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Short stories are harder to write than novels.  It’s a completely different mindset and style, and if you’ve been writing novel scenes and then suddenly try to write a short story … your short story will be 30,000 words before you realize it.

If you ever do want to tackle it, think of it like this.  Try to write a story within the structure of poem (a cinquain or a string of two or three haiku).  Then use that as your outline for the short story.  Shoot for 4000 words or less.

It can be very Zen, and after a while the challenge will be like doing a really fun puzzle.  "How can I fit the story into this little box?"  By paring it down to only the very essential parts.  Nothing more.

- Quoting myself from a comment I left to a writer
friend on her blog, which I thought I’d share
with everyone else

One of the hardest things I have yet to overcome in my own fiction writing is that I invariably portray all my characters as reasonable people. Even those who are evil, are at least thoughtfully evil.

This stems directly from my own nativity.  I am constantly amazed that people can be so totally unreasonable.  It shocks me every time.

Does that make me unreasonable to expect them to be?

A writer’s trick for keeping words flowing is to do timed writing practice every single day. Doesn’t matter what you write, and doesn’t matter how many words. Just pick a time and start writing. Say, 15 minutes, and set a timer, and write constantly for those 15 minutes.

This is an established practice that’s been around since the 60’s. But here’s a new twist on it.

Go to FutureMe.org and set up an account. It’s free.

This is a place where you write letters to yourself to be delivered to you in the future (up to 50 years in the future).

Every day go there and do a timed writing exercise and set it to be emailed to you one year in the future. Or longer. Or shorter. Whatever you want.

But it would be so cool to read all the random stuff that was in your mind a year ago today. Who knows what will turn up? What it will inspire? What forgotten thing it will remind you of?

Make sure you click their Google Ads everyday so that they can afford to send you the email a year from now!

I’m starting today.

For me, the hardest part of writing a novel is when I come to a part where I’m not really sure what needs to happen next. For the most part I know where it’s going, and I have notes on lots of scenes that I know have to be there. These scenes are easy and fun to write. It’s those in-between scenes, getting from point A to B, where I have problems.

Lots of writing, erasing, writing again, until I find my path.

That’s the real work. Finding the path.

Okay … back to work!

I stumbled across an article about writing that is so complete and so well done that I have no choice but to simply link to it and point you there: Simple Things You Can Do Right Now To Jumpstart Your Writing Efforts by Jeffrey Yamaguchi

In one well written article is the boiled down information you’d have to wade through several books to find. I’ve been doing this stuff for more than half my life and even I found some wonderful tidbits here.

Bravo, Jeffrey! Well done Sir!

A common mistake fiction writers make is to over-identify with a main character, and endow him or her with all the traits the writer would wish for personally. They never make mistakes, always have a snappy comeback, and often exhibit superhuman intellect. Characters of the opposite sex will fall at their feet in worship.

This is the writer’s ego character.

No matter how much fun you have writing this character, beware of it. More times than not your readers will find the character embarrassing and awkward to read. As a fiction writer, you want your readers to identify and cheer your characters on, but this will not happen when they do everything right and never make mistakes.

People don’t fall in love with the perfection in people, they fall in love with the imperfections. The mightiest heroes have flaws and weaknesses. Sherlock Holms was always broke and suffered addictions. Superman succumbed to kryptonite and had romantic problems. Captain Kirk was an egomaniac and a sex addict.

The best thing you can do for your character is give them lots of faults and problems, and have them succeed despite their handicaps. Remember, everyone loves a Cinderella story. Everyone loves an underdog.

Standard disclaimer: Besides being a writer, I am also an editor. I present this tip mainly because I see problems such as this far too often — and, yes, I catch myself doing it as well.

I’m always somewhere where I can’t write and an idea comes to me, and no, I don’t keep a tape recorder with me.

But, I have figured something out! I always have a cell phone with me. The last one I had featured a very limited voice notes feature but this one doesn’t. However, I do keep a number at eVoice.com (only $4.95/mo) which is what I give out to those (like businesses) that I don’t want to have my cell phone number. So I put that number as a speed dial on my phone and voila! I leave myself recorded messages, which show up in my email.

Works great! Now I never miss the odd story idea when it strikes me.

Addendum: SkypeIn also works perfect for this and is actually a bit cheaper.

I don’t know how many years ago, but I remember it being dark in the warehouse, about 2 in the morning, and we were sitting around a fire we’d built in a old iron drum. Three of us, all writers, all having decided we need a fresh start, sat around this fire in this old warehouse, with all the windows knocked out and a cold breeze blowing through, huddled in our jackets and drinking can after can of “Dying Trout” beer.

We fed the flames with manuscript pages

One page after another. Original pages. No backup copies anywhere.

Everything that came before tied us down. It was all part of that million words of crap anyway. Page by page I got rid of stacks of typed notes, crappy horrid stories, and at least two novel manuscripts. Good ideas, maybe, but horrendous writing.

Do I ever regret doing that? No. The fresh start it gave my writing was worth burning all that work.

Do I want to do it again?

Yes.

That’s my big plan for this weekend.