Zen and the Art of Writing Short

I lied. There is no zen. I am many things, but zen is rarely one of them. Unless there is a zen practice that touts eating cookies, watching sitcoms and wailing to all and sundry about your problems. Cuz I do that.

But I will talk about writing short. Well, writing short contemporaries anyway, but if you write other sub genres some of this may still be able to be tweaked to apply to you.

I write short. It’s what I do. I write a 50K word novels and in the grand scheme of things, that is short.

Right now, I’m working on my very first novella and it is going to be 15K words. And that is REALLY short. So as I try to apply what I know about writing in general and condense it more than I already do, I thought I would remind you (and me) about the things that make short books successful short books.

When you write short, the one thing you do not want to sacrifice is emotion. You can cut out extra characters, extra scenes, but do NOT cut the emotion. I’ve seen it happen. I’ve read shorter books where the writer was trying to squeeze in the same amount of action you might find in a novel that’s twice as long. Subplots and secondary characters, and a scene that’s only there to be amusing and doesn’t advance…well…anything!!

With a category length book, or a novella, each scene has to count. It has to advance the plot, the character arc, the central romantic relationship. (advance it, or pull it backward, but it was to serve a clear purpose.)

Other people do it differently, but the way I’ve chosen to execute my 50K books is to keep it dual POV. Hero and heroine only. This helps me keep the focus on them. And in a book that short, the focus really needs to be on them. I find this a simpler way to ensure it happens, which is why I choose to do it that way.

As a reader, I feel cheated when I feel like I didn’t get the story of the hero and heroine. When I read romances (and that’s pretty much all I read…) I want the romance. I want the emotion of the romance. I want it more than funny vignettes about their childhoods. I want it more than cute scenes with the heroine and her BFF. That’s not to say these things don’t ever work in category or novella length books. It’s always about the execution. But if you find yourself battling time constraints, I move that it’s those things that get the chop.

Short doesn’t mean less emotion. It doesn’t mean less character development. It means a tighter focus on that central element of the story, which, in a romance, is that relationship between the hero and heroine.

Very often in category romance, the internal conflict is the key focus while external becomes more peripheral. This allows for that strong emotion, and it helps keep your leads on the screen together.

Also, very often in category, the hero and heroine work those internal issues out together, rather than with the help of side characters. This, again, is about keeping the focus in tight. The black moment is often more successful when it stems from the internal conflict (that ‘breaking point’ we talked about in the character torture post), not a big misunderstanding or the sudden appearance of zombies. (Unless you established that the zombiepocalypse was coming…) The resolution is also more successful when it comes from the hero and heroine, and not with too much pushing from outside influencers.

And now, I shall do a Maisey List. One which I shall be referring to as I try to apply all of this to…*gasp* 15K words.

1. Less words, not less emotion

2. Less words, not less romance

3. Minimize those extra characters

4. Keep the focus on the hero and heroine

5. Make sure each scene affects the hero and heroine’s relationship in some way

6. Major turning points should be triggered by the characters’ conflicts

7. Googling David Gandy can help you out of a slump

Okay. I’m gonna keep that list handy and refer to it while I work on the Jilted Sheikh and his Runaway Heiress. (FYI, the fact that the hero is a sheikh is based on a twitter vote…behold, your power!!)