A questions for short story writers

[ksmith]

...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.

Comments

[dandyfunk.livejournal.com]

I was looking for...impressions, I guess. Whether there's something in the backbrain that says, this is shorter/longer, so you need to approach it *this* way. You need to define it *this* way. *This* is enough description.

As a writer of 60 short stories and 3 novels (all unsold, alas), I'd say for a short story you really don't have the space to muck around. No room for extra characters, and you can't have a scene that doesn't show character, plot and background. Heck, I think it was Bob Silverberg that said you can't have a sentence that doesn't do all three. Also, things have to get going fast. Chase your character up a tree on the first page, then throw rocks at them.

If you're looking for guidance, check out some of you favorite short stories. How did the writers of those stories do it?