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Short fiction is the "garage band" of science fiction, claims Tor Books editor Patrick Nielsen Hayden, so it's time to step on that fuzzbox and thrash as hard as you can without knocking over your mom's weed-trimmer. Actually, I think Nielsen Hayden was referring to the fact that you can try more crazy experiments in short SF than in novels, because of the shorter time commitment of both writer and reader. But how can you become a super-master of the challenging form of short fiction? Here are a few suggestions.
I wouldn't claim to be an expert on short fiction writing, but I have written over a hundred of the little fuckers, a large proportion of which have been science fiction-y. Here are a bunch of do's and don'ts, that I discovered the hardest way possible.
World-building should be quick and merciless. In a novel, you can spend ten pages explaining how the 29th Galactic Congress established a Peacekeeping Force to regulate the use of interstitial jumpgates, and this Peacekeeping Force evolved over the course of a century to include A.I.s in its command structure, etc. etc. In a short story, you really need to hang your scenery as fast as possible. My friend and mentor d.g.k. goldberg always cited the Heinlein line: "The door dilated," which tells you a lot about the surroundings in three words. Little oblique references to stuff your characters take for granted can go a long way.
Make us believe there's a world beyond your characters' surroundings. Even though you can't spend tons of time on world-building, you have to include enough little touches to make us believe there's stuff we're not seeing. It's like the difference between the fake house-fronts in a cowboy movie and actual houses. We should glimpse little bits of your universe, that don't necessarily relate to your characters' obsessions.
Fuck your characters up. A little. Just like with worldbuilding, you can't necessarily devote pages to your characters' childhoods and what kind of underwear they wear under their boiler suits. Unless your story is really a character study with a bit of a science fiction plot. I used to have a worksheet that included spaces to fill in in info about each character's favorite music, hatiest color, etc. etc. Never filled those out. If I'd tried to force myself to come up with a favorite color for every character, I would have given up writing. But do try to spend a bit of time giving all of your characters some baggage, just enough to make them interesting. Most science fiction readers are interested in characters who solve problems and think positively, but that doesn't mean they can't have some damage.
Dive right in — but don't sign-post your plot in big letters. When I started writing stories, my early efforts meandered around for pages before something happened to one of the characters to make him/her freak out. And then the rest of the story would be the character(s) dealing with that problem. And then, as I got more practiced, I found the foolproof map to awesome storytelling: introduce whatever it was that was freaking out my characters in the very first sentence of the story! And then the story could be about them dealing with that problem, until they solved it in the very end. It was so perfect, how could it fail? It took me another year or two to realize that plunging the characters into the story's main conflict right away was just as boring, in its own way, as the ten pages of wandering in circles. The best short stories I've read are ones which start in the thick of things, but still keep you guessing and let you get to know the characters before you fully comprehend the trouble they're in.
Experiment with form. Short fiction isn't one form, it's a whole bunch of forms jammed together according to their length. Short stories include your standard 3,000 word mini-odyssey thru the psyche. But they also include flash fiction (sometimes defined as under 100 words, sometimes under 500 or even under 1,000.) And those wacky list things that McSweeney's runs sometimes. In fact, for a while there, postmodern short fiction was all about the list, or the footnotes, or the krazy monologue, or the story told in office memos. Try writing super-short stories of only 10 words, or mutant essay-stories written by a fictional person. Also, if you always write third person, try first person. Or if you're always doing first person, try third.
Think beyond genre. Often the best genre fiction is the stuff that cross-germinates. Pretend you're actually writing your story for the New Yorker, and try to channel George Saunders or even Alice Munro. See how far you can go towards writing a pure lit piece while still including some elements of speculation. Or try writing your story as a romance. Or a mystery. Imagine it as a Sundancey indy movie.
Don't confuse your gimmick with your plot. You may have a great idea for a piece of future technology, or some amazing mutation that turns a whole bunch of people into musicvores who survive by eating your memories of rock concerts. Maybe you have the most original basic premise evar — but that's not your plot. Your plot is how your new widget changes the people in your story, and how it affects their lives. Or what decisions your people make as a result of this new technological breakthrough.
Don't fall into the character-based/plot-based dichotomy. People, especially in writing groups and workshops, will try to categorize stories as based on either plot or character. This is a poisonous idea that will turn you into a cannibalistic freak wearing a belt made out of human spinal cords. There's no such thing as a character-based story or a plot-based story, because every story has both. Even the most incident-free Ploughshares romp or the most twisty thumpy space opera tale. If you start thinking that stories can be categorized into either pile, you'll end up writing either eventless character studies or plot-hammer symphonies starring one-dimensional nothings.
Comments
I like to avoid the character/plot dichotomy by fucking up my gimmick with experimental forms of the genre so it mercilessly thinks its surrounds make it the plot.
"Fuck your characters up a little"
Good rule that. Of course, the only short story I ever wrote (Ignoring grade-school butchery) was about a man arguing with a hallucination and losing.
Thanks, Charlie. These are really great, and much appreciated.
This is really, really good advice. Quite an interesting post to see on io9. Kudos.
Are there even any paying markets for sci-fi short stories these days, other than Asimov's?
It all boils down to getting the interest of the editor and keeping it. Read what they publish and you'll get a feel for what they buy. Maybe. You know how editors like to find "crazy, hot, new, edgy talent.
Nice article, plus, Deja Thoris.
@extracrispy: Wow, thanks! I think a lot about this sort of stuff. I'm really glad you liked it -- I was bracing myself for comments like, "bah, your rules are dumb!"
@zeppelined: There is a lot of on line stuff, some of them even pay.
Good list, of things to do. The flaw is that short stories are like poems or singer/songwriter songs.. The audience is made out of other poets, songwriters or short story writers.
It might be crooked, but it's the only game in town..
And no, i never sold a short story. Sold a poem once though. And a few songs.
@zeppelined: Yes there are. But you're not going to find them with the big publishing houses or the mainstream magazines.
@Charlie Jane Anders: As a guy who worked on an SF/Fantasy magazine with an open submission policy for several years, I've gotta say that if half those submissions followed half your guidelines, there would've been much less pain involved in reading the manuscripts and more pain in picking which ones to publish. As it should be.
Though I will say a first-line grabber is always important, and I'd amend one of your guidelines to read "Fuck up your characters A LOT," just because the deeper the shit, the more fun it is to see them crawl out.
Nice write-up. It'll come in handy when I start working on my abbreviated Great American Science-Fiction novella. Can we get a similar style book for how to write killer comments? I'm just asking as a public service to the great unwashed masses...
Great advice, thanks! I've been thinking of writing some short stories and whatnot, its good to get some experience.
Also, awesome Frazetta painting (Though I don't see how it relates to the article). Gotta love John Carter and Dejah Thoris
@NefariousNewt: Any examples off the top of your head?
(not doubting you, just looking for more info!) :-)
"I thought it was a gun pushed into the back of my head. I was wrong." (opening line from a short of mine.)
As far as I know, there is a huge bottel neck caused by too many writers and not enough editors or outlets for the material. The publishers validate the material, but the market validates the publishers. The market is demanding less in the way of short fiction. The market is smaller for books too. Where'd the midlist go? Where are the pocket books with two stories? Less market for a world that reads less. How sad.
One thing I find annoying in futuristic short stories is when the main character expresses nothing but irritation with every technological marvel his age presents. You never see the character use something and say, "Well, these are handy, a darn sight easier than how we used to do it."
Great advice--thanks for posting.
Meh, the market seems to be saturated with mediocre (at best) supernatural fiction right now, and science (or quality) plays little part in it.
Thanks, Charlie jane. These are nice.
Now that I think of it, "Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius" could be said to follow several of these rules. That's pretty cool.
I think Harlan Ellison made the original observation about "the door dilated."
@zeppelined:
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Tales of the Talisman
[End shameless plug]
Any chance you could post links to any of your shorts? Please?
This is so good, thanks. If my arms were long enough I'd pat you on the back, Charlie Jane.
@blorp: Wow I'm flattered! Here are the two that seem to be the best received: [www.mcsweeneys.net] and [www.strangehorizons.com]
Something to check out in this vein is ficlets. Scalzi of "Old Man's War" used to blog for them.
I've published a few too, and really enjoyed the process.
It's a site where you write short pieces of fiction under 1024 characters - everything is released under Creative Commons. People can write prequels or sequels to your stories, and of course you can continue others stories - pretty neat little place to practice the micro-fiction.
Wil Wheaton's dropped a few good stories there too actually.
[www.ficlets.com]
Big props for mentioning George Saunders!
AND--never, ever, ever explain the whiz bang technology. Consider how likely you are to get into your car and have a brief reverie about the "internal combustion engine that permitted the conquest of most the surface of our planet" or some such filler.
People in every time and place just use their stuff to do a job. Whether it's an "amazing flaked obsidean tool" or an "incredible quantum flux demolecularizer", it's probably just an ax in that society.
Tell by showing!
@codydog: You're right about short fiction being read primarily by other writers of short fiction, especially these days. But short fiction is also important retroactively: if an author does end up becoming important or famous, suddenly his the short fiction her or she wrote when starting out suddenly comes into the spotlight.
Obviously a writer can't obsess over this and still retain their ability to write creatively, but it is an example of how modern short fiction still gets its due.
Er, that is, "...suddenly the short fiction he or she wrote when starting out comes into the spotlight."
Nice post! Short stories are my favorite genre and this is good advice for someone like myself who is just trepidly starting to write their own stories. Good job.
If I wrote as much as I read about writing...
Your list is excellent and right in line with my reading about writing.
@foolish-rain: Yes good point! I meant to mention that... ppl will always take their technology for granted -- until it goes wrong. And then they obsess about it. Like with your car, where if it doesn't start you'll suddenly start talking about the transmission and the carburetor and all the other parts you normally would never mention in polite society.
Loved "Horatius and Clodia"! I love stories that start our with characters and settings that you dont understand (and arent explained outright) and only later it dawns on you what Horatius and Clodia are. A strangely sensual story considering the subject matter. And strangely current all of a sudden... Horatius could be the descendant of the "FinCEN" network that flagged Spitzer.
I havent got to the "A Serial Killer..." yet. Thanks for the links.
I thought it was Samuel Delany who originally drew attention to Heinlein's dilating doors?
@Charlie Jane Anders: Oh wow, I read Horatius and Clodia last year and really liked it, but had completely forgotten about it. Glad to put two and two together, and I'll be a bit more conscious in watching for your name now.
@Charlie Jane Anders: Excellent post. This is really great advice; I can't wait to apply some of this to my own writing.
@suprspi: I love Ficlets! I've been posting there for about a year. I write under the pen name "Crown Me Tarzan, King of Mars", if anyone is interested.
[ficlets.com]
This is very good. Nice, Charlie.
A very smart editor told me a long time ago that the best stories have conflict, and are about someone who wants something.
Short stories are not easy to write.
Another editor critiqued something I wrote by saying that it didn't seem like a story, but a chapter of a novel.
Yeah, but I think a good short story can be both.
Am I wrong?
Thanks Charlie Jane - I sure appreciate the good advice. Any plans yet for another IO9 Happy Hour?
@RRich: yes, I think that a good short story can both stand on it's own and be part of a greater whole.
Probably some of the best sci-fi stories are the ones that only allude to advanced technology, then use the setting to explore pretty real issues. Take for example Jennifer Government. What happens when corporations get their way eh? Use the setting to give you freedom to think of way-out-there ideas like transhumanism or whatever.
@GalactiKat: We should definitely do drinks again sometime soon! Drinks are always a good idea.
@fartron: Wow, thanks, I'm really glad you liked it.
This is why I still read io9. Great list and some intelligent comments to boot!
Thank you thank you thank you.
Aboslutely perfect, bang-up job as always Charlie Jane. Posts like this make io9 one of my favorite stops on the web.
Maybe I'll put these tips to work this weekened :-)
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