Writing shorts

Writing a novel is a monumental task.  I should know.  I've written a few.  My last book, "Besotted", took me nigh on 18 months to complete.  Of course, regular followers will know that I was mugged in January 2013, and lost much of the original manuscript, but that doesn't alter the fact that it took up a lot of my time.  Days and nights spent writing, other days and nights spent trying to break through that writer's block, yet more days and nights spent drinking vodka, becoming my character, Benjamin Beerenwinkel.  The weeks spent editing and redrafting, fine-tuning the book, and finally the publication.

Now, in the past, I've written lots.  Even during "Besotted", there were days when I wrote 10,000 words.  I've generally been able to deliver the first draft of a full novel within 3-4 months.  But as I said, it's a monumental task.

Short stories, on the other hand, are easier to finish.  But a short story needs something special.  You have 2,000-4,000 words to deliver a tale to the reader.  Lots of shorts, they don't have that whole beginning, middle and end bullshit.  They just have a concept.  They should grab the reader, give them a bit of a shake, and then put them back down.

I'm working on a collection of shorts at the moment, entitled "Crime and Irresponsibility".  A couple of the stories have appeared on my previous blog.  Three of them have been developed into screenplays and have been shot as short films.  One of the stories, "Life", is actually more of a novella (and is another of my stories that I'd like to develop as a screenplay).  At the moment, all of the stories in the collection deal with crime or situations that have come about because of the irresponsible behaviour of the protagonist.  I used to work as a prison officer, on the lifer wing.  Some of the tales (some of which haven't been written yet) deal with the crimes committed by the men I met inside.

The thing with shorts is that you can write them really quickly, see something materialize in a short space of time.  You don't agonize over them, or wonder for weeks how you're going to end them.  You start to write them and if you're halfway through and you fall out of love with the story, you've not invested so much time that you have to finish it.  You can just leave it, maybe return to it, or just ditch it.  I've started to write novels, been 40,000 words in, and given up.  The writer's world is full of unfinished novels.  Short stories, on the other hand, well, they're easier to finish.  They're like quickies.  You start writing, you build up the tension in your head, let the words flow through your fingertips to the keyboard, and then, orgasmically, you complete the story.

I would say to any writer who is struggling with his or her writing, if they're partway through a novel, put that to one side and write a short story.  Call it mental masturbation.  Even if you don't show anybody else the short story, you're practicing your writing.  You're finding your writing voice, and it's a damn sight easier to find in a short story than at the start of the monumental task of writing a novel.

Also, there's the opportunity to get short stories published in collections, in magazines, if monetary gain is your aim.

As I struggle to write another novel (and I do aim to finish 3 this year, 2014), writing shorts is a good way to keep my creative juices flowing.