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didi768

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Went back to a story I started that I was told switched voice too much (and that I should just die) and tried to fix it, then realized that I truly have ZERO interest in writing novels. Now READING novels is another story. I can't stop. So why is it every time I crack my book open I want to go write again??
I mean, I love to write short fiction and flash fiction, just not longer fiction where I have to describe things like the weather and surroundings. Ish. I hate it. I should write plays because I love writing dialogue and I think I do well at that. So I'm glad I figured this out today. I will work mainly on the short stuff, the stuff that makes a point faster. That is unless God has other plans LOL.
 

Orianna2000

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There's nothing wrong with being a short story writer, if that's what you're most comfortable writing.

I started out writing short stories. I gradually lengthened them to novellas, then eventually, I wrote a full-length novel. And then another. Now I can't seem to write short stories! I love novel-writing, but that's me. If you enjoy writing short stories, then do it. :)
 

Jamesaritchie

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Went back to a story I started that I was told switched voice too much (and that I should just die) and tried to fix it, then realized that I truly have ZERO interest in writing novels. Now READING novels is another story. I can't stop. So why is it every time I crack my book open I want to go write again??
I mean, I love to write short fiction and flash fiction, just not longer fiction where I have to describe things like the weather and surroundings. Ish. I hate it. I should write plays because I love writing dialogue and I think I do well at that. So I'm glad I figured this out today. I will work mainly on the short stuff, the stuff that makes a point faster. That is unless God has other plans LOL.

There's nothing whatsoever wrong with writing only short stories. You would be in very good company.

Now, weathwer is no more important in novels than in short stories, but if you want to sell short stories, surroundings are just as important. Probably more so.
 

Mr Flibble

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Who says you have to write weather and stuff into novels? Who says shorts should have no setting described? A short with no setting is boring to me, just as a novel with no setting is (unless it is super SUPER clever).

Gratuitous description is gratuitous wherever it turns up. I write second world fantasy and I prolly do less description than a fair few contemp authors I can name.

Not wanting to do description is no reason not to try long form

That you don't get on with it is. But don't blame a fictitious need for something.
 

VeryBigBeard

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I was told switched voice too much (and that I should just die) and tried to fix it

Geez. Who said that? Someone who gives advice along with that kind of suggestion probably isn't worth listening to, for advice or for anything much.
 

VeryBigBeard

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I was also wondering what "switched voice" meant. Maybe switched tense or POV, but those are really different things and considering this and the other advice given, this doesn't sound like someone who should be treated as anything more than a reader who didn't like something and isn't capable of expressing that very clearly. Those happen. Move on when you can and do what feels right by you.
 

PandaMan

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I don't have a clue what "switched voice" means.

caw

I think the OP means head-hopping, changing from one character's voice to another. At least, that's what I took it as.
 

Jamesaritchie

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I think the OP means head-hopping, changing from one character's voice to another. At least, that's what I took it as.

I don't know if it's right, but that's how I took it, too.
 

Sage

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I assumed it meant that the voice was inconsistent, but I bet head-hopping is closer to the truth.
 

The Package

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I think the OP means head-hopping, changing from one character's voice to another. At least, that's what I took it as.

Or that the narrators voice isn't consistent maybe.

"People walked by wearing stupid, feathery hats, and chatting about their stupid, pretentious wants and needs. But on the eves of the morrow, all shall change. And it shall change for the better."

It's like the narrator suddenly became 12th century.
 

shortstorymachinist

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My money is on head hopping, and that's not always bad, OP. It depends on how it's managed, how smoothly you signpost the transitions between perspectives.
 

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Didi, one of the ideas growing in my head is a historical novel based on my great-umpth grandmother trying to get a widow's pension after the Civil War. But to be honest, it just isn't novel-length material. So I've been breaking it into short stories, each story about a critical character in this small town: her son who had to brave three days in the woods, the hated town banker who saved the town's mill with his own money (but nobody knows), the funeral of the widow's last child, the marriage of two people interrupted by a bank robbery, etc.

My mechanism for tying all the stories together into a novel is an introductory letter written by an aging great-grandmother to her two-year old great-granddaughter. In the letter, the old woman says that with her failing health, she will never be able to tell the stories of her family to the great-granddaughter in person, but she can put pen to paper so that someday the great-granddaughter will know where her people came from.
 
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