Help with My First Fantasy Short Story

[DF17]

I'm a new writer who is trying to write a short story that is part of a larger series of books, but seeing as I'm new, I need more experience before I could hope to write a multi-book series, hence the short story. However, as I'm trying to write it, I'm feel as if I'm going into so much detail about minor things, such as the protagonist's morning routine and the way in which she does her job, that I feel as if I'm losing the point of the story. Noticing the problem is good, but every time I try to think of a way to side step this, I can't figure out how to do it. Am I misidentifying the problem, am I spot on and it's just my lack of experience hurting me, or is it some third option I don't know about? I would really appreciate some help with this if you'd be so kind as to offer some.

 

[ckatt]

Without having read your story it's difficult to diagnose the problem. But that said, before anyone else reads it, it's more important that you finish it.
Don't worry about the story being bogged down until you have an ending. Once you do, go back to cut ruthlessly anything that isn't absolutely necessary to support that ending. Worrying too much about revising now may prevent you from ever getting to the end.

 

[Oochillyo]

hey DF17 how are you

I am not sure what the best answer is, but I would like to ask, are you comfortable writing in the way you are like with lots of detail ect, if so mayby you can work that into the story or even as small drips of detail as you write the story about the world ect therefore if I was a reader first of all everything seems nicely paced and then if I look back at the book/story I may go oh thats been hinted at through these part ect ect and you link the little pieces into the big picture which may be good if your going for a series of books in that world.

I am not an expert and I wonder if others can help you out better but I hope I have helped in some way Good Luck with your Story and Books ahead

Take care hugs

Regards - Declan Sargent

 

[DF17]

Without having read your story it's difficult to diagnose the problem. But that said, before anyone else reads it, it's more important that you finish it.
Don't worry about the story being bogged down until you have an ending. Once you do, go back to cut ruthlessly anything that isn't absolutely necessary to support that ending. Worrying too much about revising now may prevent you from ever getting to the end.

That seems like some good advice. I'll try to focus on finishing for now. Thanks.

 

[DF17]

hey DF17 how are you

I am not sure what the best answer is, but I would like to ask, are you comfortable writing in the way you are like with lots of detail ect, if so mayby you can work that into the story or even as small drips of detail as you write the story about the world ect therefore if I was a reader first of all everything seems nicely paced and then if I look back at the book/story I may go oh thats been hinted at through these part ect ect and you link the little pieces into the big picture which may be good if your going for a series of books in that world.

I am not an expert and I wonder if others can help you out better but I hope I have helped in some way Good Luck with your Story and Books ahead

Take care hugs

Regards - Declan Sargent

Thank you for the advice and kind words.

 

[Biskit]

First up, you also need experience in writing short stories. It doesn't just happen out of nowhere.

As @ckatt says, just write it and then look at whether it needs trimming. Short stories are an art in themselves, different from novel writing, and essentially spanning a wide range of possible lengths. By the time you''re up to novella length and beyond, there is time for detail, but once you get below the 10k point, you need to be more disciplined. If you're writing at the 1k level there really is no space to drift into detail.

So, write your story, and when you have it complete you'll have a much better idea of the overall length, and hence the appropriate pacing and then how compact you need to make the writing. When you've done a few, or perhaps a few dozen, you will start to get a feel for it and hopeful hit the mark on your first draft.

In terms of experience, as well as writing novel length and ridiculously over-sized novel length, I usually do a monthly short for my blog at around 0.5-1k. It's a very different writing task, and I've got quite good at it, but you need to consider the overall context - that's one short per month since 2014, so that's 80+ stories. Lurking behind that 80+ are the ones that never made it and got binned because they just weren't right. OK, I finally got quite good at writing these shorts it a year or two back, but there is really no other way to gain experience than by writing and writing and writing.

 

[DF17]

First up, you also need experience in writing short stories. It doesn't just happen out of nowhere.

As @ckatt says, just write it and then look at whether it needs trimming. Short stories are an art in themselves, different from novel writing, and essentially spanning a wide range of possible lengths. By the time you''re up to novella length and beyond, there is time for detail, but once you get below the 10k point, you need to be more disciplined. If you're writing at the 1k level there really is no space to drift into detail.

So, write your story, and when you have it complete you'll have a much better idea of the overall length, and hence the appropriate pacing and then how compact you need to make the writing. When you've done a few, or perhaps a few dozen, you will start to get a feel for it and hopeful hit the mark on your first draft.

In terms of experience, as well as writing novel length and ridiculously over-sized novel length, I usually do a monthly short for my blog at around 0.5-1k. It's a very different writing task, and I've got quite good at it, but you need to consider the overall context - that's one short per month since 2014, so that's 80+ stories. Lurking behind that 80+ are the ones that never made it and got binned because they just weren't right. OK, I finally got quite good at writing these shorts it a year or two back, but there is really no other way to gain experience than by writing and writing and writing.

Thanks. I'll just keep writing then.

 

[Biskit]

Thanks. I'll just keep writing then.

And when you have enough posts to your name, you can consider posting small pieces to the Critiques thread and get some feedback. I'm fortunate that the Biskitetta is an avid reader and ruthless editor because without that I can easily write something that's clear in my head, and utterly bewildering to everyone else.

I had a story published in an ezine at the end of October, which was nice, but the feedback I got from that was that they liked the story. Except in rare cases, a rejection will tell you only that the editor didn't like the story. I can only think of two occasions where I got to learn why - one was an "accept" from the BFS Short Story Competition, and the judge sent me his notes on why my story hit first place, and the other was from Fantasy & Science Fiction magazine when I had an ongoing email conversation with the editor, which resulted in a rejection but also a detailed explanation of what he liked about the story and why he was torn between yes and no. That level of feedback, especially from an experienced editor, is rare, but I think you will find that the assembled ranks of the Chronners will give you a very good idea of what is or isn't working in your writing.

Best of luck.

 

[Biskit]

A couple of further thoughts:

There are writing challenges that run on SFF where you can test you skills.

For the last few years I have tailored my monthly short story around BlogBattle (BlogBattle) which posts a monthly word-prompt. They recently upped the word limit to 2k but I still tend to stick around the 1k. Some people stay with their chosen genre, and some write a multi-part story as a monthly serial. I use it as an opportunity to play around and try different things.

While you're writing and gaining experience, you also need to find out what works for you. If you go hunting around the threads on SFF, you will find a wealth of information, opinion and recommendations on the best way to do things. You will also find that amongst those opinions and recs some outright contradictions, because stuff that works for me may not work for you and the only way you really get to settle that is try things and see how they work out.