: Re: show-don't tell with word limit I've signed up for a short story contest where the word limit is 5000 words. In show-don't tell, one invariably uses more words showing than telling. I'm worried

@Angie602

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Brace yourself for some serious realigning of your expectations. 5,000-word stories are their own form, and knowing what you've realistically got space for is crucial to using the form well.

A good 5,000-word story is one that's very, very tightly focused. It's not a matter of coming up with a story and then whittling it down to size -- it's a matter of coming up with a story that needs only two or three scenes; two or three characters.

O. Henry's "The Last Leaf" is 2,300 words; "The Gift of the Magi" is only 2,000. The reasons they're classics isn't because O. Henry is good at pruning words. It's because he wrote very very simple stories -- usually a simple situation and then a twist. And then, he spent his wordcount showing, not telling. Making that one situation, those handful of characters, that one single plot development -- making them real and evocative and wrenching.

It can be even less than that. In Shelley Jackson's classic "The Lottery" -- less than 3,500 words -- we get essentially a single scene, a simple town gathering. It's got less of a plot than a simple portrayal; understanding what's being portrayed is the story.

A short story can be the simple portrayal of a poignant moment, an interesting character, a delightful occurrence, an intriguing idea, an unusual storytelling voice. At these lengths, you're usually focused on doing one thing, doing it very very well. Know your limits, and you'll find that you can do amazing things within them.

So the answer to your question is: If show-don't-tell is what's pushing you over wordcount, you may want to choose a simpler story, so you have enough room to do showing.

(Do bear in mind that "show, don't tell" is a guideline, not a hard rule. There are plenty of exceptions. For example, a Joe Haldeman short story entitled "Four Short Novels" has always stuck in my mind: it Tells rather than Shows so much, that it's like Haldeman is summarizing four epic novels into a teensy tiny little story, and it totally works. You just need to know what you're doing, and why you're doing it.)

Another important pointer is: read short stories. You will get a much better sense of what the form is capable of, what kind of story "fits", if you're used to what other people have managed to do with it.

If you're fond of fantasy and science fiction, then Daily Science Fiction is a good place to browse (they do flash fiction -- only up to 1,500 words!), or check out Rocket Stack Rank to find a bunch of stories around the length you're interested in (they note wordcount for every story, and have great indexes, e.g. here and here).

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