Young Writers Society

So, I have a problem with writing short stories that aren't just drabbles.
I always tell myself to attempt to make the story be under 5000 words and actually feel satisfied with the result, but I have never succeeded, especially in school when my teachers tell me to write a piece under 2000 words. My latest piece of writing, Light, was supposed to only be a few pages long and then it morphed into a 7000 word piece. *hits head*
That.Is.Impossible.
I don't know how to add description or a decent plot with so few words. I try and cut them down, and my story looks half baked and ugly. I hate it when this happens, so those of you who are good at it, can you give me some pointers?
-Vela

7000 words is still technically a short story. If you're looking to cut it down though, you're going to have to really dissect it. One of my teachers in high school made us do this once. He made us write a six word short story and then use that as a title to write a flash fiction story. Everyone wrote a first draft of around 500 words. When we brought them to class he told us we would have to condense it to 250-300 words. It's hard, because you feel like everything is important in a story that short. You almost have to go sentence by sentence and ask yourself: Is this crucial to the plot or to character development? To go further than that, you can go word by word and ask yourself: Is this word crucial to this sentence?

This comes fairly easily to me because I'm naturally a pretty concise writer. If you're not, then there's nothing wrong with that. Everyone has their own styles of writing. Maybe you're just meant to write somewhat longer short stories.

I think you and I sit at polar opposites when it comes to writing. I can write a story as short as you like. I have become brutal with my editing. That is to say, I don't feel any regret when editing out information that really adds little to the overall effect of the piece. I struggle, however, when I try to write lengthy fiction, I just want to tell the story and wash my hands of it.

I think the best activity to get your short stories down is to have a process, one that's different to what you use for longer fiction. Begin with one basic idea - I emphasize basic, because short stories can't be too elaborate, the idea is to drive home one idea. let's say how child abuse effects people later in their life a very basic theme. Now map a plot, only include things that are going to contribute to the denouement. Next create the characters - be sure to only include characters that are intrinsic to the story, and only provide description of the main characters, the characters you want the reader to care about.

Once you have written the story repeat this process. Find any little thing that doesn't contribute to the effect. Scrap the poetic and unnecessary analogies. Keep it relevant.

I guess all and all the one thing I want to drive home is the fact you have to take to your work like a critic when you edit it. Read it over and over slowly whittle it down to its bones - then you will have a short story.

Short stories don't always have to be bare. If you take my story Wolfskin for example, the language is lush and detailed, yet the final wordcount still comes in under 2K (1901 words exactly, not counting the title).

When it comes to writing shorter short stories, concision and precision are key. You can quite easily have finely crafted details and decently complex plots when you know how to say in as few words as needed exactly what you mean. And that's the key: you have to know exactly what you want to say, and then you need to say it as precisely and concisely as possible.

joshuapaul's method is one way of going about it, but I prefer another method.

I've found that it helps to write multiple drafts of the story from different perspectives, then take a look at what details and elements are present in all those drafts. Those reoccurring elements and details are the most essential ones for the story, and those are the details and elements you will need to incorporate into the final piece. If you have room, you can always elaborate a bit on those elements and details to flesh the story out.

It also helps if you set priorities for how important certain elements and details are. Generally, the more important a detail/element, the more word count should be proportionally devoted to it. Asking yourself "What does this detail contribute to my story right now?" and "Do my readers really need to know this?" every so often will help you sift which details are truly important and which ones are just padding.

For example, in my short story, Wolfskin, a lot of word count is devoted to describing the temperature, weather, and lighting. At first glance, it might seem like a lot of word count that could have been better used in moving the plot forward, but when it's combined with the tale Lady Wolfskin spins, all the description helps to set the eerie mood that makes the meeting with Lord Wolfskin understandably terrifying for Lord Westford.

Whether you're writing a short story or a long one, each element and detail of the tale needs to belong and contribute to the story as a whole. If it doesn't, it drags down the rest of the story. Cutting out these dragging bits leaves you with more room to expand upon the essential details, and you just might be surprised at how much room you free up by cutting those non-essential details out.

I can't either! Aged 9, I managed to write a 26 page (A4) story when we were supposed to do 2 so... yeah, I struggle too. I have to go through and remove any words where I can use apostrophes and use longer words which account for 2 or more etc... mostly, though, I'm too lazy.