This week: The Benefits of Writing Short Stories Edited by: Lilith of House Martell  
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“Write a short story every week. It's not possible to write 52 bad short stories in a row.”
~ Ray Bradbury |
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So, why should you be bothered to write short stories?
 1. For practice, exercise, and to find your voice
When you write short stories on a regular basis, you will become better at writing. It’s an ideal way to hone your craft, practice, and exercise.
While you are in your creative playground writing a short story, you’re better able to find your writing voice and style.
You can play around with characters and train yourself to create well-rounded personalities. Besides that, you learn to create a good plot, suspense, structure, and dialogue.
The main difference between a short story and a novel is the length. The shorter length forces you to put all elements of a good story in fewer words. With the benefit of not having to plan at length and not having to complicate things.
Writing short stories may even help you become better at editing yourself.
2. To find your genres and themes
With every short story, you can try new genres and themes. You can experiment with fables, romance, regular drama, etc. Try writing something you may not be familiar with to challenge yourself and grow.
This way, you’ll find what you like to write about and in which genre. What works for you? How can you best convey your message and your ideas?
Short stories are great to convey your thoughts on societal issues. Additionally, you get to further your understanding of different topics and themes. This will make you help make you a better writer.
3. To try out new ideas in a short story.
“I like to write short stories more because I never met a writer who wasn't lazy. And a short story is, by its very definition, short. It is something that generally you can turn out in a week to two weeks depending on how well it goes for you. But, at the same time, it gives the same satisfaction of creating a complete world.” ~ Stephen King
With a novel, you work with one main idea. One main story and one set of characters.
With short story writing, you get to explore different universes, themes, stories, and characters every time. This is great to train your idea muscle!
Keep a notebook/app for your ideas. These could be fragments, character sketches, quotes, or anything, which you can use for a short story. I like to keep a list of topics that fascinate me and that I want to explore. Then, when I start writing I try them out.
Short stories can keep your creative spark burning.
4. To see if a potential novel idea works
Pay attention to the feedback, suggestions, and questions you receive about your short stories.
Why? Because your short stories could turn into something more. Hugh Howey, the author of the Wool series, first published a novella. His fans were so adamant for him to turn it into a novel and he listened. It’s one of those self-publishing success stories.
So use your shorts as a pool of inspiration. They could be origin stories to a novel. You could develop a new kind of world in which you’d like to play out different stories. Maybe you fall in love with a character whom you think should deserve a novel.
Conclusion
I'm sure these points only scratch the surface and you could probably come up with even more yourself.
I hope you’ll continue to experiment with short story writing!
“A short story is a different thing altogether – a short story is like a quick kiss in the dark from a stranger.”
~ Stephen King |
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brom21 wrote:
"Thank you for summarizing and explicating the components of drama. It was interesting how you differentiated between comedy and tragedy comedy. It's kind of like Guardians of the Galaxy, albeit it leans more on the serious side. Thanks for the NL!"
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Short Stories: July 13, 2022 Issue [#11454]
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