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

[ammepyre.livejournal.com]

I wrote short stories before I wrote novels, although now that I'm into novels my shorts have a tendency to want to grow bigger - especially if I take a break in the middle of writing them. In fact, if I take a break in a short story - I rarely go back to it. I've probably close to 60-some half-finished stories in my writing folder and scattered about in notebooks around the house.

I've tried writing short stories based on worlds I'm developing or writing in - but it rarely works out right for me. I think it has something to do with me being such a linear (even if I am an organic writer) writer. I have to do scenes in order.