How to write a short story
9 methods to write a short story
- Read as Many Great Short Stories as You Can Find
- Aim for the Heart
- Narrow Your Scope
- Make Your Title Sing
- Use the Classic Story Structure
- Suggest Backstory, Don’t Elaborate
- When in Doubt, Leave it Out
- Ensure a Satisfying Ending
- Cut Like Your Story’s Life Depends on In
Step 1. Read as Many Great Short Stories as You Can Find
Read hundreds of them — especially the classics.
You learn this genre by familiarizing yourself with the best. See yourself as an apprentice. Watch, evaluate, analyze the experts, then try to emulate their work.
Soon you’ll learn enough about how to write a short story that you can start developing your own style.
A lot of the skills you need can be learned through osmosis.
Where to start? Read Bret Lott, a modern-day master. (He chose one of my short stories for one of his collections.)
Reading two or three dozen short stories should give you an idea of their structure and style. That should spur you to try one of your own while continuing to read dozens more.
Remember, you won’t likely start with something sensational, but what you’ve learned through your reading — as well as what you’ll learn from your own writing — should give you confidence. You’ll be on your way.
Step 2. Aim for the Heart
The most effective short stories evoke deep emotions in the reader.
What will move them? The same things that probably move you:
- Love
- Redemption
- Justice
- Freedom
- Heroic sacrifice
- What else?
How to Write a Short Story Step 3. Narrow Your Scope
It should go without saying that there’s a drastic difference between a 450-page, 100,000-word novel and a 10-page, 2000-word short story.
One can accommodate an epic sweep of a story and cover decades with an extensive cast of characters.
The other must pack an emotional wallop and tell a compelling story with a beginning, a middle, and an end — with about 2% of the number of words.
Naturally, that dramatically restricts your number of characters, scenes, and even plot points.
The best short stories usually encompass only a short slice of the main character’s life — often only one scene or incident that must also bear the weight of your Deeper Question, your theme or what it is you’re really trying to say.
Tightening Tips
- If your main character needs a cohort or a sounding board, don’t give her two. Combine characters where you can.
- Avoid long blocks of description; rather, write just enough to trigger the theater of your reader’s mind.
- Eliminate scenes that merely get your characters from one place to another. The reader doesn’t care how they got there, so you can simply write: Late that afternoon, Jim met Sharon at a coffee shop…
Your goal is to get to a resounding ending by portraying a poignant incident that tell a story in itself and represents a bigger picture.
How to Write a Short Story Step 4. Make Your Title Sing
Work hard on what to call your short story.
Yes, it might get changed by editors, but it must grab their attention first. They’ll want it to stand out to readers among a wide range of competing stories, and so do you.
How to Write a Short Story Step 5. Use the Classic Story Structure
Once your title has pulled the reader in, how do you hold his interest?
As you might imagine, this is as crucial in a short story as it is in a novel. So use the same basic approach:
Plunge your character into terrible trouble from the get-go.
Of course, terrible trouble means something different for different genres.
- In a thriller, your character might find himself in physical danger, a life or death situation.
- In a love story, the trouble might be emotional, a heroine torn between two lovers.
- In a mystery, your main character might witness a crime, and then be accused of it.
Don’t waste time setting up the story. Get on with it.
Tell your reader just enough to make her care about your main character, then get to the the problem, the quest, the challenge, the danger — whatever it is that drives your story.
How to Write a Short Story Step 6. Suggest Backstory, Don’t Elaborate
You don’t have the space or time to flash back or cover a character’s entire backstory.
Rather than recite how a Frenchman got to America, merely mention the accent he had hoped to leave behind when he emigrated to the U.S. from Paris.
Don’t spend a paragraph describing a winter morning.
Layer that bit of sensory detail into the narrative by showing your character covering her face with her scarf against the frigid wind.
How to Write a Short Story Step 7. When in Doubt, Leave it Out
Short stories are, by definition, short. Every sentence must count. If even one word seems extraneous, it has to go.
How to Write a Short Story Step 8. Ensure a Satisfying Ending
This is a must. Bring down the curtain with a satisfying thud.
In a short story this can often be accomplished quickly, as long as it resounds with the reader and makes her nod. It can’t seem forced or contrived or feel as if the story has ended too soon.
In a modern day version of the Prodigal Son, a character calls from a taxi and leaves a message that if he’s allowed to come home, his father should leave the front porch light on. Otherwise, he’ll understand and just move on.
The rest of the story is him telling the cabbie how deeply his life choices have hurt his family.
The story ends with the taxi pulling into view of his childhood home, only to find not only the porch light on, but also every light in the house and more out in the yard.
That ending needed no elaboration. We don’t even need to be shown the reunion, the embrace, the tears, the talk. The lights say it all.
How to Write a Short Story Step 9. Cut Like Your Story’s Life Depends on It
Because it does.
When you’ve finished your story, the real work has just begun.
It’s time for you to become a ferocious self-editor.
Once you’re happy with the flow of the story, every other element should be examined for perfection: spelling, grammar, punctuation, sentence construction, word choice, elimination of clichés, redundancies, you name it.
Also, pour over the manuscript looking for ways to engage your reader’s senses and emotions.
All writing is rewriting. And remember, tightening nearly always adds power. Omit needless words.
Examples:
She shrugged her shoulders.
He blinked his eyes.
Jim walked in through the open door and sat down in a chair.
The crowd clapped their hands and stomped their feet.
Learn to tighten and give yourself the best chance to write short stories that captivate your reader.
