Short Stories and Characters

When I first talked about short stories, I brought up that one of the problems is characters.  I meant it as a way that there are times, in short stories, where there are too many characters and you need to cut them out.  The characters that you need to cut out, especially when you're hitting the ceiling of the word count, are the ones in the background.  The ones that don't do something but you introduce them anyways because it seems like a good idea.  Those are the ones who get cut.  They wouldn't if you were writing a novel, unless an editor thought it was a good idea, but you need the words in a short story, so they go.

This post isn't talking about that though.  This post is more to remind you that, no matter what you're writing, you need to have well rounded characters.  Even though you don't have as many words as you do in a novel, your characters still have to connect to your readers.  They have to connect to the other characters in your story and feel like normal people.  That is the baseline for all stories, no matter the length - well, maybe not drabbles as those are so short, but that's what your characters should be like.

There are character templates out there, through simple Google searches, and I recommend that you try a few.  You might take some things out while making your characters, but this needs to be apart of whatever you do in the writing process.  Characters matter, as they're usually the vehicle for your story, and you should not skimp on them just because you're writing a short story.

That's it for the day, really.  It was just a PSA on not forgetting to make sure your characters shine.  Until next time, keep on writing and don't forget your characters!