I Wrote a 10,000-Character Short Story in a Novel-Writing Class

I started attending a novel-writing class once a month starting this month.
While it may seem infrequent, I have to finish and submit one short story every month, so it occupies a large part of my mind.

The reason I decided to go to a novel-writing class was that I had finished a full-length novel.
Until now, I had been reading various books indiscriminately, but the desire to read more "novels" and to know more about "novels" became strong and clear only after I had written a work of my own.
I also thought, "I want to meet people who write novels."

I made discoveries right away in the trial class.

• Expanding my repertoire... Even though it's just one novel-writing class, I can meet creators of various styles, and I can go a step further than just reading their work to understand their creative intentions. After all, I can meet the people who made them. Whether they are amateurs or not, it's a rich appreciation experience.

• By grasping the basic rules, I can learn to consider the degree of deviation I want to aim for in my own work.

• Organizing knowledge through labeling... Every expression technique has a name. Whether it's editorial terms or proofreading marks, things that were cluttered in my head are getting organized. I'm starting to understand how far I can go with creative freedom and what rules are necessary to deliver a work to readers.

Before attending the class, I also read novels written by the instructor. Since the books I choose myself tend to be biased, these are works I probably wouldn't have encountered if I hadn't enrolled. That alone made me feel like I gained something.
Of course, it's fine to continue creating at your own pace and as you like, but I've come to think that people who want to create stories should try attending something like a class, even if it's for a limited period.

A pace of 10,000 characters per month

10,000 characters is an amount that can be read in about 10 to 15 minutes.
For those on the creating side who have other jobs, this might be just the right amount of text. I am currently on a summer vacation from life, so my pace is a bit slow. Still, finishing a work at a steady pace and getting it into a form that can be shown to others for the time being carries a fair amount of pressure. Since I'm an amateur, I never stop worrying about whether I can pull my ideas together into a finished work every time.

My attendance at the class has just begun, but I have already created and submitted two works. One is for the critique in the first class, and the other is for next month. I finished and sent the one for next month just yesterday.

The flow of how I finish a 10,000-character story is as follows.

My own creative process

First few days... Imagine two or three things I want to write based on intuition
Until the second week... Gathering information and scribbling based on ideas
Third week... Making notes, excerpts from materials
Fourth week... "Time to put it all together." Followed by polishing

As you can see, I spend more than two weeks on gathering and organizing information rather than the actual creation. This allocation is because I want to incorporate fantasy or sci-fi elements rather than everyday scenes, and there is a strong element of study involved. While studying, fragments of sentences I want to use in the work come to mind, so the scribbles accumulate. Perhaps you could say I've roughly finished the first draft.

Where do the ideas come from?

Rather than justネタ (neta) or ideas, I base my thinking and development on what I want to study for two weeks, or something worth chasing for two weeks. Since looking up materials can involve expenses, reading, and effort, I keep in mind what I love enough to want to pursue it that far.

Distinguishing between theme and motif

This is something I learned in the novel-writing class that I thought made sense, and it was actually good when I tried it.

In other words,a motif is something used to express a theme.That is what it is.

For example, if the theme is "life," instead of stating "life" explicitly, you might focus on "cherry blossoms" as a motif in the work to leave an impression. You can leave an impression on the reader without pushing the theme to the forefront.
I should have known that themes were important, but I hadn't really been conscious of the difference between them and motifs.

If you have a work, possibilities expand

I would like to conclude by listing a few realizations I had after finishing two 10,000-character works.

1. The relief of not ending with just a long-form novel

I was able to finish a 350,000-character novel, but I was anxious about whether I could continue creating works after that. However, two more stories have already been born. The more works you finish, the more the dots connect into lines and then into planes. Your own themes and style as a creator become that much clearer.
It was certainly a heavy burden to suddenly switch from a 350,000-character novel to a 40,000 to 100,000-character story, but 10,000 characters is just the right volume. Moreover, being able to present it—even if just to a small circle—once finished provided motivation and served as a very good step. In a sense, it might be a state of cooling down.

2. Expanding a short story into a long-form novel

I knew myself that the first 10,000-character piece I wrote was packed with information, as I had crammed in all the data I had gathered for my next long-form novel.

That said, I was able to fish the ingredients for expanding it into a long-form novel out of the ocean of my imagination during the process of writing the short story. I have a feeling that I can develop the story further by writing more into each of those parts.

3. Applying to newcomer awards for short stories

The second 10,000-character piece I wrote stayed a small work, but I felt I was able to say what I wanted to say as a work. It was only when I finished it that I realized that having a work means you can submit it somewhere.

Summary

Everyone keeps saying, "Finish your work." I agree.
When you have fragmented ideas, you tend to dream of possibilities. You might think that someday, a sea bream will bite onto the shrimp of an idea, turning it into an amazing concept.
But in reality, ideas won't grow large or reach completion unless you consciously nurture them. As you pull them out, jot them down in a notebook, tinker with them, and look them over, you can develop them into directions you hadn't noticed when they were just in your head. Or, you might notice unexpected weaknesses and be forced to abandon them.

The more works you create, the more new, concrete possibilities open up. Conversely, I realized that once you finish a work, you need to actively think about what you should do next.