What kinds of ideas are fitting for short stories?

[Ringarune]

This summer I was thinking of possibly making a short comic to practice an art style, but I'm finding myself having a hard time coming up with a plot that works. I have a quite the reserve of long form stories, but I'm looking for something that would fit in 20-30 pages. Do any of you have suggestions for how to come up with a short story or what kinds of stories lend themselves to a small amount of pages?

Thank you :>

[WintreKitty]

Since you already have a lot of long form comic ideas, one tactic you can try is compressing the long form comic into a short form one. The type of story doesn't matter so much as how you go about telling it. Circle back to your long form stories, and look at the big concepts that are at play. What can you keep? What can you cut out without diverging from the main plot/conclusion?

Hopefully this helps!

Cheers,
Wintre

[shazzbaa]

Smaller stakes can be a place to start! Storming the fae kingdom to destroy the faerie queen and free her captives might not fit in 20 pages, but a single encounter to outwit the faerie trying to spirit away your sister, that'd be more likely to work.

That's not to say big stakes can't work in a short story, but it can help to look at it differently! Think about the kind of story you'd tell in a single chapter of a longer comic -- and make a story like that, that stands on its own.

[nixxusnibelheim]

I like to think short stories like a proof of concept.
You can't deliver an epic story about conflict between different countries but you can give a peek with a smaller pov where your character struggle in his every day life because of the constant wars where he lives.

You can take your long stories and think about what stories your secondary or tertiary characters could have ?
For example out of the blue with Harry Potter, for the majority of the movie we only saw Harry's pov, it could be interesting to see how his cousin Dudley Dursley lives with the fact that one member of his family is a wizard.
If he gets a bit crazy and nonsensical, does he get bullied at school ? How does he reacts ?
Those questions can make an interesting stories and can be contains in a smaller lenght.

[Kayke]

My short stories always end up being more about concepts than characters. Character building is one of my favorite things about long form story telling, but when it comes to mini comics I feel like I don't really have the space to do it in my usual way, so a lot of the time I don't even give the characters names, I just focus on an experience or a feeling. I also use narration, which I avoid in long form comics.

Honestly mini comics feel like an entirely different art form for me.

[NanettesClouds]

Minicomics are a weird beast, One thing that I like to do with mine is just set myself a number of pages and then jump right into thumbnailing without really knowing where I'm gonna end up, then I tend to revise things when I end up drawing the real deal. It's a style of writing that I find really fun but it's not something that i'm comfortorable doing with larger projects.

The other thing you can do is take a small scene from your longform and treat it as a minicomic, this is super helpful because it really forces you to make sure that each part of your comic can stand on its own. Got a "boring" scene where characters just need to sit and talk before a big fight? Treat that scene like its own thing and make it stand on its own, rather than treating it like a transition, which is reallly easy to do, especially when you ust want to get to the next cool scene.

[dojo]

What I usually do is I look at my longform story and pick out a character or two from it and develop a smaller story around them. Like maybe a particular hypothetical event in their life or maybe even just something that wouldn't even be canon in the longform story. It's easier for me to not get carried away and turn it into another large project if it involves characters already part of something bigger, plus it lets me give these characters a little more backstory that they probably won't get in the bigger one.

[thischickdoesart]

I may be in the minority here, but I LOVE the challenge of working within a short allotment of pages. One of the things I have to be mindful of in longer works is to be aware of unnecessary elements (dialogue, narrative, plot). It may sound good but I have to ask myself if it is necessary to moving the story along, especially with so much pages to work with. I credit this "get to the point" training for the improvement of my pacing.

To answer your question, I don't think there is any particular idea that works best for a short format story. The same can be said for any length work. I believe it just comes down to execution.

I actually made an exercise for myself writing one page comics (See here:ONE PAGE COMICS ). For exercises like those I'll seriously just let a random thought pop in my head and build a story/scenario around that. For instance, with the one page comic Sepulcher, I looked in my standing lamp and saw a whole bunch of dead moths. I then brainstormed on how I could execute the theme (futile existence).

If anyone else is interested in short format (1-20 pages) themed challenges, then let me know. I'd love to see what everyone else comes up with for themes. I think it would also be good discussion for encouragement and improvement among our community.

[NanettesClouds]

Where do you post these minicomics? Assuming you do that.

[dojo]

I haven't posted any of them yet, unfortunately. Most of them are still incomplete as they were used as just practice for something or another, but the couple that are finished or close to finished aren't up anywhere yet since the anthology/contests I'm using them for aren't over yet. I'll need to get a page set up or something directing folks where they can read 'em once they are, if they get in B)

[solhawthorne]

My one finished comic, Deerstalker, is actually a minicomic with only 40 pages. I drew it as my senior project in high school. I've also always been one for super elaborate plots so it was rather shocking to me when I was suddenly hit with an idea that was short enough to fit in 30-40 pages (inspiration, amirite). I believe the trick to a good short story is to really narrow down the "plot" to just one idea or problem. If you read a lot of written short stories or think back to the ones you might've read for an English class, they are all extremely narrow in their focus. Sometimes they just put a magnifying glass to one character as some above mentioned, some are trying to make a single, simple moral statement (think fables and parables), some just want to give the reader one quick punch to the gut.

For Deerstalker, I really just wanted to have fun with some shock value. Looking back on it, the plot is super contrived: A pair of monsters get back at a pair of hunters for poaching. The smallness of the plot allowed me to strip out all the usual complicated story items like development, world-building, etc.

Hope this helps! Good luck!

[Mari]

Short stories usually are more for concepts, than actual stories. I've made a few, and all of them have started with a simple concept. With my latest (Horns, 15 pages) it was just a line I thought up years ago to go with a speedpaiting that was "Their love grew them horns that keep them apart", and after that it was a matter of thinking a coherent story to go with it. My favourite comic artist Yamashita Tomoko does amazing short stories, and you can trace all of their plot to a single sentence or line I.E "She's Missing", "Love, or something" or "Re: Hello". With short stories it's important to keep the story actually short, and even when you think it's done, to cut it down to the bare minimum. They rely on their short length to be poignant, and any kind of added explaining usually does the opposite, and takes out of the emotional impact of the story. A lot of the time when writing a short story it's easy to fall into the trap of over-explaining "because you want everyone to get it", but it's better to leave it as slightly abstract than shove the message down your readers throat, and most people are smart enough to get the story with just a few lines.