Jerz > Writing > General Creative Writing Tips [ Poetry | Fiction ]
Writing short stories means beginning as close to the climax as possible — everything else is a distraction. A novel can take a more meandering path, but should still start with a scene that sets the tone for the whole book.
A short story conserves characters and scenes, typically by focusing on just one conflict, and drives towards a sudden, unexpected revelation. Go easy on the exposition and talky backstory — your reader doesn’t need to know everything that you know about your characters.
Do you have a short story assignment due tomorrow morning? The rest of this document covers longer-term strategies, but if you are in a pinch, these emergency tips should help. Good luck!
An effective short story (or poem) does not simply record or express the author’s feelings; rather, it generates feelings in the reader. (See “Show, Don’t (Just) Tell.”)
Drawing on your own real-life experiences, such as winning the big game, bouncing back after an illness or injury, or dealing with the death of a loved one, are attractive choices for students who are looking for a “personal essay” topic. But simply listing the emotions you experienced (“It was exciting,” “I’ll never forget how heart-broken I felt,” “I miss her so much I’ll never the same without her”) is not the same thing as generating emotions for your readers to experience.
For those of you who are looking for more long-term writing strategies, here are some additional ideas.
Read a LOT of Chekhov. Then re-read it. Read Raymond Carver, Earnest Hemingway, Alice Munro, and Tobias Wolff. If you don’t have time to read all of these authors, stick to Chekhov. He will teach you more than any writing teacher or workshop ever could.
-Allyson Goldin, UWEC Asst. Professor of Creative Writing
In today’s fast-moving world, the first sentence of your narrative should catch your reader’s attention with the unusual, the unexpected, an action, or a conflict. Begin with tension and immediacy. Remember that short stories need to start close to their end.
I heard my neighbor through the wall. | |
Dry. Nothing sparks the reader’s imagination. | |
The neighbor behind us practiced scream therapy in his shower almost every day. | |
Catches the reader’s attention. Who is this guy who goes in his shower every day and screams? Why does he do that? What, exactly, is“scream therapy”? Let’s keep reading… | |
The first time I heard him, I stood in the bathroom listening at our shared wall for ten minutes, debating the wisdom of calling the police. It was very different from living in the duplex over middle-aged Mr. and Mrs. Brown and their two young sons in Duluth. | |
The rest of the paragraph introduces I and an internal conflict as the protagonist debates a course of action and introduces an intriguing contrast of past and present setting. |
“It is important to understand the basic elements of fiction writing before you consider how to put everything together. This process is comparable to producing something delectable in the kitchen–any ingredient that you put into your bowl of dough impacts your finished loaf of bread. To create a perfect loaf, you must balance ingredients baked for the correct amount of time and enhanced with the right polishing glaze.” -Laurel Yourke
Your job, as a writer of short fiction–whatever your beliefs–is to put complex personalities on stage and let them strut and fret their brief hour. Perhaps the sound and fury they make will signify something that has more than passing value–that will, in Chekhov’s words, “make [man] see what he is like.” –Rick Demarnus
In order to develop a living, breathing, multi-faceted character, it is important to know way more about the character than you will ever use in the story. Here is a partial list of character details to help you get started.
- Name
- Age
- Job
- Ethnicity
- Appearance
- Residence
- Pets
- Religion
- Hobbies
- Single or married?
- Children?
- Temperament
- Favorite color
- Friends
- Favorite foods
- Drinking patterns
- Phobias
- Faults
- Something hated?
- Secrets?
- Strong memories?
- Any illnesses?
- Nervous gestures?
- Sleep patterns
Imagining all these details will help you get to know your character, but your reader probably won’t need to know much more than the most important things in four areas:
For example, let’s say I want to develop a college student persona for a short story that I am writing. What do I know about her?
Her name is Jen, short for Jennifer Mary Johnson. She is 21 years old. She is a fair-skinned Norwegian with blue eyes, long, curly red hair, and is 5 feet 6 inches tall. Contrary to the stereotype about redheads, she is actually easygoing and rather shy. She loves cats and has two of them named Bailey and Allie. She is a technical writing major with a minor in biology. Jen plays the piano and is an amateur photographer. She lives in the dorms at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire. She eats pizza every day for lunch and loves Red Rose tea. She cracks her knuckles when she is nervous. Her mother just committed suicide.
Point of view is the narration of the story from the perspective of first, second, or third person. As a writer, you need to determine who is going to tell the story and how much information is available for the narrator to reveal in the short story. The narrator can be directly involved in the action subjectively, or the narrator might only report the action objectively.
| I saw a tear roll down his cheek. I had never seen my father cry before. I looked away while he brushed the offending cheek with his hand. |
This is a good choice for beginning writers because it is the easiest to write. (But if your viewpoint character is too much like you, a first-person story might end up being a too-transparent exercise in wish-fulfillment, or score-settling.) |
| You laughed loudly at the antics of the clown. You clapped your hands with joy. |
(See also Jerz on interactive fiction.) |
| He ran to the big yellow loader sitting on the other side of the gravel pit shack. |
Your narrator might take sides in the conflict you present, might be as transparent as possible, or might advocate a position that you want your reader to challenge (this is the “unreliable narrator” strategy). |
Make your readers hear the pauses between the sentences. Let them see characters lean forward, fidget with their cuticles, avert their eyes, uncross their legs. –Jerome Stern
Dialogue is what your characters say to each other (or to themselves).
Each speaker gets his/her own paragraph, and the paragraph includes whatever you wish to say about what the character is doing when speaking. (See: “Quotation Marks: Using Them in Dialogue“.)
Where are you going?” John cracked his knuckles while he looked at the floor. “To the racetrack.” Mary edged toward the door, keeping her eyes on John’s bent head. “Not again,” John stood up, flexing his fingers. “We are already maxed out on our credit cards.” | |
The above paragraph is confusing, because it is not clear when one speech stops and the other starts. |
“Where are you going?” John asked nervously. “To the racetrack,” Mary said, trying to figure out whether John was too upset to let her get away with it this time. “Not again,” said John, wondering how they would make that month’s rent. “We are already maxed out on our credit cards.” | |
The second example is mechanically correct, since it uses a separate paragraph to present each speaker’s turn advancing the conversation. But the narrative material between the direct quotes is mostly useless. |
Write Meaningful Dialogue Labels
“John asked nervously” is an example of “telling.” The author could write “John asked very nervously” or “John asked so nervously that his voice was shaking,” and it still wouldn’t make the story any more effective.
How can the author convey John’s state of mind, without coming right out and telling the reader about it? By inference. That is, mention a detail that conjures up in the reader’s mind the image of a nervous person.
| |
Any of the above would work. |
John sat up and took a deep breath, knowing that his confrontation with Mary had to come now, or it would never come at all. “Wh– where are you going?” he stammered haltingly, staring vulnerably at the tattered Thomas the Tank Engine slippers Mary had given him so many years ago, in happier times. | |
Beware — a little detail goes a long way. Why would your reader bother to engage with the story, if the author carefully explains what each and every line means? |
Setting moves readers most when it contributes to an organic whole. So close your eyes and picture your characters within desert, jungle, or suburb–whichever setting shaped them. Imagining this helps balance location and characterization. Right from the start, view your characters inhabiting a distinct place. –– Laurel Yourke
Setting includes the time, location, context, and atmosphere where the plot takes place.
| Our sojourn in the desert was an educational contrast with its parched heat, dust storms, and cloudless blue sky filled with the blinding hot sun. The rare thunderstorm was a cause for celebration as the dry cement tunnels of the aqueducts filled rapidly with rushing water. Great rivers of sand flowed around and through the metropolitan inroads of man’s progress in the greater Phoenix area, forcefully moved aside for concrete and steel structures. Palm trees hovered over our heads and saguaro cactuses saluted us with their thorny arms. |
Plot is what happens, the storyline, the action. Jerome Stern says it is how you set up the situation, where the turning points of the story are, and what the characters do at the end of the story.
A plot is a series of events deliberately arranged so as to reveal their dramatic, thematic, and emotional significance. –Janet Burroway
Understanding these story elements for developing actions and their end results will help you plot your next short story.
Brainstorming. If you are having trouble deciding on a plot, try brainstorming. Suppose you have a protagonist whose husband comes home one day and says he doesn’t love her any more and he is leaving. What are actions that can result from this situation?
The next step is to select one action from the list and brainstorm another list from that particular action.
Conflict is the fundamental element of fiction, fundamental because in literature only trouble is interesting. It takes trouble to turn the great themes of life into a story: birth, love, sex, work, and death. –Janet Burroway
Conflict produces tension that makes the story begin. Tension is created by opposition between the character or characters and internal or external forces or conditions. By balancing the opposing forces of the conflict, you keep readers glued to the pages wondering how the story will end.
This is the turning point of the story–the most exciting or dramatic moment.
The crisis may be a recognition, a decision, or a resolution. The character understands what hasn’t been seen before, or realizes what must be done, or finally decides to do it. It’s when the worm turns. Timing is crucial. If the crisis occurs too early, readers will expect still another turning point. If it occurs too late, readers will get impatient–the character will seem rather thick.-Jerome Stern
Jane Burroway says that the crisis “must always be presented as a scene. It is “the moment” the reader has been waiting for. In Cinderella’s case, “the payoff is when the slipper fits.”
While a good story needs a crisis, a random event such as a car crash or a sudden illness is simply an emergency –unless it somehow involves a conflict that makes the reader care about the characters (see: “Crisis vs. Conflict“).
The solution to the conflict. In short fiction, it is difficult to provide a complete resolution and you often need to just show that characters are beginning to change in some way or starting to see things differently.
Yourke examines some of the options for ending a story.
The Writer’s Block
Comprehensive Web site that offers solutions to beating writer’s block such as various exercises (not necessarily physical), advice from prolific writers, and how to know if you really have writer’s block.
Overcoming Writer’s Block
Precise, short list of ways to start writing again.
Learn through Schooling
Some online colleges and universities offer creative writing courses. Look for ones that offer creative writing courses that cover the plot and structure of short stories.
Dec. 2002 — submitted by Kathy Kennedy, UWEC Senior
(for Jerz’s Advanced Technical Writing class)
Jan 2003 — edited by Jamie Dalbesio, UWEC Senior
(for an independent study project with Jerz)
May 2003 — edited by Jerz and posted at Seton Hill University
Jan 2007 — ongoing edits by Jerz
May 2008 — reformatted
Sep 2010 — tweaked Writer’s Block section
Mar 2011 — reformatted and further tweaked
Jun 2017 — minor editing. Are “Keds” still a recognizable brand of kids shoes?
Feb 2019 — Removed “Keds” reference, beefed up the “bad” shoes example; tweaked formatting.
Archived discussion of “Short Stories: 10 Tips for Creative Writers”
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Thank you! I've been having trouble refining my own short story, so this has helped a lot. I might just work up the courage to show it to people now. (Yay!)
this site is great! But I have one question. I currently have a story i've been working on, but it wasnt planned so im stuck with half a story, and no idea where its going. How do you decide where its going?
It's always a good idea to be open to inspiration. When I get stuck on one project, I pick up another. As long as I am being productive, it's all good. If inspiration strikes, go back to the stalled project. If not, maybe it was time to try something else.
Stepping back from the task at hand and doing something else is a good way of taking your mind off the story. Another idea might occur to you while focused on something other than writing. Then again, take Raymond Chandler's advice: If you are stuck have a man step out of a closet with a gun in his hand.
''If you are stuck, have a man step out of a closet with a gun in his hand.'' Haha, I love that.
Pure golddust! Thanks
Hi,
thank you so much for these golden advice. I thought writing a short story does not need such steps. But now I thank god for not starting writing for my competion.
This has been a tremendous help, Thank you !
Hey this was really helpful,I'm a gcse student and my exam in in about a month, I've been told I need to plan my short story ruffly before the exam, so I have an idea of what to write when given the titles, but I'm struggling on picking plots that are quite broad
any help?
thanks
I have no specific knowledge of the GCSE, but you might try going to Wikipedia, and clicking the "random article" link a few times. You might have a specific character in mind, and flesh that character out, and practice writing what happens when the character you know well faces an unusual situation.
This is fantastic help. Thank you so much for publishing this site. I haven't written anything at this point, but it has been a long lost dream to write something someday. Mostly, I think I was just more afraid to try and not do well for not really knowing where or how to start.
You and your site are actually a good inspirational for beginners, being that I wasn't ever accused of being the brightest student in class, when I bothered to show up all those years ago, that after reading your page, I feel like I actually learned something.
Wish me luck and maybe after I write something, you'll enjoy the read.
oh.........great ....actually iam contesting 4 a story compitetion........great.....it works..thanx alot........i want 2 become a writer and a poet
great site, music to my writing fingers. This is definitely the start of my writing career!!!
Wow...very helpful and useful, thank you very much indeed. I am planning to take a course to write short story. But now I have brief idea and concept. I wanna to have some preparation before my course begins. Anew many thanks....ganbatte