Once More Curious About the Writing Habits of My Friends' List

[queenoftheskies]

How many of you write short stories regularly?

I want to write short stories and I'm trying to train myself to do so. I'm trying to learn to take small events that have a beginning, a middle, and an end...and won't take 150,000 words to write. :)

But, as many of you have probably guessed from my word count meters, my thoughts usually come in epic proportions.

When I sit down and actually try to think of short story ideas, what usually comes to me are over-used, trite ideas, though they might be told from a different perspective and with different characters. I don't want to write those types of stories.

But, today, I started getting some ideas that perhaps fit into a smaller scale. Which is good. I can use them for practice.

The problem--I guess it's a problem--is that these ideas fall into the universe in which I'm writing my novels. Some of them probably wouldn't be a problem in that I haven't introduced some of these characters and details of the universe are unnecessary for these particular ideas I'd like to develop.

However, these characters will be used later.

Here's my first question. How many--if any--of you use the same characters/universes when you write novels and short stories both? How many of you have had work published in both? Or, had one published in one form and plan to publish in the other? What do you think are the pros and the cons of writing both novels and short stories that link/feed into one another?

My second question is about how you folks write short stories. Do you generally find yourself starting and finishing a short story at one session? Or, do you write what you have of it and finish it at a later date? If you finish at a later date, do you have a better understanding for your story? Or have you lost the feel for it? I don't know if this is important or not. I'm just curious.

I'm going to write short stories this afternoon. Wish me luck. :)

Comments

short vs long

[ramblin-phyl.livejournal.com]

I rarely think short. The only short stories I've sold have been to themed anthologies. Only two of those in novel universes. In the DAW anniversary anthology I wrote a kind of prologue to my first book THE GLASS DRAGON. Actually picked up some new readers from that. They purchased the anthology for the big name authors and as a collectors item. Read my story then went out and bought the books. The other tie is was for my Merlin's Descendants series. Each one of these books involves a different generation, often a different century. So the short story fit in the universe but not with any one of the books. It won't be out until next spring so I have no idea how it will feed into the books.

I've written a couple of short stories that haven't sold. I'm now finding a place for some of the concepts in my new series that I just sold. Not going to bother trying to sell those stories until after the books are written and release.

When I get an idea for a short story I almost have to write the bulk of it in one session. Otherwise I lose the momentum and that sense of it being encapsulated into one short piece rather than just part of a 200,000 word novel.

Phyl