Cheat Post - Beginnings

Yes, that really is a picture of me (without the mustache).

I'm cheating today, and following on from Kate's post, which certainly hit the mark at the moment. I am in the middle of trying to resurrect a few short stories that have not been sent out in an embarrassingly long time, and yes - you guessed it - struggling to put together first paragraphs that actually manage to snatch someone's attention.

This is part of my all out effort to get all my stories onto the market (thanks to Sarah's pointy shoes). I actually have four out there (and written two new ones!), but have three more to go.

I don't have any intro scenes featuring changes in the weather, but I do have someone narrowly dodging a bucket full of nano-bacteria (does that count, Sarah?).

Recent intro paragraph suggestions include:

• Sex scenes
• Protagonists being attacked on awakening by Freudian monster
• Protagonists being attacked in the shower (Freudian monster optional)
• Character killing someone (reluctantly)
• Kinky mud-wrestling.

So what really grabs you as an opening of a short story?

The plot is the king to catch the spirit of the thing

But, it’s a short story! I hear you say. But I don’t have to plot a short story!

Well, maybe you don’t my pretty. Maybe you do. In my writing life, I’ve had to plot some stories, and others have poured out of my fingers without my even thinking about them. In fact, I go through entire phases where I plot the entire thing in advance, and then others where I just write them... and back again.

I want to emphasize, before I give an example of a worksheet I use/have used at times, that this is not the only way to do it, that it doesn’t mean you should do it this way, and that your mileage may vary... considerably. Short stories more than novels are very subjected to a personal style and a "way of doing things." Mine, for instance, tend to include a mirror moment, where the character finds what he’s been pursuing is not what he wants. This is not true in a lot of other stories, some very good ones. It all depends on the author.

Okay, the first things you need to remember, is that all stories – not just shorts, though in shorts you have less time to introduce them – are composed of three elements: character, problem and resolution.

Other things that are nice to find roaming around – though some magazines don’t seem to require them – are setting and plot. The setting is, natch, the place where the story is set – and it can range from very important (story couldn’t happen anywhere else) to just a way to make sure your characters don’t float out into space... or sound like it. The plot should be the coherent actions that your characters take to effect the resolution of their problem, as well as to happens in reaction to them. Some of the more literary magazines, btw, omit the "resolution."

Now, the worsheet I use – for sake of brevity I’m going to use one of my own short stories (as happens, unpublished) for the example.

Title: The Private Wound
Character: Princess/Lady Elizabeth, in an alternate world in which Henry VIII reconcile with Catherine of Aragon and Mary is the undisputed queen, while Elizabeth ends up in a convent (as in Edward never existed, and this is the way to keep the succession uncluttered.)
Problem: Elizabeth is not remotely suited to the convent and is bored out of her gourd/looking for escape.
Goal: To escape being a nun.
Action: When Robert – Robin Dudley – Elizabeth’s childhood playfriend shows up in the choir, Elizabeth eagerly runs away with him. She wants to marry him, yes, she wants to be free from the convent, she even wants to fight for the crown if it comes to that.
Mirror moment – as she escapes with him (and this many years after, I don’t remember the details of the action, which is good for keeping it brief) she apprises herself of his situation – widower – and how it came about, and she starts to get a bad feeling. Then she finds he’s arranged everything to marry her quickly. Suddenly, she realizes that if she marries him she’ll be putting herself in his hands. Just like her mother was in father’s hands. She’ll only be exchanging the prison of the convent for another and more dangerous prison.
Resolution – she stabs Duddley and goes back to the convent claiming he tried to kidnap her. She realizes that her understanding of what happened to her mother – her private wound – makes it impossible for her to trust a male and that the convent, boring as it is, is safe and preferable to an illusory freedom in which she’ll be ruled by a man who will have power of life and death over her.

In retrospect, I know why the story didn’t sell – because the freedom Elizabeth longs for at the beginning of the story is no part of the resolution, which makes for a very "down" story. (I’m more than willing to send it to whoever wishes to read it, btw.)

I hope this makes sense, as I’m recovering from a minor illness that piggy-backed on the flu and I might not be particularly coherent. (Which accounts for my not having been around, yeah.)

Does it make any sense? What did I leave out that you need to know? What do you think the plotting should include? Is your preparation for short stories much different?

These Boots Are Made For Kicking

So you want to write short stories. Or you don’t. Couldn’t care less. It is my considered opinion – and as everyone here knows I am a moderate and ponderous sort of person, mild-mannered and calm – that all of you need to write a lot more short stories, so you can submit it and get over this namby pamby fear of submitting your work. Because I can’t be having with that and I don’t want to call y’all sissies. (Even if you are.)

What I most often hear is "But I don’t like writing short stories." Or perhaps "I’m a natural novelist." Or yet "I don’t have short story ideas!"

The fact I normally hear these pronounced in the tone my kids used for "but I want a cookie" normally means I roll my eyes and go hide somewhere with a book. But leaving aside my excellent parenting skills, my general answer to these is "cry me a river" for the first two and "You can learn" to the last. I too am a natural novelist, I don’t generally like writing short stories, and heaven knows I don’t even have SINGLE NOVEL ideas, but more like a six book series.

You see, there are reasons to learn short stories – beyond the fact that you need desensitizing. Once you’ve made it and you’re a big name (shut up. The alternative is I keep kicking you. ALL of you will become major names by default) people will ask you for short stories and short stories are your cheapest means of self promotion. Write short stories for as many anthos and mags as you can – chances are people will find them and then look for everything else you wrote. At least if you do a creditable job. So... about learning to do that job.

Ideas are the easy part. I have a friend who routinely tells me "I have this idea for a short story" – when in fact he doesn’t. What do I mean by that? His "idea" will be something like "What if squirrels discovered electricity?" That is not an idea. It is the rawest glimmering of what-if. And it’s certainly not a Short story idea. Maybe an essay.

Could it be a short story idea? Sure. Follow that life line. So, squirrels discover electricity. Do they discover how to create electricity or how to steal it from homeowners, with tiny wires so they can watch squirrel porn on their tiny laptops? Let’s say they steal it. We have Mary. She lives downtown and suddenly her energy bill skyrockets. The landlord/energy company doesn’t believe her. A quick investigation finds that squirrels have found some discarded computer parts, assembled them, and are stealing electricity to watch Nutkin does Norway. Mary solves the problem by teaching the squirrels to distribute their electricity theft. She perhaps furnishes them with bigger screens, or something. In return they do something else for her – perhaps fill one of the electricity company’s trucks full of nuts. Or take nude pictures of the landlord and paste them all over the neighborhood.

Now what you must resist is the impulse to figure out how this will affect university at large. Will Mary’s boyfriend who is a biologist want to study these newly sentient squirrels? Will the squirrels become partners with humans in space exploration? Will there eventually be a tiny twitch of the tail for squirreldom, a giant step for the species of Earth? No. Don’t go there. Drop it. I mean you, Chris. You don’t know where it’s been, and besides you’re borrowing trouble. Short stories by definition take a smaller slice of the pie, usually concentrated on one person’s problem and its more or less reasonable solution. Yes, there are a few short stories with a cast of thousands and dancing elephants, but they’re rare, far between and require consummate skill.
I will confess part of this is weighing "what is a short story idea" and part of it is habit and practice – like everything else.

So, grab a couple of short story anthos (the Greenberg themed anthos are actually pretty good for this) and read a couple of short stories, it might help.

In any case, shoot me a few ideas in the comments. I’ll weigh in, as will the bunch that hangs out here, and we’ll discuss whether they’re short story ideas or not. If it makes you feel better shoot ideas you never plan to use, just so we can argue if they’re short story ideas of not. Just post them, we’ll discuss them, and your understanding will improve. (Grasshopper!) Of course, you might also want to tell me how insane my squirrel idea is. ;) Or your alternate ideas for Squirrels Discover Electricity. (Ah, like any of you is as brilliant as I am. Whole cities are powered by my shining intellect. In fact squirrels would probably steal me... er... um... WHAT is in those cold meds?)

I know you have questions: So, you have this idea, but is it YOUR idea to write? What is a satisfying end for a a short story, versus a satisfying end for a novel? And where the heck do you find all these ideas, anyway? Will you give me the address in Kansas where they send you ideas if you send them a SASE?

All this and more will be answered when you tune in to the next episode of "Boots, Stories and tired writers!"

Storming Hell

The short story is supposed to be a dead art form but somehow it staggers on in SF & F.

I have always been a keen fan of reading short stories. I also enjoy writing them. It is a different skill to writing a novel. You learn to be concise and well planned. You don't have room for a single wasted word.

I am rather chuffed to find that one of my shorts is the cover story for the April 'Jim Baen's Universe' magazine (see pic).

I have also just sold a story to Black Library based on the universe of Warhammer 40,000AD. It is called Last Man Standing and is going well.

More later,

John