How to Write a Short Story

Keep a list of ideas and add to it for a week before you choose. The idea worth writing is usually the one that still has a question in it. If you already know everything that happens and what it means, there is nothing left for the writing to find. If you are stuck for an idea, a prompt with a character, a want and an obstacle gives you all three parts at once.

The last part matters most. Something should be different at the end: the situation, what the character knows, or what the reader understands about them. A story where nothing changes is a sketch or a vignette, which is a fine form, but write it on purpose.

Let the story find its length in the first draft, then check it against where you want to send it. A 9,000-word story is not wrong, but fewer magazines can take it. At about 250 words a minute, a 3,000-word story takes a reader twelve minutes: one sitting, which is the effect the form is built for.

Ask what this person would never do, then build the story so that they have to consider doing it. A character profile is useful only as far as it gives you that pressure. Names matter more in short fiction than in a novel, because the reader meets each one only a few times: give each a name that is easy to tell apart from the others.

Write the first draft in as few sittings as you can, so that the voice stays the same from beginning to end. If the middle sags, raise the pressure instead of adding events: make the choice harder, the clock shorter or the cost higher. A story can also move through time or fragments, but each section should still push the character toward the turn.

Many first drafts start a page or two too early, with the character waking up, traveling or thinking about the past. Try cutting the first page and see if the story still makes sense. Often it does, and it reads faster. A first line that raises a question works better than one that only describes.

Avoid endings that explain the meaning, and endings that cancel the story, such as waking from a dream. If you can't find the ending, go back to the premise sentence: what has changed? The ending is the scene where the reader sees it. Stopping one paragraph earlier than feels natural often makes an ending stronger.

Read the final draft aloud to catch rhythm and repeated words. Choose a title last; a good one adds something the story doesn't say. Before you send a story out, give it to one or two readers and ask where they got bored, not whether they liked it.

Expect rejections: most magazines take a small share of what they receive, and a form rejection says little about the story. Keep a list of where each story has gone and send it to the next place the same week. Check whether a contest or magazine wants unpublished work, because a story posted on your own blog can count as published.