So how do you write a good short story?

 So how do you write a good short story? Here’s some thoughts

 

Rules of the short story

The best stories are the ones that follow a fairly narrow subject line: too many plotlines and you end up with a novel!

An effective short story often covers a very short time span. It may be one single episode that proves pivotal in the life of the character.

Don't have too many characters. Each new character will bring a new dimension to the story, and too many diverse dimensions dilute the theme. Have only enough characters to effectively tell the story.

Make every word count. There is no room for unnecessary expansion in a short story. If each word is not working towards putting across the story, delete it.

Beginning your short story

However you start your story, the beginning should have The Question, something that hooks your reader. You need to grab them from those first lines.

One way do to this is intrigue the reader. For instance, “Bill Bloggs was dead” may give the end away but the readers wants to find out why he died and if he deserved it.

The dropped introduction can also work: “Betty was a pleasant woman. She would do anything for anyone. Everyone liked old Betty. A true angel, they used to say. Which was why it was such a shock when she was killed by a Mafia hitman.”

There is another way of hooking readers, in which the writer can draw us in with the sheer quality of their writing, as in books like Cider with Rosie by Laurie Lee.

Whatever you do, remember that all stories begin in the middle - the people you write about have already plenty of history. What you are doing is catapulting the reader into their life.

 

 

The middle of the story

The middle is there to keep the story going, fill in gaps, create tension and allow the story to develop but it should only be as long as if needed, not overwritten or underwritten.

Write your short story in a series of episodes, maybe only a few lines long. Short stories are a series of small chapters, maybe only a few lines but representing a development in the story.

This requires really effective writing because, whereas in a novel you might have eight or nine pages to recount an incident, that luxury simply does not exist in a short story.

If you take our competition, our limit for a story is 2,000 words. Sounds a lot but not if you let your episodes run too long.

So, how do you achieve such tight writing? Well, it might be that you describe a location in a line rather than a paragraph, produce only sparing details of your character or recount a conversation in four snatches of dialogue rather than a page.

Many winning short story authors in competitions around the world have been those who achieved such effective writing.

All of this is not to say that when you write a novel, you can waffle on to your heart’s content. Indeed, the disciplines of short story writing can be invaluable when you tackle a novel. Whatever you write, every word must do its job. it’s a good mantra to live by.

 

The end of the story

There are all sorts of ways of ending a short story but the most popular is some kind of twist, something that startles the reader, or perhaps makes sense of the rest of the story.  On the other hand, you may go for a poignant ending.

There is also a growing trend for stories that simply stop.

Any of these is fine: the really important thing is that you do it well.

 

John Dean