Different (and not afraid to admit it)

Just the simple ramblings of a twenty-something who only wants to get the most out of life and focus on the most important things, like that little prince in The Little Prince.

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Short stories are hard to do…

Posted 5 months ago

I should know.

For the past few days I’ve been brainstorming (or trying to brainstorm) possible ideas for short stories, but the ideas I came up with are more appropriate for either novels or novellas, therefore not leaving any for short stories at all.

I have to admit, writing short stories is the bane of my existence as a (future) writer. I’m perfectly fine with novels, poetry, and even novellas (I’m starting to realise) but short stories are a whole different story, no pun intended. It seems like the literary ideas I come up with would drag on longer than a short story is typically supposed to be, which is like 10,000 words, I think. Not that that is a bad thing, novels do allow things to develop at a more or less steady pace than short stories, which I guess is one reason that I’ve never written much in the first place.

Short stories are seen as a middle ground for writers but unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately?) I seem to lack that “middle ground”. It’s either novels and/or poetry and there is nothing between the two, not even what they call “flash fiction”. Yesterday I went on Google and decided to hunt up all the short story writing help I could find. I found TONS, but what was the best help was actually reading short stories. There is this great website, East of the Web, that has a whole lot of fiction, and I highly suggest it to anyone that has trouble coming up with something to write, or just anyone who loves to read fiction, basically. There is mostly something for everyone there. But anyway, I went onto that site and read the most short stories I could, and I think it really helped. Why? Because I just started a short story of my own last night. Amazing, isn’t it? After days of trying to figure this whole thing out I actually managed to pick it apart and accomplished it yesterday. I won’t say what the story is about but it is turning out to be quite interesting. At least, for me.

But I’m not too proud of myself yet, because it is only one story, and I have yet to learn all that I can about writing short stories. So, I’m still trying to establish my “middle ground” as a writer.

This was a short post, but there isn’t too much one can say about having the apparently inability to establish a writer’s “middle ground”.