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

[(Anonymous)]

I've used short stories, vignettes really to practice writing and to work on various things. I never thought I could write a novel because the size was intimidating and I thought my imagination topped out at 10k words. What I'm comfortable with is a scene, painting it so beautifully and involving so much emotion that it wears me out when I'm done and I don't even want to look at it again. Over the past year or so I've had a few ideas for novels, and have just about completed the first one. While I had the general idea for the story, I've found that I've taken each chapter and written it like one of my short stories. This allowed me, subconsciously I think to not get overly worked up over the size of the piece. Perhaps this could work in the opposite way for you? Think of your short story as a chapter which could be inserted into a novel. One that can stand on its own, especially if you're using a character you already created and are comfortable with.