Fantasy Short Story

[Felixaar]

So, I'm looking to write a good fantasy short story, but I have a problem... every time I write a story I write end up superdeveloping it and turning it into an ultimately epic adventure. I wouldn't want anything more that six thousand words, at the absolute most, but I can't do something with out hopelessly overdoing it. Suggestions?

[Devigod]

Well, honestly, most people have the opposite problem: Underdevelopment. If you want me advice on how to tone it down a bit, try focusing more on the characters actions and less on past and echoing consequences. Not knowing much of the specific writing or even detail that's the most I can say.

Although you should feel proud that you can at least develop something on such a scale to begin with. (As said above) most people can only come up with a few ideas and are better at short stories.

If you have a great idea for an epic... try fracturing it and writing it in many short stories. You could even make it a different character with no relation to the original story(/ies).

That's all the advice I can give. Hope it helped.

[Felixaar]

Thanks. I was currently thinking of doing sort of a number of short stories about the one character, but I feel bad making a character so epic without reason.

And yeah, my brain is just a complex whirl of ideas and overdevelopement...

Thanks!

[Bor the Barbarian Monk]

Find "cutting points."

Imagine your story being made into a television movie. Movies made for television are note easy, because you have to end each portion with with a virtual cliffhanger. That is, before you allow for commercial time, you have drop something on the audience that will bring them back for more.

You can do something VERY similar to this, but sew it up neatly. Mind you, there's no need to bring it to a complete close. The Twilight Zone was notirous for bringing an end to a story, right when the audience would say, "Wait a second! Don't leave us thinking! Finish it so we need not activate brain cells!" And the things we were left thinking about...The series keeps trying to pop up, either in television or movie format, but never takes off the way Rod's TV series did.

There's also the "series of short stories." A Canticle for Leibowitz (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Canticle_for_Leibowitz) was meant to be one short story, but blossomed into a three part series that was eventually published as a book. The Silmarillion (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Silmarillion) was also not meant to be a book, but became so because of the way Christopher Tolkien released it.

So by all means, feel free to write your epic, anyway. Just see that its parts almost seem to come to a close, leaving the possibility for continuation. :smallsmile:

[Felixaar]

Good advice, thanks Bor :smallsmile:

I've actually decided on a sort of series of short stories based on one character, but all being entirely seperate adventures. Reminds me of kind of like an Australian Indiana Jones, if that helps.

[truemane]

Part of your problem might be the nature of your ideas. You might be trying to shoehorn things into places where they don't belong. We tend to think of short stories as little novels but they aren't. They're another form of writing altogether, and they generate suspense, construct meaning, reveal character and sustain mood in completely different ways.

A short story isn't a novel-only-shorter any more than an opera is a song and dance routine but longer.

What you have to think about for a short story (and this is a generalization, and as such needs to be taken with as many pinches of salt as needed) is not so much an event wherein characters start somewhere, go somewhere, and get something done. Those things CAN and DO happen, but what you want to think about is this:

Take the lives of two or three (or MAYBE four or five, but probably not and CERTAINLY no more than that) characters and show us a window on their lives. This window should be bound by time, space, or theme (or any combination of the above) and you are looking to show EITHER:

1. A window that is SO different from any OTHER time in these people's lives that it reveals something about them or us (preferably both)

OR

2. A window that is SO the SAME as any other time in these people's lives that it reveals something about them or us (preferebly both)

And, of course, in order to properly show that you need to embed the knowledge of what these people are like when they aren't on stage in the narrative. You need to reveal character on the fly, as you go, so that when Character A suddenly reverses a long held opinion, or does something HORRIBLY out of character, the reader knows it and why it's important.

Think less in terms of PLOT or QUESTS and more in terms of discrete scenes or vignettes that advance character or theme or plot. Less in terms of WHAT happens and more as to WHY the characters and/or we should care.

[Tormsskull]

With a short story you basically go into it with many assumptions as a reader. A reader isn't going to expect incredibly detailed characters or especially developed settings. You are pretty much trying to put forth a slice out of the life of a character or two (I honestly wouldn't do even more than two characters, or at least two main characters).

Short stories typically don't move around a lot. They sort of center on one area or location. Important people or facets of the environment should be pointed out, but the humdrum of the world should fade into the background.

My best advice would be to check out a magazine dedicated to short stories (I'm sure you can find a few if you google it), and see how the authors that submit manage it.

[Dallas-Dakota]

Do not write like Tolkien.

Seriously, for a small short single story, if you write like Tolkien you'l over develop them.

[truemane]

Do not write like Tolkien.

Seriously, for a small short single story, if you write like Tolkien you'l over develop them.

But at least you'd have lots of meal-times and detailed scenery.

[Dallas-Dakota]

But at least you'd have lots of meal-times and detailed scenery.
Very true, but you'd easily get over that 6k boundary.

[truemane]

Very true, but you'd easily get over that 6k boundary.

Oh yeah. One meal and a quick chat with a happy woodland creature and you'll be over 6k words.

[Felixaar]

Guys, you'll see me wearing women's underwear before you see me write like Tolkein. Think like Tolkein yah, write like Tolkein nah.

Hmm, I'm doing well, I've hit about 4k, and the plot resolution is coming soon, only problem is that if I do said resolution now, it seems to easy - to fast.

Yeah, my 'develope things' urge is coming in.