The Terror of Writing Shorts: What I’ve Learned from Shingles
Given that we are in a month of terror and frights, it seemed an appropriate opportunity to talk about one of the strangers series I’ve ever gotten to be a part of. For those unfamiliar with this little Authors & Dragons side project, Shingles is a series of novellas released month, each one roughly 20,000 words in length, with us cycling through who writes the next one over the course of a year. If that draws any parallels to certain book series from childhood, I’m sure that’s entirely accidental, or hopefully covered by parody.
For those of you that this is news too, that probably sounds especially odd for a project coming from me. I am, in the most polite of depictions, verbose. More commonly, I like to say my books are so long because I never shut the hell up in any medium. Through the years, that’s turned into something I’m known for: producing huge tomes that take up as much space as 2-3 normal sized novels. A fair chunk of my audiobook momentum is due to the size of the files, giving them high-time-value per credit. All of which was, true to form, a very long-winded way to say that working with novellas was a new challenge for me.
I’ve done a few short stories through the years, some still available on various anthologies floating around, but even the longest of those capped out around 7,000 words. Going in, I figured my closest experience would be the Fred novels, as those are technically made of five novellas worked together into a larger arc, but that proved to be pretty off-base. The Fred books are particular in their format; the overall series aspect means that despite their individual story-size, I still have to build them like traditional novels.
After a few false starts, I finally got my first one done: Aliens Wrecked Our Kegger. From there it was on to tales of monsters released from TV scripts, multiple murderers squaring off in an almost abandoned amusement park, and last month’s tale of a magician fighting his way through a deadly tournament. And after doing four of these things, I’m finally starting to get a handle on what makes them different, along with how to discuss it.
To start with, lets address how I usually build my books. It’s most evident in the larger works, but still visible in short series too: I tend to construct them similar to seasons of a TV show. Multiple story-arcs that pay off at different points in the tale, often running in parallel the same way we see A-plots and B-plots in sitcoms. Some plot points run between books, helping draw people in and rewarding those who keep up with the details. Main arcs that will resolve within each book so the experience still feels distinct despite being part of a larger whole.
This willingness to spend time on smaller plots is part of what creates the longer, more loose feel on the big series like Super Powereds. It’s a whole writing topic that I’ll need to explore on its own in a later blog, but for today what’s really important to establish is that while this tactic has served me well learning to write novels, it doesn’t work for short-stories.
To keep with our current analogy, writing a short story is more akin to the way you would plot a movie. There is a lot less time to play with, so you have to be streamlined in what gets included. From the number of arcs you can use before the story bloats to how many characters can fit on the page, it becomes a game of doing the most you can with the words you have. Instead of trying to create a long, drawn-in experience, the goal shifts to delivering as much enjoyment as possible in the single shot of story.
A big aspect of pulling that off is to keep your tale focused. Remember you’ve got one main plot to get through and pay off well, that needs to be your primary goal. Once that has fully been built out, then is a good time to branch out and add a secondary B-story or subplot, if the tale supports it. I wouldn’t push far past that unless you’re really sure of what you’re doing, much more and it risks losing the narrative momentum.
While I realize that might sound like I’m saying to strip your story down, tear out the extra bits that add fun and flavor, nothing could be further from the truth. You can still pack a ton of content into a small package, it just demands a lot more care and precision. My most recent example: there are sixteen named fighters in Action Kadabra, each with their own technique and gimmick. That is a lot more work than needed to be put into the novella, especially considering how little is seen of several. But building that out gave me the chance to slip in a lot of fast, small bits referencing the unique characters. I may not have the room to do full scenes of nothing but fun silliness, yet I can still add small moments here and there.
So how do you write a focused tale that still makes room for small gags and character moments? A lot of that comes down to project selection in the first place. My Shingles attempts that have gone off the rails almost universally shared one aspect: they were too big of ideas for me to turn into a short. Different authors can grow very different books out of the same seed of an idea, you might well be able to scale down that grand concept into something brief, but I was not. Part of growing as an author is learning where to plant your ideas so they can get the best development possible, and branching into short-fiction offers one more story-pot as an option. If it’s an idea better allowed to stretch its legs and explore, then a novel or series might be the best place for that, whereas some ideas are better contained in brief, bright flashes of fiction.
For those of you considering jumping into short fiction such as novellas, I’d highly recommend giving it a whirl. Despite my penchant for longevity, I’ve really loved learning to work in tighter parameters, forcing me to get better at streamlining my plots when needed. It’s pushed me and helped me learn, which is ultimately what I think most of us want from trying our hands at a fresh medium. Whether it’s for you or not, there’s always a lesson to learn in trying something new.
Even something as scary as Shingles.