This week: Just A Quickie Edited by: Legerdemain  
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The purpose of this newsletter is to help the Writing.com short story author hone their craft and improve their skills. Along with that I would like to inform, advocate, and create new, fresh ideas for the short story author. Write to me if you have an idea you would like presented.
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Just A Quickie
I love writing short stories, you jump in, grab some characters and write a little something. There's no time for major development, no space for lavish description, just a little red wagon of fun.
I think one of the clues to a successful short story is to let your reader use their imagination. Say the word "wizard" and most people will come up with a man in a long robe with perhaps a flowing beard and hair. But does it matter? The reader sees the wizard in their head and can continue on. Unless the wizard's hat is a special brand and can do something fantastical, you don't need to waste word count on describing it. Save your words for the important stuff and let your reader fill in the rest.
Another clue is to stick to a few characters. Yep, that guy over there in the background crossing the street is inconsequential unless it's the villain stalking your character. While you might like to describe the cute little boy fishing on the bridge, unless he's important to the story, he's left on the cutting room floor.
Take a look at your short stories. Do you include too much background noise? Are there too many people parading up and down your story arc? Who let the dogs out!?!?! So, especially when you're working on initial edits, take a look at each character and scene description and ask yourself if they can be eliminated or reduced to clarify your story. You'll find a prettier short story in the end.
And as always, Write On!
This month's question: How many characters do you allow in a short story? Send in your answer below!  Editors love feedback! |
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Excerpt: “A realization, that the more it sunk in the more it pushed him to do something, anything at all, to change the unfortunate situation that he was now facing but what could he do he wondered. And this is when he made a plan.
Excerpt: I listened to the heavy footfalls of the Roman patrol as I hid beneath the cover of an old log and ferns. I held my breath waiting for them to pass.
“Centurion, the young Pict girl is in her own realm. We could stomp down this forest with a legion of soldiers and still not find her hiding place,” the infantry guard stated.
Removing his iron helmet Centurion Bertrando Herius replied, “The girl stole food from the Imperial Legate’s table, insulting him and eluded capture before escaping the garrison. The Imperial Legate wants her found and brought back to him by nightfall."
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Excerpt: It wasn't but four steamy hours of setting foot on the island that Dr. Green was lost. He knew he was on an island and too, how it happened he was there, but where he was, was no place he had ever been before.
Rumbling contemptibly, Dr. Green cursed the source of his despair as he aimlessly walked searching to rejoin the group of Butterflies Forever contest winners. “Miserable butterfly! I'm lost, and it's all because of that miserable butterfly!”
Excerpt: Jerry stopped to gas up after another double shift at the factory. He was smiling to himself as he filled the tank, thinking of the woman waiting at home for him. He spent his last dollars on a billion-plus lottery, set for tomorrow night along with a rose from a countertop vase. Oh, the things he could do for her and their soon-to-be newest member of the family, aah, if only, he wished. They would be so happy. Life would be beyond awesome he thought as he pulled into the parking lot of their tiny apartment.
Excerpt: The concrete steps leading down to a backstreet basement were worn by decades of repetitious footfalls. Emilia stood unsure, looking at the scribbled note in her hand and the address painted on the deteriorating brownstone terrace house in front of her. An arrow pointed downward, leaving little doubt where her immediate future lay.
Excerpt: "My parent's story began long before they were born. It was during the first half of the 21st century when global war erupted on Earth. The planet's population split into two factions--West versus East. Ultimately, the atmosphere relinquished its vigor to the radiation from their wars, spewed from nuclear clouds shaped like mushrooms. Both sides abandoned that holocaust, created through their ignorance and fanaticism.
The East traveled only as far as the moon. While the West, being more affluent and possessing more advanced technology, searched elsewhere in our solar system for their new home. However, the war continued off-world. Victory ebbed and flowed from one to the other like that point on a beach where the ocean's water breaches the strand..."
Excerpt: At exactly midnight Boris removed the hypodermic needle from his coat pocket and stepped out from the shadows of the foul smelling alley. He stood for a moment in the bright lights at the corner of Amhurst and Fifth Street where he situated the needle just so behind his left wrist and then proceeded to the bus stop where he sat himself down next to the blond woman with the hardcover book on her lap. He leaned slightly toward her. “I've got a blue spider in my neck,” he said and held his breath as he waited for the correct response.
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Excerpt: “Can we talk about this?”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“But we always talk…”
“Yeah, that’s why I’m tired of it!”
“So, you’ve decided?”
“Yes.”
“Do I get a say?”
“You’ve already said too much. I want to take action!”
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{{b}This month's question: How many characters do you allow in a short story? Send in your answer below! Editors love feedback!
Last month's question: What do you do with distracting characters?
alastaire: I just create a new story. Your letter to me is just a link in a countless number of links. Considering that nothing happens by chance, these characters can be moulded to shape another story. My wife complains about the amount of papers I have stacked up since I have been writing even before Microsoft came into being.
bryanmchunter: I tend not to include distracting characters, especially ones that are not very well-liked by the fanbase.
Dave  : Kill them.
Olivia's on HIGH Carbs  : Follow their trail to see where it leads me. The distraction is there for a reason which might be an even more interesting story than I imagined at first. When the initial idea that sparked it is meant to be included in the outcome it will be, distraction or not. OM! 
No, joke aside: outlining is not exactly my forte, ahem.  And Word Counts and Genre limits might be a problem, if you want to enter a contest, for sure. They surely can be to me. But where's the challenge to grow if everything went easy-peasy?
So yes, that's usually my way to write... readers and reviewers didn't seem too averse concerning that till now, so... *shrug"
s  : In a short story, you have such a limited word count that distracting characters can kill the momentum and take away from the thrust of what needs to be a tight narrative so, no matter how much I love them, the fact they have distracted me if they are not a core of the MCs means they have to go, be rewritten, or be pared back.
In a longer story (novella/novel), however, they can be some light relief for the reader and even throw the reader off so increasing the tension or distract from the main thrust so you can hide elements of the story in plain sight.
Kåre Enga in Udon Thani  : There's nothing wrong with distracting characters per se. Sometimes their story is the one that needs to be told. Sometimes they want to tell the story from their point-of-view. Let them.
At the end of the day each story will be pruned. The shorter the story the more pruning. Flash? One character may be enough. Kill the others.
Or save them in a folder for a rainy day.
TheBusmanPoet  : Bury the bodies where they can't be found.
elephantsealer : I would use "distracting characters" to make the story much more interesting. Characters may distract from the solution of the problem, which makes the problem in the story much more difficult to solve.
DevilsBargin : I was about to say I've never met a distracting character. Then I thought that's not true. My good friend Palpatine introduced me to This Gungan one time name Jar Jar Binks. Right off I didn't take to the guy. I think Palp's was just trying to get me to ice a potential problem for him. Jokes on him though. I set old Jar Jar on a path to run into this Jedi Master and his Padwan. Figured Jar Jar was such an incompant he'd run his mouth and drop a dime on Palp's. And the Jedi come after him in full force.
keyisfake : Both my main characters to the point of madness.
jdennis  : They can be used like a magician's assistant. The swim suit with leg openings up to her hip keeps at least half of the audiences attention off of the magician's hands and what he is doing. And, of course, the other half of the audience is watching the first half with a burning stare.
tj ~ endeavors to persevere!  : I have a very difficult time trying to write when there are any distractions, and there always seem to be plenty. But, I can honestly say that so far, I have never been distracted by any of my characters. I think that if I was writing and one of my characters started doing things to distract me, I'd check myself into a psych ward! 
Maineiac : If I discover some significant distraction in a supporting character, I think it would be best to minimize that character, and save them for a more substantial role in a future story.
Anna Marie Carlson : I would like to turn them into a character that would have them end up being able to take a negativity and have it be an overcomer. Take the impossibility into a possibility.
Thank you for all your replies!
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Short Stories: March 03, 2021 Issue [#10647]
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