Tips for writing a short story

[Nyerelia]

Hello everyone!

As many of you, I've always loved coming up with stories in my head with the hopes of some day putting them out in the world. The thing is, they are always "long" stories. They might not be a ten-book epic saga but they definitely need their share of development and have a bunch of things that happen in them. So whenever I heard of short stories I always thought "that's not for me, I wouldn't know how to write a short story" and go back to my detailed medium-to-large stories.

But recently I realized that that answer doesn't satisfy me anymore. I don't want to become a master of short stories, but I would want to be able to write them and be, well, "average" at least.

So I come to you, my dear short story writers, to ask for tips on how to get started on this journey on foreign lands. I would appreciate any general tips, though I do have a couple questions that are more specific:

How do you even come up with a plot for a short story? Whenever I have a new idea it simply is not suited for a short story. One of the things I like the most about stories is the characters and when it comes to short stories, even if there's not much to the plot, I feel like I need more time to develop their character growth they way I like it. Basically my main problem with writing short stories, asides from finding a plot that fits, is the same one I have with reading them: just when I'm starting to get invested in the characters and their shenanigans the story ends.

[Fuzed]

Hi there!

I'm by no means an amazing short story writer, but over the years I wrote a couple of them. Most recently, a side-story for my main project. (If you'd be interested in reading it, let me know It's around 1.8k words long.)

The biggest difference between a short story and a full-fledged novel is that there's a lot less detail and the storytelling only tells us the necessary stuff. In a novel, you can have multiple characters, plotlines, etc. But in a short story, it's hard to do that if you want to keep it, well, a short story.

I think that the biggest advantage of writing short stories is that you don't need to plan that much ahead. If you happen to find a plot hole, it's easy to go back 400 words and fix it. That's the biggest advantage of short stories.

Also, make sure that every sentence is meaningful and either propels the story or the characters. (This should also apply for novels, but there you can sometimes add sentences that don't move either and get away with it.)

And most importantly, just write. Don't stop halfway through and tell yourself: "This is not good." Finish the story, and if need be, rewrite it. You'll get there eventually.

It's not much, since I'm no expert but I hope it will be at least somewhat helpful. Have fun writing!

[Mane]

This topic is right up my alley, in the sense that it's a problem I've been struggling with forever as well.

One advice I can give, try to watch some episodic series, preferably anthologies, and see what it is that makes the formula work for them. I know it's a different medium, but I tend to get my inspiration from visual art form rather than literature and try to translate that into my writing.

Another thing, try to cut down on the hand-holding, as in you don't need to lead the reader trough the entire upstairs and downstairs of your world or explain and describe every single aspect. Yes, even when you really, really want to.

There are a lot of things that can be inferred with the help of a few choice words. If , say, a character has a past of dealing with alcoholism that ties in with the conflict of your short story, skip the flashback and just drop hints here and there, like a sobriety coin or a reluctance to go to parties where people drink a lot. Trust the reader to make the connection.

Sometimes cultural and social osmosis can do a lot of the heavy lifting when it comes to tackling a certain theme.

Basically, search for the core of your story, cut down the fat as much as possible.

[Llyrel]

Short story writer here (got some published works in my native language outside of Tapas). The main thing I would do when coming up with a short story was usually focusing on a single concept. Could be a plot point or a particular character... but usually a plot point. Then I would ask myself "okay, but how did we get there?" or "how will we get out of this?" and then start working from there. Mind you, the great majority of my short stories were horror-themed, so they'd often end with a surprise element, which made things a little easier to deal with :'D
But yep, the thing that always worked for me was finding a core theme and then building the rest of the story around it. I'd often limit myself to one or two characters (three at max) and one/two locations: ain't no time to describe too many places and/or to flesh out too many characters, so it's best to keep things at minimum. Writing in first person also helps fleshing out the main character, since you can get an idea of their personality from the way they speak already... though that's not mandatory.

I found that background stories for my own OCs were a pretty good exercise when it came to short stories: a while ago, I used to play this RPG where we had to come up with a short biography for our characters, and more often than not I'd use that as an excuse to write a short story once again, the main question I tried to answer through these short bios was "who is this character and how did they get there?". Usually I'd focus on a key event that shaped their personalities or something that could help me establish what they were like.

Another tip would be: start from the ending. As in, know what the ending of your story is gonna be and create your story from there. You don't have to actually start writing your story from the ending (as in: "this is the story of how I died")... however, knowing how the story is gonna end will make it so much easier to plan everything else afterwards, because you already know where you're aiming to!

Hope that helps ^_^

[Jen-Jen]

Cut out anything unnecessary to the plot. The plot rules all. Use only one plot. Unless it's a fable, include as little dialogue as possible. No dialogue is often best. As for coming up with plots, I often imagine a compelling scene, and write around it.

[ar-ninetysix]

I like the dialogue route, so I tend to opt for simplifying the concepts in a different way: Bluntly speaking, in a short sentence, what's the entire plot and can you explain it to a four year old?

I base the entire plot's length and learn what's necessary for the explanation of it just based off of that alone. Of course, the audience doesn't have to be toddlers but for minimizing everything down.. This legitimately helps me lol and from there I keep the old version of the plot and expand on the bare minimum within reason btw.

[diamondactor]

What I do is choose one problem or one scene. It can lend itself to a greater story at the end, but the immediate problem has been solved. I've done this with Carnivore Chorus (Six Feet From Tomorrow anthology on amazon for free), and Nothing, but Bones (submission into an anthology awaiting results). Both stories were under 2,500 words. I also do short scenes with FMK: Chibi and short adventures in Author's Adventure (usually 3 parts and done before new event). It's all about getting it on the page and practicing at identifying what is needed and what isn't.

[Nyerelia]

Thank you all for answering! You gave me some interesting insight on the matter. I still need to practice and write lots of short stories before I can say I have the hang of it, but I think that now I know a few keypoints I should try to focus on. Thanks again!