Write Better Short Stories – Part 3

What do you need to include in your short story to ensure that it’s well-written and is a great read? Apart from a strong storyline, solid characters, established POV, a central theme, a setting and an idea of beginning, middle and end, the rest of the ‘meat’ of your story should concentrate on motivation, conflict, emotion, pace and that fine balance of narrative dialogue and description.

Even in short stories, your main character needs motivation, so make sure your reader is aware of the reason your main character is doing what he’s doing, and acts and reacts to events and other characters. What problem must he overcome, what is his ultimate goal?

Motivation drives your character. If there’s nothing within the story that motivates him, there is no story.

You may not think that emotion and conflict are that important to a short story, given that there are fewer words in which to tell the story, but that’s not the case.  Even short stories need a certain amount of conflict to fuel what happens – in whatever form that conflict may take. It could be between two characters, it might be something within their environment, or the conflict might occur within the main character (internal conflict).

Whatever form it takes, conflict acts like a catalyst; it brings everything into focus, just as it does in real life. And where there’s conflict there’s emotion. That’s because of heightened senses and feelings - the disagreements, arguments, fights, the tense situations and unfolding events. All these factors intensify all sorts of emotions, like being scared, fearful, angry, shocked, sad, happy and so on. 

Conflict and emotion create drama and tension.

As well as some tension, make sure you include atmosphere. That may seem difficult because of the pared down nature of short stories, but atmosphere elevates the story for the reader.  Unlike a novel, where atmospheric build up and tone is created over a longer period, the short story can still show atmosphere with a few lines of well-worded description, whether the action takes place on a cold, dark night, the middle of the ocean, or within a bustling train station. Each conjures an atmosphere unique to the story.

Writers also use atmosphere to manipulate the reader, especially in tense or scary scenes. Again, a few well worded descriptions help create tension, apprehension or foreboding etc.

An important aspect to master for short stories is the ability to pace the story. This is more difficult for short stories because of how condensed they are, but just as important. The action and drama should rise and fall at just the right moments, so you need to know where to pick up the pace, intensify, then slow it a little, before speeding up once again. This creates a narrative pulse, which builds towards the climax of the story.

In other words, vary the scenes – balance the action with the non-action scenes. Don’t have the story race along without a break. This will put the reader off. If the story plods and nothing much happens, it will bore your reader. Instead, find the right balance to pace the story.

Better short stories work because writers know how to make each word count. With a limited number of words to tell a story, they must be judicious about the amount of narrative, dialogue and description to create each scene, while still making the story engaging for the reader.

The best short stories work because they show and don’t tell. The right description creates the right atmosphere, mood and tone, the right narrative sets the scene and sprinkles relevant information and dialogue reveals character and pushes the story forward.

Each word and sentence is used effectively.

Lastly, ensure your short story is cohesive. It must flow naturally and make sense and leave the reader satisfied. Read and re-read your story until there are no mistakes, it’s consistent and it flows smoothly.

And remember, the more you write, the more you learn and the better you become.


AllWrite will be taking a break over the festive period and will return in January. Happy Holidays and Happy New Year.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

What Makes a Story Dark?

If you’re a horror writer or you love to write dark, psychological stories and thrillers, or moralistic tales, this is the one question that needs an answer. Wanting a dark story and writing one are two different things, so how do you actually make a story dark? To answer that you first have to understand what is meant by ‘dark’. We usually define ‘dark’ as quantifiable elements that we know and are familiar with, but it’s more than that. Dark doesn’t necessarily mean scary or gory with a crazy psychopath going around chopping people into bits. Instead we have to think of ‘dark ‘as anything outside our accepted rose-tinted reality. Dark is the underbelly of our society; it’s the handling of ideas, themes, social issues and behaviours that would be seen as morally unacceptable. It’s less about fictional monsters but more about the real monsters that lurk in the shadows, something that is underscored by our fears and anxieties. It’s the unknown, because the things we don’t know
Read more

Chapter & Novel Lengths

Just how long should a chapter be? What’s the best length? And does a novel have to fit into a set amount of words? These are just two of the most common questions asked by writers.   They assume they have to work to a strict template of X amount of words and X amount of chapters, usually because most novels have around 30 or 40 chapters and around 80,000 words.   Novel Lengths Firstly, let’s dispel a few myths - novel lengths are dictated by the story itself, not the writer or the editor or a specific written formula.   Secondly, writers don’t have to fit their word count into generic set amounts.   Again, the story will dictate how long the novel will be. It’s also worth knowing the different types of novels that work well with different word counts.   Uncomplicated stories containing minimal characters tend to be short – usually around 20,000 to 60,000 words.   These are called novellas. Longer, more complex stories, which contain a handful of main characters and periphe
Read more

Cadence in Writing

Following on from last week’s article about purple prose, cadence – something many writers haven’t heard of – is something that writers aspire to but don’t always manage it, yet it’s the fundamental difference between poetic language and over-indulgent, flowery prose. Cadence in writing is a sense of rhythm and pace, it lifts the narrative from the page and makes it dynamic; brings a certain tempo to the words and sentences; it’s what makes prose poetic, layered and fluid without it being extravagant. Cadence makes the writing visual and evocative, and to an extent, beautiful . It’s an important element in fiction writing, because without it, narrative certainly won’t be as effective. Writers don’t actively think about cadence – they simply want to write and get the words down. It’s not until later, while editing, that they realise that a sense of rhythm might be missing from their narrative. When poetic description works, it’s called cadence. When it doesn’t work, people ref
Read more