A questions for short story writers

...especially if you write novels as well...

Do you sit down and start that first paragraph, that first scene, is your approach different depending on whether it's part of a novel or a shorter work?

I'm about 4-5 pages into Incident, and I find myself weighing every word and trying to fit every hint and shade into the first few paragraphs. This is going to be a longer short work, 10K or more, so I have a little room to maneuver. And I want to allude to Jani's backstory and meanwhile, the plot itself is happening.

Just wondering.

A questions for short story writers

...especially if you write novels as well...

Do you sit down and start that first paragraph, that first scene, is your approach different depending on whether it's part of a novel or a shorter work?

I'm about 4-5 pages into Incident, and I find myself weighing every word and trying to fit every hint and shade into the first few paragraphs. This is going to be a longer short work, 10K or more, so I have a little room to maneuver. And I want to allude to Jani's backstory and meanwhile, the plot itself is happening.

Just wondering.

In other news

Kicking myself because I bid foolishly on eBay. My fault completely. Didn't read the item description as closely as I should have, and wound up paying about 4x what the item was worth because I set my ceiling too high and someone bid me up. We're not talking a lot of money here, but it's still irritating. Dumb, dumb, dumb.

You know that you've friended too many writers on LJ when you need to take breaks from reading posts to look up words in the dictionary. I know, I should have the damned thing memorized by now, but there you go.

Listening to the radio on the way home from work, had to laugh when the DJ dedicated a song to the Cubs pitching staff. The song? REM's "Everybody Hurts." And the regular season hasn't even begun. It's going to be a long summer.

Finished up my tax stuff. Mailed it out today. Go! Me!

In other news

Kicking myself because I bid foolishly on eBay. My fault completely. Didn't read the item description as closely as I should have, and wound up paying about 4x what the item was worth because I set my ceiling too high and someone bid me up. We're not talking a lot of money here, but it's still irritating. Dumb, dumb, dumb.

You know that you've friended too many writers on LJ when you need to take breaks from reading posts to look up words in the dictionary. I know, I should have the damned thing memorized by now, but there you go.

Listening to the radio on the way home from work, had to laugh when the DJ dedicated a song to the Cubs pitching staff. The song? REM's "Everybody Hurts." And the regular season hasn't even begun. It's going to be a long summer.

Finished up my tax stuff. Mailed it out today. Go! Me!