Short story writing

 

Starting to write short fiction

The short story is a form of literature in its own right, and is loved because

 it is able to strike directly into the heart and mind without preamble. A short story is a short, self-contained work of fiction that generally falls between 1,000 and 10,000 words. 

 The compulsion to tell stories is a very powerful and ancient one which continues to have a place in our modern culture.

Short stories demonstrate how diverse, funny, sad, illogical, cruel, rapturous, shocking and mysterious the human experience can be.

It is often said that a short story should provide a snapshot of a moment of illumination.

 

 Short stories typically contain between 1,000 and 10,000 words. Stories longer than 10,000 (but shorter than 40,000) words are generally considered novellas. You might even come across the term novelette to refer to a story between 7,500 and 17,000 words. Once you hit about 50,000 words, you’re in novel territory .

What’s in a short story?

Every short story has these five elements:

·                     Character

·                     Plot

·                     Theme

·                     Conflict

·                     Setting

Characters are the people or animals, aliens, mythical creatures, or sentient objects who do the action in your story. Your protagonist is the character who undergoes some kind of change or lack thereof as a result of the story’s main conflict.

Your antagonist is the character or something abstract attempting to prevent the protagonist’s change.

To clarify, the antagonist doesn’t have to be a person—

1.      it could be the protagonist’s environment,

2.    their society, or

3.    even an aspect of themselves. 

Plot is the series of events that illustrate the story’s conflict.,

A short story’s theme is its central message. This is the point the author wants readers to take away from their work. 

Conflict is the action that drives the story’s plot. It’s the obstacle the protagonist has to overcome or the goal they’re attempting to reach.

 A conflict can be internal, like to prove to herself .

 it can be external, like the protagonist striving to prove to her society

Setting is the time and place where a story’s action occurs. For example, our alien story’s setting might be Nevada in 1955. 

How to write a short story

Mine your imagination

Just like every other type of writing, a short story starts with brainstorming. I

Start your brainstorming session with the elements you already have, then flesh out your story idea from there.

 Write down your setting,

your characters,

 the conflict they face,

 and any key plot points you have in mind.

 Without a conflict, you don’t have a story. Although all of the five elements listed above are necessary for writing a great short story, conflict is the one that drives your plot, shapes your characters, and enables you to express your theme. 

 

The next step in writing short fiction is outlining your story. 

When you outline your story, you organize the notes from your brainstorming session into a coherent skeleton of your finished story.

Outlining your story is a key part of prewriting because it’s where you develop your story’s framework and sketch out how each scene follows the previous scene to advance the plot.

This stage is where you determine any plot twists or big reveals and fit them into the story’s sequence. 

·                     Keep the ending in mind.

·                     Listen to how people speak.   Then, write dialogue that sounds like real conversations. These conversations won’t necessarily be grammatically correct, but they will make your characters sound the way people naturally speak.

Once you have a finished first draft, let it rest. If you have the luxury of waiting a day or so to come back and read what you wrote, do that. That way, you can read your writing again with fresh eyes, which makes it easier to spot inconsistencies and plot holes. 

 

Then it’s time to edit. Read your writing again and note any places where you can make the writing more descriptive, more concise, more engaging, or simply more logical. At this stage, it can be very helpful to work with readers’ feedback. If you’re comfortable sharing your work and receiving constructive criticism, share your rough draft with friends and family—and, if possible, with other writers—and let their feedback guide the revisions you make.