Trying to write

phileas fogg

phileas fogg

Science fiction fantasy
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Ireland
I keep trying to write fiction not necessarily genre & my 'stories' are always short, stop in the middle of nowhere & are meaningless.

Can anyone give me any advice on how to write stories which are long, have a proper ending & have meaning?
 
I would recommend reading entries in the 75 and 300 Word Challenges. And also enter yourself, then ask for feedback after the Challenge has ended. Practice at these shorter lengths will help give you purpose, and perhaps help generate ideas, for when it comes to writing longer stories.

In essence a long story is a short one with padding. The skill is in making the 'padding' meaningful and interesting.
 
For me, the key to writing a longer story is to have a strong main character that you, as a writer, like and understand. The second key is to have a defined antagonist. It is then easier to put the main character or the antagonist in various situations and have them react. Of course, there will come a time when the various situations must coalesce and drive the story to a conclusion.

Start with the characters and the rest can come later.
 
1."Write stories which are long" - In my opinion, length of fiction does not equal quality. Many brief pieces are orders of magnitude more powerful emotionally than long novels. Don't write 100,000 words when 7,500 (or less) will do the trick.

2. "Have a proper ending" - Plan your story's ending before you start writing. It might change as you go, but having an idea of where you're driving the story can keep things from meandering. If you're writing short fiction, begin your story a little closer to the ending than you've previously done. If you're writing longer fiction, like a novel, scratch out a quick plot with a structure with which you feel comfortable. If you're unfamiliar with structure, go online and read about common story structures (3-Act or Seven Points are probably most popular in the West and should have a lot written about them).

3. "Have meaning" - I think meaning, like Wayne said above, comes most from the characters. There's no quick-and-easy formula for creating memorable characters, but my advice is to: stay away from stereotype; ask and answer questions about them (personality, actions, relationships) with as much specificity as possible; and give them room to grow (especially protagonists).
 
>stop in the middle of nowhere
You say you've written a story that stops in the middle (I ignore "of nowhere" since it's impossible to stop in the middle of nowhere). I would suggest that's not a story, that's a fragment.

How do you know the story has stopped in the middle? That implies you know there's more. I'm struggling to understand what you really mean here.

>are meaningless
Again, what does this mean? I presume it's meaningless to you, that you've not shown it to someone else who has said this is meaningless. But almost nothing is utterly without some meaning, however slight, so I again I ask: what do you mean here?
 
In addition to what everyone else said, I would go through the Critique thread here in the Writing form and just read through a few of them to see what other writers are having problems with their own novels, and the advice they are given.

And like it was said earlier, read the 75- and 300-word entries (read and study the past winning entries too) as well as going through their respected Improving/Critique threads to get a better view of writing flash fiction. Very helpful.

Re-read one of your favorite short stories or flash fictions and the taking everything everyone here has told you; study that stories structure. Do so for a few other ones by other authors to get a different view of their styles. Some authors have a style that the use more often, while other authors can vary their writing style from story to story.

Most importantly, don't give up writing. It sounds like you are trying to find your writing style and voice. It will happen in time!

This just came to mind, take a child's fable and re-write around it into a flash/short story. Just change the character types and the stories setting, practice adding some filler some, (look to everyday life for this, happens all the time!). Keep playing with it until it works. :)
 
Phyrebrat said:
Rather than a story write a compelling character. Then the story tends to tell itself.

Being contrary, I have to say the difference between short stories and novels is massive. Completely different approaches with completely different outcomes.
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This is an interesting perspective. I think it may work very well for some, but for others not at all. Either way it's worth a try, because having an interesting character in your back pocket is never a bad thing to have.

I think that looking at novels as longer short stories makes them less daunting. Yes there's more to it than that, but coming up with good ideas, characters, beginnings and endings, then wishing you had more words to do them justice is a good way to start.
 
paranoid marvin said:
This is an interesting perspective. I think it may work very well for some, but for others not at all. Either way it's worth a try, because having an interesting character in your back pocket is never a bad thing to have.
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Yes, it’s not my ideal way of working because I tend to have story ideas rather than characters. But I’ve noticed when the characters are rich and real, the story is soooo much easier to write. And enjoyable to write, too.

My last novel came in at 9 months start to finish (draft 1) and all is had was an idea of a bricky matchstick girl in Victorian East London. I wrote an opening, put it up on crits, and hey presto, it ended up as the thing I’m most proud of. :D
 
For me, characters are always the last element and they turn up when I start the actual writing, which is always interesting. Until then they are shadowy figures at the edge of consciousness. It sounds a little ridiculous, but I trust that the people who belong to that story will show up.

I usually* don't start writing a novel (or short story, when I wrote them) without knowing the ending and having a few key scenes or incidents in mind along the way. I then have a direction which keeps me on track, even when I meander off into side stories, and several stepping stone sections to keep the writing manageable.

*I don't have an ending in mind (first time ever) for my WIP novel, but I've been mulling it over for three decades and felt compelled to start. I'm 20,000 words in and it seems to be writing itself at the moment, so I'm thinking I do actually have an ending in mind, but don't know it yet!

Writing is weird!
 
phileas fogg said:
I keep trying to write fiction not necessarily genre & my 'stories' are always short, stop in the middle of nowhere & are meaningless.

Can anyone give me any advice on how to write stories which are long, have a proper ending & have meaning?
Click to expand...
Did you move with a story to an end that would satisfy you as a writer?
I used to practice with a theme and wordcount till 2000. Like a retelling of Cinderella where she is a werewolf and that is why she needs to come back from the ball before midnight, when her transformation starts ...
 
ANV said:
Did you move with a story to an end that would satisfy you as a writer?
I used to practice with a theme and wordcount till 2000. Like a retelling of Cinderella where she is a werewolf and that is why she needs to come back from the ball before midnight, when her transformation starts ...
Click to expand...
No... I'm still struggling.
 
Three thoughts:

1) Fill in the blanks:

Once upon a time there was ___. Every day, ___. One day ___. Because of that, ___. Because of that, ___. Until finally ___.

That's a complete story, of any word count.

2) What's stopping you--specifically, what is stopping you? I've ended stories for a number of reasons, but, for me, it generally boils down into 3 main reason: a) the story bores me b) the characters bore me c) I don't know where to go next.

When I know why I stopped writing something it helps me understand both what I can learn and change.

For instance, writing 10k words in a story where I like the plot and story, but I found the character uncompelling and hard to get into. My options then become interrogating the character to make them more interesting (exercise suggestion of asking them 20 questions), changing the character completely (exercise: To what? What would be more interesting in this story) or removing them (exercise: does the story work without them).

3) Do you architect or garden? (Pants or Plan, Memorialize or Outline, etc.) If you've been doing one, or mainly doing one and not the other, switch it up. Change HOW you write to change WHAT you write.

Last point I'll make is that no writing is ever really wasted. If something isn't working, leave it. At the very least, you learned something about writing and what you like/don't like. At best, you'll noddle on it, come back to it, tweak, adjust or take it in a different direction. Don't beat yourself up over
 
@phileas fogg Just a question.

Have you looked into finding a local writing group or tried a simple online course on storytelling and writing? These can help you quite a bit.
How about looking through 'YouTube' for videos on story writing?
 
phileas fogg said:
I keep trying to write fiction not necessarily genre & my 'stories' are always short, stop in the middle of nowhere & are meaningless.
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Are you saying that you have a tendency to write yourself into a corner—or is it something else?

But whatever the problem, my favorite piece of advice is this: When you can't go forward, go back.

All the way to the very beginning if you have to, in order to pinpoint where you went off track. Sometimes it can be the smallest thing that sends a story careering off in the wrong direction. If you find that and fix it, everything else might begin to fall into place. But you have to be ruthless in identifying what isn't working. Sometimes it might be something you really, really like, but you have to let it go because, however appealing, however clever, however well it might work in another story, it is not doing the one you are writing at the time any favors.
 
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