Long vs Short Stories: Size Totally Matters

I'm all about the length and the width, baby. The longer the better. Oh, and when they're nice and thick too?

Books, folks, I'm talking about books.

I write novels. Not shorts, not novellas, not that gray area of a short novel/long novella. I'm lucky if I can keep 'em to a mere 100,000 words. LARCOUT rings in at 145,000 words. My CP challenged me to write an Urban Fantasy with a mere 70k. I failed. I kept it light at 85k, but added another 7k after the first round of professional edits. It's in the throes of second-round edits now that'll probably tack on another 3k minimum.

Hey, I tried.

Thing is, as a writer and a reader, I like to spend quality time in a world. More than a drive-by or a quick cuppa. I want to escape and exult in the refuge of imagination. In spending my creative capital, if you will, short stories don't provide the necessary ROI.

Sadly, in the world of self-publishing where I own all the costs, the longer the novel the more expensive it is to produce. Plus, longer novels take longer to write, so there's risk of falling off the reader's radar if you don't release a book a "timely" manner. What is "timely" is up for debate, but it's definitely more than once a year. Think more along the lines of quarterly.

Yes, I fail miserably at the "ideal release schedule" too. 

Stop snickering.

Novellas are commonly used as a marketing tactic among series indie-writers. Releasing two to four novellas a year, the authors buy themselves time in-between novel drops. The theory is the novellas maintain a spot in the reader's awareness, provide a sales boost, and can be discounted for promotions without hurting the net revenue of the series. That puts the minimum production of a barely successful indie author at four novels a year, plus two novellas, and at least one anthology contribution.

My head explodes at the notion.  

Now, when we here at the SFF Seven take our turns at writing flash fiction for you all, that's the only time I write short. And, people, I'mma tell ya, it's HARD. I have to keep repeating, "Focus on the moment. This only about the moment."  My creative brain is all, "Yeah, but, the world we could build around this..."  "FOCUS ON THE MOMENT, DAMN IT."

~clears throat~

Words, I has them in abundance. Sometimes, they're even the right words.

How long to go?

Here's the thing. the subject for this week's topic is "Why I prefer to write Long/Short fiction.” 

I prefer both.

What it comes down to for me, what it has always come down to for me, is that some stories insist on being longer and some decide they should be sorter.  Most of mine tend to go long, so I guess that's technically me answer. I write long stories because I have so much I want to say. Just yesterday I finished a short story for the New England Horror Writers that tops off just a little over 7,000 words.  For me that’s kind of short. I like to add a little backstory, I want to get to know the characters and I want to make absolutely sure that the readers get all that they came looking for when it comes to the story.

An editor once asked me if I could write a promotional story for a novel coming out and I said sure. The first time I was asked, I did around 5,000 words because the editor didn’t want to go any longer. There were space considerations as this was a promotional piece for my novel BLOOD RED that had not come out at that point. It was printed in a print run of only 250 copies. After I did that I was asked by another publisher to write a short story revolving around my character Jonathan Crowley, a supernatural hunter of all things that go bump in the night.  The story I came up with was called “Little Boy Blue,” and it’ clocks in around 15,000 words. Enough that the publisher decided to do a heavy print run, gave away copies at a couple of conventions and then sold the remainders as chapbooks for a decent amount. He probably broke even, as the books had lovely production values.

My point is, I could have made Little Boy Blue shorter, but it didn’t work for what I was doing. It needed to be longer, so I let it go where it needed to go.

I have written stories for several anthologies that had a cap—a maximum amount they can pay. As an example the editor might say I can pay you x cents per word up to 5,000 words and anything over that gets no extra money—and almost universally I have exceeded that cap without hesitation. The words want to be written.

I recently turned in a 90,000 word manuscript and the editor looked it over and asked how I’d feel about adding a but more to the story here and there, in areas he felt were a little sparing in detail. All in all, somewhere between 15,000 and 20,000 additional words. I was delighted. I felt those areas could use a little fleshing out myself, but I wanted to at least try to trim back to the agreed upon length.

I like to go long. It’s just the way I’m designed, I guess.

On Trying to Write Short(er) Again

I'm on my way to New York City today, to read at Lady Jane's Salon, hang with Ron Hogan and Megan Hart, and have lunch with my editor.

As one does.

All of this means that my post is going up a little late. Airplanes and blogging don't always play nicely together.

Our topic this week is why we prefer to write long or short.

I actually like both, which should come as a surprise to no one, since I'm always the fence-sitter in all things. I started out writing short - essays and short stories  - and these days I write long. Sometimes I write *really* long. The Talon of the Hawk came in at over 130,000 words. All of my Twelve Kingdoms and Uncharted Realms books are at least 110,000 words.

Writing short was great for me, especially to begin with. I'm not capable of pre-plotting, so writing short let me write and entire story in one sitting, while I held it and all its threads in my head. I also had little time to fit in writing back in those days, so shorter was better.

***INTERRUPTION***

So, as I sat typing this in the Dallas airport, I got the announcement that my flight to La Guardia was cancelled. Worse, they can't get me there for two days, so I'm just going home again. Nothing like a day jaunt to Dallas for lunch!

What was to be a long trip has become a short one. Sometimes it works out that way.

At any rate, in writing those fantasy novels, I discovered the great joy of writing long. I even think of it as VERY long, because it's a long wending tale across the series at this point.

Conversely, with my new Sorcerous Moons series, I've been trying to write shorter again. The first book, Lonen's War, is about 65,000 words and it's looking like the next two in the series will come out about the same. The thing is, part of why I wanted those to be shorter is that I really wanted to write a long-term, slow-burn romance. In some ways that series of three will be like one 200K book.

Or longer. I might not be able to tell it in three books. We'll see.

I try to be flexible.

I Had One Writing Ritual and I Gave It Up

I'm not a ritual type person. Pretty much I sit down and I write. The words flow and I'm happy. Or not, if it's a difficult scene!

Starting in junior high school, I did have one ritual. I'd read somewhere that creativity could be enhanced if one listened to music, which I thought sounded like s great idea. (I wish music could enhance math capabilities too, but that's another topic.) I made a lot of mix tape cd's of my favorite songs and whenever I wanted to write I'd put those on and go for it. There was no attempt by me to tailor the song selection to the theme or pace of the story, just music was enough. Typically what happened for me was I'd hear the first song and then I wouldn't hear the music at all as I became immersed in the flow of writing.

I kept that up for many years, with the variation that sometimes the sound of a specific song would seem to help me write and I'd put that song on endless replay. A lot of one of my novels was written to "The Russian Dervish" music from Riverdance, although nothing in the book remotely related to that music. Thank goodness for head phones or my family would probably have wanted me to move out!


Gary Puckett and the Union Gap had a few songs that seemed to work for one book, as did The Little River Band, and Nelson's "Can't Live Without Your Love and Affection" was killer for a certain set of scenes.


Nowadays I don't need or use music as a background for writing. I started to find it distracting and do better without any. I sit down and I write.

I DO use music sometimes to inspire creativity when I'm thinking about plots or characters, especially if I'm out cruising the freeways...So, there you have it!

My Ritual to Create Rituals

I don't know what it is about publishing a book, but every single time I do, some crisis descends, and the rituals, schedules, and discipline that got the book done and published get blown to hell. I have to reinvent my process all over again, accommodating whatever crisis has arisen this time. Can I have a ritual I'd *like* to leave behind? I nominate this one.

 

Usually rituals are lovely things designed to signal our brains that we're shifting out of our everyday world and into something other. I'm all for them. My office, when I had one, was filled with ritual items. Seriously. There's an altar in the southern window. A waterfall fountain. A salt lamp. Something to bring every element into my work space. Also - cat beds. Let's be realistic. I have long been expected to write whilst holding cat. That's more an imperative than a ritual. Book one was written in this office.

 

 I miss having a dedicated desk and office chair. That much is true. I miss all of the accoutrement that went with the great luxury of space. What I do NOT miss is the heating bill that went with this particular space and the fact that it was hell and gone from everywhere ever. So rituals of all kinds have fallen by the wayside. Desks gave way to the ergonomically egregious salon table, or to writing with my laptop in my lap. Book 2 was written with the laptop in my lap while I sat in the cockpit. Took weeks to unkink my neck and back.

 

Then I had to establish a new ritual, preferably a healthier one - that of riding in to the tea shop every day to write. Books three and five were written there while sipping various murky brews. Book four was written at the boat and while I waited during a long string of vet appointments when the eldest boy took ill. (He's now fine for a 17.5 year old with liver disease.)

 

But, on the heels of publishing book five and in the midst of writing book six, the tea shop can no longer be my go-to. I 100% regret the loss of that ritual, but it can't be helped. So here I am. Gritting my teeth in the center of the ritual that requires me to find a new ritual. Quite by accident, I may have found it earlier today. While waiting for the laundry in the Laundromat, I pounded out 800 words in an hour. Hush. For me, that's incredible. My point is that if this bears out, I may wear every last stitch of clothing out by washing them. Not sure how a Laundromat is germane to a historical fantasy, but what ever. Writing, man. The glamor never ends.

 

Writing Routines

I was most successful when I was most productive. But, as we all know, 'things' change. I overestimated the load I could actually carry.

Once upon a time, I had a lifestyle that allowed me to prioritize writing. As with many things, repetitive function made it better and easier. Then things changed and my creative 'me' time shrank exponentially.

As a creative spirit, losing that time to access the creativity meant the task grew harder. Think of it like an internal pipeline through which creativity flows because your brain is actively pumping the creative juices. But then the mind has to do other non-creative things for a large majority of time. Instead of creativity flowing unhindered, theres this OTHER INFORMATION showing up in the mental real estate, and it JUST KEEPS SHOWING UP. It has to go somewhere, so it gets stuck in this conduit or that pipeline in an attempt to keep something still flowing...and before you know it,  the creative juices are dammed up because other things are taking priority.

That's the creative person's Hell.

Now, I feel like the mental real estate is clearing and the creativity is starting to flow again. It feels natural, not forced.

Goddamn, I've missed this.

The One Writing Ritual I Wish I Still Had

Once upon a time I had writing rituals. No, wait, I still do. I'm a creature of habit.  What habit fell by the wayside over the last ten years of being a writer? The one I am most ashamed I've let slip. ~hangs head~

Reading regularly. 

The ritual used to be write 5 days, read 2 days. Write 5, read 2.  Never read the genre or sub-genre in which I was writing. Different genres--even non-fiction--were necessary to unclog creative paths and to allow my mind to explore strange rabbit holes.

Lately, I write every day, working on the same story. No breaks until the WiP is done. Trust me, that's not only a bad idea; it's worse in implementation. Especially since I write so slowly. It leads to work-avoidance, burnout, and obsessing over the wrong things.

The other reason I broke the habit? I'm not proud to say it's gotten harder and harder for me to park my "editor" mode when I pick up someone else's work. I've spent a lot of money on books that I cannot finish. I get angry at the author for not trying harder. I'm furious at the editor for not insisting on certain fixes. It's all the criticism I heap on myself being redirected at someone else's finished product. I got issues. I know.

Maybe I'll try to get back on the reading-regularly bandwagon in 2017. I miss it. Like that dear friend I keep meaning to call yet never do.

#BadAuthor

Treasured Writing Rituals I've Discarded

In honor of this week's topic -  a writing routine we used to depend on but changed and why - I dragged out this old photo of me at my very first book signing. That's January of 2004, when my essay collection, WYOMING TRUCKS, TRUE LOVE AND THE WEATHER CHANNEL, came out. I look so fresh-faced and excited. You can practically see the visions of sugarplums and lucrative multi-book contracts dancing in my head.

~pets past self~

That was before I'd even contemplated writing a novel, or really much fiction at all. And I had lousy writing habits. Actually, I take that back. I had no writing habits. Sure, I'd gone to getting up very early (4 or 5 am) and writing before the day job in the morning. But, in order to coax myself into writing at all, I'd allowed myself to write whatever I wanted to. I don't regret this choice - because it did get me writing - but that's why I ended up with lots and lots of essays. Hey, I ended up with an essay collection published by a university press, so it wasn't a bad thing at all.

But I needed to do better, particularly when I tried writing longer works.

So I developed rituals. I had a dedicated writing desk. (By then I worked the day job from home and, while I had a single room for my office, I had plenty of room for two desks.) I played certain music (the soundtracks of The Mission and Master and Commander were my go-to's.) I did all sorts of things - read the (small-town, very thin) newspaper. I wore certain clothes for writing and others for the day job. A few other things I can't even remember.

You know what? Those things totally worked. I highly recommend establishing rituals, because all of those things, done stepwise, put my mind into the state where the words could flow. They served as a cue to do *that* kind of work.

But I don't do any of them anymore. I prefer silence when I write. I have only one desk - because we live in a much smaller house and I only have room for one. (I write full-time now, but as recently as last fall I was still doing the day job from home and I simply set up two monitors on the one desk. I read most of my news online, but only later, when it won't distract me from writing.

You know why I gave up all those rituals?

I didn't need them anymore.

I didn't even deliberately give them up. They just kind of ... fell by the wayside. As my writing habit became a firmly entrenched part of my day, I started forgetting about the rituals. I just dove straight into writing.

I suspect that's one way of knowing when you've got it down.