A Checklist for Submitting Your Short Story to Anthologies and Contests

A glimpse into the minds of acquiring editors and judges for short (or any) fiction

by Jodie Renner, editor & author 

Have you tried your hand at writing short stories yet? If not, what’s holding you back? As award-winning blogger Anne R. Allen said in an excellent article in Writer’s Digest magazine, “Bite-sized fiction has moved mainstream, and today’s readers are more eager than ever to ‘read short.’” To check out Anne’s “nine factors working in favor of a short story renaissance,” see “9 Ways Writing Short Stories Can Pay off For Writers“, and there’s more in her post, "Why You Should be Writing Short Fiction."

Here’s another Argument for Writing Short Stories, by Emily Harstone.  She says, “Writers who are serious about improving and developing their craft should write short stories and get editorial feedback on them, even if they are never planning on publishing these short stories. Short stories are one of the best ways to hone your craft as a writer.”

Okay, you’ve decided to take the plunge and craft a few short stories. Good for you! Next step: Consider submitting some of them to anthologies, magazines, or contests. But wait! Before you click “send,” be sure to check out my 33 Tips for Creating a Short Story Worthy of Contests, Magazines, and Anthologies, then go through your story with these tips in mind and give it a good edit and polish – possibly even a major rewrite – before submitting it.

What are some of the common criteria used by publications and contests when evaluating short story submissions?

I have served as judge several times for Writer’s Digest Popular Fiction Contest, where I had to whittle down 140 or more entries (for the thriller category alone) to 10 finalists, but I wasn’t provided with a checklist or any specific criteria. However, a friend who regularly submits short stories to anthologies, magazines, and contests recently received a polite rejection letter from the editor of a literary magazine, along with a checklist of possible reasons, with two of them checked off specifically relating to her story.

While useful, the list of possible weaknesses is very “bare bones” and cries out for more detail and specific pointers. Editors, publishers, and judges are swamped with submissions and understandably don’t have time to give detailed advice for improvement to all the authors whose stories they turn down.

Here’s the list my friend received, with my comments below each point.

Checklist from a Publisher/Editor/Publication in Response to Short Story Submissions

“Thank you for submitting your short story to …. We’ve given your work careful consideration and are unable to offer you publication. We do not offer in-depth reviews of rejected submissions, due to time constraints. Briefly, we feel your submission suffered from one/several of the following common problems:”

– “Tone or content inappropriate for…” (publisher / publication / anthology / magazine)
Check their submission guidelines and read other stories they’ve accepted to get an idea of the genre, style, tone, and content they seem to prefer.

– “Stylistic and grammatical errors; too many typos”

Be sure to use spell-check and get someone with strong skills in spelling, grammar, punctuation, and sentence structure to check it over carefully for you. Read it out loud, and where you pause briefly, put in a comma. Where you pause a little longer, put in a period. You could also try using editing software or submit it to a professional freelance editor. This last choice has the most likelihood of helping you hone your fiction-writing skills.

– “Structure problems”

For a novel, this could mean some chapters could be rearranged, shortened, or taken out. For a short story, it could mean the time sequencing is strange; you've started too early, too late, or in the middle; or perhaps you have too many characters or too many plot lines. Or perhaps you've interrupted the story by dumping in a lot of backstory or explanations.

– “Formatting problems made reading frustrating”

Be sure your story is in a common font, like Times New Roman, 12-point, and double-spaced, with only one space after periods and one-inch margins on all four sides. Don’t boldface anything or use all caps. For more white space and ease of reading, divide long blocks of text into paragraphs. Start a new paragraph for each new speaker. Indent paragraphs, but not by clicking on the space bar. Use Word's paragraph function. Don’t use an extra line space between paragraphs. Use italics sparingly for emphasis. For more specifics on formatting, see “Basic Formatting of Your Manuscript (Formatting 101)”.

– “Characters were problematic/unbelievable/unlikeable”

Your characters’ decisions, actions and motivations need to fit their goals, personality, background, and character. And make sure your protagonist is likeable, someone readers will want to root for.

– “Content and/or style too well-worn or obvious”

This likely refers to a plot that’s been done a million times, with cookie-cutter characters and a predictable ending.

– “Word choice needs refinement”

This one could cover the gamut from tired, generic verbs like walked, ran, saw, looked or overused adjectives like nice, good, bad, old, big, small, tall, short; to inadvertently inserting light-hearted words at a tense time or vice-versa; to using overly formal, technical, or esoteric words where a concrete, vivid, immediately understandable one would be more effective; and more.

– “Overbearing or heavy-handed”

This probably refers to a story where the author’s agenda is too obvious, too hard-hitting, maybe even a bit “preachy,” rather than subtle, allowing the reader to draw their own conclusions.

– “Nothing seems to have happened”

This likely indicates no critical problem or dilemma for the protagonist, not enough meaningful action and change, and insufficient conflict and tension.

– “Strong beginning, then peters out”

This is an indicator that your plot needs amping up and you need to add rising tension, suspense, and intrigue to keep readers avidly turning the pages. Also, flesh out your characters to make them more complex. Give your protagonist secrets, regrets, inner conflict, and a strong desire that is being thwarted.

– “Needs overall development and polish.”

This indicates you likely need to roll up your sleeves and hone your writing skills. Read some writing guides, like my award-winning editor's guides to writing compelling fiction, Captivate Your Readers, Fire up Your Fiction, or Writing a Killer Thriller. Also, read lots of highly rated published short stories, paying close attention to the writers’ techniques. Here’s where a critique group of experienced fiction writers or some savvy beta readers or a professional edit could help.

– “We didn’t get it.”

This is a catch-all category that means the story didn’t work for a number of reasons. This could be an indicator to put this story aside and hone your craft, critically read other highly rated stories in your genre, then, using your new skills, craft a fresh story.

“While all of these criticisms open doors to further questions, we regret that we cannot be more constructive….”

That’s understandable. They just don’t have time to critique or mentor every writer who contacts them. But I hope my comments above help aspiring fiction writers hone your craft and get your stories published – or even win awards for them. Good luck! For tips on how to actually submit, check out “Writing Short Stories? Don’t Make These 4 Submission Mistakes."

Jodie Renner is a freelance fiction editor and the award-winning author of three craft-of-writing guides in her series An Editor’s Guide to Writing Compelling Fiction: WRITING A KILLER THRILLER, FIRE UP YOUR FICTION, and CAPTIVATE YOUR READERS, as well as two clickable time-saving e-resources, QUICK CLICKS: Spelling List and QUICK CLICKS: Word Usage. She has also organized two anthologies for charity: VOICES FROM THE VALLEYS – Stories and Poems about Life in BC’s Interior, and CHILDHOOD REGAINED – Stories of Hope for Asian Child Workers. You can find Jodie on her Amazon Author Page, at www.JodieRenner.com, and on Facebook. 

33 TIPS FOR CREATING A SHORT STORY WORTHY OF CONTESTS, MAGAZINES, AND ANTHOLOGIES

by Jodie Renner, editor & author 

Here are 33 concrete tips for writing a compelling short story that is worthy of publishing or submitting to contests, magazines, and anthologies. Of course, these are only guidelines – like any good cook with a recipe, you’ll tweak them to suit your own vision, goal, genre, and story idea.

And by the way, many or most of these tips also apply to effective, compelling longer fiction.

(When referring to the main character, I’ll be alternating between using “he” and “she”, so just fill in the gender of your own protagonist.)

PLANNING STAGE:

1. Keep the story tight. 

Most short stories are between 1,000 and 7,000 words long, with the most popular length between 2,500 and 4,000 words. Unlike a novel or even a novella, a short story is about a small slice of life, with one story thread and one theme. Don’t get too ambitious. It’s best to limit it to one principal character plus a few supporting characters, one main conflict, one geographical location, and a brief time frame, like a few weeks maximum – better yet, a few days, or even hours.

2. Create a main character who is complex and charismatic, one readers will care about. 

Your protagonist should be multi-dimensional and at least somewhat sympathetic, so readers can relate to him and start bonding with him right away. He should be fascinating, with plenty of personality. But give him a human side, with some inner conflict and vulnerability, so readers identify with him and start worrying about him immediately. If readers don’t care about your character, they also won’t care about what happens to him.

3. Give your protagonist a burning desire. 

What does he or she want more than anything? This is the basis for your story goal, the driving force of your story.

4. Decide what your character is most afraid of. 

What does your heroine regret most? What is she feeling guilty about? Give her some baggage and secrets.

5. Devise a critical story problem or conflict. 

Create a significant conflict or challenge for your protagonist. Put her in hot water right away, on the first page, so the readers start worrying about her early on. No conflict = no story. The conflict can be internal, external, or interpersonal, or all three. It can be against one’s own demons, other people, circumstances, or nature.

6. Develop a unique “voice” for this story. 

First, get to know your character really well by journaling in his voice. Pretend you are the character, writing in his secret diary, expressing his hopes and fears and venting his frustrations. Just let the ideas flow, in his point of view, using his words and expressions.

Then take it a step further and carry that voice you’ve developed throughout the whole story, even to the narration and description, which are really the viewpoint character’s thoughts, perceptions, observations, and reactions. This technique ensures that your whole story has a unique, compelling voice. (In a novel, the voice will of course change in any chapters that are in other characters’ viewpoints.)

7. Create a worthy antagonist. 

Devise an opposition character who is strong, clever, determined, and resourceful – a force to be reckoned with. And for added interest, make him or her multi-faceted, with a few positive qualities, too.

8. Add in a few interesting, even quirky supporting characters. 

Give each of your characters a distinct personality, with their own agenda, hopes, accomplishments, fears, insecurities, and secrets, and add some individual quirks to bring each of them to life. Supporting and minor characters should be quite different from your protagonist, for contrast. Start a diary for each important character to develop their voice and personality, and ensure none of them are closely modeled after you, the author, or your friends.

But don’t fully develop any very minor or “walk-on” characters, or readers will expect them to play a more significant role. In fact, it’s best not to name minor characters like cab drivers, cashiers, and servers, unless they play a bigger role.

9. To enter and win contests, make your character and story unique and memorable.

Try to jolt or awe the readers somehow, with a unique, enigmatic, even quirky or weird character; an unusual premise or situation; and an unexpected, even shocking revelation and plot twist.

10. Experiment – take a chance. 

Short stories can be edgier, darker, or more intense because they’re brief, and readers can tolerate something a little more extreme for a limited time.

WRITING STAGE:

11. Start with a compelling scene. 

Short stories need to grab and emotionally engage the readers right from the first paragraph. Don’t open with a description of the scenery or other setting. Also, don’t start with background information (backstory) on the character or an explanation of their world or situation.

12. Start right out in the head of your main character.

It’s best to use his name right in the first sentence to establish him as the point-of-view character, the one readers are supposed to identify with and root for. And let readers know really soon his rough age, situation, and role in the story world.

13. Put your character in motion right away. 

Having her interacting with someone else is usually best – much more dynamic than starting with a character alone, musing. Also, it’s best not to start with your character waking up or in an everyday situation or on the way to somewhere. That’s trite and too much of a slow lead-up for a short story – or any compelling story, for that matter.

14. Use close point of view. 

Get up close and personal with your lead character and tell the whole story from his point of view. Continually show his thoughts, feelings, reactions, and physical sensations. And take care not to show anyone else’s thoughts or inner reactions. You don’t have time or space to get into anyone else’s viewpoint in a short story. Show the attitudes and reactions of others through what the POV character perceives – their words, body language, facial expressions, tone of voice, actions, etc.

Even the narration should be expressed as your POV character’s thoughts and observations. Don’t intrude as the author to describe or explain anything to the readers in neutral language. You want to keep your readers immersed in your fictive dream, and interrupting as the author will burst the bubble of make-believe they crave.

15. Situate the reader early on. 

To avoid audience confusion and frustration, establish your main character immediately and clarify the situation and setting (time and place) within the first few paragraphs. On the first page, answer the four W’s: who, what, where, when. But as mentioned above, avoid starting with a long descriptive passage.

16. Jump right in with some tension in the first paragraphs. 

As I mentioned, there’s no room in a short story for a long, meandering lead-up to the main problem, or an extended description of the setting or the characters and their background. Disrupt the main character’s life in some way on the first page. As Kurt Vonnegut advises, in short fiction, start as close to the end as possible.

17. Show, don’t tell. 

Don’t use narration to tell your readers what happened – put them right in the middle of the scene, with lots of dialogue and action and reactions, in real time. And skip past transitional times and unimportant moments. Use a few words to go from one time or place to another, unless something important happens during the transition.

18. Your character needs to react. 

Continually show your character’s emotional and physical reactions, both inner and outer, to what’s going on around him. And to bring the character and scene to life on the page, evoke as many of the five senses as possible, not just sight and hearing. Scents or smells are especially powerful and evocative.

19. Every page needs tension of some sort. 

It might be overt, like an argument, or subtle, like inner resentments, disagreements, questioning, or anxiety. If everybody is in agreement, shake things up a little.

20. To add tension and intrigue, withhold key information, 

especially about character secrets or regrets, but hint at them to arouse reader curiosity. Then reveal critical info bit by bit, like a tantalizing striptease, as you go along.

21. Dialogue in fiction is like real conversation on steroids. 

Skip the yadda-yadda, blah-blah, “How are you? I’m fine. Nice weather,” etc., and add spark and tension to all your dialogue. And make the characters’ words and expressions sound as natural and authentic as you can. Avoid complete, correct sentences in dialogue. Use plenty of one or two-word questions and responses, evasive replies, abrupt changes of topics, and even a few silences.

22. Each character should speak differently, and not like the author. 

Each character’s word choices and speech patterns should reflect their gender, age, education, social standing, and personality. Don’t have your kids sounding like adults or your thugs sounding like university professors. Even men and women of similar cultural backgrounds and social standing speak differently. Read your dialogue out loud or role-play with a friend to make sure it sounds real, has tension, and moves along at a good clip.

23. Build the conflict to a riveting climax. 

Keep putting your protagonist in more hot water until the big “battle,” showdown, or struggle – whether it’s physical, psychological, or interpersonal. This is where they’re challenged to the max and have to draw on all their courage, wit, and resources to avoid defeat and/or reach their goals.

24. Brainstorm to devise a twist at the end. 

Create a surprise ending to delight readers – something that’s unexpected but makes sense in retrospect. Give the readers what they hope for, but not in a way they expect it.

25. Provide some satisfaction at the end. 

It’s not necessary to tie everything up in a neat little bow, but do give your readers some sense of resolution, some payout for their investment of time and effort in your story. As in novels, most readers want the character they’ve been rooting for all along to resolve at least some of their problems. But be sure the protagonist they’ve been identifying with succeeds through their own courage, determination, and resourcefulness, not through coincidence, luck, or a rescue by someone else. Keep your hero or heroine heroic. And don’t let your conclusion drag on – tie things up quickly.

26. Create a character arc. 

Your protagonist should have changed as a result of his recent struggles.

27. And a story arc – how are things different? 

How has the life of the main character changed as a result of what she’s just been through?

REVISION STAGE:

28. Hook ’em in right away. 

Now that you’ve got your whole story down, go back and grab the readers with an opening that zings. Write and rewrite your first line, opening paragraph, and first page. They need to be as gripping and as intriguing as you can make them, in order to compel the readers to read the rest of the story. Your first sentence and paragraph should arouse curiosity and raise questions that demand to be answered.

29. Cut to the chase. The short story requires discipline and editing. 

Trim down any long, convoluted sentences to reveal the essentials. Less is more, so make every word count. If a paragraph, sentence, or line of dialogue doesn’t advance the plot, add intrigue, or develop a character, take it out.

Also, use strong, evocative, specific nouns and verbs and cut back on supporting adjectives and adverbs. For example, instead of saying “He walked heavily” say “He stomped” or “He trudged.” Or instead of “She walked quietly,” say “She tiptoed” or “She crept.”

30. Make every element and every image count. 

Every significant detail you insert in the story should have some significance or some relevance later. If it doesn’t, take it out. Don’t show us a knife or special character skills, for example, if they don’t show up later and play an essential role. You have no room for filler or extraneous details in a compelling short story.

31. Try to make all descriptions do double duty. 

When you’re describing a character, for example, rather than listing their physical attributes and what they’re wearing, search for details that reveal their personality, their mood, their intentions, and their effect on those around them, and also the personality and attitude of the character who is observing them. And there’s no need to go into detail on everything they’re wearing. Paint in bold brush strokes and let readers fill in the details – or not, as they prefer.

32. Stay in character for all descriptions. 

Filter all descriptions through the attitude and mood of the main character. If your POV character’s aging father shows up at the door, don’t describe him neutrally and in detail as a brand new character. Show him as that character actually sees her own father.

Similarly, if a teenage boy walks into a room, don’t describe the space as an interior designer would see it – stay in his viewpoint. He is most concerned with why he entered that room, not all the details of what it looks like.

33. Pay attention to word count and other guidelines. 

As I mentioned earlier, short stories are generally between 1,000 and 7,500 words long, with the most popular length around 2,500 to 4,000 words. If you want to submit your short story to a website, magazine or contest, be sure to read their guidelines as to length, genre, language no-no’s, and so on. Also, for your own protection, do read the fine print to avoid giving away all rights to your story.

Jodie Renner is a freelance fiction editor and the award-winning author of three craft-of-writing guides in her series An Editor’s Guide to Writing Compelling Fiction: WRITING A KILLER THRILLER, FIRE UP YOUR FICTION, and CAPTIVATE YOUR READERS, as well as two clickable time-saving e-resources, QUICK CLICKS: Spelling List and QUICK CLICKS: Word Usage. She has also organized two anthologies for charity: VOICES FROM THE VALLEYS – Stories and Poems about Life in BC’s Interior, and CHILDHOOD REGAINED – Stories of Hope for Asian Child Workers. You can find Jodie on her Amazon Author Page, at www.JodieRenner.com, and on Facebook.  

Links to Recent Articles of Jodie's on Other Blogs

Since the release on February 28 of my latest writing guide, Captivate Your Readers, I've been busy with a blog book tour, posting articles with tips on writing and promoting your fiction.

Here's a list of some of my recent articles on other blogs, plus an interview of me and a review of my new book. Please click on the title to go to the post.

Tuesday, March 10: Review of Captivate Your Readers on U Self-Publish website.

Monday, March 9: "Create a Fascinating, Believable Antagonist" on The Kill Zone blog


Sunday, March 8: "How to Write a Prize-Worthy Short Story" on Anne R. Allen's award-winning blog


Friday., March 6: "Learn How to Captivate Your Readers with Jodie Renner" on Read, Write, Muse blog


Thurs., March 5 - "Book Giveaway Promos Compared: Goodreads, Rafflecopter, and the New Amazon Giveaway" on Janice Hardy's Fiction University blog


Monday, Mar. 2, 2015 - "Use Attitude When Introducing Characters" on Elizabeth Spann Craig's blog


Feb. 23: "Make Sure Your Characters Act in Character" on The Kill Zone blog.


Feb. 17: "Avoid Overwriting - Subtle is More Sophisticated" on Janice Hardy's Fiction University


Feb. 9: Indie BookContests 2015 on The Kill Zone blog


Feb. 5: "How to Slash Your Word Count by 20-40% - and tighten your story without losing any of the good stuff" on Janice Hardy's Fiction University


 And finally, the very popular list of Writers' Conferences & Book Festivals in 2015

Do you have any craft-of-writing or publishing or marketing topics you'd like me to write about? Let me know in the comments below. Thanks!

Besides blogging at The Kill Zone Blog and elsewhere, Jodie Renner is a freelance fiction editor and the award-winning author of three craft-of-writing guides in her series An Editor’s Guide to Writing Compelling Fiction: Fire up Your Fiction, Writing a Killer Thriller, and Captivate Your Readers. She has also published two clickable time-saving e-resources to date: Quick Clicks: Spelling List – Commonly Misspelled Words at Your Fingertips and Quick Clicks: Word Usage – Style and Usage Tips for Busy Writers and Editors. You can find Jodie at www.JodieRenner.com, www.JodieRennerEditing.com, and on Facebook and Twitter.

Some Quick, Basic Tips for Writing a Riveting Short Story

by Jodie Renner, editor & author  

These basic tips for aspiring writers apply whether you’re an adult, a teenager, or younger, and whether your story is aimed at adults, teens, or preteens. If you know of a young person who’s interested in creative writing, share this post with him or her to help them spark up their stories.

Planning your story:

1. Decide on your target readership (audience). Are they adults, teens, middle-grade kids, younger kids? Mainly males or females, or both? What are the main interests of your target readers? Why would they like your story?

2. What’s the genre of your story? What kind of story will it be? A fantasy that takes place in an alternate universe? A romance? A cozy mystery? A suspense-thriller? A western? An action-adventure? Speculative fiction (sci-fi)? Sports fiction? Or a mainstream-type story, with people like you, in a setting you’re familiar with?

3. Where does your story take place? Is the locale real or imagined? Is it in the present, the past, or the future? What season? To spark reader interest, make the setting remarkable in some way, out of the ordinary.

4. Whose story is it? Create a multi-dimensional, complex main character readers will want to identify with and bond with. 

5. Give your character a burning desire - what do they want more than anything?

6. Give your character some secrets, fears and regrets.

7. Give your character a rival, competitor, or enemy.

Writing your story:

1. To avoid reader confusion and frustration, set the scene for the readers in the first few paragraphs with the 4 W’s—who, what, where, and when. Who is this, where are they, what are they doing, and when does it take place?

2. Get into your main character’s head in the first sentence and stay there for the whole short story. Forget about telling the readers the story as the author. BE the character instead! You can use “he” or “she” and their name (third person), or “I” (first person). Show the character’s thoughts, goals, worries, plans, physical sensations, and feelings about what’s going on. That will help your readers identify with your main character and really care about him or her.

But don’t show the thoughts or inner feelings of other characters. That's head-hopping. We only know how they’re feeling through what your protagonist (POV character) notices and perceives—their words, actions, facial expressions, tone of voice, body language, etc.

3. Make your character run into a problem of some sort right away or very soon. It doesn’t need to be the main problem of the story, but put something on the first or second page that challenges him and makes the readers start worrying about him. The difficulty or dilemma can be internal, external, or interpersonal.

4. Introduce some opposition, a rival, an enemy, or a nasty villain fairly early, too, to get things moving fast and make your readers start biting their nails.

5. Turn up the heat. Now, give your main character an even bigger challenge or problem—the main conflict of your story. Who or what is threatening them? What do they do to try to solve the problem? Then what happens?

6. Write in lots of action, dialogue, and character feelings and reactions. Don’t spend too much time describing things or places, or explaining things to the readers. Do that directly through the characters’ words, thoughts, and actions.

7. Climax: Have a major battle, showdown, fight, or argument—not necessarily a physical one. Can be psychological or interpersonal. Challenge your hero or heroine to the max. This is their lowest point, their darkest moment, when they have to draw on all their resources, summon up all their courage and determination to overcome the obstacle or make the difficult decision, and resolve the issue.

8. Resolution: My advice is to create a satisfying ending for the readers—let your hero or heroine succeed, defeat evil, get what they desire, etc., but just barely. It’s a really close call! They almost didn’t make it!

9. Character arc: How has your protagonist changed as a result of their recent struggles?

10. Story arc: How has their life changed as a result of what they've just been through?

For more info on writing short stories, check out Resources for Writers: 33 TIPS FOR CREATING A SHORT STORY WORTHY OF CONTESTS, MAGAZINES, AND ANTHOLOGIES (jodierennerediting.blogspot.com)

Jodie Renner is a freelance fiction editor and the award-winning author of three craft-of-writing guides in her series An Editor’s Guide to Writing Compelling Fiction: FIRE UP YOUR FICTION,  CAPTIVATE YOUR READERS, and WRITING A KILLER THRILLER, as well as two clickable time-saving e-resources, QUICK CLICKS: Spelling List and QUICK CLICKS: Word Usage. She has also organized two anthologies for charity: VOICES FROM THE VALLEYS – Stories and Poems about Life in BC’s Interior, and CHILDHOOD REGAINED – Stories of Hope for Asian Child Workers. You can find Jodie on her Amazon Author Page, at www.JodieRenner.com, and on Facebook. 

Bring Your Characters to Life by Showing Their Reactions

by Jodie Renner, editor & author 

A novel won’t draw me in unless I start caring about the protagonist and worrying about what’s going to happen to her – in other words, until I get emotionally engaged in the story. And it’s the same for most readers, I think. For me to warm up to the protagonist, he has to have some warmth and vulnerability and determination, some hopes and insecurities and fears.

As readers, to identify with and bond with the protagonist – and other characters – we need to see and feel their emotions and reactions to people and events around them. When the character feels and reacts, then they come alive for us and we get emotionally invested and start to worry about them and cheer for their small victories. Once you have your readers fretting about your hero and rooting for him, they’re hooked.

As the late, great Jack M. Bickham said, “Fiction characters who only think are dead. It is in their feelings that the readers will understand them, sympathize with them, and care about their plight.”

Show those feelings.

So bring your characters to life by showing their deepest fears, worries, frustrations, hopes and jubilations. If readers see your hero pumped, scared, angry, or worried, they’ll feel that way, too. And a reader who is feeling strong emotions is a reader who is turning the pages.

And engage the readers’ senses, too, so they feel like they’re right there, by showing us not only what the character is seeing, but what they’re hearing, smelling, touching, sensing, and even tasting.

Show their physical reactions, too.

Besides showing us your character’s emotional reactions, show their physical reactions as well to what’s happening to them.

Show the stimulus before the response, and show the reactions in their natural order.

To avoid reader confusion and annoyance, be sure to state the cause before the effect, the stimulus before the response, the action before the reaction.

And to mirror reality, it’s important to show your character’s visceral reaction to a situation first, before an overt action or words. And show involuntary thought-reactions or word-reactions, like a quick “ouch” or swear word, before more reasoned thought processes and decision-making.

As Ingermanson & Economy put it, “Here’s a simple rule to use: Show first whatever happens fastest. Most often, this means you show interior emotion first, followed by various instinctive actions or dialogue, followed by the more rational kinds of action, dialogue, and interior monologue.”

And don’t skip those first steps! Remember, we’re inside that character’s head and body, so you deepen their character and draw us closer to them by showing us what they’re feeling immediately inside – those involuntary physical and thought reactions that come before controlled, civilized outward reactions.

As Bickham points out, it’s important to imitate reality by showing the reactions in the order they occur. You may not show all of these reactions, but whichever ones you choose, show them in this order.

First, show the stimulus that has caused them to react.  

Then show some or all of these responses, in this order:

1. The character’s visceral response
– adrenaline surging, pulse racing, stomach clenching, heart pounding, mouth drying, flushing, shivering, cold skin, tense muscles, sweating, blushing, shakiness, etc.

2. Their unconscious knee-jerk physical action – yelling, gasping, crying out, snatching hand or foot away from source of heat or pain, striking out, etc.

3. Their thought processes and decision to act

4. Their conscious action or verbal response

Showing your characters’ feelings and responses will bring them to life on the page for the readers and suck readers deeper into your story world, your fictive dream.

But don’t go overboard with it — you don’t want your protagonist to come across as gushing or hysterical or neurotic. It’s important to strike a balance so the readers want to relate to and empathize with your main character, not get annoyed or disgusted with her and quit reading.

So how do we strike that balance? How do we as writers find the emotions to bring our characters to life, but also find a happy medium between flat, emotionless characters that bore us and hysterical drama queens or raging bulls that make us cringe?

Bickham advises us to consider how we’ve felt in similar circumstances, then overwrite first, and revise down later. “I would much prefer to see you write too much of feeling in your first draft; you can always tone it down a bit later…. On the other hand, a sterile, chill, emotionless story, filled with robot people, will never be accepted by any reader.”

Jodie Renner is a freelance fiction editor and the award-winning author of three craft-of-writing guides in her series An Editor’s Guide to Writing Compelling Fiction: FIRE UP YOUR FICTION,  CAPTIVATE YOUR READERS, and WRITING A KILLER THRILLER, as well as two clickable time-saving e-resources, QUICK CLICKS: Spelling List and QUICK CLICKS: Word Usage. She has also organized two anthologies for charity: VOICES FROM THE VALLEYS – Stories and Poems about Life in BC’s Interior, and CHILDHOOD REGAINED – Stories of Hope for Asian Child Workers  Website: www.JodieRenner.com; Facebook. Amazon Author Page.

Show, Don't Tell

by Jodie Renner, editor & author   

"SHOW, DON’T TELL" is the most familiar mantra among advisors to fiction writers, and one of the most difficult concepts for new fiction writers to grasp. Mastering this concept will make a huge difference in the quality of your stories.

What does it mean? It’s about bringing the scene to life and putting the reader right there, inside your character, experiencing her fear along with her, feeling the sweat on her brow and her adrenaline racing, your pulse quickening right along with hers, muscles tensed, ready to leap into action.

~ Cut back on narration, description, and exposition.

Remember this: Story trumps all. Keep the story moving and the characters interacting. The author stepping in to describe or explain things to the readers brings the story to a screeching halt and can be distracting, boring, and irritating for readers.

~ Don’t tell us what happened – show us what happened.

A common mistake among aspiring fiction writers is to describe or narrate (tell) events as if they took place at some point in the past, instead of putting the reader right in the middle of the action and showing the events as they occur, in real time, along with the characters’ actions, reactions, inner thoughts and feelings, and actual words (direct dialogue in quotations). 

To clarify what is meant by “show, don’t tell,” think of it this way: Which would you rather do, go see an exciting movie in a theatre with a big screen and surround sound (“show”), or hear about the movie from someone else afterward (“tell”)? That’s the difference we’re talking about here.

Janet Evanovich considers “show, don’t tell” to be one of the most important principles of fiction: “Instead of stating a situation flat out, you want to let the reader discover what you’re trying to say by watching a character in action and by listening to his dialogue. Showing brings your characters to life.”

~ Don’t get in the way or interpret for us.

We like to experience things for ourselves, not hear about them from someone else. Think about watching those slide shows with narration, from your neighbors’ vacation. Yawn. In the same way, readers of popular fiction don’t want to be kept at arm’s length, to be told what’s happening by an intermediary narrator. They want to experience the events firsthand, to see, hear and feel what’s happening. They want to sense the character’s fears, hopes, joys and worries and draw their own conclusions.

As Jack Bickham says, “Not only does moment-by-moment development make the scene seem most lifelike, it’s in a scene [with dialogue and action and reaction] where your reader gets most of his excitement. If you summarize, your reader will feel cheated – short-changed of what he reads for – without quite knowing why.”

It’s through characters interacting that a scene comes alive, so be sure to put us right there with the characters, in the middle of the tension and conflict, using “live” action and dialogue.

~ Also, no need to “tell” after you’ve “shown.”        

Before:

“You’re late!” the general said. He didn’t like to be kept waiting.

Don’t explain after the fact. The words and actions should convey it.

After:

“You’re late!” The general glared at him, hands on hips.

Other no-no examples of telling after showing:

In each case, take out the unnecessary sentence at the end:

She moped around the house and wouldn’t answer the phone. Even TV didn’t interest her. She was depressed.

“You crack me up,” she said, laughing hysterically. Joel could be so funny.

~ Use deep point of view.

Use close third-person point of view (or first person) to put us right into your protagonist’s or other main character’s head and skin. Show us her thoughts, reactions, and plans, his inner fears, hopes, resentments, anger, confusion, tenderness, relief, and joy. Don’t keep the reader at arm’s length by describing your hero or heroine from the outside, using omniscient or distant third-person point of view.

~ Evoke all five senses.

Showing means presenting the story to the reader using sensory information. The reader wants to feel what the character is feeling, experience their fear, joy, anger, determination, and pain, know their inner hopes and thoughts, and also see what’s happening, hear the different voices of the characters and other sounds, smell the smells, feel the tactile sensations, and taste the food and drink along with them. Telling, on the other hand, is summarizing the story for the reader in a way that skips past the life-giving sensory information and just relates the basic actions and events that occurred.

~ Use powerful, evocative phrasing.

As Jessica Morrell says, “adjectives tell and verbs show. For example, instead of “It was a shiny necklace,” trade the adjective shiny for a verb: the necklace glinted or the necklace sparkled, gleamed, flashed, glimmered, shimmered, twinkled.” Instead of “the miner was tired” (telling), say “the miner trudged home, head bowed,” or “the miner plodded along, his boots feeling like lead weights” or “the miner clomped over the gravel with heavy steps.” Or slogged or tramped or lumbered or dragged or shuffled (all showing).

Do a search for the word “was” – it’s often an indicator of telling instead of showing, as in “she was sad” or “he was angry.” Show their feelings instead by their thoughts, actions, words, tone, and body language.

~ Add in lots of tension and conflict.

Also, the bulk of the scene needs to be about a conflict of some kind between characters. No conflict = no scene. As Jack M. Bickham says, the conflict part of the scene “draws readers out through a moment-by-moment drama, extending the scene suspense with pleasurable agony.” If you have a scene where everyone is getting along great, revise it to add more tension.

EXAMPLES OF SHOWING, RATHER THAN TELLING:

Telling: Jake’s words spooked me.

Showing: The hair on my arms rose when I thought about Jake’s words.

Telling: George was disgusted and angry.

Showing: George pounded his fist on the table and swore at her, his lips curling. “Don’t ever do that again.”

Telling: Janie was bored at her Grandma’s.

Showing: Janie wandered from room to room, trying to find something to do. She wished it wasn’t raining outside. She looked through Grandma’s old books but nothing interested her.


RECAP – TIPS FOR SHOWING INSTEAD OF TELLING:

~ Show the characters’ actions as they’re occurring, in real time.

~ Use deep point of view to get right into the skin, head, and heart of your character.

~ Show us your viewpoint character’s reactions, feelings, emotions, and thoughts.

~ Add in sensory information. What are they seeing, hearing, touching, tasting, feeling?

~ Include lots of spirited, to-the-point dialogue. 

~ Look for “was” or “were” and rephrase the sentence, replacing the adjective with a compelling verb or verbal phrase.

~ Cut way back on narrative description, exposition, and lengthy explanations of the character’s past or motivations.

~ Keep flashbacks short, and show them in real time, with action and dialogue.

~ Throw in plenty of conflict and tension. 

~ Avoid telling after you’ve shown.

~ But “tell” to summarize – or just skip right past – the boring bits.

Of course, you can’t show everything, or your book would be way too long, and it would tire your readers out – or worse, end up boring them. You don’t want to show every move your characters make at down times, or when going from one place to the other. That’s where you summarize or “tell,” to get them to the next important scene quickly, without a lot of boring detail. 

The main thing to keep in mind is to never tell the reader, after the fact (or have a character telling another character), about a critical scene. Instead, dramatize it in the here and now, with dialogue, action, and lots of sensory details to bring it to life for the reader.


Resources:
Jack M. Bickham, The 38 Most Common Fiction Writing Mistakes 
Jessica Page Morrell, Thanks, But This Isn’t For Us
And Jodie’s editing of novels and critical reading of bestsellers

Jodie Renner is a freelance fiction editor and the award-winning author of three craft-of-writing guides in her series An Editor’s Guide to Writing Compelling Fiction: FIRE UP YOUR FICTION,  CAPTIVATE YOUR READERS, and WRITING A KILLER THRILLER, as well as two clickable time-saving e-resources, QUICK CLICKS: Spelling List and QUICK CLICKS: Word Usage. She has also organized two anthologies for charity: VOICES FROM THE VALLEYS – Stories and Poems about Life in BC’s Interior, and CHILDHOOD REGAINED – Stories of Hope for Asian Child Workers  Website: www.JodieRenner.com; Facebook. Amazon Author Page.

21 TIPS FOR CREATING A COMPELLING SHORT STORY

by Jodie Renner, editor & author

Writing short stories is a great way to experiment with different genres, characters, settings, and “voices.” And due to the rise in e-books and e-magazines, length is no longer an issue, so there’s a growing market for short stories. You can also publish a collection of 3 or 4 of your short stories yourself in a short anthology, relatively easily on Amazon, and they don’t even need to be on a common theme. Here are some guidelines for writing a compelling story, worthy of publishing or submitting to contests, magazines, and anthologies.

Of course, these are only tips and guidelines – like any good cook with a recipe, you’ll tweak them to suit your own vision and story ideas.

PLANNING STAGE:

1. Pay attention to word count. Short stories are generally between 500 and 7,500 words long. If you want to submit your short story to a magazine or contest, be sure to read their guidelines as to length. Also, read the fine print to avoid giving away all rights to your story.

2. Keep the story tight. A short story is about just a small slice of life, with one story thread and one theme. Don’t get too ambitious. It’s best to limit it to one main character plus a few supporting characters, one geographical location, and a short time frame, like a few weeks maximum—better yet, a few days, or even hours or minutes.

3. Create a complex, charismatic character. Your main character should be multi-dimensional and at least somewhat sympathetic, so readers can relate to him and start bonding with him right away. And give him a human side, with some inner conflict and vulnerability, so readers care about him and start worrying about him immediately. A worried reader is an engaged reader. Remember that readers need to care about your character before they’ll start caring what happens to him.

4. Put your character in motion right away, and disrupt her world. Having her interacting with someone else is usually best – much more dynamic than starting with a character alone, musing. Also, best not to start with your character just waking up or in an everyday situation or on a routine trip to somewhere. That’s too much slow lead-up for a short story – or any compelling story, for that matter.

5. Think of a main story question/problem and a tight plot or storyline. Give your character an important goal that is thwarted. Create a main conflict, and other lesser conflicts/problems, with tension throughout. No conflict = no story. Get your protagonist into some hot water! The conflict can be internal or external, or both, and can be against man, circumstances, or nature. Something has to happen in your story, to achieve reader satisfaction. Your main character, someone the reader cares about, has to run into a difficult challenge they need to confront, and you need some kind of resolution at the end.

6. Develop a unique “voice” for this story by first getting to know your character really well, then journaling in their voice. Just let the ideas flow, in their point of view, expressing their hopes and frustrations with their words and expressions. Then carry that voice throughout the whole story, even to the narration and description, which is really the character’s thoughts, perceptions, observations and reactions.

7. Create interesting supporting characters. Give each of your characters a distinct personality, with hopes, accomplishments, fears, insecurities and secrets, and add some individual quirks to bring each of them to life. Supporting and minor characters should be different from your protagonist, for contrast.

8. To enter and win contests, make your character and story unique and memorable. Try to jolt or awe the readers somehow, with a unique, charismatic, even quirky or weird character, and/or a surprising topic or plot twist.

9. Experiment – take a chance. Short stories can be edgier, darker, or more intense because they’re short, and readers can tolerate something a little more extreme for a limited time. 

WRITING STAGE:

10. Jump right in, with a disruption and tension in the first paragraph. There’s no room in a short story for a long, meandering lead-up to the main problem, or an extended introduction of the setting or the characters and their background. Jump right in with the main character’s life being disrupted in some way.

11. Start right out in the head of your main character. It’s best to use their name right in the first sentence to establish them as the POV character, the one readers are supposed to identify with and root for. Then let readers know really soon their gender, rough age, and role in the story world.

12. Situate the reader early on. Don’t forget the 4 W’s: who, what, where, when. Establish your setting (time and place) within the first few paragraphs as well, to situate your reader and avoid confusion. But avoid starting with a great long descriptive passage.

13. Use close point of view. Get up close and personal with your main character and tell the story from his or her point of view. You don’t have time or space to get into anyone else’s viewpoint in a short story. Even your narration is your POV character’s thoughts and observations. Don’t intrude as the author to describe or explain anything to the readers in neutral language.

14. Show, Don’t Tell! Don’t use narration to tell your readers what happened—put them right in the middle of the scene, with lots of dialogue and action and reactions, in real time. And skip past transitional times and unimportant moments. Just use a few words to go from one time/place to another, unless something important happens during the transition.

15. Show your character’s reactions, both inner and outer. And to bring the character and scene to life on the page, evoke all five senses, not just sight and hearing.

16. Every page needs tension of some sort. It might be overt, like an argument, or subtle, like inner resentments, disagreements, worry, etc. No tension = boring.

17. Dialogue is war! Skip the yadda-yadda, blah-blah and add spark and tension to all your dialogue. And make your dialogue sound as natural and authentic as you can. Each character should speak differently, and not like the author. Use contractions, partial sentences, slang words, interruptions, one-word answers, silences, evasive replies, and lots of tension and attitude! When it comes to dialogue, ignore the computer lines that indicate incorrect English. Read your dialogue out loud or role-play with a friend to make sure it sounds natural.

18. Go out with a bang. Don’t stretch out the conclusion – tie it up pretty quickly. Like your first paragraph, your final paragraph needs to be memorable, and also satisfying to the readers. A surprise twist would be great, but it needs to make sense, given all the other details of the story. It’s not necessary to tie everything up in a neat bow – in fact, short story endings can be more ambiguous than for novels – but do give your reader some sense of resolution. And be sure the protagonist solves his or her problem or triumphs through their own courage, determination, and resourcefulness, not through coincidence, luck or a rescue by someone else.

REVISING STAGE:

19. Hook them in with an opening that zings. Write and rewrite your first line, opening paragraph and first page. They need to be as gripping and as intriguing as you can make them, in order to grab the readers and make them want to read the rest of the story. Your first sentence and paragraph should arouse curiosity, and raise questions that demand to be answered.

20. Cut to the chase! The short story requires discipline and editing. Trim down any long, convoluted sentences to reveal the essentials. Less is more, so make every word count. If a sentence or line of dialogue doesn’t advance the plot or further develop a character, take it out. Use strong, evocative, specific nouns and verbs and cut back on supporting adjectives and adverbs.  For example, instead of saying “He walked heavily” say “He trudged.” Or instead of “She walked quietly into the room,” say “She tiptoed…”

21. Make every element and every image count. Every element you insert in the story should have some significance or some relevance later. If it doesn’t, take it out. You have no room for filler in a compelling short story.   

Jodie Renner is a freelance fiction editor, workshop presenter, judge for fiction contests, and the award-winning author of three craft-of-writing guides in her series An Editor’s Guide to Writing Compelling Fiction: Captivate Your Readers, Fire up Your Fiction, and Writing a Killer Thriller. She has also published two clickable time-saving e-resources to date: Quick Clicks: Spelling List and Quick Clicks: Word Usage. Jodie has also organized and edited two anthologies for charity: Voices from the Valleys, and Childhood Regained – Stories of Hope for Asian Child Workers. You can find Jodie at www.JodieRenner.com, and on Facebook and Twitter.