These are notes from a panel I attended a year or so ago. I took notes while attending a wonderful SF/F symposium called Life The Universe and Everything. The panels are very educational. The panelists were: Kathleen Dalton-Woodbury, David Farland, Angie Lofthouse, Eric James Stone.

-A short story is not as complicated as a novel and will not have all the subplots.
– A short story must represent the most important, climatic event in that character’s life.
– The story needs to stand by itself and have its own problem and resolution within that story.
– There are certain stories that can be episodic when they are known characters that have a series of adventures i.e. Sherlock homes.
– amazon shorts is a market for featuring short stories
– Jape stories are short stories that are serious until they get to the punch line ending.
– If you want to write a story for the New Yorker, cut off the last page.
– A literary story is about the journey and the process and the discovery.
– A story can be enjoyable just because of the play of words and phrasing by the author.
– The story beginning is when the character knows there is a problem. The end of the beginning is when the character takes ownership of that problem. The middle is when the character tries to solve the problem by try fail cycles). Every attempt to fix the problem is part of the middle. the ending is when fixing the problem is successful.
– Malu = is when a story is about a time and place. Orson Scott Card would agree that if that is the purpose of the story than concentrate upon the place and time of the world. Examples: wizard of Oz, Crocodile Dundy, Dancing with wolves. Another sample is putting dragons in a previous historical event of world history or Little House on the Prairie, Gilligan’s Island.
– What the story promises in the beginning need to be achieved and be the same in the end. Don’t change the type of story midstride.
– Idea story: may be a story of someone who has been hurl by another and seeks payback so he/she hires someone to perform the task of ruining that person’s life and reputation.
– Event story: a comet hits the earth. The whole plot revolves around that key element.
Romance stories: need to introduce both partners of a couple early.
– Hooks: Specifically plot out your hooks. In a proper formatted manuscript the first 13 lines of the story is on page one. The last line on page one needs to have some hook that will motivate the reader/editor to want to read page two. Page two needs to also have a hook at the bottom of page two and for each page. A strong hook is needed at the end of chapter. a good hook is important in the opening paragraphs beginning of the story/book itself. Stephanie Myer’s vampire books did a good job on this. Even in short stories devise hooks at the bottom of each page.
– Orson Scott Card’s stories often concentrate upon three elements: Faith, Hope, Clarity. Faith: make the character believe it – Oh yeah. Hope must answer: So what? Why should I care? Clarity: huh? Story must avoid making the reader wonder what is going on.
– When having a reader critique a work, ask them when they begin to not car about the tory (mark it)
– Often a try/fail cycle might have a dialog/conversation be the first T/F. It is important o try to have that event to have already happened when the story begins. It is part of the back story and starts the story quicker. An example might be someone who has been fired and they ask their boss why. The tory begins after that dialog. This gets rid of the first try/fail cycle.
– Start the story in the middle of the event so that the reader is instantly involved. If you need back story, present it throughout the story bit by bit. An alternative is to write the back story in the beginning of the manuscript so that as a writer you can define the character and story and then delete that section of the story before submitting it.
– Research: It is good to have a research for a story but when you take a lot of time collecting information, don’t force the reader to have read all your hard work.
– Flash fiction: One good submission source is Dailysciencefiction.com which features short stories. It pays 8c a word. People can subscribe to it for free.
– A wonderful source of short fiction submission list is duotrope.com. Start submitting to these markets.
– How to handle details and setting? Just go with what you feel is wright. Follow your gut feeling of what feels right and let your audience/ editor fine you that likes your style.
– Warning: if you start with a description it usually turns out to be a weather report.
– All advices on writings given by Hemingway should be ignored. He intentionally gave bad advice. Everything he said was a lie.
– When reading a magazines, anthology of stores = pay attention to the stories you like not the ones you don’t. See what you like and want to imitate about the stories you like. Don’t try to alter your stories to imitate the ones you don’t like.
– Purchase your domain name now and start your professional author web site.

On a personal note here are some suggestions I offer. Start creating a description journal. For me it begins with certain articles from the National Geographic magazine that talks about different cultures, landscapes and architecture. I hope to have a library with a rich mix of walls, homes, roads; terrain, trees and all kinds of things inspire the little nifty details for my stories and books.

Write a story that is interesting to you. If you’re entertained, you’ll put more effort in the story.

I also remember hearing the advice to enter a scene and exit a scene as quickly as possible. That way you stick to the essentials and climax to the story. I have also received some excellent advice that you want to end a scene at some climatic moment so that people will want to turn the page. I know some writers who are excellent with this ability.

If you have suggestions, please feel free to share them in the comment section of this blog.