In the first of a new three-part series on everything you need to make your short stories stand out, prizewinning author and short fiction specialist Alice Jolly explores setting up your story
Maybe you already write short stories? Or perhaps you’re a new writer, and you are not sure how to start? Either way, this series of three articles will provide you with ideas and inspiration to help you write your first story – or find new ways of looking at a story you are already working on.
In this first article, I am going to look at how a short story differs from longer fiction, what makes a good story, and how to create a first draft. The next article will look at writing ‘the turn’ and at creating dialogue and subtext.
The final article will look at why you need to create a sense of place and how you can do that. It will also investigate endings and suggest how you can edit your story so that it glitters. Along the way I will be sharing tips and exercises which will support you as you write.
How does a short story differ from a novel?
Word count is far from the only difference between the novel and the short story. As someone who has judged short story prizes, I see too many stories which fail because the writer has treated the short story like the summary of a novel.
A short story is similiar to a novel in that it suggests whole lives, and worlds, but the key word is ‘suggests.’ The short story has to be condensed and presented in miniature. It is generally a brief glimpse of a moment in time and it often dramatizes a turning point.
In addition, the story needs to have some wider resonance. No matter how ‘small’ it may seem, it needs to create an echo, an after taste. Something needs to be left unresolved so that the reader keeps thinking about the story after it has ended.
How can all this be achieved within a short word count (anything from approximately 1,000 words to 6,000)? I won’t lie. It is difficult. I wouldn’t argue that short stories are more challenging than novels, but the work involved can be extensive – and hugely rewarding.
Starting to write a short story
There are hundreds of ways to write a short story. What I am going to give you is a blueprint for just one type of story. This type of story works largely as one scene. Whenever we talk about scenes it is worth thinking about the things which are not a scene.
These include description, characters thinking about things, the author telling us their views, accounts of what characters generally do, backstory (unless it is told as a scene). Just to be clear, I am not saying there is no pla
