Can short stories have too much going on? I tend to be pretty plot heavy in my short stories. I like it when things are going on. I love reading complex short stories and try to do the same in my own writing. But can you have too much going on in a short story? Does too complex equal confusing? How do you know if there is too much going on and if a story is, perhaps, too complex for its own good? I recently finished a story, and I feel like maybe it is more than one story. I want it to work as one story, though. For all you other plot-heavy writers, how do you make a complex story with a lot of moving parts fit into one piece? I feel like if I can make this work, it will be great. Right now, it reads like a 25-page overview or outline for a novel. But I'm not trying to make this a novel.
How do you know if too much is happening?
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I like character-focused stories, not plot-focused, so I probably can't be of much help. However, I think most short stories I read tend to have one plot, with an occasional subplot, and no more.
Yes, stories can have too much going on, they can have too many characters, etc. Both are common problems with new writers.
A story should never be wider than it is long. This doesn't mean a short story can't be pretty wide, but it's very easy to either confuse readers, or to skimp on story, or characterization, or description, because there's too much action for the length.
A story should never be wider than it is long. This doesn't mean a short story can't be pretty wide, but it's very easy to either confuse readers, or to skimp on story, or characterization, or description, because there's too much action for the length.
Let's also not forget about the third dimension, depth. It helps to have some.
caw
I don't understand this. Wouldn't it depend on the story and the quality of the writing?
IMO, the only things that would confuse a reader are unclear writing or the reader's own limited intelligence. I see no reason why a reader who could follow along in a complicated novel couldn't do so in a complicated short story. What does story length have to do with it?
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Reader confusion aside, if you have fifty characters in a 5,000-word story, it's going to be pretty hard to have sufficient depth for any one of them.
Yeah, but the same could be said for an average-length novel, so it's kind of a moot point.
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