For ppl doing short story, a few questions (1 Viewer)

[Giant Lobster]

What made you make the choice of a short story? Can u tell me the advantages of a SS? Is it very flexible in terms of use of language, expression and format? How much research is required? Do u plan to write one SS over the span of the word length, or 2 - 3 shorter SS?

For those who have already done an SS, did you struggle to meet the word length? Or struggle to keep under the word length?
Thanks.

 

[KarmaKitten]

are you thinking of changing?

i have the young writers showcase of 02 and it seemed very flexible when it came to format, some had dialogue, others had prose, it was VERY flexible. i guess they are looking for creativity
majority of people do SS, so i guess you would need to stand out
my friend is doing an ss, and its one story , not little ones

 

[Giant Lobster]

yeh im thinkin of changing
still in the phase of contemplating what i should do now...
hmm what does dialogue look like? a short story comprising of purely ppl talking, wouldnt that make it more of a script or play instead?

 

[KarmaKitten]

Its quite amazing actually
its all these little short stories, and one of them is a conversation, so not the WHOLE SS is a dialogue. so no its not a script. you need to get the showcase heh

short stories are good if you have an idea, as long as it aint teen angst you are fine. experiment by reading lots of short stories.

 

[Arell]

I chose a ss for the word count, though i'd much rather think of it as a novella, i couldn'y bare the thought of doinganything less than 8000 words, but spending a year on it
anyway, it sounds fun - if only every subject was like ext 2

 

[fuckfoot]

i'm doing a "collection" of short stories (as my eng coordinator likes to say)
mainly cause it's easy to stick to the word count, and because my ideas are so all over the place
but at the rate it's going i'll end up with about eight of these things

and people told me it was hard to stay under the word limit... pffft, what does experience show you?
nothing!

 

[Grey Council]

what exactly do you mean by 'teen angst'?

 

[Will_Sparky]

Dont change... stick with it... there was one really good one on bOs, umm.. .i think it was rosierose's one... told from dif. perspectives

 

[Giant Lobster]

damnit i cant seem to get started on my story... so this is what they call writer's block eh?

what exactly do you mean by 'teen angst'?

isnt teen angst just a term given to basically everything to do with problems faced by teens... esp. the trashy emotions they go thru as a result of relationships, depression and whatnot...
i was thinking of making a parody of this topic but nah...

 

[Llyrai]

I think if had not heard the expression, "writers block" i would not have stopped so many times when im writing! lol

I chose to write a sort story simply because i knew how to do it. Unlike many people that i understand do different formats for the 'challenge' i chose short story because i wanted the advantage of knowing what i was doing, and how to do it!

I'm doing one 'long' short story. I really wanted to write a story that explored the depths of my protagonist, and i dont seem to be able to explore the characters development with such a small word limit (say 2000-3000). Thats why im doing one long story.

....Not this teen angst thing again...I dont want to change my idea...
Oh btw, are you allowed to make your story, autobiographical? well, i mean, have it based on you.

 

[AsyLum]

Thing that got me, Ability of freedom...

 

[Grey Council]

oh great. So no fantastical/romance short story. Just fabulous. What the hell am I supposed to write about now?

I was try'ing to write a fantastical/romance short story that showed how writers manipulate emotions in readers. ie, i was going to have like 5 chapters, each chapter focused on making the reader feel a certain emotion, whether it be laughter (is that even an emotion? but you get what i mean), revulsion (of a character, prolly), anger (at something), awe (of someone), etc etc. The chapters wouldn't necessarily connect with each other, as the point of my piece wasn't going to be a short story.

Is that still do-able? The reason I chose fantastical-romance was because i think its fairly easy to make different emotion-changing scenes. I think. Now i'm not too sure, cause it might be mistaken for teen-angst. the heck.

 

[clerisy]

I think that sounds like a great idea! And I think that its an original enough concept for you to do fantastical/romance without being too typical-- so long as you avoid the obvious clichesof the genre (and I know that that piece of advice is so overused its become cliched itself, but anyway...)

Just don't try to oversimplify the story/ies and take the easy way out by conforming too closely to the conventions of the genre, because I think that would take away from your concept (and would also be odd). And have a brilliant reflection statement so the marker knows your point!

 

[Bluebeard Sally]

im writing a short story focusing on the nature of reality in our world. and how ppl try and do anything in order to escape and avoid the constant struggles of life. im writing it from the persepctive of a nameless 'universal' character...which is sposed to be representative of all mankind...it will discuss how he created a world of fantasy...like, "why, how, what, etc"...and the effect that it has had...it will end with the charcter realising the need to return to reality...a balance between both reality and fantasy...

has this idea been done to death?..like the theme of reality and escapism??
does it sound interesting and original enough to work??