Write Short Stories - article about Write Short Stories

It is no small challenge to write short stories, and so therefore, I will not pretend to toss out all the secrets to crafting them in this one web page of advice. Instead, I offer some suggestions and nudges to get you in the mood for and to prepare you to include the major elements when you get ready to write short stories for the first time.

Next, from what I learned in one short fiction-writing seminar (with a leader who had worked with such literary gods as Raymond carver and John Updike, when you write short stories, keep the plot moving forward. At least, when you first start writing, avoid the flashbacks and other “advanced” conventions that can wreck a potentially engaging piece.

Another element that needs attention are your characters, obviously, as they carry the plot or storyline. Give each of your [main] characters a name of some sort—using the Bible, a baby book, or a significant name that is subtly relevant to the piece. I say subtle, as the implications you build into your character’s name need to be carefully rendered. A smart, literate reader will find Ben Dover too transparent for the character who is the fall guy in the story, but will appreciate the moping malcontent for her suggestive Puritan name, Debbie Coffin, for instance.

And as I once learned in a writing workshop I was auditing to teach the session that following summer for the in-house, tenured instructor, give each of your characters typical qualities, then occasionally a quirk or a tic—something that “characterizes” that particular person, if you will. Think about Ratzo Rizzo in Midnight Cowboy, with his gimpy left foot and his rageful attitude. The trick is to again be subtle, but also offer some consistency.

Now for plot, that network of veins that all pump the heart engine. When you write short stories at first, you might follow the advice as write101 passes it along: 1. Put a man up a tree. 2. Throw stones at him. 3. Get him down. The point here is when you write short stories, write them around conflict and resolution. You might already be aware of Freytag’s pyramid. If so, that is the schema behind the man in the tree example. If not, the goal is to give a character or characters a problem, and have them work their way out of that problem.

Thos brings us to dialogue, also an impetus for any story and also an awkward task for the beginning writer. I teach my “creative” writing students to do dialogue by starting with a tone experiment, then moving into the second experiment—writing the nastiest argument they can using just one focal point or word. The first experiment involves writing a letter of instruction in the voice of someone well known…a celebrity, a famous man or woman. My students have had The Rock teaching how to peel an orange; have made Elvis teach spinning (exercise) classes; and have had Madonna teach children how to count, for example. The second exercise opens up the emotions for your characters, and keeps the conversation/dialogue rooted, or grounded, at least, on a pointed topic: two people in Hemingway’s “Hills Like White Elephants,” for example, are arguing (or heatedly discussing) one phenomenon—abortion, yea or nay. Carver’s “What We Talk about When We Talk about Love,” has four characters discussing the most abstract of abstractions. You decide, but maybe try for a more manageable dialogue for starters.

Whatever you do, do it with passion. When you write short stories, that is, take what (advice) you need, and leave the rest….

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