Recently, I combed my idea pool for short script material. I realized that I hadn't really thought in terms of feature or short when writing the initial notes. Soon enough, I picked one to write as a short. I told myself this would be the Whiplash or (well before it) Saw route, as both films started as shorts. And it really worked for them.
After a bit of outlining, I just felt it can't be done. Not with this story. It may only be a page of notes, but there's no way it's going into less than 90 pages of script. The idea just feels too big for a short.
Now, no real worries on my part, I found another story that can work as a short, so I am working on that now.
Has anyone had a similar experience? How do you gauge story scope and size?
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I get this more often than not. Several of my stories that would've been novels ended up being much too short because I couldn't expand them (it's why Glass Waltz is a short screenplay; to me it was always about a doomed love triangle so making it more than that would be extremely difficult). How I figure this out is by feeling out the different story elements; if it's a fountain of ideas, I'll likely turn it into a series. Others, if I can see a clear enough storyline, usually will be a standalone. Shorter stuff, of course, is if the span is very short and/or I want to challenge myself lol (if it's too short even for that, it'll probably be a movie or show or book that my characters will enjoy).
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I don't think I have the editing skill or conciseness to produce an excellent short Michael Dzurak
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If you have hyperphantasia, then managing your creativity is all about constraint. I could only write shorts under an intense output regime. One short per week over multiple weeks. That dictated that my mind needed to focus on the next thing, rather than dwelling on the current thing.
There are ideas where the size of the universe dwarfs the scope of the story, too. The imagination gets to pour out a lot of world-building, but then not a great deal can make it through the process for a non-writer-director.
I think you also just pick up a knack for appreciating just how rich in resources the creative land is before you start digging. There are concepts I have that I know demand significant screen time and others I know are just enough to fill an hour and a half.
Plus. there's combining shorts from the same universe into the same overall story. Pulp Fiction was developed that way and feels huge because of it.
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Hi! Often the script of a short film has the structure of a joke. At the same time, the script of a full-length film is a complete plot that cannot have a sequel. A short meter often describes one dramatic situation, without developing a character. In full meter, it is necessary to come up with a complete character development, the arc of the main character.
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Thanks for all your input, everybody. I was also thinking back to all the short stories that I read and short films that I watched.
"Combining shorts from the same universe" is a good concision. For example, if you think of an A-plot flashback that reveals key information, an expanded and structured version of that flashback can be a short with the goal of getting to the moment that was flashbacked to.
The joke analogy is very good, too. All good jokes are an anecdote with a hook, action, and turn. Like a magic trick, too. Some classic cold opens could also be shorts if reworked a bit.
And speaking of Pulp Fiction, the apartment scene where Jules and Vincent find the briefcase can be stand alone short. They arrive, play a mind game, get their case, have a surprise, and leave. The surprise gives Jules an insight into his violet job, while Vincent just shrugs it off. It's a mini plot.
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Pulp Fiction was put together on a journey between Cannes and Amsterdam. Tarantino and Roger Avary pooled together some ideas revolving around Avery's Pandemonium Reigns. They'd previously planned to create a three-part anthology with Adam Rifkin. Tarantino's girlfriend at the time said they put down a bunch of sheets of paper with story ideas on them in a Paris hotel room and rearranged them into the plot.
Back when I was writing a lot of shorts, I had this "gun girls" series that focused on female crime stories in different cities, but all set in the same fictional universe. I ended up combining a couple of them into a feature, which went on to become my first option. Another got extended into a full feature.
The good thing is it's all just digital text. It's easy to remix this stuff into something greater than the sum of its parts.