Short Fiction

Months ago I wrote about a short story that I was plotting, titled “The Gangsta Way.” This story was never written as I ran into a problem with the plot line and then technical problems with my laptop and other things. The problem I had with “Gangsta Way” was a question a good friend of mine asked me. In the opening scene, which was in the aftermath of gang violence at a hospital, I had a “wantabe” who was a witness to the shootings talking to a detective. My friend asked, “Why is he talking?” I responded with various reasons, as cops do apply interviewing techniques to get someone to open up with the information that they need.

Looking back, that may have been a reasonable answer. In its reasonableness it also underlined a question: How is this story any different from other crime dramas? This question that stemmed combined with the earlier one chased their tails in my mind for the last several months. I finally have an answer. The protagonist is unique and not a policeman or a gangster. Ok, I need to be mysterious here as this same problem has been coming up with a novel I am preparing to write working titled “Shattered Dreams.” Both “Gangsta Way” and “Shattered Dreams” was going to look at the world of Police Intelligence. I may still do stories like that, but I am now taking a different tack and shall see what comes out.

I hope to have “Gangsta Way” rough drafted in a few weeks. We shall see what this new idea creates.

Please visit www.davidalanlucas.com for the latest information on the articles, blogs, novels, poems, and stories that I write.

If it seems that I had stopped blogging for the last few weeks, it was because I had to. If you saw in my blogs back in June, I had problems with my laptop and had to take it in back then to be fixed. That took two weeks. Well, the problem occurred again and I have been without it for three weeks this time. At the time I am writing this blog, I still do not have it back—though it is due any day. As a back-up, I bought a netbook. So far, I like it. During this time I also have been experimenting with a new way for me to write—dictation. A new short story, whose title will change, was written this way. It needs work, but I will admit I enjoyed telling the story of Senator Leland Roma and his secret.
This short fiction story falls into the horror genre. The story opens with a United States Senator who returns home to find his home appears to be broken into. Inside he finds a beautiful woman waiting for him. Before the reader gets the wrong idea with this description, she is a lobbyist and has broken into his home to make him an offer he should not refuse. Some people say money talks, this lobbyist thinks blackmail speaks louder than money. She knows Leland has a secret and she believes that she has uncovered it—an affair with a younger woman on his staff. She further has arranged for the woman’s death and has framed Leland with evidence that he would have killed her—unless he agrees to do what the lobbyist wants.
We all have secrets. Some are not important except to us and others can be devastating. Other people—reporters, nosy neighbors, and others—will try to discover these secrets and expose them or use them for their personal gain. This lobbyist believes that she has uncovered Leland’s, and has made the secret into an illegal act that he should be afraid of. What she failed to discover was that his secret was not what she thought. A mistake she may not learn from.
Thank you for reading. Please visit www.davidalanlucas.com for updates on the articles, stories, and poems I write as well as readings I will be at and seminars I will give.

If I was to ever be asked what the advantage of writing a short fiction story has over the longer novel length, my response would not be ease of publication. It also would not be to get your name out. Nor would it be to practice your craft. While all of these may be valid points, none of these would be my number one reason. So what would be? The number one reason is that short fiction avoids the long desert walk.

What is the “long desert walk?” When you write long fiction the hardest part is the middle. You may have carefully plotted out the entire novel, scene by scene or you may just have an idea of what you want to do with your story. Either way, the beginning and the end are well formed in your mind. But, the middle ground—the wide open desert –is not so easily formed. Writing the middle of a novel is as tedious and straining as walking across the desert. Without the right supplies and motivation, you will “die” in the middle of either.

The short fiction story avoids this. Of course, it has a middle section to the story. The compactness of the short story, the need to drive on and keep the “journey” short makes the walk across the middle little more than a skip. Short fiction is a sprint compared to the longer journey of a novel. In a sprint you don’t have time to wonder “how much further” until you get to the finish line. You just run and run for the finish is not far around the bend.

Short fiction has difficulties in writing that are different from writing longer fiction. Both will consume the energy of the writer, with the difference being that the writer will not spend so much of his energy trudging across the sand dunes of the desert walk.

Thank you for reading and please visit www.davidalanlucas.com for more on the articles, blogs, novels, poems, and short stories I write.

Growing up I had a misconception about short fiction. I thought short fiction was just something that was easy to slap together and produce in great quantities. I know where I got these impressions from—from non-writing English teachers who never understood the art as an artist understands it. From lesson plans that tries to break apart the elements of a story in to unit plans without really exploring how the elements are put together. It is not their fault that writers make the art seem easy—when we know it is far from easy. We try to break it down ourselves as if it can be dissected like an insect in biology class.

The truth is that with any writing, the sum is greater than any of its parts. In short fiction, the work that is done in the plotting and the research is on par with that of a novel. The plot may be shorter, but a good short story is far from simple in its plot. It may not have as many characters or subplots, but the constraints on the story’s length forces the writer to make every word count. The short story takes our art and places it in a crucible to produce the strongest story in the shortest amount of words as possible.

Personally, I have problems with the short story. It is so tight and so condensed in plot that straight-jackets my desire to create the more complex plots that novels can allow. They are a form of the story that makes for a training ground to force the writer to improve and tighten his work. It is for that reason that I write short fiction. I may not have many short stories published—maybe I never will. The lessons I walk away with and transfer over to my long fiction only makes my noel writing stronger.

Thank you for reading and please visit www.davidalanlucas.com for more information on the articles, blogs, novels, poems, and short stories I am writing.

This is the week my blogs seem to be focusing on rescheduling priorities. If you have read my other blogs (not just in short fiction) you will have seen that I overestimated the amount of work I would be able to produce this year. In some cases I may have been too optimistic; in others it was a lack of foresight on the changes that would come into my life from the outside.

Seven months in to this year, I find myself back at the old question: “Which should a newbie writer focus on—Novels or short stories?” I am going to continue to work on both long and short fiction, but over the next 8 months, the primary focus will be on long fiction. While I am working on the long fiction, I am going to begin plotting and re-plotting the crime drama short story “The Gangsta Way” and the modern fiction story “Dance of Death.”

Thank you for reading and please visit www.davidalanlucas.com for the latest information on the articles, blogs, novels, poems, and short stories I write.