I find I use the word "synchronicity" a lot

[prusik]

I should be reworking any of three stories right now, so that I can finally send them out. They are all probably one draft away from being ready. (Oddly, all three are related to VP in some way. They are the VP workshopped story, the "Hats of War" story and the ex-VP Reunion story. The story that has nothing to do with VP is in the Analog slushpile right now waiting to be rejected.) However, what I'm doing instead is writing something completely new. This piece is actually somewhat ambitious for me because it has five characters, each of whom has his or her own path through the story, not to mention a whole bunch of relationships. You novelists can stop laughing now. A typical short story is the relationship between two people and how a third person affects that relationship. So this really is uncharted territory for me.

Anyways, I think I know how to make this something along the lines of what I've written before. In fact, I have a 6000 word first draft which, surprise, surprise, shirks two of the five characters and drops most of the relationships. I'm not happy with it. At the end of the day, I don't think this is a "relationship between two people and how a third person affects that relationship" story. (At least I'm not seeing it that way right now.)

The synchronicity bit is that today John Scalzi asked Are Short Stories Necessary? and jaylake wrote about Novel-sized ideas. Now, I don't think I have a novel-sized idea. But I do think that perhaps I've been squeezing everything into one short story structure or another because that's what I know how to write.

I'm pretty sure I could polish up the first draft into something decent. But it will be a better story if I just write the story which deals with all five characters with their relationships intact instead. I don't think it's a novel. (For one thing, right now, too little happens in the middle.) For all I know, it may still be a short story by the time I'm done. But it will be something different from what I've done. That's a good thing, I think.

And I will spend the week between Christmas and New Year's reworking the previously mentioned three short stories. I really need to send them out...

Comments

[drumiller.livejournal.com]

Amazing to read about this. I'm dangling off the precipice on the other end of the spectrum. I just do not typically think in short story increments. So the links and comments are as if people were explaining how to approach writing by being pontillists. Very odd indeed. Neat and confusing and strange, but odd indeed.

I wonder how much is related to my reading speed, dyslexic parsing of highly tuned short-story prose, and my general inclination to camp out in a "world" for as long as possible.

FWIW, my Hats of War story is the first short that I've felt at all proud of from the beginning, even if it was hacked together. I'll gladly lend you tips on novel drama, if I can pick your brain on short stories.

Thanks for sharing your "synchronicity" :)

[prusik.livejournal.com]

Deal! If you need someone to read your short fiction (or your long fiction for that matter), or just to bounce stuff off of, just let me know.

[retterson.livejournal.com]

FWIW -- The Strange Horizons slush pile is more than 30 days long. I've had a short in there since November 8th. I actually anxious to get rejected (or heaven forefend, accepted) so I can send them my other short about which I'm much more hopeful.

[prusik.livejournal.com]

I've only submitted to them once and it took almost 70 days before I got my rejection. I figure that's typical. (Actually, I'd like to think they were debated heatedly about my story. That is, they were really close to accepting the story. But I've since re-read the story I sent them. I could definitely do a better job with it now.)

Best of luck with the Strange Horizons submission. I hope it gets accepted. But I wouldn't be in too big a rush. Strange Horizons has closed submissions until the beginning of the year. You won't be able to submit a story to them for another 11 days anyways.

[krylyr.livejournal.com]

There's also the novella, too long for a short story, too short for a novel. There's the novellette, too, but I'm not sure if that's shorter or longer than a novella and how that is defined.

Good luck with the new short story. Realizing that a short story is typically really just about the interactions between two people is very eye-opening for me.