So… all that goes to say that titling a book that you’ve put your heart and soul into can be an uphill battle. But, on the reverse, working backward using a title can be a fun little writing exercise to get your creative juices flowing. Below are three lists, use a random number generator to select an option from each of these lists…

Chose a descriptor

1. Diamond
2. Deadly
3. Envious
4. Blue
5. Humble
6. Comely

Chose a primary word

1. Hammer
2. Elephant Tusk
3. Daughter
4. Apology
5. Dragon
6. Roller Coaster

Chose an ending word

1. The Awkward Muffin
2. The Man Called Once
3. The Land of Lost Things
4. The Silent Winter
5. The Giant Gourd
6. The Extraordinary Hour

Create your title

Now drop the words you selected into the following title:

The [Descriptor] [Primary Word] and [Ending Word]

You’re now tasked with writing a short story using the title you’ve generated. Try to imagine how these three things could all be part of one cohesive story. Maybe they’re symbolic in some cases and more literal in others- but try to create characters, plot, and a story that will match up with the zany title you’ve created.

The post Writing Prompt: Title Game appeared first on Dorrance Publishing Company.

Character Arc

Even though you’re working with a fraction of the page length and word count that novelists work with, short story readers want to see some character arc- at least from your protagonist. If you’re including, let’s say, a group of friends in your short story, your audience won’t be expecting character arc from every single member of the group. That would be a ridiculous expectation for a 30-page story. Simply hone in on your protagonist’s story and brainstorm ways to make sure they’ve changed by the end of the story. Remember, your short story should be selected to take place during a time of character growth for your protagonist. Focus on how the events of the story will change your protagonist as a person- for better or worse.

As few characters as possible

Because your page length is very limited and there’s a lot that needs to happen, you’ll only be shooting yourself in the foot by trying to include dozens of characters. You won’t be able to fully realize your protagonist’s development and the plot of the story if you’re focusing on establishing all of these different characters and their unique traits. Not only that, but your readers will be frustrated. Even in a novel, it’s difficult to have several characters introduced at once- let alone in a story less than 1/4 the size.

Emotional Impact

It may not happen often, but have you ever watched a commercial or music video and found yourself bursting into tears? Even though you’ve been viewing this tiny story or advertisement for a mere few minutes, what you watched was so simple and touching with its own little story. You leave surprised something so short could impact you so much emotionally. That’s exactly how your short story should feel. All of the best short stories, similarly to these mediums, hone in on the emotional core of an experience and, because they’re short and can get right to the point, have a way of being extremely touching. Stories like Why the Sky Turns Red When the Sun Goes Down and Delicate Edible Birds are just a few of hundreds of stories to use as examples of how to do this well.

Clear theme

Whereas novel writers can touch on several themes or topics throughout their stories, short story writers are encouraged to hone in on one and focus on dissecting it. And it can’t be a general idea like simply love/relationships, politics, or war- hone in on a specific aspect of these big ideas. For example, Jhumpa Lahiri’s A Temporary Matter focuses on the relationship between a couple who suffered a miscarriage and how it affects their relationship.

Less exposition, more action/imagery

Though novel writing will inevitably involve some exposition, in a short story you should include as little as possible. Focus on showing the details of your character’s internal state and their feelings through setting, observations that the character makes, objects they see, people they interact with, and body language. For example, let’s say your protagonist’s dilemma is trying to decide whether they want to have kids. Maybe throughout the story, as they maneuver through life, they observe different kid/parent interactions- some sweet, some sad, some annoying. This way we aren’t being told how the protagonist feels, we get to see them noticing things and their body language or reactions can tell us how they’re feeling about what they’re observing.

The post Writing For Your Audience: Short Stories appeared first on Dorrance Publishing Company.

Whose story is it?

A short story is all about creating a satisfying and believable character arc within a finite number of pages. So the last thing you want to do is go back and forth between two POV’s or try to give two characters an arc (trust us, it’s hard enough to do one). Even if you want two characters to be within the central action of the story–even if you want the events of the story to change multiple people in some way–the story should only belong to one character. And that should be the character who is going to be most drastically affected by the events that unfold. Ultimately, if a reader reads your story and can’t answer the question, “Whose story is this?” by the end, you’re doing something wrong.

Why now? Why today?

As we said before, the biggest challenge of a short story is that you basically have to do what a book does in terms of character arc within a short number of pages. Because of this, it’s crucial that you ask yourself- why is this story happening today? When attempting to write a short story, a lot of writers make the mistake of focusing solely on forming an interesting and engaging character and failing to focus on why this day specifically is important to the character’s life as a whole. Character drives plot so of course, it’s important to have an engaging character to carry the story, but the story needs to be happening on an extremely important day in their life.

When reading about this, a lot of writers then make the mistake of thinking that means that a huge event needs to happen in this character’s life. They’ll assume their parents have to get divorced or they need to be involved in a school shooting for the story to be purposeful enough. However, it doesn’t have to be a huge monumental event on the grand scale of things, it simply needs to be a huge monumental event to this specific character.

For example, perhaps the story starts with a character in his fifties and his wife tells him the doctor called to set up a checkup. A reader may assume its something dire, but perhaps this man just has refused to go to the doctor’s for the last thirty years, insisting that they’re wackjobs while secretly just being afraid of finding out something is wrong. Perhaps this is a fight he and his wife have been having annually all of this time. And, by the end of the story, he decides to finally go. To most people an annual check-up with a doctor isn’t life or death- but if it is to the character, then you have a good story.

What does the protagonist want? What is keeping him/her from getting it?

Another core aspect of a short story is character desire. While in a book-length manuscript we say that character drives the plot, in a short story it’s more specifically character desire that drives it. It needs to be made clear right from the beginning what the protagonist of the story wants and they need to want it badly. It’s not engaging to write a wishy-washy character that sort of wants something or might want it, because then the story has nothing at stake. The character has nothing to gain or lose over the course of the events that take place. And to be clear, they can have a negative desire as well. For example, in the above scenario, our main character desperately wants to avoid the doctor–that’s his core desire that drives the plot. In addition, the conflict comes in through whatever forces are keeping the protagonist from getting what they want. For example, in the above scenario, the conflicting force is obvious–the conflict is his wife insisting he go to the doctors.

Choice

Ultimately, the climax of a short story should always be a choice that the protagonist faces. In books, a climax can be a long battle scene or something with a lot of action, but in a short story when the conflict comes to a boiling point it must lead to the character making a choice. And the events of the story up until that point should make it clear what the cost of the choice will be.

The choice can’t be black and white, right or wrong kind of choice, either. It should present two options or paths to the protagonist and we should see that they will gain and lose something no matter what they choose. So let’s take our previous example for instance. Let’s say the story leads to the couple fighting and the wife making it clear that their marriage hangs on the balance of whether he goes to the doctor. In this choice, our protagonist either loses his wife or loses his sense of safety. And he either gains another year of peaceful denial or he gains a wife who feels happy in her marriage.

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