: Re: Character and world building in less than 2000 words Is it possible to build a new character and/or world in a science fiction under a tight word limit? What aspects should be covered and

@Jamie945

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Narrow down.

2000 words is a tight constraint indeed. While you can show something in that limit, you can't show everything that you mentioned in your question.

Sci-fiction is famous for having a lot of short stories authors (I think of Asimov, of course, but I'd suggest to take a look at Ted Chiang's "Stories of your life" too). Even then, 2000 words still qualifies as pretty short, at least in my book.

In my opinions, you have to focus on one of three factors:

Concept. Sci-fi, speculative sci-fi in particular, is famous for presenting new, interesting idea. Your story may present a new concept and explore briefly its consequences. E.g. of concepts are "What if gravity worked backwards?" "What if humans had superpowers?" "What if wormholes were portal to Hell?" or whatever you might like.
Worldbuilding. Maybe you want to showcase a world you're thinking of. Maybe a planet in an galaxy far far away. Maybe a dystopic, soul-consuming city-factory. Maybe an war-against-alien setting.
Character. Again, you have a character and you want the readers to see him/her in action. This means that your character is particularly interesting and/or is part of a bigger series of event; as in detective stories.

Once you have chosen your focus, narrow down everything that it's not related to it. If you want to explore a single concept, you won't have the time to show your world or character building. Same goes for the other ways around.

Sure, this doesn't keep you from outlining your ideas better, defining your worldbuilding and deciding who your characters are. But there are only so many informations and nuances that you can stick in 2000 words, along with the plot. Resist the urge to try to explain everything to your readers and only highlight the really important points. Everything else, either you can synthetize into your short story, or it's lost, redundant or unhelpful information anyway.

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