collect a list of these seasonal changes in your journal of the daily changes that are purely nature’s changes.  Expand the lists into mini-vignettes.  Later, these recordings may serve you in a story or setting detail.

Now you go… what will you write today?  How is the fall season special to you?

Use Figurative Language to Add Layers of Art to Your Writing

Patti Stafford’s article A Writer’s Expressions: Word Play and Language Usage offers a reminder and simplification of figurative language terms:

- simile

- metaphor

- personification

Using figurative language is like writing poetry.  It’s not always something that flows out easily, but takes time to imagine the images.  Use it and you’ll add another layer to your writing that will delight your readers.

Do You Know How to Use Online Video Yet

85 Million People Can’t Be Wrong!

Imagine this: If you had a video posted on YouTube last month,
your potential audience was 85 Million viewers!

Online Video is hot right now and it’s only getting hotter.

YouTube is now the 4th most visited site on the Internet,
and the 2nd most popular search engine behind Google.

Several months ago, I realized I needed to know how to gain access
to that enormous audience.

Fortunately, I knew two of the best experts to show me how to do it:
my friends Denise Wakeman and Lou Bortone.

I took a 75 minute training with Denise and Lou,
and voila! I immediately knew:
1. what equipment to buy
2. where to buy it
3. how to use the equipment for best effect
4. how to upload my videos to my website,
to my blog, to YouTube, anywhere online
5. how to integrate still snapshots into online video too.

Additionally, I learned lots of online tools I’d never have known
about if I hadn’t taken the training with Denise and Lou.

Check out my latest videos

Why do you need video?

More and more, internet users are expecting to have a 1:1 experience
with the websites and blogs they visit. Visitors want to get to know you,
see you in action, hear your voice.

Whether you’re promoting a book, an ezine article, a new product
or subscription, people get to know, like and trust you better
when you share your personal stories.

Fortunately, my friends and experts Denise Wakeman and Lou Bortone
are teaming up again on Thursday, August 27th at 2:00 p.m. Eastern
to bring you “Online Video: Right Here, Right Now!”

During their jam-packed, 75-minute teleclass, Denise and Lou will
not only share the very latest video tips, tools and trends, but you’ll
also learn about new video resources, cool new video websites, and
how to create and distribute videos that will make your book or other
writing-related videos or promotions stand out and get noticed.

You’ll get up-to-the-minute info on free video creation websites, info on
the Flip Video camera and iPhone 3Gwith Video, as well as how to get the
most from YouTube’s new interface.

Save the date and register now for the
“Online Video: Right Here, Right Now”
call on Thursday, August 27th at 2:00 p.m. ET. (If you can’t make the call, sign up anyway so you can get the recording!) Lou and Denise always pack their sessions with useful info, and they never disappoint! I LOVE these two, can you tell?

I hope you’ll take advantage of this unique opportunity to learn easy ways to
use video to promote your books, increase your visibility and get more clients!

I look forward to seeing your next video online. Send me a link, will you? It’s easy to do. Just place your URL in the comments box below. Good taste videos only, please. What fun, eh?!?!

>>>> Learn more: “Online Video: Right Here, Right Now”

Video Post – Writer’s Essential Bookshelf

How old is your dictionary? Do you even HAVE a good dictionary? Is it the one you used in college or before?

Make sure you have up-to-date writing resources on your Writer’s Essential Bookshelf.

Frank McCourt, A Teacher’s Brush with The Teacher Man

Things are a little grayer all over the world today with the passing of author Frank McCourt, on Sunday, July 19, 2009.  Angela’s Ashes, published in 1996, and the first in a series of memoirs written by McCourt, probably did more than anything in the past two decades to create the heightened desire in writers to preserve and craft their own personal stories. During his years as a classroom teacher in the New York public school system, he “always told his writing students that they were their own best material.” Toward the end of his teaching career and into retirement, he took his own best advice and penned Angela’s Ashes and two subsequent memoirs: ‘Tis: A Memoir, and Teacher Man.

The people who read and enjoyed his books were common folks just like most of us. Some were better off but knew someone–perhaps a neighbor, or their child’s teacher, or their grandparents—who had come from a hard-scrabble upbringing and had a story to tell. Suddenly, everyone wanted to capture their own lives on the page, whether to publish like McCourt had, or to simply create a legacy in words to leave behind for their progeny.

McCourt achieved one of publishing’s highest accolades when he won the Pulitzer Prize for Biography. But he never lost his humble bearings.

I met him, shook his hand and had an opportunity to speak to Mr. McCourt briefly during the 2001 Florida Suncoast Writers Conference. A gentle teacher man, the same age as my father, he had just presented the opening keynote at the conference. He took my hand, turned it over, and said, “I bet you’re a teacher.” I was taken aback, for indeed I was. In fact, I had just started teaching memoir writing courses the semester before at the University of South Florida.

Because of the resurgence in personal storytelling McCourt had spawned, I’d switched from teaching business writing to creative nonfiction writing classes so I could read stories, like McCourt’s, for a living, and help writers write, and perhaps publish, the books of their dreams.

And I shared that with him. He never broke eye contact, and I locked on him, too, reveling in this brief moment with a mentor, a literary icon.

In his characteristic Irish-laden brogue, he thanked me for carrying on something he started “as kind of a bother.”

He winked, then said, “You know, I sometimes still prefer teaching.  Writing is kinda fun, but on the bad days, it can get you down, ya know?”

I agree, both writing and teaching have their flip sides: good days and bad days, great days and blah days.   Whether we’re the student or teaching from the other side of the desk, both are integral parts of the journey to publishing.  The writer’s life is (or ought to be) a lifelong act of learning and figuring things out, as Frank McCourt’s memoirs attest.

What remains a mystery to me is how the iconic Teacher Man figured out I was a teacher by simply taking my hand in his.

Related articles:

In tribute to Frank McCourt, Whose Irish Childhood Illuminated His Prose, Dead at 78

Frank McCourt from photographer David Shankbone’s perspective

Essential Writing Tool: DBNF

Here’s another writing tool I use all the time.  I borrowed this idea from my days as a time management consultant when I used the DBNF file for prospects who weren’t quite ready to buy.

The DBNF file is the perfect solution for those times when you need to kill your lil darlings (you know… those wonderful passages of prose that just don’t quite fit into the current piece of writing).

You know this is good material but it just doesn’t quite fit here.  Yet, you hate to throw out what it took you at least an hour to create.

Solution: create a DBNF file on your computer.

DBNF Stands for Dead But Not Forgotten.

DBNF is your good writing to use elsewhere.  Another time, another day, another blog post, in another story or vignette.

Cut and paste the ‘not working’ content from the current document.  Create a new Word (or text) document.  Save it with an appropriate file name.  Store all your DBNFs in a DBNF folder.  On the computer, or printed out in a manila folder.

BONUS TIP:

Stuck for something to write?  Revisit your DBNF for a story starter or inspiration for a new piece of writing.

Next Page »