Five Tips for Writing Short Stories
by Mike X Welch
I’ve gotten some praise—warranted or otherwise—for my ability to write short stories. While I used to look at them as “something you do when you can’t write a novel,” my attitude has changed as I’ve matured, both as a writer and a human being. There are plenty of people out there perfectly capable of writing novels that also excel in the medium of short stories.
Some of my tips are advice that I heard long ago from sources I can’t recall, and so while I can’t give credit where credit is due, please know that I don’t think for one second that I came up with much of this wisdom alone:
The first line and/or paragraph has to absolutely, unequivocally, pull the reader into the story in a way that causes them to find it hard to disengage from the narrative.
At the risk of sounding arrogant, if I have to explain this to you, then maybe writing isn’t for you. Ok, yeah, that’s arrogant. So, here’s the deal: short stories are not a social contract…not like novels are, at least. Someone didn’t search through an entire book store for your five thousand-word story. They’ve never heard of you. They’re only accosted with your story on Amazon because their friend or family member has a story in the anthology you’re also included in. Or they took a chance on a horror or romance or romantasy anthology because it was priced low but promised a dozen or more tales in their genre of interest. In short – you’re probably lucky anyone has laid eyes on your work…so don’t waste the opportunity! Part of your job as a writer in any medium is to hook the reader at the first opportunity. Never is this truer than it is with the short story, so make the best of it. My approach is to look at the first line as the hook in a pop song. While the rest of the song might provide more information as to what the singer’s mindset actually is, the chorus is usually catchy and is what gets lodged in the listener’s (reader’s) brain. Make the first line a HOOK.
Okay, great, you’ve hooked your reader. How to keep them from thrashing off of your hook? In short, keep them on the hook. Not to belabor the already fishy metaphor, but you can easily lose someone after the “hook” if the remaining prose doesn’t live up to the initial strength of the start. Now your real work begins – you need to:
Reinforce the promise of the initial lines with a strong start to the story – establish character in a way that makes the reader incapable of being able to reject them; establish setting in a way that makes the reader NEED to know more about this world. Establish TONE.
Chances are you already gave the reader a small glimpse of the plot with your first couple of lines – hence the “hook,” but there are many other tools in your arsenal. Usher the reader briskly into a world that fascinates them. Introduce them to an enigmatic – but not so mysterious as to be unapproachable – character. You’re still in the process of compelling the reader to come inside. Envision yourself as someone walking backwards from an open doorway, beckoning seductively to them to continue through the threshold after they’ve opened the door. Set the tone – lush, abrasive, violent, loving, sexually-charged – whatever it is, that should be reinforced now.
This next tip was something I learned in high school, and it has informed my writing ever since:
3. Every word in a short story should serve the plot/tone/overall aesthetic of the tale.
What this means, in essence, is word choice. If your tale is lush, every adjective and verb should support that lushness. Every possible choice should serve the larger tale. While they might not necessarily be your first choices of verb/adjective/etc., be mindful of how they serve the short story. The long and short of it, no pun intended, is that in the short story medium (as opposed to the medium of the novel, for example,) you only have so much “time” and so many words to get the feeling that you want conveyed to the reader. Every chance that you encounter as a writer where there’s a variable, it’s incumbent upon you to ensure you use words that service the plot/tone/overall aesthetic. Summary: Unless the aesthetic actually is to be disjointed or disassociated, your word choice should be complementary to the tone of the story. Always.
Tip number four might seem like a given after reading tip three, but assumptions should not be made.
Don’t go off on tangents.
It’s fine if your character is going through a divorce, for example…but if it’s not central to the plot or a driving force of the story, it doesn’t belong there. Another way of putting this is – short stories should be all killer, no filler. If it doesn’t add to the tone, enhance characterization, or drive the plot…then it’s gotta go.
Stick the landing.
This goes for most media that we toil in – you always want a good ending no matter what you’re creating – a novel, an essay, a manifesto scrawled on human skin mailed to the FBI, etc. I’m not insinuating that your ending has to be the most satisfying in human history – The Sopranos taught us that having a divisive ending is far from satisfying. But there’s no debate, however, as to whether or not that ending was The End. Be sure that your reader understands, whether your characters go on or if they end right there, that this is the end of the tale. There can be hints, there can be suggestions, but there should be no doubt about whether or not this is the end of the tale in this particular medium.
Accomplishing all of these within a scant 2500 or 5000 words can be daunting, and no one should consider that they’ve either failed or, conversely, written the single greatest short story ever penned. Every story is an opportunity for growth as a writer. If you keep these tips as your guidelines – or goalposts – you might find that readers respond positively to your prose. At the end of the day, that’s what we’re all looking for as writers.
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