Young Writers Society

Do you have a short story that you're dying to talk about? Is it just an idea or have you completed it already? No matter its current state, this is the thread for you!

Basically, feel free to commiserate with other authors about short stories here and discuss ideas. Are you stuck on a plot point? Do you need to rant about a specific scene? Then draw up a chair and grab a cup of tea, because you'll fit just right in.

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Let the discussion commence!

I've always wanted to get into writing short stories since I haven't had that much time to really write in the last few months, but the only true short I've written was years ago, from 2014, so yeah. I'm not an expert lol.

An idea I've had for a long time would be something on like my father's life, mainly due to all of the awesome stories he's said over the years, or even something on my grandfather, who lived an interesting life, but I've gone literally nowhere.

Oh well. Maybe sometime I'll be able to take a few hours for organizational purposes, but until then, they'll be on the back-burner for now!

@killeham - You should totally write some short stories when you get the chance! I end up normally writing them for contest purposes, but they're really good for getting ideas off of the backburner and into the fire. (Okay, that metaphor might not work that well.)

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So, uhhh, my typical problem with short stories right now is that I have too many ideas to neatly fit within about ~2000 words. My last short story about about 5.2k and it spanned over 3 parts. This current story (Flower Boy) is going to be about 4 parts and it's going to be about 5k too.

Then again, this typically happens in stories that I outline. A story that's like 10 lines on the outline is probably going to be longer than my stories where I just have a vague idea of everything. (My consistently 1 and 2k stories were just me free-writing.)

So, I guess I ask a question to everyone else (although, you don't necessarily have to answer it to participate in this thread). How do you keep your short stories a reasonable length? Alternatively, what do you consider to be a reasonable length for a short story?

I find short stories are an interesting beast because they're so small— they can only be one conflict, and even then, one moment in conflict. Getting resolution sounds hard with them, even though it should be relatively easy.

I saw an interesting post about how short stories are how an event changes people, and novels are how a journey changes people. It definitely helps me figure it out.