Writing Challenge: The Short Story

Charles Dickens (1812-1870) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

As a writer, my ambition was to pen the next great novel. I sat down, put some ideas on paper, even made an outline. You may say this is a good start. How’s the novel coming? It’s not.

Actually writing can teach the writer many things. My example, I find I’m better at writing short stories. Partly because I’m someone who likes to get to the point. Unlike Charles Dickens, I need to be concise. In defense of Dickens, I believe he was paid per word so verbosity was the way to go.

The question before me is what genre of short story to write? Fantasy? Sci-Fi? Historical Fiction? Sorry, no romance for me. The beauty of writing is you can write anything you want. As my quest to pen the next novel gradually becomes the project of compiling a collection of short stories, I plan to post my progress here on the good old blog. What’s interesting is how much inspiration I gain from being a dad. Maybe I’ll pen a children’s series? Who knows.

One immediate concern I have is story development. In my ongoing quest to achieve conciseness, I have to remember writing a short story isn’t the same as writing an email. If I want to be really concise, I should stick to Tweeting.

Ultimately the challenge to any writing project is to simply write. The best thing to do is to just sit and do it. Stay tuned….

Kate’s Quickies:Short Story Writers (katemacnicol.wordpress.com)
So You Want to Write a Short Story (Part 2: Taking Action) (theartistrycollective.wordpress.com)
London’s Dickens Museum reopens after makeover (miamiherald.com)

14 thoughts on “Writing Challenge: The Short Story”

This is going to sound corny but In my humble opinion write what’s truly in your heart and be brave. No holding back. I’m telling you this because it’s one of the hardest things for ME to do. LOL So many authors have told me they wished they took more risks with their writing earlier in their careers. Thank you for sharing my blog link, I appreciate it!

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Vince V. on December 8, 2012 at 7:46 am said:

Thank you for the words of advice. Its not always easy to write what comes from inside.

Thanks for reading!

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Thank you for sharing. Adding your site to mine. Will be following you. “Evolving Dad” I like it.

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Vince V. on December 8, 2012 at 7:47 am said:

Thank you!

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I’m the opposite. My short stories try really hard to become novels. They don’t want to be published, I guess.

Good luck on finding your genre!

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Vince V. on December 8, 2012 at 7:49 am said:

Thank you. How can one check out your writing?

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- ericjbaker on December 8, 2012 at 2:05 pm said:
  
  Thanks for asking that!
  
  Oddly enough, though I still compose longer pieces for myself, I’ve turned to flash fiction as a way to get my name out there. The easiest way to access my fiction is to click my name above then click the “fiction” tab at the top of my blog. I have links posted there. Most of them can be read in two or three minutes.
  
  Hopefully you will be linking some of your stories here in the near future.
- Vince V. on December 8, 2012 at 3:00 pm said:
  
  I’ll be checking out your work. I plan to post, takes some courage first.