WHAT IS A SHORT
STORY? AND CAN YOU TURN IT INTO A NOVEL?
You can't just
define it by the number of words. In my anthology THE FLOATER the
shortest short story is 513 words, the longest nearly 5000. The
accepted maximum is around 10,000 words. Beyond that it becomes wearisome -
unless you add several more elements and turn it into a novel.
Because the chief
difference between a short story and a novel is that a story covers a
single event, a single experience, a single incident or a single
revelation. There are few characters, not much conflict and no
sub-plots.
But although a
short story has fewer words, it's not necessarily easier to write.
It's a bit like composing a poem. Every words must count, must have
significance. As for the endings! Ah, that can be the hardest task of
all. An open ending? A closed ending? All the loose ends tied up? A
full circle back to the beginning?
Here's my shortest
story, A HICCUP IN TIME:
It took Dodwell six
months to build the time machine. He had ordered it in kit form from
Taiwan and the manual, translated into a quaint form of English, had
severely taxed his limited knowledge of electronics.
His first trip had
been a near disaster, catapulting him into his own bed some twenty
years in the future.It had been disconcerting to find himself lying
beside an older Dodwell and disappointing to find that his strict
diet of sheep’s milk, yoghurt and oranges had not preserved him
from thinning hair and a paunch. He would have liked to enquire
further after his future health, but the older Dodwell’s bulging
eyes evinced such terror that he had thought it best to mutter a
quick “Sorry” and beat it for the door.
A pity about the
little blonde who had dived beneath the sheets. Had he been able to
stay longer he might have discovered her identity but at least he had
something good to look forward to.
For the time being
he would concentrate on his main interest: the great artists and
performers of the past whose autographs he so desired to collect. The
time machine was the instrument through which he would meet them in
the flesh.
His second journey
went only slightly awry. Whilst he had focussed on 1901 and the
playwright George Bernard Shaw he arrived instead in 1999, face to
face with Melvyn Bragg, a writer whose work still received occasional
mention in the more comprehensive Literary Companions of Dodswell’s
own time. Bragg had been pathetically pleased to give his autograph
to a 22nd century time traveller and Dodwell had managed
to sell it on for a few Euros on his return.
Since then he had
met many of his idols and rarely received a rebuff. Jane Austen had
been amiable and courteous, Emily Bronte abrupt and a little puzzled.
Nijinsky had taken some pinning down and of course there had been the
language problem, but Pavlova, Caruso, Mark Twain, Laurence Olivier,
Graham Norton – Dodwell now had them all.
Inevitably however
the time machine failed, three days after its guarantee expired. It
happened in London’s West End where Dodwell had popped in to see
the 2013 production of The Book of Mormon.
No amount of
twiddling or kicking would restart the machine, and in despair
Dodwell was forced to retreat into its cabin, later suffering the
indignity of being clamped.
Trapped in time,
Dodwell prayed for deliverance but as the weeks went by he decided it
wasn’t such a bad life. Most people were friendly. Those who had
initially regarded him with suspicion decided he was harmless enough
and began to bring him food, blankets, the Daily Mirror.
He became a fixture
in the West End landscape, even meriting an article in the Telegraph
Sunday Magazine. On fine days Japanese tourists surrounded him with
their digital cameras, posing alongside his machine. Some asked him
to pose with them. He always said yes. It gave him some amusement to
picture the bewilderment on their faces when they saw the empty
spaces on their photographs.
Now, could you turn
this into a full length novel?
You'd have to add
complications. Obstacles. More characters. An ongoing conflict or
situation which is resolved at the end.
Perhaps Dodwell is
not the only time traveller who's ended up in London in the year
2013. In this case the short story, perhaps minus the last few
paragraphs, becomes the first chapter of a novel in which the two
travellers meet up, struggle to find a solution to the problem, maybe
fall in love if this is going to be a romantic fantasy, and live
happily ever after as a tourist attraction.
Another alternative
is that Dodwell - alone or with the proposed second traveller -
decides to abandon his time machine, settle down in Bognor Regis and
use his knowledge of the future to make a fortune and become Mayor.
Of course, the short
story could become the final chapter. Perhaps Dodwell has an enemy in
the 22nd century who wants to get rid of him and has programmed the
time machine to expire in Leicester Square a hundred and fifty years
in the past.
The possibilities
are endless.
If you're new to
writing, the danger is more often to write too much rather than too
little. It makes no difference whether you're writing a 90,000 word novel or a 1000 word short story: unnecesssary detail, information or
dialogue will slow down, irritate, distract or bore the reader. So
here are some points to keep in mind.
