08/07/2023
20 Tips For Writing a Captivating Short Story
By: Mindy Halleck
Here are some editing tips that hopefully will keep you from banging your head on the editing desk.
1. Watch your word count. Obviously I would start here. Short stories are normally 500 to 7,500 words long, maybe 10,000 with some presses. If you want to submit to a magazine or contest, study their guidelines as to length.
2. Craft a VOICE for your story by first understanding your character(s). I’ve gone as far as shopping in Pike Place Market as one of my characters, then sitting down in the café (she would have chosen) and writing in her I wrote about her grief as a widow, her fear as an immigrant alone in a new country, and so on. I got to know her. Then I created a story in her voice. This is where you really need to let creativity flow.
3. Create a complex, magnetic character. Your protagonist should be multi-dimensional and sympathetic, so readers can connect with her/him right away. As well as outer conflict add an inner conflict and vulnerability, so readers can care straightaway. Remember, readers need to care about characters before they will start caring what happens to them.
4. Disrupt your character’s world. DO NOT start your story with a character alone, just waking, looking in a mirror, musing, thinking, obsessing, in other words, get outside of your character and be active.
5. Design a main story quest or question and a tight plot or storyline. Create a central conflict, and other lesser conflicts/problems, with tension throughout. Give your character a significant goal that is thwarted. Remember, no conflict = no story. Conflict can be internal or external, or both, and can be against situations, people or nature. If nothing is happening, there is no reader fulfillment. Your protagonist must be someone the readers care about. He/She has to meet with a demanding challenge, and some form of resolution by the end; happy or sad doesn’t matter.
6. Create arresting secondary characters. Give each one a unique personality, with secrets, hopes, actions, fears and quirks. Maintain a distinction between supportive characters and the protagonist.
7. Keep it tight. A short story is a ‘slice-of-life’, not the entire pizza. It’s best to limit it to one significant character plus a few secondary characters, one physical location, and a specific, tight time-frame, like weeks, days, hours, or tauter yet, minutes.
8. Experiment! Take risks! Short stories can be edgier, darker, or more extreme because they’re short, and readers can endure something a little more risky for a limited time.
9. Enter contests! Make characters and stories distinctive and unforgettable. Try to surprise the readers somehow, with a unique, magnetic, even peculiar or weird character, and/or a unexpected topic or plot-twist.
10. Start out on fire! Begin with a disturbance and tension in the first few sentences. There’s no room in a short story for a long, twisting approach to the story problem. There’s also no room for a lengthy overview of the setting or the characters and their backstories. Jump right in with the protagonist’s life being turn topsy-turvy in some way.
11. Start in the POV (the head) of your main protagonist. It’s best to use their name right in the first sentence to establish them as the POV character, the one readers will identify with and cheer for. As soon as possible let readers know their approximate age, gender, and role in the story world.
12. Establish the 4 W’s: who, what, where, when. Reveal setting (time and place) within the first few paragraphs as well, to situate your reader and sidestep confusion. But avoid starting with a lengthy descriptive passage.
13. Use close POV. Get personal with your protagonist and tell the story from his or her point of view. In a short story there is no time or space to get into anyone else’s viewpoint. Even your narration is your POV character’s thoughts and observations. Don’t encroach as the author to define or explain anything to the readers. Let your POV character carry the story.
14. Show, Don’t Tell! Don’t use narration to tell your readers what transpired—put them right in the middle of the scene, with crafty dialogue, action and reactions. Skip past transitional times and trivial moments. Just use a few words to go from one time and place to another, unless something important happens during the shift.
15. Show your character’s inner and outer reactions. To bring your character to life on the page, evoke all five senses, not just sight and hearing.
16. Every page needs conflict and or tension. It might be obvious, like a disagreement, or inconspicuous, like internal bitterness, anxiety, etc., or unrequited love. Think Sense & Sensibility.
17. Use dialogue as conflict! When it comes to dialogue, snub those warnings from your computer that announce “WARNING! Improper English”. Read your dialogue aloud. The best test is to have a friend read it out loud and you just sit back and listen. Does it sound natural? Does it add conflict, reveal character or simply sound like their sitting down to a hum-drum cup of tea? Cut the tea unless it’s a vital ritual or the murder weapon. If you don’t have friends to read for you, then record yourself and play it back. Most smart phones have recording apps. Make your dialogue as authentic as possible. Each character should express themselves differently. Use contractions, fractional sentences and one-word answers, slang words, disruptions, silences, and cagy replies. Lots of attitude and tension create conflict in your dialogue and on the page.
18. Go out with a bang. Like your first paragraph, your ending paragraph needs to be unforgettable, and also satisfying to your readership. A surprise twist is often nice, but it needs to fit in with all the other specifics of the story. You don’t need to wrap everything up in a neat package, in fact, short story endings can be vaguer than for novels. But do reveal a sense of resolution for the satisfaction of your reader. And be certain the protagonist/hero solves his or her problem or is victorious via their own bravery, willpower, and ingenuity, not through coincidence, luck or liberation by another character.
19. Hook them in with an opening that sizzles and zings. Your first sentence and paragraph should rouse interest and raise questions that beg to be answered. Write and rewrite your first line, first paragraph and first page. They need to be as attention-grabbing and intriguing as possible in order to take hold of the reader’s attention and make them want to read the story.
20. Toss out those darlings. LESS IS MORE! Short stories require restraint and tight editing. Trim any long, complex sentences to expose the essentials, and make every word count. If a sentence or line of dialogue doesn’t advance the plot or the character, cut it. Use strong, evocative, explicit verbs and nouns and cut back on adjectives and adverbs. For example; “She slowly walked through the market.” Consider, “She wandered”. Or instead of “He ran as fast as he could to the car”. Instead, “He rushed”. Remember, every component of a story should have some consequence or relevance later. If it doesn’t, cut it. There’s no room for fluffy long narrative in a captivating short story.
