Finishing a novel-length manuscript is rewarding but, with short stories—since they are less than 8000 words—you can bask in that wonderful feeling of accomplishment much sooner!
Short stories are also a good means for taking risks with writing. Challenge yourself to try out a different point of view or a character that might not carry a novel-length story.
Writing short stories:
Enhances writing skills.
Augments portfolios.
Provides more opportunities for submissions to editors and other professionals in the writing community.
Helps in understanding genres and knowing your readers.
Assists with name recognition. Get your name ‘in the public domain’ as a published author.
While slogging through the bazillionth draft of your novel, or even if still in the pondering-a-novel stage, consider these five reasons to pause for a bit, and start writing short stories.
1. Short stories enhance your skills.
In a short story, each word matters, especially if you are writing micro-fiction—stories of 300 words or less. Here are some prompts for micro, or flash fiction of you’d like to give this a try.
A short story has all the same elements as a novel—conflict, setting, interesting characters, and narrative—but you need to get to the action without extra words in the way.
Managing voice and pace
Due to an emphasis on keeping just what’s needed, short stories have fast pace and strong voice.
The writer must create scenes, dialogue, and description that move the narrative forward, removing extra prose.
Begin with action
A short story should start right in the middle of an emotional, spiritual, mental, or physical action.
Backstory, setting, relationships and character traits can be interwoven a bit at a time in the first few chapters. Hook the reader from the first line of the first chapter.
Creating multi-dimensional characters
There is no room for info-dumps to describe characters in a short story. Use dialogue, imagery, interactions, and reactions, as well as flashbacks to develop characters while moving through the narrative.
Short story writers also consider their characters’ necessity before committing to them. Each character must always be important to the narrative to be included. Build your story around a small number of well-constructed characters.
Learn to trim the fat
Self-edit like a boss.
A short story is … short. Think about what you really need.
Trimming the fat cuts out extraneous details, neatens the narrative, and stresses relationship details.
2. Short stories grow your portfolio.
A writing portfolio is a collection of polished, published work that a writer uses like a resume when submitting new work, or looking for a writing position. The longer your list of writing credits, the more you will stand out as a skilled writer.
It’s proof that you can deliver a finished product worthy of publication.
Even though writing a short story is challenging, it takes less time than writing a novel and will help your portfolio grow faster.
With the plethora of online and digital publishing available around the world, there are lots of possibilities. Getting a short story published is more accessible now. Here’s a recently updated article fromReedsywith 20 places accepting submissions for short stories.
Chances are good that someone will love your work. The challenge is to keep looking and not give up.
3. Short stories help you expand your prepublication experiences.
Your short story is written, critiqued, self- and beta edited—polished as shiny as possible. Next come submissions, rejections, and editors, oh my.
Submissions
Each publication has its own submission guidelines (absolute rules). You must follow these guidelines. So many publications are submitted that those submissions that do not follow the rules may be tossed. If the publisher or editor requires a PDF, send one, otherwise your wonderful work may not be read. Follow the guidelines, exactly.
Rejections
If you have received a rejection, rejoice! You’ve joined the ranks of many famous writers. Sometimes the agent, publisher, or editor, would love to work with you because they enjoy your writing, but they don’t have need of that particular story at this particular time. Receiving that rejection letter is good news! Your work has been liked and may be passed on to someone else in the publishing world.
Sometimes the writing needs more polishing. Make revisions and try again. Mentally prepare to have more rejections. It is part of the process.
Rejection, as painful as it can be, does not define you or your creative work, in whatever form your art takes. Let rejection make you stronger.
Editors
Publications provide editorial feedback if your short story is chosen for publication.
Editors provide constructive feedback from structural issues to line edits. They are invaluable resources. What you learn in the editing process will carry over into future projects. There is always more to learn. Go at this process with an open-mind. You’ll be able to better self-edit and strengthen your writing.
4. Short stories help you understand genres and know your readers.
Regularly writing and submitting short stories to publications will help with understanding genres, and give you a better feel for which readers want to read your work.
Research publications before you submit anything. Many publications specialize in, specific genres and styles. Submitting 5000 words of horror to a romance e-zine is pretty much a guaranteed rejection.
Reading the work of other writers in specific genres will also increase your skill in categorizing your own work.
In time you’ll write a short story with a particular reader in mind, and a clear idea of the genre. This will help when considering which publishing house is best to pitch your novel.
5. Short stories help get your name out there.
Your professional brand as a writer is developed by publications, your public Personality, and online presence—website, blogs, and articles. The writer brand starts when you begin publishing your work and grows as more of your work is seen in the public domain.
Short stories are a great way to develop your writer presence. Turnaround time is fast, compared to writing a full-length novel, and allows for the flexibility to hop topics, genres, styles. The choice is yours.
Being a writer with an established public presence is great for you and a plus to publishing houses by providing them with a readymade professional platform and a growing fan base.
Have you challenged yourself to write a short story? Did you ever receive a helpful rejection letter? Do you have a favorite author who writes short stories?
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About Ellen
Author, speaker, and former teacher, Ellen L. Buikema has written non-fiction for parents, and The Adventures of Charlie Chameleon chapter book series with stories encouraging the development of empathy—sprinkling humor wherever possible. Her Works in Progress are The Hobo Code, YA historical fiction and The Crystal Key, MG Magical Realism/ Sci-Fi, a glaze of time travel.
In last month’s post we discussed everything having to do with editing. The importance of a well edited project, the different kinds of editing, and how to find an editor. This month we are going to talk about the second most important part of your indie published book…covers.
If a well edited product is the number one thing to spend money on in your self-publishing career, a great cover design is the second. Although some might argue that it is even more important because people DO judge a book by its cover.
Even if you aren’t at the stage to buy a cover or work with a designer, it is never too late to research the covers used in your genre. Most genres have a very specific look and feel to their covers and you don’t want to get too far off base or your book won’t appeal to the readers of that genre.
Example
I write Urban fantasy and I fell in love with a premade book cover before my first UF was published. It DID NOT fit in with the UF genre at all and it affected my book sales. So, even though I loved my covers, I spent part of 2020 reworking my UF covers to be more genre specific. In the end I am happy I made the change, but I am frustrated that it took me so long to do something I knew from the start needed to be done.
Don’t be me.
But if you aren’t ready to buy a cover or get a designer there is something easy you can do. Use Pinterest to find genre-specific covers that appeal to you. I’ve done this, and when my publisher asked me for ideas for my Paranormal Romance series, I literally sent her my already created Pinterest board for her to see what appealed to me.
It’s a simple and effective way to get your ideas across to a cover designer who is most likely very visual.
Hiring a Cover Designer
But how about when you’re ready to find a cover designer, how do you go about getting one?
There are several ways to find a good designer.
Word of mouth. Like with a good editor, you can talk to other writers who love working with their cover designers.
Facebook groups. There are so many FB groups devoted to cover designs for all genres. A simple search on FB will get you some amazing results.
Google search. Another easy by effective way of finding great cover designers and even some premade covers.
Etsy. Yes, Etsy. There are tons of designers on Etsy trying to sell their products and time.
FIVRR - Another great place to find cover designers looking for work.
Premade Book Covers
There are also such things as premade book covers. Designers put together covers and put them up for sale. You usually can’t make many changes beyond the title and author name and tagline for the book, but they are also usually priced well, and some are really beautiful. In fact, the new covers for my UF series were a set of premades that I fell in love with by a well-known UF cover designer.
There are a ton of premade book cover sites, like The Book Cover Designer, but if you put in something like Urban Fantasy Premade book covers into a google search, you’ll get a lot of results and covers to choose from.
Conclusion
In closing, do your research when it comes to a good cover design and find one that you love because you will be looking at it for years to come.
I love to look at pretty things, so let’s play show and tell. Show me some of those beautiful covers in the comment section!!
About Jenn
Sass. Snark. Supernatural Sizzle.
Award winning author of Urban Fantasy and Paranormal Romance. Vampires, Greek gods, and a bit of Demon Destroyer fun for everyone.Jenn Windrow loves characters who have a pinch of spunk, a dash of attitude, and a large dollop of sex appeal. Top it all off with a huge heaping helping of snark, and you’ve got the ingredients for the kind of fast-paced stories she loves to read and write. Home is a suburb of it’s-so-hot-my-shoes-have-melted-to-the-pavement Phoenix. Where she lives with her husband, two teenagers, and a slew of animals that seem to keep following her home, at least that’s what she claims.
If you have ever gotten manuscript feedback that asks you to check your pacing, you know that can be a tricky task to manage. Where do you start? What parts of your writing will fix this vague problem? Pacing in a story is based on many factors and targeting areas of improvement can be overwhelming.
You are not alone. Many writers struggle with pacing issues. And many can sense when something is off but have a hard time identifying what is causing the problem. Digging into podcasts, articles, and taking classes can refine your skills as a writer, but maybe a tactical list of common pacing issues that impact a novel is all you need.
Have you heard any of the following when revising your novel?
Avoid Sagging middles.
Build more compelling characterization.
Cut more of your prose.
Delete unnecessary scenes.
Engage the reader more.
It’s an alphabet of well-intentioned advice, but annoying if you don’t know where to start. Writers have many tools and bits of knowledge to help them revise their pacing. But how? And how much revision will be enough?
Sometimes the adjustments that make a difference in your novel can start small. Maybe a slight characterization or POV change can improve the story. Sometimes it is cutting a whole secondary plot that drags and slows the main action. Sometimes the conflict is just not compelling enough and you need to up-the-stakes.
Although writers develop their own ways to edit and pace-proof their work, how to fix pacing can be solvable a mystery for your manuscript. Reading up on pacing can easily become a time sink hole keeping you from writing, but it’s easier when you have a plan. Try my pacing issues revision list to fix your novel.
Included in this post are my simplified go-to repair suggestions for pacing. Aimed at giving you an actionable list of fixes, you can use these ideas to make your book more engaging and appropriately paced.
Power Pacing Tips for Revising your Manuscript.
1. Check your chapter word counts.
One way to quickly check on your pacing is to compare the word count for your chapters. What do you notice when you list the word counts for each section? Depending on your genre and style, the chapter counts can tell you a lot about variations in your writing.
For the most part, the amount of words in each chapter should not throw off the reading experience. This will mean different things for different authors. Some authors write in tiny potato chip chapters that suit their thriller novel style. Other authors take their time to let readers discover their characters and setting and delicately build up their scenes for readers who want to savor their stories. But chapters that are outliers (and perhaps too long) in your book can show places where you may need to edit extra side stories or fluff.
I tend to write about 1500 to 2000 word chapters. For me, this keeps the momentum in the story and gives the reader a place to digest what has happened before propelling into the next part of the story. Your genre and style may require something different. Looking for long chapters may be an opportunity to cut slow scenes or to separate actions into their own chapters. Breaking down long chapters into parts can give you a chance to develop the key scenes more as well.
Look for chapters that are exceptionally long or short. These places in your novel may need work. There are exceptions to this pacing-problem-spotter tip, so be aware of these considerations:
Short chapters can be used to emphasis a scene or to highlight a key event in your story. Perhaps your novel has a sequence of short chapters where the high-stakes or intense action is better suited by quick, brief chapters are appropriate.
Longer chapters may be appropriate. Perhaps your character is in a new setting, and you have detailed exposition to show the reader this new world you have created. Letting your reader wander in your new space will take more words.
Are all of your chapters very similar? Eerily at the word count within a word or two? Some variety is needed to keep your reader interested.
The important matter is to see what the word counts mean to your story. Just because you have long chapters or short chapters doesn’t necessarily mean they need to be fixed. It can be a place to check for parts that either pull the reader out of your story with side plots and lengthy exposition. It could mean you have too many short chapters that don’t give the reader enough information, confusing them, and losing them. Consider revising.
My WIP Word Count Discovery - An Overbearing B Story
Here's an example from my current work in progress (WIP). I recently re-started a project that I put on pause a year ago and organized the draft in Scrivener. While I looked over the scenes, I noticed a few shorter ones. These ones needed development and fleshing out, so I took time to build those scenes, filling in characterizations and details to make the story pop. I added more of the world building elements found in my genre and characterizations to help those scenes flow better and to better impact on my story.
And then there was a mega B story floating in the middle of my manuscript. A chunk that represented one beat for my book but had become its own living thing with multiple character arcs and settings. The point of this scene within my plotline warranted only a few pages of book real estate at most. And since only one of the plot lines complemented the overall story, it needed to be cut. Removing most of this beat helped my manuscript stay focused and as a bonus I now I can revise the new side story and turn it into a novella. Score!
2. Check paragraphs vs. white spaces
Do you see blocky chunks of text? Or a lattice patchwork of delicately balanced system of text and breathing space for the mind? One way to check for pacing issues is to see the physical layout of your work. If you have ever had the extreme pleasure to work with Margie Lawson, you will have heard about analyzing your white spaces.
Check the layout by printing off your manuscript and setting multiple pages in order on a large table or floor. What do you notice? Bricks of text in my work tend to tell me that I need to pull out more telling and show the story to my reader instead. I may need to add dialogue or internalizations to break up these blocks of text.
A digital way to check this is to find the multiple page view that most word processing software programs have. Zoom out to 8 or 10 pages and scroll through your manuscript. With careful observation you may discover areas that flow easier for the reader, others that are like bricks, walling off your story from easy access.
Have fun looking at your story’s visual form. It can reveal clues about pacing without analyzing the words. And getting a bird’s-eye view may be what you need to identify the hard-to-find pacing issues.
3. Check sentence length variation throughout your work.
If you use a program like Grammarly, ProWritingAid, or AutoCrit, you know there are many reports you can produce from your work. Try looking at the sentence variation.
How varied are your sentences? Like the chapters, the variation should flow with your story and not hinder it. There should be shorter sentences with dialogue. And longer ones for world-building. This is another quick check for problematic pacing you can try.
4. Check sticky sentences
Using a text editor like Grammarly or ProWriteAid can also help you to identity sticky places and smooth them out. These programs give you a report on sentences that are very sticky or just sort of sticky. Sticky may keep your reader from continuing, so these are worth paying attention to. Try these sticky sentence solutions.
Break up longer sentences into smaller, more manageable pieces by the ideas contained within them.
Find the main point of the sentence and rewrite it with more clarity.
There may be too many ‘little words’ like ‘of’ and other prepositions. Try rewriting these and get out the clunky little words that could make your reader stumble out of your story.
Combine sentences for better flow and less repetition.
Finding sticky sentences is one way to keep your story's pacing on track and to keep your readers happy.
5. Check POV
Giving the reader different points of view (POV) can make your story more interesting by giving the reader insight into the characters’ world view. The main POV should come primarily from your main character. See if most of your story is revealed through their eyes.
Do you have consistent POV throughout your story? Be sure to start each new chapter with clarity and through the eyes of the character it represents. Add details about that character, dropping hints and new information as your character moves through your plot. A strong use of POV can add pizazz to a story, or it can throw off your reader. Check this aspect of your novel if your pacing needs some help.
6. Check for Showing.
Showing but not telling? Use dialogue to spice up boring chunks of text that could invite your reader to skim. Consider smoothing out your pacing by letting your character’s share their world through dialogue. Let the reader see what your character sees to add interest. If what they say is revealing the key events, mood, and motivations, the writer doesn’t have to.
Figure out how much of your manuscript is dialogue. Many writing software programs have this option. This is another way to improve your pacing and balance out your exposition with dialogue.
7. Check for redundancies
One common reader-speed bump writers often miss in their novels are redundancies. Go through your main story structure and see where your readers get the main ideas for each plot point. Do your characters do something different at each twist and turn? At a story structure level, see how your plot line varies. Maybe you can change a portion of it to keep your story from being too predictable.
Does the solution to their problem change and evolve as they grow in their character arc? Wow your reader with new resolutions for each conflict they get and keep the story flowing with interesting twists along the way.
8. Check for fluffy and unnecessary words.
Create a list of those words you like to overuse and nix those in your manuscript. Some of mine are words like back, up, and down, that really do nothing other than slow down the reader. Do a simple search for these words in your writing software. Are they needed in the sentences where you have them?
See my previous posts on fixing fluff words HERE and HERE for ideas on how writers can edit the excess from their work.
Final Thoughts on Pacing Tips
I hope this list of pacing fixes can help you revise your manuscript in a meaningful and manageable way. Keep on writing and revising. The payoff of a well-written manuscript is on the horizon!
Tell us about your most recent project below and fix tips that you can share for revisions.
You can find her YA fiction, writing resources, and keep up with her author events at KrisMaze.com. Find her darker, scarier fiction at her sister-site KrissyKnoxx.com.
A recovering grammarian and hopeless wanderer, Kris enjoys reading, learning languages, and spending time outdoors where she ponders the wisdom of Bob Ross.
And sometimes she plans a writing road trip.
Scaretastic and Sci-Fi Stories
And hot from the presses—Kris has a collection of award-winning stories that was just released in June. Check it out at any of the main retailer bookstores. Click and share to help support indie writing.
