writing – Phil Slattery, Writer, Publisher

Understanding Flash Fiction to Novels: A Writer’s Guide — Slattery’s Tao of Writing, Part 7

If you have been reading my blog regularly, you know that I believe that a work should be as short as possible, because, like a bullet, the smaller it is, the more powerful it is. I try not to have a preconceived notion of how long a story should be. I try to just write the story, keeping it as short as possible, and let the story decide its own length.

To market my works I use duotrope.com, who uses the following categories of length, which often vary from publishers’ definitions of these same categories:

Flash fiction: less than 1,000 words
Short Story: 1,000-7,500
Novelette: 7,500-15,000
Novella: 15,000-40,000
Novel: Over 40,000

One of the first things I have learned is that there are no hard and fast definitions for each of the above categories, only generally-accepted guidelines that change over time. My rule of thumb is that flash fiction is anything under 1,000 words; short stories are generally 1,000 to 17,500-20,000; novellas are 17,500-20,000 words to 40,000; and anything over 40,000 is a novel.

Now it seems that the Duotrope guidelines are reasonably accurate with the following exceptions: short stories are still often considered to be works up to 10,000 words; novelettes are generally from about 10,000 to 17,500 or thereabouts; novellas from 17,500 to 40,000-50,000 or even higher; and novels beginning sometimes at 40,000-50,000 or even 70,000 or greater.

However, as several websites, authors, critics, and publishers point out, categories by length are often arbitrary guidelines produced by publishers. From an artistic standpoint, what determines the category of a work is its length compared to the complexity of its plot.

A short story of 2,000 words does not have space to explore character development, subplots, or multiple events. A 2,000-word short story usually describes only a single event and may give some insight into the characters. The even shorter category of flash fiction and its subcategories, such as smokelongs and microfiction, have no space for anything more complex than a good twist to its ending. Examples of some of the more famous short stories are:

“The Black Cat” by Edgar Allan Poe
“The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson
“The Lottery Ticket” by Anton Chekhov
“To Build a Fire” by Jack London
“A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner
“Hills Like White Elephants” by Ernest Hemingway
“The Gift of the Magi” by O. Henry
“The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
“An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” by Ambrose Bierce

A novelette can have some of the complexities of a novel, but usually deals with a single event, and it is briefer than a novella. Maybe novella lite is a more appropriate term than novelette. In my humble opinion, “novelette” is either just a little more complex form of a short story or it is just a term to boost the egos of those who write a bit more complex short stories but haven’t progressed to writing novellas.

A novella can have many of the complexities of a novel, but usually deals with a single event. In the US, I think this is an underused classification, perhaps because novellas are less marketable in the US than the longer novels. That is a shame as some of the most famous and most powerful works in world literature are novellas. Here are a few examples:

Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
The Stranger by Albert Camus
Breakfast at Tiffany’s by Truman Capote
The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka
Animal Farm by George Orwell
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

At the other end of the scale from the short story sits the novel, which can include all the aforementioned complexities of character development, subplots, and multiple events. Examples of famous novels are:

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Moby Dick by Herman Melville
All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque

Unfortunately, trying to categorize a work based on its relative complexity is a complex task in its own right, which is undoubtedly why the much simpler method of categorization by word count dominates the literary world.

So what does all this mean for the writer?

There must be a balance between length and complexity in a work if it is to be considered as serious writing by the literary world. If a work is too complex for its length, it may be seen as muddled, confused, puzzling, or even unintelligible. If it is not sufficiently complex for its length, it may be seen as wordy, boring, and unnecessarily long.

The best a writer can do is to keep the work as short and powerful as possible, making the story only as complex as is necessary in order to bring out the intellectual and emotional nuances that will enable the reader to live the work vicariously. If that is done, the length and category will take care of themselves.

How will the writer know when a work is of sufficient complexity compared to its length?

There can be no hard and fast rule or guidance on this. It is subjective, therefore the writer must have an innate “feel” for this balance. The best way to develop this feel is probably just to read as much as you possibly can of the acknowledged masters of each category. Yes, you could obtain a Ph.D. in World or English Literature, but to get that, you will still have to read a lot of novels, novellas, and short stories, but you will also have to listen to a series of professors teaching the accepted views on each, when you want to develop your own creative viewpoint. I am not saying that is without merit, because in order to think outside the box, you have to be familiar with the box, which is what any degree teaches. This, of course, begs the question of how essential a college or post-graduate degree is to write well. All I can say is to look up the biographies of those considered masters of the art and find out what degrees they had. Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Poe, Flaubert, Conrad, and many others had no academic degrees. Many, like Hemingway, had experience in journalism or just felt compelled to write since they were children. This is a fascinating subject and would be well worth your time to research.

AI generated image from Pixabay

Writing for Decision Makers: Key Strategies Unveiled

From 1989 to 1991 I worked at the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) in Washington, DC. Part of my duties included writing short briefing papers for high-level Pentagon and State Department officials. As part of my training, I took a DIA course called Writing for Decisionmakers. Its aim was to teach analysts to write short briefing papers for users who would be under daunting workloads and considerable time constraints. These papers were to be superficial treatments of complex topics, so that a diplomat, who had never been to a country, could read these on their first trip there and familiarize him/herself with the situation waiting. Topics could be anything from the biographies of officials he/she would meet to the operational status of an air force or air defense command or navy, etc.

The papers we had to write had to be no more than the front and back of a single sheet of paper with the more graphics (pie charts, maps, etc.) and the more white space the better. If I recall correctly, the text could be single-spaced.

This was the only true writing course I ever had and the lessons I garnered from it have lasted decades. For your enjoyment and edification, here are the lessons from it and from experience that have lingered for over thirty years.

The first lesson I learned about writing these papers, though from experience and not from this course in particular, was how to take my broad knowledge of a subject and boil it down to its essence, down to the critical bullet points that official would need. This I had to learn on my own through trial and error, but the paper format did help somewhat, because each paper had to begin with a two to three line executive summary, so that if the official had almost no time, he/she could read that summary, know the most important point(s) of the paper, and decide whether to read the rest.

Over the years, using my lessons learned from writing executive summaries plus lessons from other organizations and my experience giving numerous briefings and presentations, I found that the best way to write official documents and most non-fiction material (and for writing a speech) is to write it like a newspaper article: put the most important point as the first sentence in the text. Then the second most important point is the second sentence, the third most important point is the third sentence and so forth. Then if the reader reads nothing but that first sentence and is suddenly called away onto some emergency, they still know the most important point of your document.

The next lesson was to use short, declarative sentences in the present tense. This keeps the action flowing and lets the reader know exactly what is happening at the moment he/she is reading the document. It also lets the reader know exactly who is performing which action. For the purposes of writing fiction, this taught me that packing more action into a sentence keeps the story from being boring.

The third most important lesson I learned was to eschew the passive tense. Passive tense is used a lot in government organizations, because it simply states that an action has taken place but doesn’t have to say who performed that action. Therefore, it is useful for avoiding blame for some snafu or to avoid pointing out who is responsible (for example your supervisor, your colleague, or a combination of people) if you want them to avoid blame for something or if you want to ensure they receive the blame for something. That is cold to say, but it is the reality of bureaucratic Realpolitik.

Finally, one critical lesson was to use as few words as possible (which Strunk and White’s Elements of Style also advises). Do this by packing as much meaning into each word as possible by using words precisely and avoiding adverbs. Each word has a specific meaning. Find the word whose meaning reflects precisely the action you are describing. Why say “John walked slowly and lazily into the room”, when you can be more descriptive and more precise by saying “John sauntered into the room”? Using specific, meaning-charged words also packs power into whatever you are writing. Why would you say “Joe went to the store” when you can pack more meaning and action into the sentence by saying “Joe raced to the 7-11 in his ’78 Camaro”?

A good example of a sentence that would benefit from these lessons would be:

At this moment in time no changes in enemy operations have been observed by our local personnel.

That is a good example of what I think of as governmentese.

A little thought shows that:

“At this moment in time” = now. But you don’t need now, because the verb is present tense, which also equates to now.

Now change from passive voice to active and the result is:

Our local personnel have observed no changes in enemy operations.

Why not say: Our local personnel have not observed any changes in enemy operations. ?

The first example contains nine words. The second example contains eleven.

You may also notice a device I use which is technically correct and which helps understanding. I spelled out the numbers 9 and 11 versus using the numerals. Different style guides have varied guidance on this, but this is a good, general rule of thumb from Grammarly:

It is generally best to write out numbers from zero to one hundred in nontechnical writing. In scientific and technical writing, the prevailing style is to write out numbers under ten. While there are exceptions to these rules, your predominant concern should be expressing numbers consistently.

What I like about this is that if you have a single number, it prevents changing the entire meaning of not only a sentence, but of a paper, if you have a typo. Consider the sentence:

3 strikes and you’re out.

A typo changes it to: 5 strikes and you’re out. This is bad if you are writing the Official Baseball Rules, published by Major League Baseball. It is incredibly bad if the typo goes unnoticed and is published. But if you write out the number and have a typo, it may look like this:

Threy strikes and you’re out.

Even if you are not familiar with baseball, you know what the author intended the number to be. If it manages to go to print, you look like an idiot, but everyone who reads it knows what you meant.

My personal preference is to go with writing out numbers under a hundred whenever I can and ones over a hundred if they are important. Of course, I use numerals when it is practical to do so.

Someone I knew who used to be a bank teller told me that banks never look at the numbers of an amount on a check. They always go by what is spelled out on the line below. This is wise. Likewise, I write out any critical number in any document just to be certain that I cannot be misunderstood, or that the meaning of the entire document cannot be changed by a typo.

Another example: suppose you gave an organization a promise to pay them $1,000, but a typo changed it to $3,000. It would have been better just to write out one-thousand dollars. Also, it is harder for someone to deliberately cheat you out of more than you owe.

These are just a few thoughts on my philosophy of writing and how it has developed over the years. Stay tuned. More are coming.

I hope these few pointers help in your writing experience.

Image generated by AI.

Stories vs. Story Lines

An idea occurred to me just now. I was scheduling the story “A Finger in the Stream of Time” by Mike Lee to appear later today in The Chamber. In one phase of the story, the main character and others are shooting pool. I used a photo of a pool player lining up a shot of the eight-ball into a corner pocket as the usual illustration. I was thinking about stories and time and how the balls bounce around on a pool table. Then something occurred to me.

Imagine our lives as balls bouncing around on a pool table as shown by the squiggly lines in the diagram above. A story is a section removed from that diagram (the red box) showing where the lives (or story lines) of the characters intersect.

In many instances, the trick of an excellent story is to show how the lives inside the box connect to their courses and their progression outside the box.

Too simplistic? Granted, I have only just now come up with this idea, but some vague feeling in the back of my head intuitively tells me that the more one thinks about it, the more profound it will become. For example, how would you connect the events in the left end of the purple line to the events in the right end of the dark blue line without leaving the confines of the red box? How would you connect the events in the right end of the cyan line to the events in the right end of the brown line? That would be a parallel storyline, right? But you must stay within the confines of your story in the red box.

Confused? I am too. But I have a nagging feeling that there is more to this than meets the eye. So, I had to get it out of my system and write it up.

Of course, maybe all this means is that I haven’t had enough coffee this morning or enough sleep last night.

What do you think? What ideas does this diagram stimulate in your head?

The Non-Written Not-Rule on Paragraph Length #Writing #Author #Advice — James Harringtons Creative Work

I wanted to ask you about chapters. I’m heavily into the re-write of mine. I’ve been putting a lot more detail which means some of my chapters have become a lot bigger. In your view what’s the maximum word count for a chapter? Is it okay to have a 3k or even 5k one if […]
The Non-Written Not-Rule on Paragraph Length #Writing #Author #Advice — James Harringtons Creative Work

For a Writer It’s All About Story

Here’s another good talk about writing by UCLA professor Richard Walter.

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How Do You Know You’re Good Enough as a Writer?

I came across this gem of UCLA professor Richard Walter talking about how does someone know that he/she is good enough to be a writer. Even though he is talking specifically about screenwriting, I can relate to a lot of what he says.

I am up late tonight. I don’t have insomnia per se at the moment, but I am only now starting to feel sleepy–and it’s 4:00 a.m.

I am, of course, surfing YouTube. I came across this gem of UCLA professor Richard Walter talking about how does someone know that he/she is good enough to be a writer. Even though he is talking specifically about screenwriting, I can relate to a lot of what he says.

Check it out.

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