Writing Excuses Transcripts

Writing Excuses 12.33: How to be Brief, Yet Powerful

From http://www.writingexcuses.com/2017/08/13/12-33-how-to-be-brief-yet-powerful/

Key Points: Brevity, it's not just for short stories! How to get an idea across in a brief number of words. Start by honing in on what you want to tell, during the conception phase. Start with your character, what do they want, what are they doing to try to get it, and what obstacles do they have to overcome? Instead of punch-by-punch action scenes, try an emotional buildup, one headbutt, and the effects of that. Make sure that readers know what is at stake. Specifically. The consequences of failure. Look for powerful moments. Use the cold open! Short story titles frame the story, and often are longer. Look for resonant phrases, or borrow from quotes. To evoke a whole world, be specific about one thing. Food is often good for this. Knowing that a reader will probably read a short fiction piece in one sitting, and only read it once, may affect pacing, paragraphing, and emphasis. Many stories are competent, but forgettable. Make your characters specific, give the reader an emotional connection to the story, make it particular. "The more specific you are, the more universal it becomes."
( Emotional buildup, punch, and consequences? )

[Brandon] This has been a really good discussion. I'm actually going to have to call it here. But Mary has some homework for us.
[Mary] Yes. What I want you to do is we're going to start from a concept. This is a thing that I wind up doing… Weirdly, I have typewriters and I will set up at a convention and I will sit down and I will write a short fiction… Piece of short fiction on demand. So what I want you to do is basically this. You're going to pick a character. An object. And a genre. Then you're going to write 250 words. That 250…
[Brandon] Only 250?
[Mary] Only 250 words. One page. That needs to have a beginning, a middle, and an end. Which means, just in case you're thinking about this already, that means that it is one try-fail cycle. So one character, one object, one location. Now if you want to bring in another character, that's fine. But be aware that every time you add another character, those are more words that you need to handle that person.
[Brandon] Awesome. That sounds really hard.
[Laughter]
[Mary Anne] Sounds like a good homework exercise for Brandon.
[Brandon] Yes. This has been Writing Excuses. I'm out of excuses, now I'll go write.