The Writer's Guide to a Good Story

Short Stories

So a while ago, someone commented on one of my more recent chapters suggesting I write about short stories about how to successfully write them. Because I'm incredibly lazy, I have only just gotten around to doing so. 

I will not claim to be an expert on short stories. I have a book of short stories on my profile, yes, but there is not a great deal of thought that went into the differences between writing a short story or chapter book when I was actually creating them. 

Short stories, though, it seems, are rather underrated. Many people will read novels, yes, but rarely have I ever met anyone who likes to read collections of short stories for fun. I myself have only ever read Edgar Allan Poe's short stories (in fact, he is my inspiration when it comes to writing mine). And why is this? Short stories are, well, shorter, they get to the point quicker, and you can read them in one sitting.

And when it comes to writing short stories, I found at first that I wasn't that interested in doing it. Why write a short story when I could write a long novel?

But what I have often found when writing longer stories is that I tend to burn out about halfway down the line. Shorter stories are just easier and a lot more convenient in many ways. I'm able to finish some stories in just the span of a few hours, and it takes a lot less out of me. 

I have written short stories off of this site before and have considered sending them to get published, but getting published in a magazine isn't always easy. 

So how do you write them, and write them well?

Honestly, most of the advice is the same I would have for writing any story. Create an interesting beginning that will hook your reader, characters the audience has a reason to care about, a basic problem that your character needs to solve, some sort of theme, and a solid ending. This is true for pretty much any genre of short story.

But obviously I'm not going to create an entire chapter just to repeat the same crap I've been saying throughout the whole book. 

There are a good number of differences between writing a novel and a short story. A novel is an emotional journey which is comparable to a climb up a mountain. A short story is more like taking a jump in a cold lake, often with the same amount of shock and intensity. A short story is not just a shorter version of a novel, it is another experience in itself. 

So what exactly makes a short story? Short stories can be as short as 100 words, or as long as 2,000. Though I believe by 7,000 words it becomes more of a novella than a short story. The shorter ones are usually considered flash fiction, which is even trickier to write and I don't think I've even attempted it. There are also the "six word" or one sentence stories but honestly I'm not even going to go there. 

With a short story, you're definitely going to have more of a limited format. After all, you have a few thousand words at most to get across an exposition, build suspense, create a climax, and have a good ending. And on top of that create good, relatable characters. 

This is why I tend to see short stories as an exploration of a theme rather than a story itself. Longer stories can explore themes of humanity too, of course, but a novel typically has more time for the little things, or the smaller details and backstories that may not have as much relevance to the plot at hand. With short stories, however, everything you add in there has to have a purpose. You kind of have to get to the good stuff right away and start the story closer to the events of the main conflict or turning point.

Here's an example of what I'm talking about.

Let's say you have a story about, perhaps, a man who shoots his wife.

A short story would most likely only be about the scene where the wife is shot. The reasoning behind the murder might be given in the last sentence of the story, but the meat of the story would be in the one scene.

A novel about the same plot, however, could contain many other different elements. How did the wife's family and friends react to the shooting? What were the events early on that led up to the shooting? How did the man and his wife meet? What exactly went wrong on the relationship and why? 

For me, I've found that what also makes a good short story is having the beginning tie into the ending somehow. Any question, theme, or other such thing brought up at the beginning of the story should also be brought up again at the end, sort of like a punchline at the end of a joke. The shorter the story is, the more relevant this becomes. 

Compared to novels, short stories also typically tend to go in one direction. While longer stories can afford to have their characters exploring multiple problems and resolve them all by the end, good short stories usually only have one issue that the character is focused on. 

As far as characters go, while a short story may of course have more than one character in it, they are usually only focused on one character as opposed to multiple. I've never really seen a short story with multiple points of view, although if someone wants to try it, I wouldn't stop them. 

The question of time span is an interesting one. Typically, very short stories, such as flash fiction, are only focused on one moment, or scene in time. It would be very hard to carry out a story with multiple scenes in less than 1,000 words. 

Short stories that are a little longer, however, have a little less restriction in that regard. I've written short stories where the conflict takes place over several years, although the passing of time is shown in only a few sentences. 

For those of you who'd like to publish one day, another reason I like writing short stories is because there are many magazines and competitions out there which give you the opportunity to write short stories and try to submit to either be published on their website. Unlike novels, you can crank them out quicker, edit, and bring your ideas to life.