short and sweet, pt. 1
some belated 2021 goals and resources for structuring short stories
Well that month lasted both an eternity and was over way, way too quickly.
Since we can all agree that the year didn’t really start until Jan. 20th, I thought I would start off by talking about how I recalibrated my annual goals after, well, 2021 showed up and gave the ol’ “hold my beer” to 2020.
And by “recalibrate” I mean that after we last chatted, I chopped that shit down to the bare minimum.
What do I have to get done in 2021? Rather: what would make my life truly miserable, academically and career-wise, if I didn’t get it done in 2021?
To wit: my PhD dissertation. This absolutely needs to be drafted by the end of December in order for me to graduate when I want to graduate from my PhD program (Spring 2022). It is my first priority this year.
My second priority: another Adult novel. I have written a novel a year since 2016 and I am not giving up on that now. That is our bare minimum.
All my quarterly goals are based on having those two manuscripts finished by the end of December, reverse engineered and broken into manageable, actionable pieces. I have spent the last few weeks diving into drafting my next dissertation chapter; that gets priority for the first half of the year, and then the Adult novel will happen in July/August.
But wait, you may think. Since when have you *ever* been able to focus on just PhD work and no creative writing?
Touché. See, I thought about that. Before the year actually started, I planned to fill the time between now and that summertime Adult novel with various lighter projects. What about a novellas? I thought. I like novellas. I could write like one a quarter? Or what about a YA novel? I miss YA novels, why the hell not?
Then I started drafting my next dissertation chapter in earnest.
TL;DR, no freakin’ way am I writing a stack of novellas or a YA novel casually on the side this year. Writing my dissertation sucks up a lot of the same kind of energy I use for long-form writing. Moreover, 2020 taught me the hard way that I need to ration my energy for that new Adult novel in July/August. (Especially because it has some Powers That Be waiting for it… but more on that later this month *wink wink*) In an ideal world, we would all like to avoid hitting the burnout skids in November again this year. Wouldn’t we?
But until summer, I can’t just… not work on fiction. I tried that once in the second year of my PhD and lasted *checks notes* nine days. Just nine days of no fiction writing and I was already going out of my mind with that dizzying combination of boredom and anxiety my family affectionately calls “chewing the furniture.” As if I were an adolescent herding dog in desperate need of a long run in the park. (I was.) (Still am.)
I found my solution in the writer Susan Dennard’s newsletter.
Her 2021 Story A Month Challenge is precisely what it says on the tin: twelve months, twelve stories. That’s it. They don’t have to be perfect, she stresses—just finished drafts.
My herding dog ears pricked up.
Writing twelve stories in a year has been a goal of mine since I started writing short fiction back in 2017. The closest I’ve ever come was six, and that was the year I went attended Clarion West and wrote five of those stories in five consecutive weeks. Twelve for twelve just seems so… tidy, you know? A challenging but not insurmountable number.
Moreover, writing short stories seems like a manageable way to (a) fill time between my PhD workshop group deadlines and (b) train myself to try out new voices, genres, and settings in preparation for when I do have the bandwidth for more long form fiction. So why not give it a shot?
Disclaimer, however: there is one aspect of Susan Dennard’s challenge that I won’t be using.
The writing prompts.
I have no idea what it is about prompts, but whenever someone gives me a writing prompt, I am filled with absolutely incandescent annoyance. I want to dropkick them out the window and write about anything but. It doesn’t matter how good the prompt is, or how witty or artful, I just hate them all. It’s nothing personal. Something about them just makes my inner toddler (and I am 95% inner toddler) put her foot down with a righteous how dare you tell me what to do?
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
So, if prompts are out of the question, where do I come up with ideas for all the short stories I’ll be writing this year?
I use a process I call Idea Bumper Cars. For me, it goes a little like this:
Over days, weeks, months, write down anything you think has the seed of a story in it in one place, preferably as a list. For example: a scene from dream, a line from a history book, a snippet of dialogue, a character you’ve got at the top of your brainstorming Pinterest board but haven’t found a home for, a desire, random lines that appear in your mind out of nowhere. (Examples of the latter from my own weird little brain: “carnivorous butterflies,” “woman with silver bones,” “sister, scorpion.”)
Sit down. Turn off your WiFi. Set a timer for 40 minutes. Free write with the list in front of you. And when I mean free write, I mean morning pages-type stream of consciousness word vomit. No punctuation necessary. Just go.
As you free write, pick up one idea. Poke it. Walk around it. Where could it take place? What kind of people move through it? Are you interested in any of them? Now pick up another, adding it like a new color of yarn as you knit chaos on the page, weaving it it in and around the first idea.
Alternatively—and this is where the term Ideas Bumper Cars comes from—smash ideas from the list together until a pair (or three) stick. Smash at will. See what spins out, see what sparks.
Voilà, now you have a story idea! Before you start writing, think about this: in her memoir Paula, Isabel Allende had some thoughts on writing short versus long.
A novel is a long, drawn-out project in which endurance and discipline count most. It is like embroidering a complex needlepoint with many-colored floss; it is worked on the wrong side, patiently, stitch by stitch, taking care to see that the knots are not visible and following a vague design that can be appreciated only at the end when the last thread is in place and the tapestry is turned to the right side to judge the completed effect. With a little luck, the charm of the whole masks the defects and flaws in the execution. In a short story, on the other hand, everything is readily perceived; nothing can be left out, nothing can be added. There is a precise amount of space and limited time, and if the narrative is reworked too much, it loses that gust of freshness that lifts the reader. Writing a short story is like shooting an arrow: it requires the instinct, practice, and precision of a good archer—strength to pull the bow, an eye for distance and velocity, and good luck—to hit the bull’s-eye. A novel is achieved with hard work, the short story with inspiration. For me the genre is as difficult as poetry, and I don’t think I will attempt it again, unless, like The Stories of Eva Luna, fictions rain on me from the heaven.
I take issue with just one thing in Other Isabel’s analogy. Stories don’t rain in the same way wishes aren’t weather: you can’t wait for the conditions to change, you have to actually do something about them. If you want short stories to strike you from on high like hailstones, you’ve got to learn to be a storm chaser. Apply butt to chair, hands to keyboard, regularly and with intention (read: Wi-Fi off, door closed, white noise or music on). And if, like Other Isabel and the humble yours truly, you are more of a natural novelist and fear the short form for what it truly is—something that requires instinct, practice, and the precision of a good archer—then you’d better come prepared with some ideas about structure in your quiver.
That, reader, is finally what this newsletter is all about.
Structure!*
Short story structure is something I have struggled with for a long time. Foolish is the novelist (read: me, circa 2014) who sits at her computer with a small-ish idea and assumes a short story will pop out the other end like candy from the vending machine. Novel structure simply does not magically translate over to anything under 7,500 words. So what’s a naturally-noveling gremlin like yours truly to do?
Learn structure by osmosis.
I hate that this is the best way to learn short story structure. (And trust me, I’ve been trying anything else on god’s green earth.) Annotate; ponder. What worked for you? What didn’t? How does the pacing work? The characterization? The scene breaks? The passage of time?
Inhale anthologies for a chorus of voices. The beauty of these books is that you don’t have to like every story between the covers; in fact, if you don’t, it’s a good thing, because it means you’re discovering what you like and don’t in a short story. Some of my faves include Shimmer: The Best Of and Foreshadow: Stories to Celebrate The Magic of Reading & Writing YA, featuring thoughts on craft and stories by rising voices like Tanvi Berwah and many others.
Try collections to see how dynamic one writer can be. A standout favorite of mine is Kij Johnson’s At the Mouth of the River of Bees. I’m also waiting impatiently for the forthcoming Never Have I Ever by Isabel Yap, another brilliant Isabel whose short story craft I admire deeply. (While you’re waiting for her collection to be released, do check out her exquisite “How to Swallow the Moon” in Uncanny Magazine!)
Read free stories in fantasy and sci-fi magazines: if you’re not already familiar with the SFF short story magazines, I recommend trying Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Fantasy Magazine, Uncanny Magazine, Lightspeed Magazine, Nightmare Magazine, or honestly, any publication reviewed by Maria Haskins, Alex Brown for Tor.com, or the indomitable Charles Payseur.
Consume work on structure.
Yes! Naturally I, resident craft junkie, also recommend this, but a warning: general craft books are either too general or specifically focused on long form. Check out something more targeted, like Writing Short Stories: A Writers' and Artists' Companion by Courttia Newland and Tania Hershman or The Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Writing Flash Fiction; I have also found this article by Philip Brewer enormously useful in my own journey. I am currently really enjoying George Saunders’s A Swim in a Pond in the Rain for a more, dare I say, *jazz hands* literary approach to the story form.
But the best structure advice I have been given is hands down the MICE quotient. Mary Robinette Kowal has adopted and improved this method from Orson Scott Card. She goes through it in great detail in this Writing Excuses podcast episode (bonus: if you struggle with pinning down conflict, check out this follow up episode on the MICE quotient and different kinds of conflict!) and also in this lecture she gave to one of Brandon Sanderson’s creative writing classes. I credit auditing an online class with her the reason I was able to write the short story that got me into Clarion West (“The Weight of a Thousand Needles,” published in Lightspeed), so I highly recommend checking out her class schedule on Patreon. She’s utterly brilliant and such a kind, approachable person to boot.
(Phew! That’s a lot of links!)
I reread/re-listened to all of the structure stuff as I prepared to tackle Susan Dennard’s Story a Month Challenge. The result? I wrote two short stories this week! Two down, ten to go.
The year got off to a rocky start, but with patience, restraint, and heaping serving of self-care, I think we might get through it without burning out. Or at least that’s my New Year’s resolution. (Albeit month late.)
I’ll bow out of your inbox for now. In the meantime, stay safe, mask (even double-mask) up, and be kind to one another and yourself. I’ll be back soon with exciting news!
xx
*across the North American continent, my beloved baby sister and brother are rolling their eyes at how many times I have chucked books on story structure their way. It’s just my primary language of love, okay?
January Favorites | books, stories, and music that I loved this month.
Bunny, Mona Awad: a great dose of whatthefuck served in a satisfyingly acerbic, if imperfectly-paced dish.
The Fourth Island, Sarah Tolmie: sweaters, history, Aran, wholesome romance. Pick if up if you’re craving something melancholy, sweet, and dreamlike.
“Here Sits His Ignominy,” Tobi Ogundiran: a whole freakin’ epic fantasy in under 1000 words. Masterful.
“The Orange Tree,” Maria Dahvana Headley: a heartbreaking meditation on personhood and female agency; full of Andalusian history. (I’m also a sucker for novelettes with chapter divisions.)
“De Una Vez,” Selena Gomez: a dreamy bop with a delightfully magical realist music video. I listened to it on loop while drafting the second of my January stories. How desperately I needed Selena singing in Spanish this year!
New here? Hooray! Every month, I update readers on my publishing journey and provide resources, craft tips, and career advice and encouragement to writers. Won’t you consider sticking around?