Thread: My Fiction Writing teacher's Top Ten List of things to Avoid in Short Stories

The environment here is insanely hostile. Due to various reasons I'm taking this list off. I thought it would be interesting to share. And I've certainly learned a few things.

Originally Posted by JDegg

That being said, do you guys think these are good rules to follow?

No.

I think anyone who tells you that you can't do something does not know what writing is about. I'm not a short-story writer, but even so I can't imagine anyone sticking to those ten commandments. Numbers one, two, and nine are the only ones which have merit. Most of the rest contain either the word 'don't' or 'no'. I tend to ignore such pieces of advice.

Why no guns? What if it's a short thriller story?

Why no vomiting or crying? WTF?

Why can't you kill your characters? They're your characters.

"Show, don't tell". Telling is an important part of storytelling. I can't understand why people put so much stock in this.

No guns, as I pointed out tends to run the gambit on the line between cliche and breaking rule #3. Also, you mention thrillers, and I should mention that these are rules meant for those of us aimed at writing literary short stories, closer to real life. Having a detective or active police officer character would be frowned upon unless it was done cleverly, yet it would probably still break rule #1.

Now if it were some super patriotic gun nut that would probably be a different story entirely. Then again these are mostly guidelines, not strict unbreakable rules.

As for killing them, you don't want to kill characters in a short story because you will likely not have set up the required emotions to show the passing of this person in a moving realistic way. That being said, I turned in a story this semester where a character died on page 4, though she was set up as a dying person immediately and she really enjoyed the story.

Again, guidelines, not rules. Specifically tips. As for show don't tell, go read any story that is made entirely of exposition and tell me its better than a story entirely made of scenes. The real rule would translate better to "more scene than exposition."

The crying/vomit/gun thing is pretty random. He forgot about the story beginning with the MC waking up. And my favorite -- the story that starts with a weather report.

I think most of these are good rules to follow, but here are my thoughts on them. A couple of them don't make much sense to me.

1.) On general principle I agree with this one.
2.) Again, this one is usually a good idea -- although there are going to be the occasional types of stories where it might work.
3.) I don't agree with this one. If it adds to the story it's fine in my book. From what you say it sounds like the teacher just doesn't believe the class has the literary skills to pull it off effectively, which I wouldn't know one way or the other. But as a general concept I don't see a problem with killing off your characters, as long as it's not superficial or done just for "shock value."
4.) I would mostly agree with this. But I guess it depends on what you call a coincidence -- I could imagine a story that begins when a poverty-stricken bum finds a winning lottery ticket, or something. Again, it's mainly in the execution.
5.) I would agree with this but there's a flip side to it too -- sometimes beginning writers make every little action in a story this big, elaborate description, which can be unnecessary.
6.) This sounds like a pretty good idea in most situations.
7.) I'm curious as to whether or not your teacher finds that there's too much of this in books already. Why does he say "don't use them"? That seems pretty restrictive. I would say that you don't have to write out the sounds of them, like I wouldn't have a vomiting character saying out loud: "Hurk... blgh... BLLEEEECCCCHHH!" But if the story calls for either, I don't see the harm.
8.) I totally disagree with this one. I admit many movies and books feature guns and violence but unless you're planning to eliminate an entire genre of fiction I don't see how you could always adhere to this. It seems like a blanket statement to say you should not use them at all.
9.) I would agree with this one. I'm guilty of writing way too much dialogue in my work.
10.) This one sounds kind of like it was made in jest... not really sure what to make of it. I've laughed at some things I've written when sober, and also cringed at some things I've written when drunk, so I dunno...

Agree with number six completely. Of course, if the writer is trying his best to show, and not tell, then he is probably already doing this.

All of these seem like guidelines for literary / slice-of-life type fiction. I agree that some of them seem pretty random -- the guns and vomiting stuff -- but for the most part it's all pretty good advice. Regarding number nine, I think it's better to say dialogue should be oblique, as if both sides have their own scripts that they never deviate from. That's kind of an easy way to make dialogue interesting and tense.

1. No cliches. Rather obvious but nevertheless.
Nothing specific to short stories here.

2. Do not change tense midstory or point of view midparagraph.
Nothing specific to short stories here, either.

3. Don't kill your characters. It often only serves to cut short their arcs. Definitely DO NOT KILL YOUR PROTAGONIST.
Silly rule. If it makes sense in the context of the story to kill a character, do so. Story trumps rules.

4. No coincidences. I.e. your budding film student doesn't run into Steven Spielberg and get a once in a lifetime opportunity to hit it big.
Nothing specific to short stories here either.

5. Show, don't tell (I thought we were avoiding cliches). Now in practice I'll say this isn't a golden rule, but finding the correct put telling into practice can be difficult.
Nothing specific to short stories here.

6. Do not coach the reader. In short, don't use lines like, "He chuckled to himself," don't tell your reader what emotion they or the characters should be feeling. To add to this, don't use sound words. I.e. Ahah! or Hahaha! or anything along those lines. A character's actions and responses should be characterized in their dialogue or following actions, not through the use of sounds or coaching exposition.
Nothing specific to short stories.

7. Don't use vomiting or crying. If they are there they cannot be the vocal point of the scene.
Silly rule. If it makes sense in the context of the story to have a character vomiting or crying, do so. Story trumps rules.

8. No guns or gunplay. These have been used too much and would perhaps make it intensely hard or unbelievable to follow Rule #3.
Silly rule. If it makes sense in the context of the story to have guns or gunplay, do so. Story trumps rules.

9. Dialogue should be impressionistic not necessarily realistic. Talking in life and talking in stories are two different things. This doesn't mean to neglect dialect, but don't up play needless speech between two people without characterization or story movement coming into play. You don't have time to waste in a short story.
Nothing specific to short stories here - unless this person believes that time can be wasted in novels. I sure hope that's not what's being suggested.

10. "If you are ever tempted to put your head to the keyboard and laugh out loud at what you've just written, you probably shouldn't drink while you're writing."
Nothing specific to short stories here.

So a bit modern, but I felt these rules may help some people out as much as they have me. That being said, do you guys think these are good rules to follow? Any changes or debates on the usefulness of any particular rules?
I think they're a waste of time.

Also for anyone who is curious, my teacher's name is Toni Graham.
Tsk. No need to name and shame

I didn't notice where he said any of it was necessarily specific to short stories.

Originally Posted by JosephB

I didn't notice where he said any of it was necessarily specific to short stories.

Is that in response to my post? Title of the thread is: My Fiction Writing teacher's Top Ten List of things to Avoid in Short Stories.

Yeah, it was a response to your post. And I saw what the title of the thread is too. He didn’t say that they didn’t apply to novels or that they applied ONLY to short stories. I don’t see what difference it makes or why you’d bother to repeat it five times.

Originally Posted by JosephB

Yeah, it was a response to your post. And I saw what the title of the thread is too. He didn’t say that they didn’t apply to novels or that they applied ONLY to short stories. I don’t see what difference it makes or why you’d bother to repeat it five times.

The OP asked us for our opinions. I gave mine. Okay with you?

Get back to the subject under discussion and avoid the personal remarks, please.

Originally Posted by Rob

The OP asked us for our opinions. I gave mine. Okay with you?

Could you please try and be a tad more polite? It's annoying to see rudeness splattered across the threads.

But I agree with your first post entirely. Some of the rules have merit as loose principles for all writing, but do's/dont's have no place in writing.

The only do/don't acceptable is probably 'Don't write a list of Do's/Dont's'.

Deleted by poster.

#7 and #8 make sense if you mean that a writer shouldn't have their characters vomit, cry and shoot somebody every five seconds, but as a general rule it is rather silly, as there are many situations in which having a character cry/vomit/kill is entirely justifiable.

But I don't think that we're being pigheaded. Not intentionally, anyway.
However, the idea of crying or vomiting making a character weak is, I hope, not your teacher's line of reasoning, because it's also rather silly, as people cry or vomit for various reasons all the time.

You've stated that your teacher is an editor, but has he been a writer at any point?
Rules for editing could stand up to some battering, perhaps, but rules for writing should be flimsy and very sweeping, if you have any at all.