prusik | I find I use the word "synchronicity" a lot

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...