Writing the Short Short Story

This weekend, I was talking to a sisterfriend of mine about writing. She was working on a short story for a contest. She asked me to read what she had written thus far, the first couple of pages, and as I read I thought, This is great stuff—for a longer story. She had set up the main character well, had placed me firmly into the context of the story’s situation, and had detailed the environment efficiently. However, as I neared 1,000 words in what was supposed to be a story 2,000 words or less, I had no idea where we were going or where this story was ending. Only because I knew my girl and knew the types of stories she wrote did I have a sense of the type of story she was writing. People who don’t have that knowledge—most people—might be lost.

I asked her to explain to me what, ultimately, the story was about, and once she did, we talked more about how to make what she had into an effective short story—not a great beginning to a novel.

A lot of writers who are entrenched in Novel World often have a hard time transitioning into writing short stories—like my friend. And like me. While pursuing my MFA, I was told on a few occasions that some of my short stories were novelistic. I’m not sure this was a compliment. Now, I can laugh loudly at the comment and realize that to an extent, it is true—but it doesn’t have to be.

In Novel World, we have space to develop scenes and environments, to let characters muse, to place a well-intention monologue, to—well, you get what I’m saying. More space allows for more stuff for the writer to revel in.

With short stories ranging in length to say 2,000 to 20,000 words, there is also a range in how one can tackle a short story depending on its size. A longer short story offers the writer the opportunity to explore some of the things that a novel offers the writer. When you’re writing a shorter short story, one say close to flash fiction and touching on the level of short story—that 1 to 2k zone, it’s important to think of a few things.

GETTING TO THE POINT

We talk a lot about having a great first chapter, first page, first paragraph, even a first sentence, and here, this point is extremely important. I talk more about the first page on this article at the Blood-Red Pencil.  What is the point of the story? What are you trying to say with it? What is its purpose? Its theme? It’s important to think about these questions because the most important thing about a short story is where you start it. You start it too soon and you’ll rush to go to the resolution. You start it too late and readers will be left wondering what happened in the past for the story to occur.

CHARACTERS & DETAILS

These points are not in any order, and if they were, I might put this first because many people think of their characters before a story idea. For a short short story, it’s important to think the fewer the better when it comes to characters. Not more than 3 main characters, and for a short short especially, less than 3 is preferably. Now, don’t take the “less” to mean that your characters should not be fleshed out, not be detailed. They better be! And now that I’m thinking on this, maybe this point should be second because knowing what your theme or idea or purpose is for the story will help you determine which details, which characteristics of your character should be detailed in the story and which ones should not. Once you have an idea of the story, of the theme, then you can clearly make sure that everything, from the dialogue to the character development, adheres to that theme. A short short story is too, well, short to not keep your focus while writing it.

STRUCTURE

Short stories have the same structure as other works of fiction; we move from situation, to conflicts, to resolution. But in a short story, even more so a short short story, it is important to know specifically what the situation is, what the conflict is, and what the resolution is. A short short story takes up small space—in words and in story space. As a result, you’ll need to be mindful of just how many obstacles you’ll place in the story. This point ties in well with the first one because once you have an idea of the story you want to tell, you will need to be mindful of how you start the story. Will you start straightaway with conflict or not? And oftentimes, it’s good to place the character within conflict at the start so that you don’t waste much space with having to lead us to the conflict.

TIME

Short stories typically cover a short span of time. When developing your short short story, think about the time span that the story covers and think about how you can effectively tell the story with a developed character, conflict, dialogue, setting, resolution in the word space you have. Because you don’t have much word space, it’s good to think about a single event, a single, significant event in the main character’s life.

There is so much more I could say about this topic, and probably will in later commentaries.

I’m more of a novelist than a short story writer, but I’m fond of the short story. For me, I treat them like puzzles that need to be solved. Some run from the idea of having to write something short, but if you look at a short story as a game in which you are being challenged to bring a character to life in one momentous event of that life in a short amount of words, then you can make the art of short short story writing a fun activity.