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.
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.
