On short fiction

[edgeofthewood]

I've never considered myself much of a short fiction writer. But I'm beginning to consider the possibilities. Many of the things I've written for the MA could end up as passable short stories, and a couple may actually already be there

Comments

My two cents.

[wyld_dandelyon]

So, you want there to be enough lines running outside the painting so the world seems real. That makes sense. I agree.

I think the important question is whether the lines heading off into the distance are local color or part of the plot.

If you start with a central conundrum, and solve it neatly, unrelated lines won't keep the story from seeming whole. If, on the other hand, you leave something vitally important to the central character(s) unresolved, then the story won't feel finished.

Re: My two cents.

[keristor]

Yes, that. As a reader, not a writer, I can think of several authors whose short stories I enjoy whose characters and settings are part of a larger universe. It doesn't damage them as stories in their own right, but for people who know the bigger picture there is a sense of familiarity (almost deja vu, "I know this place, I've been here before", something I get a lot in dreams), and for those who don't there's a feeling of "I hope they write some more about these people".

As long as that story, that picture, completes itself there's no harm in leading the reader to want more. Looking at it as pictorial art, the paintings I enjoy most are ones which tell a story but also lead me to wondering what's outside, what happened next, what led up to this story, where does that path go, etc. In a way, the ones which inspire fanfic indeed. ("Fanfic on your own story" is IMO a good description of what a lot of authors do. But then I don't regard 'fanfic' as pejorative, I've read a fair bit which is better quality than the original...)

[janewilliams20]

My shorts are almost always set in a larger world that I already know. What I do is hand them to a reader who doesn't know that world, and ask if eveyrthing made sense. Most bits, they can pick up from context, or the lines leading off add to the intrigue rather than creating bafflement. I think it works.

[mneme]

Pretty much what wd said.

It's about structure--it's fine if a short story refers to events and characters beyond its bounds (just like it's fine if a novel does so) -- and doing so well will in either case help make the subcreation more real in the eye of the reader. Similarly, there's nothing wrong with a short set in a larger universe--either a mimetic one or a separate subcreation.

But what makes a short story a distinct story is its structure -- usually, that the problems brought up in the first third of the story are resolved or transformed by the last third of the story. It's the structure -- and the resulting feeling of closure, that lets a short story stand on its own even if it's set in a larger universe.

Apropos of nothing, I'd guess that there are three ways to expand a short story into a novel-length work (not that I've worked at novel length--though the epistolary game that drcpunk, batyatoon and I may someday finish approaches it). You can keep the idea of the story, but expand it so that it takes place over a novel-length

Larger worlds

[museinred]

I think you can create a world and then set a number of short stories in that world. Look at Charles de Lint and the number of Newford stories he's written.

[the_gwenzilliad]

Huh?

Perhaps you meant to reply to something else?