While trying to track down a quotation from Ray Bradbury, I found a lovely post about Ray Bradbury giving 12 pieces of writing advice to young authors. It is an interesting list, and I may have to keep several of the points in mind. This is in addition to needing to read more Bradbury because his writing style is fantastic. His prose has this lyrical quality that makes it roll of the tongue. (I am well aware I geek out about his writing style, but if you haven’t read Fahrenheit 451, for instance, you might enjoy putting that on your reading list).
As for the quotation in question, the first bullet in the above article is as follows:
- Don’t start out writing novels. They take too long. Begin your writing life instead by cranking out “a hell of a lot of short stories,” as many as one per week. Take a year to do it; he claims that it simply isn’t possible to write 52 bad short stories in a row. He waited until the age of 30 to write his first novel, Fahrenheit 451. “Worth waiting for, huh?”
Now, ignoring the fact that I jumped into novels way before now (and I’m already the age Bradbury was when he started his first novel), I have been wondering about this short story idea. It does seem quite plausible that 52 bad short stories in a row would be an unlikely outcome.
I think most of the reason I have generally avoided writing short stories is that in my attempts to write short stories, the feedback comes back saying “I can’t wait for the next chapter.” That said, it does seem like short stories would be good for quite a few aspects of writing. These include:
- Writing about assorted characters or events from my novels that don’t get their own discussion
- Writing in a different genre than what I’m used to.
- Simply put, practice. Practice for pacing. Practice for developing characters. Practice for working through the writing process (plotting, drafting, revising, editing).
- A short (possibly even set) word count also seems like it would serve a similar purpose to NaNoWriMo. Instead of a word goal to reach, it’s a word limit to not exceed, and that would help to make sure the story does not exceed its bounds.
I know with all my projects, ideas, and hobbies, I am running the risk of splitting myself in too many directions, but that’s part of why I’m merely pondering most things as I’m working on crafting a schedule. I’m not sure if that is a weekly or monthly schedule, detailed or vague… I’m just trying to see what works for me.
If I end up doing this short story a week/fortnight/month, I get the feeling my plan will be something along the lines of say 3,000 to 5,000 words per story on a fortnightly basis. It might be shorter (or longer) depending on the actual timeframe. Or the word count and time might change depending on how ‘short’ the story is.
I was thinking at some point it might be fun to do a set of novellas detailing the findings of my assorted races, for instance.
What kind of stories do you prefer (for either writing or reading)? Would you ever consider attempting a story per week? Did you keep reading this post purely because you also like Ray Bradbury? I would love to hear from you!
~ Theresa
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