how to write a short story for school

How to Write a Short Story: The Short Story Checklist

Rosemary Tantra Bensko and Sean Glatch | November 17, 2023 | 6 Comments

The short story is a fiction writer’s laboratory: here is where you can experiment with characters, plots, and ideas without the heavy lifting of writing a novel. Learning how to write a short story is essential to mastering the art of storytelling . With far fewer words to worry about, storytellers can make many more mistakes—and strokes of genius!—through experimentation and the fun of fiction writing.

Nonetheless, the art of writing short stories is not easy to master. How do you tell a complete story in so few words? What does a story need to have in order to be successful? Whether you’re struggling with how to write a short story outline, or how to fully develop a character in so few words, this guide is your starting point.

Famous authors like Virginia Woolf, Haruki Murakami, and Agatha Christie have used the short story form to play with ideas before turning those stories into novels. Whether you want to master the elements of fiction, experiment with novel ideas, or simply have fun with storytelling, here’s everything you need on how to write a short story step by step.

The Core Elements of a Short Story

There’s no secret formula to writing a short story. However, a good short story will have most or all of the following elements:

A protagonist with a certain desire or need. It is essential for the protagonist to want something they don’t have, otherwise they will not drive the story forward.
A clear dilemma. We don’t need much backstory to see how the dilemma started; we’re primarily concerned with how the protagonist resolves it.
A decision. What does the protagonist do to resolve their dilemma?
A climax. In Freytag’s Pyramid , the climax of a story is when the tension reaches its peak, and the reader discovers the outcome of the protagonist’s decision(s).
An outcome. How does the climax change the protagonist? Are they a different person? Do they have a different philosophy or outlook on life?

Of course, short stories also utilize the elements of fiction , such as a setting , plot , and point of view . It helps to study these elements and to understand their intricacies. But, when it comes to laying down the skeleton of a short story, the above elements are what you need to get started.

Note: a short story rarely, if ever, has subplots. The focus should be entirely on a single, central storyline. Subplots will either pull focus away from the main story, or else push the story into the territory of novellas and novels.

The shorter the story is, the fewer of these elements are essentials. If you’re interested in writing short-short stories, check out our guide on how to write flash fiction .

How to Write a Short Story Outline

Some writers are “pantsers”—they “write by the seat of their pants,” making things up on the go with little more than an idea for a story. Other writers are “plotters,” meaning they decide the story’s structure in advance of writing it.

You don’t need a short story outline to write a good short story. But, if you’d like to give yourself some scaffolding before putting words on the page, this article answers the question of how to write a short story outline:

https://writers.com/how-to-write-a-story-outline

How to Write a Short Story Step by Step

There are many ways to approach the short story craft, but this method is tried-and-tested for writers of all levels. Here’s how to write a short story step by step.

1. Start With an Idea

Often, generating an idea is the hardest part. You want to write, but what will you write about?

What’s more, it’s easy to start coming up with ideas and then dismissing them. You want to tell an authentic, original story, but everything you come up with has already been written, it seems.

Here are a few tips:

Originality presents itself in your storytelling, not in your ideas. For example, the premise of both Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Ostrovsky’s The Snow Maiden are very similar: two men and two women, in intertwining love triangles, sort out their feelings for each other amidst mischievous forest spirits, love potions, and friendship drama. The way each story is written makes them very distinct from one another, to the point where, unless it’s pointed out to you, you might not even notice the similarities.
An idea is not a final draft. You will find that exploring the possibilities of your story will generate something far different than the idea you started out with. This is a good thing—it means you made the story your own!
Experiment with genres and tropes. Even if you want to write literary fiction , pay attention to the narrative structures that drive genre stories, and practice your storytelling using those structures. Again, you will naturally make the story your own simply by playing with ideas.

If you’re struggling simply to find ideas, try out this prompt generator , or pull prompts from this Twitter .

2. Outline, OR Conceive Your Characters

If you plan to outline, do so once you’ve generated an idea. You can learn about how to write a short story outline earlier in this article.

If you don’t plan to outline, you should at least start with a character or characters. Certainly, you need a protagonist, but you should also think about any characters that aid or inhibit your protagonist’s journey.

When thinking about character development, ask the following questions:

What is my character’s background? Where do they come from, how did they get here, where do they want to be?
What does your character desire the most? This can be both material or conceptual, like “fitting in” or “being loved.”
What is your character’s fatal flaw? In other words, what limitation prevents the protagonist from achieving their desire? Often, this flaw is a blind spot that directly counters their desire. For example, self hatred stands in the way of a protagonist searching for love.
How does your character think and speak? Think of examples, both fictional and in the real world, who might resemble your character.

In short stories, there are rarely more characters than a protagonist, an antagonist (if relevant), and a small group of supporting characters. The more characters you include, the longer your story will be. Focus on making only one or two characters complex: it is absolutely okay to have the rest of the cast be flat characters that move the story along.

Learn more about character development here:

https://writers.com/character-development-definition

3. Write Scenes Around Conflict

Once you have an outline or some characters, start building scenes around conflict. Every part of your story, including the opening sentence, should in some way relate to the protagonist’s conflict.

Conflict is the lifeblood of storytelling: without it, the reader doesn’t have a clear reason to keep reading. Loveable characters are not enough, as the story has to give the reader something to root for.

Take, for example, Edgar Allan Poe’s classic short story The Cask of Amontillado . We start at the conflict: the narrator has been slighted by Fortunato, and plans to exact revenge. Every scene in the story builds tension and follows the protagonist as he exacts this revenge.

In your story, start writing scenes around conflict, and make sure each paragraph and piece of dialogue relates, in some way, to your protagonist’s unmet desires.

4. Write Your First Draft

The scenes you build around conflict will eventually be stitched into a complete story. Make sure as the story progresses that each scene heightens the story’s tension, and that this tension remains unbroken until the climax resolves whether or not your protagonist meets their desires.

Don’t stress too hard on writing a perfect story. Rather, take Anne Lamott’s advice, and “write a shitty first draft.” The goal is not to pen a complete story at first draft; rather, it’s to set ideas down on paper. You are simply, as Shannon Hale suggests, “shoveling sand into a box so that later [you] can build castles.”

5. Step Away, Breathe, Revise

Whenever Stephen King finishes a novel, he puts it in a drawer and doesn’t think about it for 6 weeks. With short stories, you probably don’t need to take as long of a break. But, the idea itself is true: when you’ve finished your first draft, set it aside for a while. Let yourself come back to the story with fresh eyes, so that you can confidently revise, revise, revise .

In revision, you want to make sure each word has an essential place in the story, that each scene ramps up tension, and that each character is clearly defined. The culmination of these elements allows a story to explore complex themes and ideas, giving the reader something to think about after the story has ended.

6. Compare Against Our Short Story Checklist

Does your story have everything it needs to succeed? Compare it against this short story checklist, as written by our instructor Rosemary Tantra Bensko.

Below is a collection of practical short story writing tips by Writers.com instructor Rosemary Tantra Bensko . Each paragraph is its own checklist item: a core element of short story writing advice to follow unless you have clear reasons to the contrary. We hope it’s a helpful resource in your own writing.

Update 9/1/2020: We’ve now made a summary of Rosemary’s short story checklist available as a PDF download . Enjoy!

Click to download

How to Write a Short Story: Length and Setting

Your short story is 1000 to 7500 words in length.

The story takes place in one time period, not spread out or with gaps other than to drive someplace, sleep, etc. If there are those gaps, there is a space between the paragraphs, the new paragraph beginning flush left, to indicate a new scene.

Each scene takes place in one location, or in continual transit, such as driving a truck or flying in a plane.

How to Write a Short Story: Point of View

Unless it’s a very lengthy Romance story, in which there may be two Point of View (POV) characters, there is one POV character. If we are told what any character secretly thinks, it will only be the POV character. The degree to which we are privy to the unexpressed thoughts, memories and hopes of the POV character remains consistent throughout the story.

You avoid head-hopping by only having one POV character per scene, even in a Romance. You avoid straying into even brief moments of telling us what other characters think other than the POV character. You use words like “apparently,” “obviously,” or “supposedly” to suggest how non-POV-characters think rather than stating it.

How to Write a Short Story: Protagonist, Antagonist, Motivation

Your short story has one clear protagonist who is usually the character changing most.

Your story has a clear antagonist, who generally makes the protagonist change by thwarting his goals.

(Possible exception to the two short story writing tips above: In some types of Mystery and Action stories, particularly in a series, etc., the protagonist doesn’t necessarily grow personally, but instead his change relates to understanding the antagonist enough to arrest or kill him.)

The protagonist changes with an Arc arising out of how he is stuck in his Flaw at the beginning of the story, which makes the reader bond with him as a human, and feel the pain of his problems he causes himself. (Or if it’s the non-personal growth type plot: he’s presented at the beginning of the story with a high-stakes problem that requires him to prevent or punish a crime.)

The protagonist usually is shown to Want something, because that’s what people normally do, defining their personalities and behavior patterns, pushing them onward from day to day. This may be obvious from the beginning of the story, though it may not become heightened until the Inciting Incident , which happens near the beginning of Act 1. The Want is usually something the reader sort of wants the character to succeed in, while at the same time, knows the Want is not in his authentic best interests. This mixed feeling in the reader creates tension.

The protagonist is usually shown to Need something valid and beneficial, but at first, he doesn’t recognize it, admit it, honor it, integrate it with his Want, or let the Want go so he can achieve the Need instead. Ideally, the Want and Need can be combined in a satisfying way toward the end for the sake of continuity of forward momentum of victoriously achieving the goals set out from the beginning. It’s the encounters with the antagonist that forcibly teach the protagonist to prioritize his Needs correctly and overcome his Flaw so he can defeat the obstacles put in his path.

The protagonist in a personal growth plot needs to change his Flaw/Want but like most people, doesn’t automatically do that when faced with the problem. He tries the easy way, which doesn’t work. Only when the Crisis takes him to a low point does he boldly change enough to become victorious over himself and the external situation. What he learns becomes the Theme.

Each scene shows its main character’s goal at its beginning, which aligns in a significant way with the protagonist’s overall goal for the story. The scene has a “charge,” showing either progress toward the goal or regression away from the goal by the ending. Most scenes end with a negative charge, because a story is about not obtaining one’s goals easily, until the end, in which the scene/s end with a positive charge.

The protagonist’s goal of the story becomes triggered until the Inciting Incident near the beginning, when something happens to shake up his life. This is the only major thing in the story that is allowed to be a random event that occurs to him.

How to Write a Short Story: Characters

Your characters speak differently from one another, and their dialogue suggests subtext, what they are really thinking but not saying: subtle passive-aggressive jibes, their underlying emotions, etc.

Your characters are not illustrative of ideas and beliefs you are pushing for, but come across as real people.

How to Write a Short Story: Prose

Your language is succinct, fresh and exciting, specific, colorful, avoiding clichés and platitudes. Sentence structures vary. In Genre stories, the language is simple, the symbolism is direct, and words are well-known, and sentences are relatively short. In Literary stories, you are freer to use more sophisticated ideas, words, sentence structures and underlying metaphors and implied motifs.

How to Write a Short Story: Story Structure

Your plot elements occur in the proper places according to classical Act Structure so the reader feels he has vicariously gone through a harrowing trial with the protagonist and won, raising his sense of hope and possibility. Literary short stories may be more subtle, with lower stakes, experimenting beyond classical structures like the Hero’s Journey. They can be more like vignettes sometimes, or even slice-of-life, though these types are hard to place in publications.

In Genre stories, all the questions are answered, threads are tied up, problems are solved, though the results of carnage may be spread over the landscape. In Literary short stories, you are free to explore uncertainty, ambiguity, and inchoate, realistic endings that suggest multiple interpretations, and unresolved issues.

Some Literary stories may be nonrealistic, such as with Surrealism, Absurdism, New Wave Fabulism, Weird and Magical Realism . If this is what you write, they still need their own internal logic and they should not be bewildering as to the what the reader is meant to experience, whether it’s a nuanced, unnameable mood or a trip into the subconscious.

Literary stories may also go beyond any label other than Experimental. For example, a story could be a list of To Do items on a paper held by a magnet to a refrigerator for the housemate to read. The person writing the list may grow more passive-aggressive and manipulative as the list grows, and we learn about the relationship between the housemates through the implied threats and cajoling.

How to Write a Short Story: Capturing Reader Interest

Your short story is suspenseful, meaning readers hope the protagonist will achieve his best goal, his Need, by the Climax battle against the antagonist.

Your story entertains. This is especially necessary for Genre short stories.

The story captivates readers at the very beginning with a Hook, which can be a puzzling mystery to solve, an amazing character’s or narrator’s Voice, an astounding location, humor, a startling image, or a world the reader wants to become immersed in.

Expository prose (telling, like an essay) takes up very, very little space in your short story, and it does not appear near the beginning. The story is in Narrative format instead, in which one action follows the next. You’ve removed every unnecessary instance of Expository prose and replaced it with showing Narrative. Distancing words like “used to,” “he would often,” “over the years, he,” “each morning, he” indicate that you are reporting on a lengthy time period, summing it up, rather than sticking to Narrative format, in which immediacy makes the story engaging.

You’ve earned the right to include Expository Backstory by making the reader yearn for knowing what happened in the past to solve a mystery. This can’t possibly happen at the beginning, obviously. Expository Backstory does not take place in the first pages of your story.

Your reader cares what happens and there are high stakes (especially important in Genre stories). Your reader worries until the end, when the protagonist survives, succeeds in his quest to help the community, gets the girl, solves or prevents the crime, achieves new scientific developments, takes over rule of his realm, etc.

Every sentence is compelling enough to urge the reader to read the next one—because he really, really wants to—instead of doing something else he could be doing. Your story is not going to be assigned to people to analyze in school like the ones you studied, so you have found a way from the beginning to intrigue strangers to want to spend their time with your words.

Where to Read and Submit Short Stories

Whether you’re looking for inspiration or want to publish your own stories, you’ll find great literary journals for writers of all backgrounds at this article:

https://writers.com/short-story-submissions

Learn How to Write a Short Story at Writers.com

The short story takes an hour to learn and a lifetime to master. Learn how to write a short story with Writers.com. Our upcoming fiction courses will give you the ropes to tell authentic, original short stories that captivate and entrance your readers.

Rosemary – Is there any chance you could add a little something to your checklist? I’d love to know the best places to submit our short stories for publication. Thanks so much.

Hi, Kim Hanson,

Some good places to find publications specific to your story are NewPages, Poets and Writers, Duotrope, and The Submission Grinder.

“ In Genre stories, all the questions are answered, threads are tied up, problems are solved, though the results of carnage may be spread over the landscape.”

Not just no but NO.

See for example the work of MacArthur Fellow Kelly Link.

[…] How to Write a Short Story: The Short Story Checklist […]

Thank you for these directions and tips. It’s very encouraging to someone like me, just NOW taking up writing.

[…] Writers.com. A great intro to writing. https://writers.com/how-to-write-a-short-story […]

Short Story Writing for Students and Teachers

What Is a Short Story?

The clue is in the title!

Short stories are like novels only…well…shorter! They contain all the crucial elements of fully developed stories except on a smaller scale.

In short story writing, you’ll find the key story elements such as characterization, plot development, themes explored, etc., but all within a word count that can usually be comfortably read in one sitting.

Short stories are just one of many storytelling methods; like the others, they help us derive meaning from our world.

How Do Short Stories Differ From Novels?

The reduced scale of a short story explains most of the differences the form has with longer forms such as novels.

Short stories usually have a tighter focus on a single main character and rarely shift between perspectives the way we often find in longer works of fiction.

Space is of the essence in this form, so long passages of exposition are usually avoided and the story starting at the last possible moment.

In purely numerical terms, short stories can be anywhere between about 1,000 to around 20,000 words or so, though many would consider even 10,000 too long.

A short novel clocks in at around 60,000 words, with word counts between 20-60,000 words being taken up by that red-headed stepchild of prose, the novella.

THE STORY TELLERS BUNDLE OF TEACHING RESOURCES

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A MASSIVE COLLECTION of resources for narratives and story writing in the classroom covering all elements of crafting amazing stories. MONTHS WORTH OF WRITING LESSONS AND RESOURCES, including:

How to Write a Short Story

Good storytelling is an art. But, luckily it’s a craft too and, like any craft, the skills and techniques can be learned by anyone.

In this article, we’ll first take a look at some ways to kickstart the short story writing process, before taking a look at some of the structural considerations essential for students to understand before they write their short stories.

We’ll also explore some simple practical activities that will help students to draw on their creative resources and personal experiences to help bring their stories to life.

Finally, we’ll look at some general tips to help students put a final polish on their masterpieces before they share them with the world.

How t o begin a story

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Create a Dramatic Question

The first thing a student needs to do when writing a short story is to create a dramatic question. Without a dramatic question, readers will have no motivation to read on as there will be no story .

This dramatic question can take many forms, but as it will be the driver of the plot, it will be the single most important element of the story.

Take the movie Rocky as an example. In it, an aging journeyman boxer, Rocky Balboa, answers two dramatic questions:

1. Will Rocky find love?

2. Can he become the Heavyweight Champion of the World?

Often the dramatic question is of this will she/won’t she type. But, whatever form it takes, there must be some obstacles put in the way of answering it.

These obstacles can come in the form of an external obstacle, such as an antagonist or a negative environment, or the form of an internal obstacle, such as heartbreak or grief.

This is the conflict that creates the crucial element of suspense necessary to engage the reader’s interest.

Whatever form a student’s dramatic question takes, it will provide the plot impetus and how the student will explore their story’s theme.

Practice Activity: Identify the Dramatic Question

It is good practice for students to attempt to identify the dramatic question any time they read a book or watch a movie. Ask the students to think of some classic or popular books and movies that they are already familiar with. Can they extract the major dramatic question from each?

Find Inspiration in the World Around

One of the most common complaints from students, when asked to write a short story, is that they don’t know what to write about. This is the age-old curse of writer’s block.

Figuring out what to write about is the first hurdle students will need to overcome. Luckily, the inspiration for stories lies everywhere. We just need to help students to know where to look.

As writers, students must learn to see the world around them with the freshness of the eyes of a young child. This requires them to pay close attention to the world around them; to slow things down enough to catch the endless possibilities for stories that exist all around.

Luckily, we have the perfect activity to help our students to do this.

Practice Activity: Breathe Life into the Story

We can find stories and the details for our stories everywhere.

Students need to tune their ear to the fragments of stories in snatches of overheard daily conversations. They need to pay enough attention to catch their own daydreaming what-ifs on the bus to school or to keep an eye out for all those little human interest stories in the local newspaper.

Once the living details of life are noticed, students need to capture them quickly by recording them in a journal. This journal will become a great resource for the student to dip into for inspiration while writing their stories.

Those half-heard conversations, those anecdotes of street life witnessed through a bus window, the half-remembered dreams scribbled down while gulping down a rushed breakfast. All these can provide jumping-off points and rich detail for a student’s short story.

Outline and Prepare

Preparation is important when writing a short story. Without a doubt. There is, however, a very real danger of preparation becoming procrastination for our student writers.

Students must learn to make their preparation time count. The writing process is much more productive if students invest some time in brainstorming and organizing their ideas at the start.

To organize their short story, students will need to understand the basic elements of structure described in the next section, but the following activity will first help them to access some of the creative gold in their imaginations. The discipline of structure can be applied afterward.

Practice Activity: Dig for Nuggets

For this activity, give each student a large piece of paper, such as a leaf from an artist’s sketchbook, to brainstorm their ideas. Employing a large canvas like this encourages more expansive thinking.

Instruct students to use colored pens to write sentences, phrases, and fragments, even doodles. Anything that helps them to dump the contents of their mind onto the paper. This is all about sifting through the rubble for those nuggets of gold. Students shouldn’t censor themselves, but instead, allow their mind’s free reign.

To help your students get started, you can provide them with some prompts or questions as jumping-off points. For example:

What is your basic premise?
What is the story about?
Who are your main characters?
Where is your story set?

Encourage students to generate their own questions too by allowing their minds ample room to roam. Generating new questions in this way will help them gather momentum for the telling of their tale.

SHORT STORY WRITING STRUCTURE

Even getting off to a great start, students often find themselves in difficulties by the middle of their story, especially if they haven’t achieved a firm grasp of structure yet.

The main elements students will need to master are plot, theme, and character development.

In this section, we’ll take a look at each of these in turn.

short story writing | structuring a short story 1 | Short Story Writing for Students and Teachers | literacyideas.com

Plot refers to the events of the story. This is the what of the tale. It’s useful for students to understand the arc of the plot in five sections: exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution.

Exposition: This is the introductory part of your story. It should introduce the reader to the central characters and orientate them to the setting.

Rising Action: Here the student begins by introducing the central dramatic question which will be the engine of the story. A series of obstacles must be placed in the way of the main character that will increase suspense and tension as the story moves forward toward the climax.

Climax: The climax is the dramatic high point of the story. This is where interest peaks and the emotions rise to their most intense.

Falling Action: Now the conflict is resolving and we are being led out to the story’s end.

Resolution: The central dramatic question has been answered, usually in either a happy or tragic manner, and many loose ends are tied up.

Practice Activity: Instruct students to use the five-part plot structure above to map an outline for their tale before writing .

If the plot consists of the series of events that constitute the story, then the theme refers to what those events mean.

The theme of a story is the underlying message of the story.

What is the ‘big idea’ behind all the action of the plot? This is open to a certain amount of interpretation on the part of the reader, but usually, a little reflection by the student writer will reveal what the events of the plot mean to them.

If, as described in the introduction, stories are how we derive meaning from the world, the theme will reveal the writer’s perspective on things.

Practice Activity: Organize students into groups and ask them to list their Top 5 movies or books of all time. Instruct them to briefly outline the main plot points using the plot structure above. When they’ve completed that, instruct the students to discuss what they think the main themes of each of the works of fiction were.

A COMPLETE UNIT ON TEACHING STORY ELEMENTS

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Character Development IN SHORT STORY WRITING

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No doubt about it, characterization is essential to the success of any short story. Just how important characterization is will depend on whether the story is plot-driven or action-driven.

In the best writing, regardless of genre or length, the characters will be at least plausible. There is a lot that students can do to ensure their stories are populated with more than just cardboard cutouts.

One effective way to do this is to reveal a character through their actions. This is the old show, don’t tell trick at work.

A good short story writer will allow the character to reveal their temperament and personality through their actions.

For example, instead of merely describing a character as putting a mug on the table, perhaps they bring it down with a thud that betrays their anger.

Another great way to reveal character is in the use of dialogue. How characters speak to each other in a story can reveal a lot about their status, mood, and intent, etc.

Our students must learn to draw complex characters. Archetypes may serve us well in some contexts, but archetypes are not real people. They are caricatures. If our students want to people their fictional world with real people, they need to create complex, even contradictory characters, just like you and I are.

If their characters are too consistent, they are too predictable. Predictability kills suspense, which in turn kills the reader’s interest.

Practice Activity: Reveal Mood through Action

For this simple activity, provide the students with a list of emotions. Now, challenge the students to concoct a short scene where a character performs an action or actions that reveal the chosen mood.

To start, you might allow the students a paragraph in which to reveal the emotion. You might reduce this to just a sentence or two as they get better at it. Remind students that they need to show the emotion, not tell it!

HOW TO POLISH AND REFINE A SHORT STORY

Now students have already had a look at how to begin and how to structure a story, we’ll take a look at a few quick tips on how they can polish their stories generally – especially during the editing process.

Write Convincing Dialogue:

For students, investing time in learning how to write great dialogue is time well spent.

Not only is well-written dialogue great for revealing character, but it will break up intimidating walls of text too.

Dialogue is a great way to move the story forward and to provide subtle exposition.

As mentioned earlier, journals are the perfect place to dump interesting snatches of conversation that become a valuable resource for writing convincing dialogue – except, of course, if you are passing through North Korea or the like!

Vary Sentence Length:

When finished with their first drafts, encourage students to read their work out loud when editing and rewriting.

Often, students will be surprised to realize just how regular the rhythm of their sentences has become.

Like musicians, writers have chops. It’s easy to fall back on the same few favored structures time and again. Students can do a lot to spice up their writing simply by varying sentence lengths.

Shorter sentences are pacier and punchier while longer sentences can slow things down, calming the reader, then, boom!

Varying sentence length throughout a story prevents the writing from becoming stale and monotonous.

Punctuation:

As with varying sentence length above, the rhythm of a story can be altered through the choice of punctuation.

Students can think of punctuation as musical notation marks. It’s designed to help the reader understand the composer’s intention for how it is to be read and interpreted.

Students should understand punctuation as an imperfect but effective tool. Its use affects not only the work’s rhythm but also the meaning.

It is well worth the student’s time to perfect their use of punctuation.

To Conclude

There are a lot of moving parts to short stories.

From the nuts and bolts of grammar and punctuation to crafting a plot and exploring big thematic ideas, mastering the art of short story writing takes time and lots of practice.

With so much ground to cover, it’s impossible to address every aspect in a single unit of work on short story writing.

Be sure to offer students opportunities to see the short story in action in the work of accomplished writers, as well as opportunities to practice the various aspects of short story writing mentioned above.

Draw attention to writing best practices when they appear even in work unrelated to the short story.

Lots of time and plenty of practice might just reveal a latter-day O. Henry or Edgar Allen Poe sat in one of the desks right in front of you.

SHORT STORY WRITING CHECKLIST BUNDLE

SHORT STORY WRITING VIDEO TUTORIAL

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Last updated on Oct 29, 2023

How to Write a Short Story in 9 Simple Steps

This post is written by UK writer Robert Grossmith. His short stories have been widely anthologized, including in The Time Out Book of London Short Stories , The Best of Best Short Stories , and The Penguin Book of First World War Stories . You can collaborate with him on your own short stories here on Reedsy .

The joy of writing short stories is, in many ways, tied to its limitations. Developing characters, conflict, and a premise within a few pages is a thrilling challenge that many writers relish — even after they've "graduated" to long-form fiction.

In this article, I’ll take you through the process of writing a short story, from idea conception to the final draft.

How to write a short story:

1. Know what a short story is versus a novel

2. pick a simple, central premise, 3. build a small but distinct cast of characters, 4. begin writing close to the end, 5. shut out your internal editor, 6. finish the first draft, 7. edit the short story, 8. share the story with beta readers, 9. submit the short story to publications.

But first, let’s talk about what makes a short story different from a novel.

The simple answer to this question, of course, is that the short story is shorter than the novel, usually coming in at between, say, 1,000-15,000 words. Any shorter and you’re into flash fiction territory. Any longer and you’re approaching novella length .

As far as other features are concerned, it’s easier to define the short story by what it lacks compared to the novel . For example, the short story usually has:

fewer characters than a novel
a single point of view, either first person or third person
a single storyline without subplots
less in the way of back story or exposition than a novel

If backstory is needed at all, it should come late in the story and be kept to a minimum.

It’s worth remembering too that some of the best short stories consist of a single dramatic episode in the form of a vignette or epiphany.

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A short story can begin life in all sorts of ways.

It may be suggested by a simple but powerful image that imprints itself on the mind. It may derive from the contemplation of a particular character type — someone you know perhaps — that you’re keen to understand and explore. It may arise out of a memorable incident in your own life.

For example:

Kafka began “The Metamorphosis” with the intuition that a premise in which the protagonist wakes one morning to find he’s been transformed into a giant insect would allow him to explore questions about human relationships and the human condition.
Herman Melville’s “Bartleby the Scrivener” takes the basic idea of a lowly clerk who decides he will no longer do anything he doesn’t personally wish to do, and turns it into a multi-layered tale capable of a variety of interpretations.

When I look back on some of my own short stories, I find a similar dynamic at work: a simple originating idea slowly expands to become something more nuanced and less formulaic.

So how do you find this “first heartbeat” of your own short story? Here are several ways to do so.

Experiment with writing prompts

Eagle-eyed readers will notice that the story premises mentioned above actually have a great deal in common with writing prompts like the ones put forward each week in Reedsy’s short story competition . Try it out! These prompts are often themed in a way that’s designed to narrow the focus for the writer so that one isn’t confronted with a completely blank canvas.

Turn to the originals

Take a story or novel you admire and think about how you might rework it, changing a key element. (“Pride and Prejudice and Vampires” is perhaps an extreme product of this exercise.) It doesn’t matter that your proposed reworking will probably never amount to more than a skimpy mental reimagining — it may well throw up collateral narrative possibilities along the way.

Keep a notebook

Finally, keep a notebook in which to jot down stray observations and story ideas whenever they occur to you. Again, most of what you write will be stuff you never return to, and it may even fail to make sense when you reread it. But lurking among the dross may be that one rough diamond that makes all the rest worthwhile.

Like I mentioned earlier, short stories usually contain far fewer characters than novels. Readers also need to know far less about the characters in a short story than we do in a novel (sometimes it’s the lack of information about a particular character in a story that adds to the mystery surrounding them, making them more compelling).

Yet it remains the case that creating memorable characters should be one of your principal goals. Think of your own family, friends and colleagues. Do you ever get them confused with one another? Probably not.

Your dramatis personae should be just as easily distinguishable from one another, either through their appearance, behavior, speech patterns, or some other unique trait. If you find yourself struggling, a character profile template like the one you can download for free below is particularly helpful in this stage of writing.

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Reedsy’s Character Profile Template

A story is only as strong as its characters. Fill this out to develop yours.

“The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman features a cast of two: the narrator and her husband. How does Gilman give her narrator uniquely identifying features?
“The Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Allan Poe features a cast of three: the narrator, the old man, and the police. How does Poe use speech patterns in dialogue and within the text itself to convey important information about the narrator?
“A Good Man Is Hard to Find” by Flannery O’Connor is perhaps an exception: its cast of characters amounts to a whopping (for a short story) nine. How does she introduce each character? In what way does she make each character, in particular The Misfit, distinct?

He’s right: avoid the preliminary exposition or extended scene-setting. Begin your story by plunging straight into the heart of the action. What most readers want from a story is drama and conflict, and this is often best achieved by beginning in media res . You have no time to waste in a short story. The first sentence of your story is crucial, and needs to grab the reader’s attention to make them want to read on.

One way to do this is to write an opening sentence that makes the reader ask questions. For example, Kingsley Amis once said, tongue-in-cheek, that in the future he would only read novels that began with the words: “A shot rang out.”

This simple sentence is actually quite telling. It introduces the stakes: there’s an immediate element of physical danger, and therefore jeopardy for someone. But it also raises questions that the reader will want answered. Who fired the shot? Who or what were they aiming at, and why? Where is this happening?

We read fiction for the most part to get answers to questions. For example, if you begin your story with a character who behaves in an unexpected way, the reader will want to know why he or she is behaving like this. What motivates their unusual behavior? Do they know that what they’re doing or saying is odd? Do they perhaps have something to hide? Can we trust this character?

As the author, you can answer these questions later (that is, answer them dramatically rather than through exposition). But since we’re speaking of the beginning of a story, at the moment it’s enough simply to deliver an opening sentence that piques the reader’s curiosity, raises questions, and keeps them reading.

“Anything goes” should be your maxim when embarking on your first draft.

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How to Craft a Killer Short Story

From pacing to character development, master the elements of short fiction.

By that, I mean: kill the editor in your head and give your imagination free rein. Remember, you’re beginning with a blank page. Anything you put down will be an improvement on what’s currently there, which is nothing. And there’s a prescription for any obstacle you might encounter at this stage of writing.

Worried that you’re overwriting? Don’t worry. It’s easier to cut material in later drafts once you’ve sketched out the whole story.
Got stuck, but know what happens later? Leave a gap. There’s no necessity to write the story sequentially. You can always come back and fill in the gap once the rest of the story is complete.
Have a half-developed scene that’s hard for you to get onto the page? Write it in note form for the time being. You might find that it relieves the pressure of having to write in complete sentences from the get-go.

Most of my stories were begun with no idea of their eventual destination, but merely an approximate direction of travel. To put it another way, I’m a ‘pantser’ (flying by the seat of my pants, making it up as I go along) rather than a planner. There is, of course, no right way to write your first draft. What matters is that you have a first draft on your hands at the end of the day.

It’s hard to overstate the importance of the ending of a short story : it can rescue an inferior story or ruin an otherwise superior one.

If you’re a planner, you will already know the broad outlines of the ending. If you’re a pantser like me, you won’t — though you’ll hope that a number of possible endings will have occurred to you in the course of writing and rewriting the story!

In both cases, keep in mind that what you’re after is an ending that’s true to the internal logic of the story without being obvious or predictable. What you want to avoid is an ending that evokes one of two reactions:

“Is that it?” aka “The author has failed to resolve the questions raised by the story.”
“WTF!” aka “This ending is simply confusing.”

Like Truman Capote said, “Good writing is rewriting.”

Once you have a first draft, the real work begins. This is when you move things around, tightening the nuts and bolts of the piece to make sure it holds together and resembles the shape it took in your mind when you first conceived it.

In most cases, this means reading through your first draft again (and again). In this stage of editing , think to yourself:

Which narrative threads are already in place?
Which may need to be added or developed further?
Which need to perhaps be eliminated altogether?

All that’s left afterward is the final polish . Here’s where you interrogate every word, every sentence, to make sure it’s earned its place in the story:

Is that really what I mean?
Could I have said that better?
Have I used that word correctly?
Is that sentence too long?
Have I removed any clichés?

Trust me: this can be the most satisfying part of the writing process. The heavy lifting is done, the walls have been painted, the furniture is in place. All you have to do now is hang a few pictures, plump the cushions and put some flowers in a vase.

Eventually, you may reach a point where you’ve reread and rewritten your story so many times that you simply can’t bear to look at it again. If this happens, put the story aside and try to forget about it.

When you do finally return to it, weeks or even months later, you’ll probably be surprised at how the intervening period has allowed you to see the story with a fresh pair of eyes. And whereas it might have felt like removing one of your own internal organs to cut such a sentence or paragraph before, now it feels like a liberation.

The story, you can see, is better as a result. It was only your bloated appendix you removed, not a vital organ.

It’s at this point that you should call on the services of beta readers if you have them. This can be a daunting prospect: what if the response is less enthusiastic than you’re hoping for? But think about it this way: if you’re expecting complete strangers to read and enjoy your story, then you shouldn’t be afraid of trying it out first on a more sympathetic audience.

This is also why I’d suggest delaying this stage of the writing process until you feel sure your story is complete. It’s one thing to ask a friend to read and comment on your new story. It’s quite another thing to return to them sometime later with, “I’ve made some changes to the story — would you mind reading it again?”

So how do you know your story’s really finished? This is a question that people have put to me. My reply tends to be: I know the story’s finished when I can’t see how to make it any better.

This is when you can finally put down your pencil (or keyboard), rest content with your work for a few days, then submit it so that people can read your work. And you can start with this directory of literary magazines once you're at this step.

The truth is, in my experience, there’s actually no such thing as a final draft. Even after you’ve submitted your story somewhere — and even if you’re lucky enough to have it accepted — there will probably be the odd word here or there that you’d like to change.

Don’t worry about this. Large-scale changes are probably out of the question at this stage, but a sympathetic editor should be willing to implement any small changes right up to the time of publication.

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Short Story Writing

Craft Your Own Short Story: The Complete Guide

Last Updated: March 7, 2024 Fact Checked

This article was co-authored by Lucy V. Hay . Lucy V. Hay is a Professional Writer based in London, England. With over 20 years of industry experience, Lucy is an author, script editor, and award-winning blogger who helps other writers through writing workshops, courses, and her blog Bang2Write. Lucy is the producer of two British thrillers, and Bang2Write has appeared in the Top 100 round-ups for Writer’s Digest & The Write Life and is a UK Blog Awards Finalist and Feedspot’s #1 Screenwriting blog in the UK. She received a B.A. in Scriptwriting for Film & Television from Bournemouth University. There are 10 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page. This article has been fact-checked, ensuring the accuracy of any cited facts and confirming the authority of its sources. This article has been viewed 4,691,194 times.

For many writers, the short story is the perfect medium. It is a refreshing activity. For many, it is as natural as breathing is to lungs. While writing a novel can be a Herculean task, just about anybody can craft—and, most importantly, finish —a short story. Writing a novel can be a tiresome task, but writing a short story, it's not the same. A short story includes setting, plot, character and message. Like a novel, a good short story will thrill and entertain your reader. With some brainstorming, drafting, and polishing, you can learn how to write a successful short story in no time. And the greatest benefit is that you can edit it frequently until you are satisfied.

Sample Short Stories

Brainstorming Ideas

For example, you can start with a simple plot like your main character has to deal with bad news or your main character gets an unwanted visit from a friend or family member.
You can also try a more complicated plot like your main character wakes up in a parallel dimension or your main character discovers someone else's deep dark secret.

Step 2 Focus on a complicated main character.

Making Characters that Pop: Finding Inspiration: Characters are all around you. Spend some time people-watching in a public place, like a mall or busy pedestrian street. Make notes about interesting people you see and think about how you could incorporate them into your story. You can also borrow traits from people you know. Crafting a Backstory: Delve into your main character’s past experiences to figure out what makes them tick. What was the lonely old man like as a child? Where did he get that scar on his hand? Even if you don’t include these details in the story, knowing your character deeply will help them ring true. Characters Make the Plot: Create a character who makes your plot more interesting and complicated. For example, if your character is a teenage girl who really cares about her family, you might expect her to protect her brother from school bullies. If she hates her brother, though, and is friends with his bullies, she’s conflicted in a way that makes your plot even more interesting.

Step 3 Create a central conflict for the main character.

For example, maybe your main character has a desire or want that they have a hard time fulfilling. Or perhaps your main character is trapped in a bad or dangerous situation and must figure out how to stay alive.

Tips on Crafting a Setting: Brainstorming descriptions: Write the down names of your settings, such as “small colony on Mars” or “the high school baseball field.” Visualize each place as vividly as you can and jot down whatever details come into your head. Set your characters down there and picture what they might do in this place. Thinking about your plot: Based on your characters and the arc of your plot, where does your story need to take place? Make your setting a crucial part of your story, so that your readers couldn’t imagine it anywhere else. For example, if your main character is a man who gets into a car crash, setting the story in a small town in the winter creates a plausible reason for the crash (black ice), plus an added complication (now he’s stranded in the cold with a broken car). Don’t overload the story. Using too many settings might confuse your reader or make it hard for them to get into the story. Using 1-2 settings is usually perfect for a short story.

You can also focus on a more specific theme like “love between siblings,” “desire for friendship” or “loss of a parent.”

For example, you may have an emotional climax where your main character, a lonely elderly man, has to confront his neighbor about his illegal activity. Or you may have an emotional climax where the main character, a young teenage girl, stands up for her brother against school bullies.

Step 7 Think of an ending with a twist or surprise.

Creating a Satisfying Ending: Try out a few different endings. Outline a few different endings you could use. Visualize each option and see which ones feel more natural, surprising, or fulfilling. It’s okay if you don’t find the right ending right away—it’s one of the hardest parts of the story to write! How do you want your readers to feel when they finish? Your ending is the last impression you’ll leave on your reader. How will they feel if your characters succeed, fail, or land somewhere in the middle? For example, if your main character decides to stand up to her brother’s bullies but gets scared at the last second, the readers will leave feeling like she still has a lot of soul-searching to do. Stay away from cliches. Make sure you avoid gimmick endings, where you rely on familiar plot twists to surprise your reader. If your ending feels familiar or even boring, challenge yourself to make it more difficult for your characters.

“The Lady with the Dog” by Anton Chekhov [7] X Research source
“Something I’ve Been Meaning to Tell You” by Alice Munro
“For Esme-With Love and Squalor" by J.D. Salinger [8] X Research source
“A Sound of Thunder” by Ray Bradbury [9] X Research source
“Snow, Glass, Apples” by Neil Gaiman
"Brokeback Mountain” by Annie Proulx [10] X Research source
“Wants” by Grace Paley
“Apollo” by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
“This is How You Lose Her” by Junot Diaz
“Seven” by Edwidge Danticat

Creating a First Draft

You can also try the snowflake method, where you have a one-sentence summary, a one-paragraph summary, a synopsis of all the characters in the story, and a spreadsheet of scenes.

For example, an opening line like: “I was lonely that day” does not tell your reader much about the narrator and is not unusual or engaging.
Instead, try an opening line like: “The day after my wife left me, I rapped on the neighbor’s door to ask if she had any sugar for a cake I wasn’t going to bake.” This line gives the reader a past conflict, the wife leaving, and tension in the present between the narrator and the neighbor.

Some stories are written in second person, where the narrator uses “you.” This is usually only done if the second person is essential to the narrative, such as in Ted Chiang’s short story, “Story of Your Life” or Junot Diaz’s short story, “This is How You Lose Her.”
Most short stories are written in the past tense, though you can use the present tense if you’d like to give the story more immediacy.

Step 4 Use dialogue to reveal character and further the plot.

Quick Dialogue Tips: Develop a voice for each character. Your characters are all unique, so all of their dialogue will sound a little different. Experiment to see what voice sounds right for each character. For example, one character might greet a friend by saying, “Hey girl, what’s up?”, while another might say, “Where have you been? I haven’t seen you in ages.” Use different dialogue tags—but not too many. Sprinkle descriptive dialogue tags, like “stammered” or “shouted,” throughout your story, but don’t make them overwhelming. You can continue to use “said,” in some situations, choosing a more descriptive tag when the scene really needs it.

Step 5 Include sensory details about the setting.

For example, you may describe your old high school as “a giant industrial-looking building that smells of gym socks, hair spray, lost dreams, and chalk.” Or you may describe the sky by your house as “a blank sheet covered in thick, gray haze from wildfires that crackled in the nearby forest in the early morning.”

Step 6 End with a realization or revelation.

You can also end on an interesting image or dialogue that reveals a character change or shift.
For example, you may end your story when your main character decides to turn in their neighbor, even if that means losing them as a friend. Or you may end your story with the image of your main character helping her bloodied brother walk home, just in time for dinner.

Polishing the Draft

Notice if your story follows your plot outline and that there is a clear conflict for your main character.
Reading the story aloud can also help you catch any spelling, grammar, or punctuation errors.

Step 2 Revise the short story for clarity and flow.

Parts to Delete: Unnecessary description: Include just enough description to show the readers the most important characteristics of a place, a character, or an object while contributing to the story’s overall tone. If you have to clip out a particularly beautiful description, write it down and save it—you may be able to use in another story! Scenes that don’t move the plot forward: If you think a scene might not be necessary to the plot, try crossing it out and reading through the scenes before and after it. If the story still flows well and makes sense, you can probably delete the scene. Characters that don’t serve a purpose: You might have created a character to make a story seem realistic or to give your main character someone to talk to, but if that character isn’t important to the plot, they can probably be cut or merged into another character. Look carefully at a character’s extra friends, for example, or siblings who don’t have much dialogue.

Step 3 Come up with an interesting title.

For example, the title “Something I’ve Been Meaning to Tell You” by Alice Munro is a good one because it is a quote from a character in the story and it addresses the reader directly, where the “I” has something to share with readers.
The title “Snow, Apple, Glass” by Neil Gaiman is also a good one because it presents three objects that are interesting on their own, but even more interesting when placed together in one story.

Step 4 Let others read and critique the short story.

You can also join a writing group and submit your short story for a workshop. Or you may start your own writing group with friends so you can all workshop each other’s stories.
Once you get feedback from others, you should then revise the short story again so it is at its best draft.

Community Q&A

↑ https://www.writersdigest.com/there-are-no-rules/how-to-brainstorm-give-your-brain-free-rein
↑ https://blog.reedsy.com/character-development/
↑ http://www.nownovel.com/blog/how-to-write-a-short-story/
↑ https://www.masterclass.com/articles/understanding-story-setting
↑ https://www.masterclass.com/articles/how-to-develop-a-theme-for-your-story
↑ https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/102799.50_Best_Short_Stories_of_All_Time
↑ https://www.grammarly.com/blog/need-a-pick-me-up-5-best-short-stories-of-all-time/
↑ http://www.listchallenges.com/the-50-best-short-stories-of-all-time
↑ https://writers.com/freytags-pyramid/
↑ https://writingcooperative.com/how-to-write-a-short-story-17c615853bf2

About This Article

If you want to write a short story, first decide on the central conflict for your story, then create a main character who deals with that problem, and decide whether they will interact with anyone else. Next, decide when and where your story will take place. Next, make a plot outline, with a climax and a resolution, and use that outline to create your first draft, telling the whole story without worrying about making it perfect. Read the short story out loud to yourself to help with proofreading and revision. To learn more about how to add details to your story and come up with an interesting title, keep reading the article! Did this summary help you? Yes No

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How to Write a Short Story That Gets Read (In 7 Steps)

Short stories have a potent allure. They plunge readers into vibrant worlds, capture complex characters, and deliver impactful narratives, all within a brief space. However, learning to write a short story is as challenging as writing an entire novel.

This article unlocks the secrets of crafting short stories that seize and retain readers’ attention.

How to Write a Short Story

This guide to short fiction writing begins with an overview of the art form, highlighting its challenges and appeal. We then delve into the essence of a short story, focusing on its defining characteristics.

The article progresses to cover creating compelling characters , which is essential for driving the story’s development.

Additionally, we provide practical advice on getting your short story published . Concluding the guide, we summarize the key strategies to write short stories and encourage writers to nurture their unique voices, supplemented by a list of resources for further exploration in short story writing.

Understanding the Essence of a Short Story

By its very nature, a short story is a brief but intense glimpse into a narrative, a concentrated form of storytelling that demands precision. Unlike novels, short stories tend to require a different set of writing skills and understanding.

Short Story Characteristics

Here are the key characteristics:

Brevity and Focus: The most defining aspect of a short story is its length. A short story focuses on a singular theme, requiring every word to contribute meaningfully to the plot.
Immediate Engagement: A short story must capture the reader’s attention quickly. The opening lines set the tone, introducing the conflict or presenting a unique perspective that hooks the reader.

Use Squibler’s AI tools to rewrite or distill your story ideas. Since Squibler AI specializes in fiction writing, tools such as Rewrite or Add Conflict are effective tools for creating both the first draft and the final version.

The Role of a Strong Opening

Next, let’s cover the role of a strong opening.

Creating Intrigue: The opening of a short story should immediately intrigue the reader. The opening sentence sets the stage for what’s to come, whether through an intriguing situation or a compelling voice.
Introducing Conflict: The early establishment of the conflict or central theme moves the story forward. This conflict doesn’t have to be dramatic but must be compelling enough to drive the whole story.

The Economy of Language

Third, let’s cover the economy of language.

Precise Word Choice: Every word in a short story must serve a purpose. With limited space, choose words that convey the maximum meaning or emotion.
Descriptive Efficiency: Descriptive passages must be efficient yet evocative. The challenge is to create vivid imagery and atmosphere without overloading the reader with details.

Focused Pacing

Next, let’s talk about focused pacing.

Single-Threaded Plot: Most short stories follow a single-threaded plot. This focus allows for a more in-depth exploration of the central theme.
Balanced Pacing: Pacing in a short story needs to be carefully balanced. It should be brisk enough to maintain engagement but also allow for the development of characters and plot.

Main Characters in a Short Story

Now, let’s talk about your main character.

Depth over Breadth: Describing a particular character in a short story involves creating depth rather than breadth. A glimpse into the personality, motivation, or background can be more effective than a full-blown character analysis.
Character as a Vehicle: Characters often act as vehicles for the larger theme of the story. Their actions and transformations are pivotal in conveying the story’s essence.

Squibler AI allows you to create your characters as Elements and use them to weave custom narratives. That way, your writing is unique to your story ideas. No bland AI writing.

The Significance of a Powerful Ending

Now, let’s go over creating a powerful ending for a great short story.

Resonating Conclusion: A successful short story leaves a lasting impact with its conclusion. The ending should resonate with the reader, offering closure or leaving them pondering.
The Twist or Revelation: Many short stories use a twist or revelation towards the end. This element is a powerful tool to surprise the reader and add depth to the story’s message.

Character Arc in Short Stories

Developing characters swiftly is a cornerstone of short story writing. In the short story format, writers must employ techniques that reveal character depth effectively.

First Impressions Matter

The initial introduction sets the stage for the reader’s perception. A character’s first appearance, action, or line of dialogue should be telling. It’s about creating an impression that hints at their deeper traits, whether through a unique habit, a striking dialogue, or a notable reaction to a situation. This technique allows the reader to connect with and understand the character immediately.

Show, Don’t Tell

“Show, don’t tell” remains a golden rule in short stories. This involves revealing character traits through actions and interactions rather than explicit descriptions. For instance, a character’s kindness can be shown through actions rather than simply stating they are kind. This approach engages readers more actively, encouraging them to infer and imagine the character’s nature.

Effective Use of Dialogue

Dialogue is a powerful tool. A character’s speech can reveal their background, personality, and emotional state. Even a short exchange provides significant insights into a main character’s life, making dialogue crucial in quick character development. You can show a lot in so few words! Here are a few tips:

Key Character Moments

Identify and craft key moments that reveal the essence of your character. These moments, whether a decision, a realization, or an action, should be pivotal in showing who the character is at their core.

Minimal Yet Meaningful Backstory

While extensive backstory is often not feasible in short stories, including minimal yet meaningful details adds depth to your characters and makes a short story a complete story. A brief mention of a past event, a short flashback, or a relevant anecdote can give readers a fuller understanding of the character’s motivations and history.

Building Plot Elements in Short Stories

Creating a focused plot is crucial in short story writing, where space is limited, and every element must contribute to a cohesive whole. This section explores constructing a plot that captures and retains the reader’s attention.

Establishing a Central Conflict

Every compelling short story revolves around a central conflict or problem. This conflict should be clear and engaging, whether internal, external, or both. The story’s driving force propels the narrative forward and maintains the reader’s interest. Introduce this conflict early to set the stage and give direction to your story.

If you’re stuck with creating an impactful conflict with an inciting incident, use Squibler’s Create Conflict tool to add drama to engage readers.

Streamlining the Story

A short story has no room for unnecessary subplots or extraneous characters. Focus on streamlining the narrative to ensure that every scene, character, and line of dialogue serves the central conflict or theme. This approach helps maintain a tight story structure where each element advances the plot.

Crafting a Strong Beginning

The opening of a short story should immediately draw the reader in – many writers stick to this strategy! It could start in the middle of an action, present a unique character, or introduce an intriguing scenario.

The goal is to pique the reader’s curiosity and set the tone for the rest of the story. A strong beginning not only captures attention but also establishes the stakes and tone of the narrative.

Developing Pacing and Tension

Pacing is key in a short story. Balance action moments with quieter, more introspective segments to allow readers to absorb the events. Build tension gradually towards the climax, ensuring the story progresses logically and keeps the reader engaged. The pace should complement the story’s tone and theme, enhancing its overall impact.

Crafting a Satisfying Conclusion

The conclusion of a short story should be satisfying and resonant, whether it offers a clear resolution or leaves the reader with something to ponder. It should tie together the main threads of the plot, address the central conflict, and leave a lasting impression. A well-crafted ending elevates the entire story.

Setting the Scene in Short Stories

The setting in a short story plays a crucial role, often acting as more than just a backdrop—it sets the tone, influences the mood, and even affects the plot and characters. In this section, we’ll explore how to establish settings in short stories.

Conveying Settings

When brevity is the key, it’s important to convey the setting concisely. Writers should use vivid and precise language to paint a clear picture of the setting in the reader’s mind without lengthy descriptions. A well-chosen detail tells more than paragraphs of description. For example, describing the faded paint on a childhood home conveys a sense of nostalgia.

Using Setting to Enhance the Mood

The setting is a powerful tool in establishing the story’s mood. For example, a story set in a bustling city conveys a sense of urgency or anonymity, while a story set in a secluded forest creates a mood of isolation or mystery. Selecting details that enhance the mood you want to convey is crucial.

Integrating Setting with Plot

The setting should do more than just describe a location; it should interact with the plot and characters. It acts as an obstacle or a source of conflict. For instance, a challenging climate is a hurdle for characters to overcome, or a particular city shapes a character’s outlook and experiences. The setting should be integral to the story structure.

Symbolism and Thematic Elements

In some stories, the setting carries symbolic weight or contributes to the theme. A decaying house might symbolize the end of an era or a character’s mental state, while a busy street market could represent cultural diversity. By aligning the setting with the story’s themes, writers can add depth and layers to their short stories.

Temporal Settings

Besides geographical locations, a story’s time is set also impacts its overall effect. Historical settings offer a sense of authenticity and transport readers to a different time, while futuristic settings open up possibilities for exploring new story ideas and scenarios.

The era or period must complement the story’s themes and plot.

Engaging the Reader with Your Writing Style

The writing style in a novel or short story is not just a medium of storytelling; it’s an essential tool that shapes the reader’s experience and engagement.

This section will explore how to utilize writing style effectively to captivate readers.

Developing a Distinct Voice

A unique voice sets the tone of your story and distinguishes your writing. Whether conversational, formal, whimsical, or solemn, the voice should be consistent and reflect the nature of the story and characters.

For instance, first-person storytelling offers deep personal insights into a character’s thoughts and feelings, while a third-person omniscient voice provides a broader perspective.

Balancing Show and Tell

Finding the right balance between showing and telling is vital. “Showing” immerses readers in the story, allowing them to experience events and emotions through detailed description and action. “Telling,” on the other hand, conveys information and moves the plot forward.

In a short story, where every word counts, deciding when to show and when to tell impacts the pacing and reader engagement.

Crafting Compelling Dialogue

Dialogue in short stories must be purposeful. It should reveal character traits, advance the plot, or provide necessary information. Writing realistic and impactful dialogue involves giving each character a distinct voice and ensuring their conversations sound natural and relevant to the story’s context.

Avoiding unnecessary exposition in dialogue keeps it dynamic and engaging.

Utilizing Descriptive Language

When used effectively, descriptive language creates vivid imagery and evokes emotions. However, overuse or overly flowery descriptions slow down the pace.

The key is choosing the right words to create a clear and compelling picture in the reader’s mind without overwhelming them.

Experimenting with Literary Techniques

Don’t be afraid to experiment with literary techniques like metaphors, similes, alliteration, and varied sentence structure. These techniques add depth to your writing and help create a rhythmic flow. However, they should serve the story, not distract from it.

Using such devices should enhance, rather than complicate, the reader’s understanding and enjoyment of the story.

Adapting Style to Story

Finally, adapt your writing style to suit the story you are telling. A suspenseful thriller might call for short, punchy sentences to build tension, while a more introspective story might benefit from a more flowing, descriptive style. The style should always complement the tone and pace of the story.

Editing and Refining Your Story

The editing phase is crucial in transforming a good short story into a great one. It involves refining your plot, enhancing clarity, and ensuring that every element serves the story’s purpose. It’s also important that your story has a satisfying ending.

This section will guide you through editing and refining your short story to achieve its fullest potential in the final draft.

First Pass: Structural Edits

Let’s go over the initial steps:

Assessing the Plot: Begin by evaluating the plot’s structure. Ensure that the story flows logically, that each scene transitions smoothly, and that the climax and resolution are satisfying. Look for any plot holes or inconsistencies and address them.
Character Consistency: Check that your characters remain consistent throughout the story. Their actions and dialogues should align with their established traits and development.
Pacing: Adjust the pacing to maintain reader interest. Identify any sections that drag and tighten them by removing unnecessary details or exposition.

Second Pass: Style and Voice

Next, let’s talk about the style and voice.

Refining the Voice: Ensure your voice is consistent and appropriate for the story. Adjust it for tone and style to match the story’s mood and setting.
Dialogue Polish: Refine the dialogue to make it more realistic and impactful. Each character’s speech should be distinct and contribute to the story’s progression.

Third Pass: Language and Grammar

The third step is checking language and grammar.

Clarity and Readability: Focus on sentence structure and word choice. Ensure clarity in your writing, avoiding overly complex sentences or ambiguous phrasing.
Grammar and Syntax: Correct any grammatical errors and check for proper syntax. Pay attention to punctuation, as it affects the flow and readability of the story.
Eliminating Redundancies: Remove redundant words or phrases to keep readers engaged. Each word should add value to the story.

Final Review: Feedback and Final Touches

Finally, wrap it up with gathering feedback.

Seeking Feedback: Once you’ve made revisions, seek feedback from trusted readers or writing groups. Fresh eyes catch issues you may have overlooked and provide valuable perspectives.
Incorporating Feedback: Evaluate the feedback critically and decide which suggestions align with your vision for the story. Make the necessary changes based on this input.

Short Story Writing Tools

Don’t be afraid to seek assistance when the writing gets tricky. Writing a great short story usually requires help.

The help comes from a fellow short-story writer, writing workshops, or using writing software to guide you and help you start writing. There are many options for this, but here are two that will help you create the best short story possible.

Squibler is perfect for writing short stories.

Squibler offers an abundance of organizational tools that will make your life easier.

These include:

Plot generator
Generate scenes
Create elements
Polish dialogues
Create engaging descriptions
Generate characters
Generate character development
Generate original visuals
Free templates
A place for notes and research
A place for your outline – no matter how detailed
Chapter and scene organization

These AI tools come in handy when writing a short story. Depending on the style and genre of your story, you may need to do a lot of research despite the shorter length.

Grammarly is there to help you through the editing process. Once it scans your work, it will pick out the spelling and grammatical errors. In addition to pointing out your errors, it tells you how to fix them.

These can be small things like an unnecessary comma or a missing period. But a lot of little things add up.

Grammarly is free to use and can be integrated with:

Microsoft Word
Google Docs
Chrome Browser

Grammarly is an effective editing tool for all types of writers . It cleans up your work fast. This saves you time, improves your craft, and helps you remain professional and polished.

For an enhanced editing experience, Grammarly offers a premium upgrade that provides you with additional, more advanced checks.

Getting Your Short Story Out There

After the hard work of writing and refining the first draft of your short story, the next step is sharing it with the world. This final section offers guidance on how to get your short story published and read by an audience.

Exploring Publication Options

Literary Magazines and Journals: Research literary magazines and journals that publish short stories. Consider print and online publications, and target those that align with your story’s genre and style. Pay attention to their submission guidelines and deadlines.

Online Platforms: Leverage the power of the internet. Websites like Wattpad, Medium, or your blog can be excellent platforms to publish your work and reach a wide audience. These platforms also allow for direct reader engagement and feedback.

Entering Writing Contests

Writing Competitions: Participating in short story competitions can provide exposure and credibility. Look for contests that cater to your genre and offer publication opportunities as part of their prize.

Building an Online Presence

Social Media and Author Websites: Create an online presence through social media platforms and an author website. These can be powerful tools for promoting your work, connecting with readers, and building a community of followers.

Networking in the Writing Community

Join Writing Groups and Workshops: Engage with local or online writing communities. Networking with other writers can provide collaboration, feedback, and support opportunities.

Attend Literary Events: Participate in literary events, readings, or book fairs. These events can offer networking opportunities and expose you to publishers and other industry professionals.

Sources Of Inspiration: Classic Short Stories

For aspiring short story writers, classic short stories serve as a wellspring of inspiration. These timeless works, penned by craft masters, offer various styles, themes, and techniques to learn from.

Reading classics provides a deeper understanding of the short story form and sparks creativity in your own short stories and writing.

There are many classic, well-known short stories by famous authors . Some short story examples that are expertly written and deeply meaningful:

“The Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Allan Poe
“Chivalry” by Neil Gaiman
“The Gift of the Magi” by O. Henry
“The Signal-Man” by Charles Dickens
“Barn Burning” by William Faulkner
“Miss Temptation” by Kurt Vonnegut
“The Snows of Kilimanjaro” by Ernest Hemingway

These short tales have gone down in history for their ingenuity. They did a fantastic job setting the atmosphere, bringing their character to life , and awing the reader.

FAQ: Writing Short Stories

Here are the most frequently asked questions about how to write a short story.

How many words should a short story have?

A short story ranges from 1,000 to 7,500 words. However, this varies, with some stories being as brief as 500 words or as long as 10,000 words.

What is the importance of internal logic in a short story?

Internal logic refers to the consistency and believability of the story’s world. Maintaining it is key to ensuring that the story remains credible and engaging to the reader, even if it delves into fantastical or surreal elements.

What is a key element in a short story or flash fiction?

A key element in a short story is its focused narrative. Unlike a novel, which explores multiple themes and subplots, a short story typically revolves around a single idea or central theme.

How is rising action used in a short story?

It builds tension and complicates the plot as it progresses towards the climax. It’s crucial for escalating the stakes and deepening the reader’s investment.

What differentiates a short story from a novel?

The main difference lies in length and scope. A novel offers a broader exploration of themes, characters, and plots, often spanning tens of thousands of words, whereas a short story provides a more concentrated plot.

How do you develop an idea into a short story?

Define the main conflict or theme to develop an idea into a short story. You can even use your own life examples. Then, create compelling characters and a setting that supports your fiction. Outline a plot that makes sense. This includes rising action, a climax, and a resolution, ensuring each element contributes to the central idea.

Published in Short Story Writing

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How to Write a Short Story for School: Tips and Techniques for Success

Writing a short story for school can be both an engaging and educational experience, as it allows me to express my creativity and improve my writing skills. As a student, I’ve also realized that knowing how to craft an interesting narrative can improve my academic performance. In this article, I'll share some valuable insights and tips on how to write a compelling short story for your school assignment.

The first step in writing a short story is to choose the right topic . This may seem simple, but it can be quite a challenge. I recommend selecting a topic that genuinely interests me and resonates with my personal experiences, as this will make it easier to write authentically and passionately. Additionally, I need to consider my target audience – my classmates and teacher – when selecting the theme and style of my short story.

Once I've chosen my topic, I can start outlining my story . This involves brainstorming ideas, determining the setting, developing the characters, and establishing the structure of my narrative. By creating a clear outline, I can ensure that my short story flows smoothly and effectively captures the attention of my readers. Whether I decide to pen a suspenseful mystery or an emotional drama, having a solid foundation will set me up for success in crafting my short story for school.

Understanding the Basics of Storytelling

So, you're looking to craft an engaging short story for school? Let me help with that! Storytelling is an art form, and mastering the basics is essential for aspiring writers. Let's break it down.

Characters are the building blocks of your story. We need to know who's in it! Give them distinct personalities, appearances, and motivations. Try to create a protagonist that readers can relate to. Don't forget about secondary characters either – they can help round out your plot and keep the story interesting.

Moving on, setting is another crucial element that adds context and atmosphere. It doesn't matter if your story takes place in the real world or a fantasy realm – be sure to paint a vivid picture with descriptive language. Think about how your environment influences the characters and their actions.

Now, a story is never complete without conflict . Conflict drives your plot and keeps people hooked. It could be an internal conflict, external conflict, or a bit of both. Maybe your character faces a challenge in school or is swept into a magical quest. Regardless, the key is to make it believable and engaging.

Of course, we can't forget about structure . Every great short story has a beginning, middle, and end:

Introduction: Set the stage by introducing your character(s) and setting while hinting at the conflict to come.
Rising action: Develop the main conflict and show your characters working to resolve it.
Climax: The peak of the story, where the tension reaches its height and the conflict is on the brink of resolution.
Falling action: Show the consequences of your characters' actions and lead the reader towards the story's conclusion.
Resolution: Wrap up any loose ends and bring the story to a close.

Lastly, practice makes perfect. I mean, it's said for a reason. It's essential to hone your craft by, well, writing! Write often, edit, and refine your work until you're satisfied with the results.

Remember to add an engaging voice to your writing. It's like the secret sauce that gives a story its unique flavor. Experiment with different styles, tones, and sentence structures to find the one that works best for your story.

One last thing, developing themes in your short story can add depth and substance. Common themes include love, friendship, family, and personal growth. Just pick one or two that resonate with your story and characters, and you're good to go!

Now that you know the basics, it's time to take a deep breath, put your thoughts together, and start weaving your short story masterpiece. Best of luck!

Developing a Compelling Plot

Let's dive right into developing a captivating plot for your short story! The plot is the backbone of your story, and if it doesn't grip the reader, they might not stick around. So, let's take a look at some essential steps in crafting a page-turning story for school.

1. Start with an engaging idea

Creative ideas are the fuel for captivating stories. When brainstorming, it's essential to consider what topics interest you and get your creative juices flowing. A strong idea could be inspired by personal experiences, history, or even something as simple as a news article. The more excited you are about an idea, the more likely you'll be able to create a satisfying plot with it.

2. Create relatable characters

Characters are the heart of any story, and their actions make the plot engaging. When developing your characters, focus on the following aspects:

Appearance : Physical descriptors help readers visualize your characters.
Personality : How your character thinks and feels.
Background : The past experiences that shape your characters' behavior.

Spend time fleshing out these aspects to create relatable characters that readers will want to follow through your story.

3. Develop a clear structure

A well-structured plot is crucial for keeping your reader engaged. A typical plot structure consists of:

Exposition : Introduce the setting, characters, and central conflict.
Rising action : Present a series of challenges for your characters to overcome.
Climax : The turning point or high-stakes moment, usually involving the resolution of the central conflict.
Falling action : Show the consequences of the climax and how the characters' lives change.
Resolution : Wrap up any loose ends and leave readers feeling satisfied.

This structure will guide you in crafting a coherent story and helps the reader stay engaged.

4. Infuse conflict and tension

Conflict is the driving force behind a compelling plot, and tension keeps readers on the edge of their seats. To create conflict, consider what events or obstacles could challenge your characters and force them to change or grow. Then, build tension by teasing upcoming obstacles or delaying the resolution of conflicts. You can also use subplots to create depth and variety in your story.

5. Revise and refine

Finally, don't forget that polishing your plot is just as important as creating it. Once you've drafted your short story, read it over and identify any weak parts, inconsistencies, or plot holes. Check for anything that feels unnatural, overly dramatic, or isn't advancing the story. Don't be afraid to make changes, and get feedback from others to optimize the plot.

In summary, a compelling plot is built on a strong idea, relatable characters, a clear structure, conflict, and tension, all refined by rigorous revision. By focusing on these elements, you'll create a short story that captivates your reader from start to finish. So go ahead, and let your creativity take flight!

Creating Engaging Characters

When writing a short story for school, one of the key elements to consider is crafting engaging characters. In this section, I'll provide some helpful tips on how to create characters that will captivate your readers and drive your story forward.

First and foremost, it's essential to develop a clear character profile . This includes:

Personality
Motivations and goals

By establishing these basic details, you'll be able to better understand your character's actions and reactions throughout the story. Remember, characters should be as unique and complex as real people. Avoid creating one-dimensional, stereotypical characters.

Next, let's talk about dialogue . Your characters' conversations should feel natural and believable. Pay attention to:

Voice: Each character should have a distinct voice that reflects their personality and background.
Authenticity: Dialogue should sound like something a real person would say in a given situation.
Purpose: Conversations should either reveal character, advance the plot, or both. Avoid including pointless chit-chat.

A crucial aspect of creating engaging characters is character growth . Your characters should evolve over the course of the story, so think about:

Character arcs: Outline how your characters change as a result of their experiences or decisions.
Conflict: Present your characters with obstacles and dilemmas that challenge them emotionally, morally, or physically.
Consequences: Show the outcomes of your characters' actions and how these results impact their development.

Now that I think about it, another way to enhance your characters is by creating meaningful relationships between them. Consider the following when crafting interactions between characters:

Chemistry: Establish interesting dynamics between characters, such as love-hate relationships or mutual respect born out of shared experiences.
Foils: Use contrasting characters to highlight certain traits or underline thematic elements of your story.
Subplots: Introduce secondary storylines involving relationships between characters, weaving them into the main plot.

Lastly, remember that showing is better than telling when it comes to character development. Instead of merely stating what your characters are like or what they're feeling, demonstrate their personalities and emotions through their actions, dialogue, and decisions.

All things considered, creating engaging characters is an essential skill when crafting a short story, especially one for school. Keep these tips in mind as you develop your characters, and you'll be well on your way to telling a compelling and memorable story.

Writing Effective Dialogue

When it's time to put together that perfect short story for school, solid dialogue is key. Let me show you how to create dialogue that brings your characters to life while keeping your readers engaged.

First things first, you've got to make your dialogue sound natural. Think about how people really talk, and remember that less is often more. Keep these tidbits in mind:

Use contractions like "it's," "I'm," or "they're" to make your dialogue feel more casual and conversational.
Avoid having your characters speak in long, complex sentences. They'll likely use shorter sentences and phrases.
Read your dialogue out loud, listening for anything that sounds awkward or unnatural.

Now that I think about it, it's equally important to have your characters express themselves through their word choices and speaking habits. This can help differentiate them and give each one a unique voice. Look at these pointers:

Consider your character's background, education, and personality when crafting their dialogue.
Steer clear of having all your characters speak in the exact same manner.
Utilize unique phrases, slang, or dialects to make your character's voice distinctive.

By the way, keep your dialogue concise and avoid unnecessary filler. Your conversations should move your story along and reveal important information. Remember these tips:

Stick to the important points, keeping dialogue tight and focused.
Limit small talk and greetings, as they can slow down your story.
Have your characters discuss things that will propel the plot or reveal their relationships.

Let's talk formatting for a quick second. Having well-structured dialogue will make it far easier for your readers to follow the conversation. Do this by:

Starting a new paragraph each time a different character begins speaking.
Using quotation marks around the actual dialogue.
Including speaker tags like "he said" or "she asked" where appropriate.

Finally, don't be afraid to show, not tell. You can use your dialogue to convey information, emotions, or even hidden intentions. All things considered, keep in mind:

Displaying emotions through your characters' words and actions instead of spelling them out.
Allowing readers to infer what's truly on a character's mind rather than stating it explicitly.
Using character interactions to paint a picture of the scene, setting, or situation.

There you have it! With these tips up your sleeve, your dialogue will be a major strength in your short story, captivating your readers and impressing your teachers. Enjoy writing that stellar dialogue!

Editing and Polishing Your Short Story

Now that I think about it, editing and polishing your short story is as important as writing the story itself. In this section, we'll dive deep into ways to enhance your short story and make it shine. Trust me, investing time in this stage will significantly improve the final product.

Review Your Plot and Characters

Let's begin with reviewing your story's plot and your characters' development. Double-check if the plot makes sense and if the characters are convincing. Some areas to consider include:

Consistency: Make sure your plot advances without unexpected jumps, and character reactions are believable.
Logic: Keep your story logical, even if it's a fantasy, to maintain readers' immersion.
Character Motivations: Ensure characters' actions follow understandable motivations.

Don't be afraid to rewrite or remove portions of the story if you find that some elements aren't jiving well together.

Tighten Your Language and Dialogue

In any case, it's crucial to pay close attention to your story's language, style, and dialogue. Your primary goal is to make every sentence engaging and meaningful.

Clarity: Write clearly and remove unnecessary jargon.
Descriptive Imagery: Heighten the reader's experience with vivid descriptions.
Sentence Variation: Combine short and long sentences to keep the pace interesting.
Realism: Edit dialogue to make it sound natural and believable.
Show Character Distinctiveness: Distinguish characters through their speech and mannerisms.
Eliminate filler words: Remove excessive "umms," "ahhs," or irrelevant words.

Revise for Grammar, Punctuation, and Spelling

All things considered, proper grammar, punctuation, and spelling are crucial for establishing your credibility as a writer. No one wants to read a story filled with errors! A few handy tips:

Proofread: Read your story multiple times, preferably aloud, to catch mistakes.
Use grammar tools: Make use of grammar tools like Grammarly or ProWritingAid.
Ask for feedback: Have a trusted friend or teacher review your work.

By the way, don't forget to pay attention to paragraph structure, dialogue formatting, and quotes. A clean and polished text improves readability.

Final Touches

You've made it this far, so give yourself a pat on the back. Just a few more suggestions before you submit your masterpiece:

Title Reinforcement: Refine or change your short story's title to match the final version.
Read for Flow: Check if your story reads smoothly from start to finish.
Fact-check: Make sure your descriptions of real places, time periods, or occupations are accurate.

In conclusion, editing and polishing your short story are essential steps to make it shine before submitting it. Focus on the plot, characters, language, and grammar, and give your story that final polish to make it a compelling and memorable read. Ready to tackle your masterpiece? You got this!

Conclusion: Putting It All Together

So, you've made it this far. Let's sum up what we've learned about crafting a compelling short story for school.

1. Start with a bang

A catchy opening line immediately grabs your reader's attention. Think of a unique scenario or an intriguing question that makes them want to continue reading.

2. Develop relatable characters

Make your characters feel like real people by giving them distinct personalities, desires, and conflicts. Remember, readers connect with well-developed characters on an emotional level.

3. Create a believable setting

Paint a picture of the world your story inhabits. Be detailed enough to immerse the reader, but don't overdo it. A unique or interesting setting adds depth to your story.

4. Craft a gripping plot

A strong plot keeps the reader engaged and drives your story forward. Include a clear goal, obstacles, and a resolution that ties all the loose ends together.

5. Use an engaging writing style

Find your writing voice and keep the reader hooked with witty, engaging, and concise language.

Now that I think about it, here's a nutshell version:

Start strong
Flesh out those characters
Ground them in a setting
Weave a gripping plot
Write like a pro

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How to Write a Short Story in Middle School

You’re staring at a blank sheet of paper. You need to write something - anything! - but the ideas are nowhere to be found. Sound familiar?

Never fear, for although that blank piece of paper may seem intimidating, writing a short story is quite simple if you follow these six steps!

How to Write a Short Story in 6 Steps

Brainstorm – Stephanie Meyer’s famous Twilight series began with her imagining two people in a field, one of them sparkling in the sun. While it does not sound exactly like the vampire young adult franchise we know of today, the whole story started with this one concept. If you have an idea, take it and roll with it! Put it down on paper and expand it using tools that work for you, like graphic organizers, drawings, outlines, doodles, songs, anything! Using the five senses is a practice our Crimson Rise strategists often use with students in creative writing sessions, and it’s a fantastic way to get your brain’s creative juices flowing!
Lay down the basics – You’re probably familiar with the basics of “who, what, where, when, why, and how” that you’ve learnt in literature class while analyzing pieces of text. Try to reverse engineer the process and come up with these for your short story before you write in the details. Who are your main characters? What happens in the story? Where and when does it take place? Why is there conflict in the story? How does the story progress in terms of beginning, middle, and end? This is also a great time to decide where you’ll publish the story (is it a school assignment or a fun TikTok challenge?) and what perspective you want to write it in (first person, third person, etc).
Avoid cliches! – Storytelling has been a part of human tradition since prehistoric times, long before we had social media, libraries, or even books! While a lot of ideas have been used and reused over time, try to put your own, original spin on things. If you like science fiction, try to create your own race of aliens! Fancy a realistic story about students at a school? Don’t make your characters perfect, look around your own environment for inspiration and let your imagination embellish it a bit. Art imitates life after all! Also, make sure your main character has a distinguishing feature. You can try closing your eyes and imagining a part of your short story as a movie scene; make sure that your audience can determine who the main character is even in a crowd of people. Whether they have an animal side-kick or a specific hairstyle, having a distinguishing feature will make your main character instantly recognizable.
Show, Don’t Tell! – For example, if your main character’s best friend is popular and has a great sense of humor, try to avoid writing that “Bob is popular and has a great sense of humor”. Instead, try showcasing Bob doing things, like telling great jokes at the lunch table (and you should make up and include these jokes in your writing), which is very crowded because everyone wants to sit at the same table as Bob! This is the difference between a mediocre writer and an excellent writer. By showing Bob in his natural element, telling jokes and surrounded by friends (including descriptions of how these friends react to his jokes), your story will seem more vivid and immersive.
Draft, Revise, Repeat - Now that you know what your story will be aboutand have figured out the direction in which to take it, pen it down! Whether you’re writing it in a notebook, typing it up, or recording it as an audio first, make sure to put in that drafting time. It might take some discipline to write up the story without distraction; in fact, our Crimson Rise strategists would recommend using time management techniques such as the Pommodoro

technique to ensure you stay focused. Once you’ve written the draft, make sure to double check it for spelling, grammar, and any stylistic errors that you can improve upon. As two pairs of eyes are better than one, try asking a friend or teacher to read it over for you. Once the story is edited, go back and polish it up until you’re happy with it. Sometimes writers find themselves having to go through a few drafting and editing cycles before they get a product they’re happy with, but make sure you’re reasonable about the amount of time you’re devoting here. For example, a second edit if your short story is for an English class grade is a fabulous idea, but you don’t need twelve edits if it’s a story you want to put on social media to share with your friends as it’s supposed to be for fun!

Publish – Now that you’re planned, written, revised, and rewritten your

story, it’s time to publish! Take the story you’ve written and share it with the world. Whether it is on social media such as Tumblr or Archive of Our Own , both popular places for young teens to publish their stories, a school newspaper, a literary group, or even emailed to your friend... you’ve put your voice out there to be heard. Well done!

And there you go! By following these six simple steps, you can easily have a short story that can help you explore a hobby further, develop your English language skills (writing will be a part of your university application, after all!), as well as give you something worthwhile to pursue over the summer holidays! Just remember, your voice deserves to be heard and every famous author was once a beginner storyteller too. JK Rowling’s famous Harry Potter series began as notes written on coffee shop napkins, and she persevered after being turned down by publisher after publisher and look at where she is now. If writing is something you enjoy, don’t give up because who knows what doors this skill may open?

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Learn more about Crimson Rise’s strategic mentorship, academic support, and extracurricular coaching for young students, and request a free consultation on your child’s journey!

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The Top 10 Tips For Writing Great Short Stories

September 30, 2020 5 min read Character Checklist Fiction Short Stories Tips 82 Comments

Guest post by Willie Handler , author of two satirical novels, The Road Ahead and Loved Mars Hated The Food .

Not every writer has the passion and time to write a novel . Or maybe you do write novels but want to try something different. If so, writing short stories might be for you.

Short stories are in demand by magazines , newspapers, blogs, and anthologies, and many of these publications pay authors for short stories.

In fact, you can earn more money per word writing short stories than you can publishing a novel.

So how do you go about writing a short story that will be accepted by a publication or website? Here are my top ten tips for writing a great short story.

1. Understand that a short story is not the same as a novel

Novels and short stories share some common characteristics. They need to be coherent, grammatically correct, and have proper spelling. And, no matter the length, they need to tell a story.

That means they both need to have these elements: inciting incident, rising action (progressive complications), climax, and falling action.

Still, the two formats differ.

Whereas novelists decide the length of their books, short story writers have to work within the confines of the word limit they're given. To tell a complete story on a smaller scale, they have to cut their stories down to the bone, excluding all fatty detail . And they need to resolve problems quickly.

This is why short stories, unlike novels, usually focus on one aspect of a character’s life , or one aspect of a problem/relationship in a character’s life.

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2. Start as close to the end as possible

Newspaper articles include the entirety of the story as close to the opening of the article as possible. Why? Because giving a reader the details upfront is one way to let them know whether they want to read on.

Good short story writers do this as well, sharpening their opening lines and paragraphs to ensure readers are pulled in off the bat, and keep reading.

So, get the reader right into your unfolding story. Bypass the “before” and the “also related” and the “vaguely interesting thing that is also true of my character’s life” snapshots.

Make the plot obvious.

3. Keep up the pace

A fast pace is essential for short stories. Normally, the pace increases as the hero approaches the final conflict. Since a short story starts close to the final conflict, it needs to hit the ground running and catapult the reader headlong into the action from page one.

“I couldn’t believe it when I heard that Keith Cavernaugh got murdered last night.”

Fred almost dropped his rake. “I hadn’t heard,” he said.

4. Keep the number of characters small

It’s difficult to properly develop a larger number of characters in a short story, and it's hard for a reader to keep track of them.

A short story only needs three characters – a protagonist, antagonist, and what is referred to as a wrench or relationship character. The reader needs someone to cheer on, someone to hate, and, occasionally, someone who serves to advance the character arc for either the protagonist or antagonist.

A short story can even have as few as one character. In the Tom Hanks film Cast Away , the main character is alone for most of the movie. This is a great example of how you can build a story with just a single character.

5. Give the reader someone to root for

Again, every story needs a protagonist. The trick is to make the reader care about that character. There are a few techniques to strengthen the connection between your protagonist and the reader.

Give your main character a passion, hopefully one that will be shared by the reader. Give your character determination that brings them out of their comfort zone. Give your character a weakness, one that is only shared with the reader.

A glimpse into your character’s psyche is another good approach. This will make your character feel real and go on to draw in the reader.

6. Create conflict!

Every short story needs to have a single point of conflict. As a rule, no more than one is required for a short story.

The character should have either a dilemma, a revelation, or be faced with a decision of some kind. Surrounding that conflict should be a good dose of tension. Conflict and tension keep readers engaged and invested in your story.

Kurt Vonnegut suggests that writers should be sadists. Make bad things happen to your main characters to show readers what they are made of. A short story can never have too much tension.

7. Suggest a backstory but don’t elaborate

You don’t have the space to flesh out a character’s backstory. So, if in doubt, leave it out. Every sentence must count. If even one word seems extraneous, it has to go.

Even though you may not describe much of the backstory on paper, you need to have it worked out in your head. You need to understand a character’s motivation to write a compelling story.

Instead, draw in your readers with tight dialogue, tension, and by engaging their senses.

On that note...

8. Appeal to the five senses

Don't restrict your readers to only the visual experience of your story. Transport them into your world by letting them touch, smell, taste and hear it. This is what we mean when we say, "Show, don't tell." Invite your readers to explore the full breadth of what your world has to offer, as if they were really there.

The dense fog engulfs your character and she can no longer make out the path through the woods.

The smell of bacon cooking in the kitchen pulls him from his sleep.

The fan blades thwack the air and keep her from drifting to sleep.

9. Dialogue should bring your story to life

Don’t spend too much time setting scenes because a short story needs to come to a relatively quick conclusion. Good dialogue can make the characters, and therefore the story, come to life.

When putting characters in a scene, give them something to do, like washing dishes. But then focus on the dialogue to advance the story and set up conflict.

There’s no better way to build drama than through tight dialogue. I always try to read my dialogue out loud. If it doesn’t feel real, or if it seems out of character, I have a problem.

“Come quick! Jack is trapped in the mineshaft.”

“I can’t help rescue Jack. I’m claustrophobic.”

“That mineshaft floods in wet weather. If this storm breaks, Jack will drown.”

10. Edit until it hurts

No matter how good a writer thinks their story is, it can be made more concise and compelling. To be a good writer, one needs to be a ruthless editor .

Some ways to do that...

Combine characters where possible.
Delete transitory scenes and get right to the meat of the story.
Show, remember, don’t tell.
Get rid of repetitive words.
Toss out unnecessary adverbs and adjectives.
Make every sentence count.

This is the time to look at the backstory and decide how much of it is critical to the story. Remember, just because short stories are short, they aren't necessarily easier to write.

---------- ---------- ---------- ----------

Check out short story anthologies for examples of how to apply these tips well. Reading is always a great way to learn how to write.

In sum, keep it spare. Limit plot lines, the number of characters, the amount of backstory provided, and whittle down your conflict to just one event.

And remember, as with all things, practice makes perfect.

So, commit to your craft. Write a 500 to a 1,000-word story every month. Once you get the hang of that, try to churn one out every two weeks. And then every week. And then every day.

Soon, you’ll be able to create short stories with ease, and you’ll have trained yourself to write consistently, too.

Just don’t forget to edit!

82 Responses

November 07, 2022

IBIBA IDERIAH

Thank you so much, this really is helpful to me…

October 04, 2022

Really helpful tips for a beginner. Much appreciated.. I’m writing a short story for a a prize winning competition.. Best of luck to me.

Very well thought. Thank you.

Lizzie duckworth

September 08, 2022

‘‘Tis article was really helpful as I have a short story competition tomorrow so thank you this was great help as I’m a beginner 😊

Kulenthran Arumugam

Truly great advice

Thank You so much for this tip on short story books. I have been dragging my feet on this needing to know where to start. Again Thank You!

Canna Taylor

August 09, 2022

Wish I could find words to express myself on how thankful and honored I am to receive such assistance from this amazing article. Thank you.

I’m so thankful and I MEAN IT

Regina Mary

Helpful tips. Thanks for sharing

July 15, 2022

This post was truly worthwhile to read. I wanted to say thank you for the key points you have pointed out as they are enlightening.

Atta Dhe Titan

July 04, 2022

The article is truly a brilliant guide to writing of short stories. It has armed me with tips that improves writing skills. I can’t say thank enough to the initiator of this guide.

Samkelisiwe

June 14, 2022

This is absolutely helpful. I am planning on writing a short story this July and the article has just paved a way for me.

Boluwatife Babs

Wow it’s really helpful

Maxwell Jailos

May 30, 2022

this is so helpful I really like it as much as I like writing

May 19, 2022

The tips were excellent it was kept short and on point. Amazing 😍😉

Walter Otieno

May 17, 2022

Fantastic peace

Anthony Ochare

May 09, 2022

Thank you so much. I have learnt a lot.

Sahil Gupta

Nice tips on how to write short stories. “Edit until it hurts”….wow…so true.

At this point, almost everyone has read at least some Alice Munro, right? This story is one of the best from one of the greats, and was also adapted into a fantastic but heartbreaking film, Away From Her.

April 27, 2022

thanks for your tips. it’s really helpful for me to create short audio stories. I believe a shorter one is easy to digest for young generations.

Nice tips they are really helpful. :D

Violet Chavula

Very interesting

Glory Christopher

April 19, 2022

Thank you so much for this information. I’ve learnt so much more.

Simphiwe Twethiso

You save me ,got it lastly

April 12, 2022

March 22, 2022

Sharing your beautiful ideas to the people is awesome… thank you so much… i am so interested

Very informative and well versed, thank you

Bilyaminu Ali Sani

March 14, 2022

This tips gives writing absolute inspirations. Thanks

Jawan Joony

Thanks it is helpfull and informative

March 07, 2022

tysm for this

Jeffrey Brown

February 21, 2022

Thank you for sharing this information.

February 14, 2022

Thank you for the guidelines to writing a short story. I will ensure to use them.

This article is super good and truly tells me what I need to do . Thank you

February 07, 2022

This article inspired me. I have ALWAYS wanted to write short stories and now I’m going to do it! Thank you so much!

January 25, 2022

Amazing! You should be so proud.

Sam Bleicher

January 19, 2022

If you ever wondered why you get so caught up in a story. Or if you want to learn the reason behind how a group of words can keep you on your toes. This blog will show you the foundation of it.

January 14, 2022

it is really useful and helpful;

January 11, 2022

Thanks now I can write a short story about the time I almost killed my grandma <3

This was so well put together! Extremely helpful ! thank you!

December 21, 2021

Really great help, Thanks

Andre Jackson

This was terrific! Helped me out so much.

this was horrid. in a good way. now i can write about the one time i had bloody diarrhea <3

shahid jamal

December 06, 2021

These tips are great, these will help a lot.

November 30, 2021

This is really helpful

Great! Really helped me develope a well-written narrative.

Rodelyn Alibangbang

These tips really help me a lot. It made me realize that writing short stories is possible to someone like me.Thank you so much!

Stabile tips

Gurpal singh

Thanks for the tips.I have been thinking about writing about my village in India,where I lived for 25 years.

thank you!! i love writing and this was super helpful:)

Thank you, this will help me with my 11+ preparation this was so quick to read yet so informative.

Kelvin Jatwa

The tips, outlined here, are written with passion and captivating explanation. I like this article. It is just what I needed right now!

October 25, 2021

This is really great!!! Thank you so much 😊😊💗

Glendel Cayabyab

I like the tips that given its help me a lot to make a short story being a student

Monali Sandeepani

Thank you very much. These tips are made crystal clear to everyone. I read from beginning to end with great interest. I will start writing from today.

October 15, 2021

The tips really help me a lot. Thanks..

Michael Ezekiel

Thanks for all the wonderful tips. I sincerely would like to try my hand in writing short stories.

christophe blain

October 04, 2021

thank you i am very gratefull for the help i am in a english class and have to write a short story

Mokoena Kgaogelo

Hi! I was born talking Northern Sotho it’s my parents’ tongue, used tips .it really helped me alot. Now I’m enjoying writing my own short stories.

Bol Deng Piol

Thanks for this. A guide indeed.

September 05, 2021

I really enjoyed this piece. I want to start publishing my short stories and this piece will go a long way for me.

this article really helped me out for my project! thank you!

Hello! My mother tongue is Spanish. I speak English so bad (think in English is my karma). However, I can read and write short stories for my own pleasure. This article was been very useful for me. Has been part of my practice. Thanks!

It helpful thank u 💙🤗❤

All points are relevant and straight to the core as you mean, thanks for this practical and yet useful tips. Will start my practise imminent .

Crystal Ray

Good read of good information. Any advice on where to start looking for places to sell my short stories? Thank you.

I really gained a lot , l was at a loss with regard to short story writing, but now l know where to start. Thanks.

Lando Michael

Marlene Foster

July 15, 2021

Amazing article. I write posts and comments on social media and your steps will definitely make my writing more relatable. I’m also looking to write nonfiction to inspire businesses to take action. Your steps will be used in all of the genres that will be written. Looking forward to reading more of your articles. Do you write blogs or articles for magazine publications?

July 08, 2021

This has opened my eyes about what it takes to be a writer and I am excited to apply these methods to my short story ventures.

I am happy that I discovered this article.

Christopher Rivera

I’ve been a Gamemaster (DM) for over 40 years – this is great stuff! This is also a great way to write an RPG adventure.

This was so informative and really helped me improve as a writer. Thank you!

Jo Ann Harris

This information really helped me to write a short story on Medium. Thanks for the tips.

Cabin #6 Resident

Thank you! These tips are very useful!

Stewart Salisbury

Thanks for the tips…..I will succeed here….show me the money

I’ve been reading a lot lately about short stories, but this article is by far the most complex and complete!

Thank you! All the advice in it will be put to good use, as I am currently working on a short piece for a competition.

Philip Lazaro

March 04, 2021

This article has really helped me as a short story writer. It is an eye opener. Big up!

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How to Write a Short Story: 10 Good Tips for Writers

Hannah Yang

Short stories 101: what are they and where do you start, 10 tips on how to write a short story, examples of popular short stories for inspiration, conclusion on how to write a short story.

Short stories are an extremely versatile form of literature.

Because of their brevity, short stories allow writers to experiment with a large variety of forms and styles, even ones that wouldn’t be easy to sustain for an entire novel.

But just because they’re short, doesn’t mean they’re easy to write well. So, how exactly do you write a successful short story?

Read on to learn our top tips for how to write short stories, as well as some examples you can read to get inspired.

A short story is a fictional narrative that's between 2,000 and 7,000 words long.

The hallmark of a short story is its concision. A great short story can evoke an emotion, convey a theme, or depict a moment in time in just a few thousand words.

One common misconception is that a short story is just a novel squeezed into a smaller form. But short stories and novels are actually very different art forms.

Novels tend to follow a character across an arc or transformation, while short stories focus more on a single moment. Also, novels tend to focus more on story structure, while many short stories focus more on mood than on plot.

If you approach a short story like you’re writing a shorter version of a novel, you’ll end up with what feels like a synopsis of a longer story, rather than a short story that feels immersive and powerful. So, when you’re writing a short story, remember to lean into the specific strengths of short fiction rather than trying to mimic the characteristics of a novel.

If you want to write a short story, you’ve come to the right place! Here are our top ten tips for how to write a fantastic short story.

Tip 1: Experiment With Form

A short story can take any form you want it to.

You could write a short story that takes the form of a cooking recipe, with each step telling the reader what to do next.

You could write a short story that takes the form of a series of text messages between two friends, with conflict starting to simmer between them.

Or you could even write a short story that takes the form of a real estate advertisement, using a salesperson’s writing style to describe a house and the events that happened inside.

Short stories come in all shapes and sizes, so the possibilities are bounded only by your own imagination. If you're not sure what to write about, try starting with an unusual form and see if that gives you any fun short story ideas.

Tip 2: Start With a Strong Hook

Because a short story has so few words, each line is important—especially the first line. This is your chance to hook the reader in and make them want to keep reading.

There are many different types of hooks you can consider using.

For example, you might start with an intriguing image that paints a picture in the reader’s head. Or you might start with a character doing something strange, which makes the reader wonder why they’re doing it.

No matter what type of hook you choose, make sure you grab the reader’s attention as quickly as possible.

Tip 3: Identify the Inciting Incident and Climax

Due to their brevity, short stories usually don’t follow a plot structure, like the three-act structure or Freytag’s Pyramid.

However, you still need to identify two key plot points: the inciting incident and the climax.

The inciting incident is the moment that kicks off the story and causes the chain of events to unfold.

The climax is the highest point of tension within the story. It’s often a choice the character makes that reveals something important about who they are.

It’s important to make sure these plot points are present in your story, even if they’re just a few sentences long, to ensure that you're writing a complete story.

Tip 4: Evoke a Specific Mood

Many successful short stories do a great job encapsulating a certain mood. When you read a compelling story, you find yourself feeling the specific emotion that the author intended for you to feel.

Think about the mood you’re trying to evoke with your story. Do you want it to be funny? Creepy? Nostalgic? Heartbreaking?

Once you know the mood you want to evoke, you can let that mood inform all of your story decisions. For example, a creepy story might require different word choices compared to a funny story.

Tip 5: Keep the Timeline Short

Novels tend to follow the main character's life across several days, months, or years. Most short stories, on the other hand, exist within a much smaller time scale.

Unless you have a lot of experience writing short stories, try to write one in as short a timeline as possible.

If you’re not sure how to compress your story’s timeline, try starting your story closer to the climax. Can your story begin five minutes before the core decision the character needs to make rather than five years before?

That way, you don’t have to worry about your story sprawling too much or having unnecessary scenes. Compressing your timeline also lets you explore a few scenes more deeply, instead of depicting a greater number of scenes with less depth.

Tip 6: Minimize the Cast of Characters

Many short stories focus on a relationship between two characters rather than filling the story with side characters. If those two main characters have a unique relationship with plenty of tension, you don’t need anyone else to make it interesting.

Some stories even revolve around a single main character, with no other characters involved. If you can show the reader who this one individual is, that can be a really powerful character study.

Remember that you’re not writing a novel, which might have sidekicks, comic relief characters, evil minions, and more. The fewer characters your short story has, the more you’ll be able to say about each of them.

Tip 7: Choose a Specific Theme

Many beginner writers aim for broad, vague themes, such as “love” or “ambition.”

But short stories are too small to explore every nuance of an abstract theme like love or ambition. There are too many different nuances to those abstract concepts.

It’s often much more effective to explore a narrower, more specific theme. Try to figure out what you’re saying about a specific character or a relationship between two specific characters, not about humankind in general.

Instead of exploring “love” as a concept, for example, you could explore what love looks like in a relationship between a working mother and her resentful daughter.

Or, instead of exploring “ambition” as a theme, you could explore what ambition looks like for a specific student at a high-pressure prep school.

Tip 8: Focus on “Knockout”

Argentinian author Julio Cortazar once said: “The novel wins by points, the short story by knockout.”

This quote is a great analogy for the difference between these two art forms.

After all, a great novel might have an action-packed battle sequence, a nostalgic flashback scene, and a romantic subplot, all in addition to the main storyline.

But a great short story only has room to do one thing—and it needs to do that one thing masterfully.

So, figure out the crux of the story—the thing your story is going to do masterfully. It might be a single moment in time you want to depict, or a single emotion you want to evoke.

Every element of your short story needs to contribute to that crux. Nothing should be extraneous or out of place.

Tip 9: Give Your Story an Interesting Title

Many writers give their short stories common titles, such as “Dust” and “Home.”

If “Home” is the perfect title for your story, there’s no rule against using it as a title. But the downside is that your story will feel more forgettable to your readers.

Instead, consider using a unique title. For example, you might use a title that includes an unusual phrase, a character’s role or name, or even a song lyric.

Think of the title as the real first line of your story—it’s the first impression you’ll make on the reader. If you can hook them in with the title, your story will stand out from the crowd.

Tip 10: Edit, Edit, Edit

No short story comes out perfectly on the first draft, even if you’re an experienced writer.

It’s crucial to edit your story to make it as polished as possible.

Run your story through ProWritingAid. You can use the Word Explorer to check the connotations of each word you choose, which can ensure you evoke the right tone in your writing.

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Love writing? ProWritingAid will help you improve the style, strength, and clarity of your stories.

The best way to become a better writer is by reading great examples.

Here are some short stories you can read to inspire you.

Example 1: “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson

“The Lottery,” originally published in The New Yorker in 1948, is one of my favorite short stories.

The story depicts a group of villagers who gather together to hold a lottery. The nature of the lottery is left mysterious, but the sense of excitement and anticipation grows as everyone waits to see whose name will get drawn.

This is a great example of a short story that doesn’t waste any words. It begins with the moment the villagers start to gather and ends as soon as the lottery is conducted.

You’ll have to read the story to find out what the lottery turns out to be. It’s a quick read, and well worth your time.

Example 2: “Cathedral” by Raymond Carver

“Cathedral,” first published in a short story collection in 1983, is a story about two men forging an unexpected connection.

The story follows a cynical narrator whose wife invites her friend, a recently widowed blind man, to come stay with them. The narrator knows little about blindness except from the movies and isn’t particularly thrilled about having this guy stay at his house.

The narrator and the blind man end up spending time in front of the TV together, and when the camera shows a beautiful cathedral, the narrator realizes the blind man has no idea what a cathedral looks like. And so, painstakingly, he tries to describe it to him.

This story is all about the intimacy, beauty, and sadness of that moment—trying to describe a cathedral to a man who can never see one.

Example 3: “Recitatif” by Toni Morrison

Roberta and Twyla are two roommates in a shelter, both sent to live there because their mothers are unable to care for them.

Originally published in a short story anthology in 1983, “Recitatif” follows these two girls as they grow up and start families.

A major focus of the story is on the fact that Twyla and Roberta are different races and therefore get treated differently by society. Here’s the catch: Morrison never tells you which girl is the Black character and which girl is the white character. She just lets you make your own assumptions.

This story is masterfully written, and one thing I love about it is that you can interpret it in a different way each time you reread it.

Example 4: “Eating Bitterness” by Hannah Yang

For this last example, I’ll discuss one of my own short stories and the choices I made while writing it.

“Eating Bitterness,” which you can read online in The Dark Magazine , is a story about a world where all women have two mouths. The second mouth is used to eat all the negative emotions their families feel.

Once I’d decided on the core idea that would the “knockout” punch of the story, I crafted the details of the story to match.

Thematically, I wanted the story to explore the relationship between a mother and her teenage daughter, who have very different feelings about their second mouths. Because this is a short story, I tried to focus on that core mother-daughter relationship throughout the piece and added only a few other family members to keep it simple.

Finally, I made sure to choose a title that felt specific and unique. “Chi ku” is a Chinese idiom for suffering, which translates to “eating bitterness” in English. I liked the double meaning that this title might evoke for bilingual readers, but I also felt like the title works well on its own, whether or not you’ve heard the idiom before.

There you have it—our top tips for how to write a short story, as well as some examples to inspire you.

Short stories are one of my favorite forms of literature, and there’s so much you can do with them.

So, pick up a pen and try writing one! If you enjoy writing your own stories, you can even submit short stories to literary magazines.

Good luck, and happy writing!

Hannah is a speculative fiction writer who loves all things strange and surreal. She holds a BA from Yale University and lives in Colorado. When she’s not busy writing, you can find her painting watercolors, playing her ukulele, or hiking in the Rockies. Follow her work on hannahyang.com or on Twitter at @hannahxyang.

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How to Write a Short Story: The Complete Guide in 9 Steps

Any tiny little mistake in a short story becomes magnified into gigantic proportions.

If a minor character fails to come alive in a novel, you can forgive the error because there is so many other things to enjoy, but if a minor character falls flat in a short story, a reader will become annoyed and a literary magazine editor will throw it away.

In a short story, a writer has to accomplish a great deal — details, setting, conflict, plot, character development — in a very small space, usually between 3,000 words and 6,000 words, and that requires concision and revision. Read the tips below to find out how to write a short story that will get published, get readers that love you, and get attention from an agent.

1. Start With an Idea

You can get inspiration fromreal-life events – whether they happened to you, a grandparent who told you a story, or even the combination of little tidbits you hear from here and there.

I suggest following a few “weird news” sites , because I’ve gleaned incredible stories including one about a tourist in Iceland who joined a search party only to discover she was the one being searched for, and another about an ex-Olympian who started prostituting herself not for money but for attention. Take nonfiction and transform it into fiction.

If you’re stuck, consult a short story idea database , or a story idea generator.

2. Pick a Point of View

Is your character telling the story? Then you’re writing in 1st person . “I.”

Are you telling the story for someone else? Then you’re writing in 3rd person. “He” or “She.”

Are you going to go into multiple people’s heads, and tell information that the character can’s know? Then you’re writing in 3rd person omniscient. “He” or “She.”

Now, decide whose eyes the story will be told through. Remember, you can’t switch halfway through the story. Once you pick a point of view, you have to stick with it. A good rule of thumb for beginning writers is to use the protagonist.

3. Learn About Your Character

These are the six questions you have to know about every character:

What does your protagonist want?
What major decision or action has your protagonist taken to achieve this?
What unexpected consequences arise?
What results from these consequences?
What morally significant action does your protagonist have to make?
How has your protagonist changed by the end of the story?

Your job as a writer is to develop a living, breathing character, and the only way to do that is to make sure you know more about your characters than what you ever let your reader know.

Write out everything there is to know about your character from their high school GPA, their earliest memories, and their home address to their first love, their favorite TV show, and their greatest fear.

If you want to get to know your character even deeper, fill out a character questionnaire .

4. Avoid Character Cliches

Don’t outright explain your character’s appearance, personality, etc. Let readers discover this character on their own as they read.
Give your character weaknesses. Perfect people don’t exist.
Give your character at least one unique characteristic. Everyone knows the independent, stubborn female character who is small, stronger than she looks, not very pretty (at least in her own opinion), and can fight like the devil. But does she play the flute? Does she have an embarrassingly ugly laugh? Does she notice the smell of everything?
If you must have an outright description of a character, make it seem natural. Have the character describe him or herself to another character, or have one character describing the other character to someone else.

Find out some more cliches to avoid and character development tricks .

5. Give Your Character Conflict

Make sure to have conflict. Don’t set up the conflict, start your story right in the middle of the conflict. This is called, “In Media Res.” It means to start in the middle of the action so the reader isn’t bored.

There are several types of conflict, but ask yourself what type of conflict you want to emphasize:

Conflict with self
Conflict with others
Conflict with the natural world

Make sure to “have something at stake.” In other words, what happens if the characters don’t get what they want? It should be something that ruins them. If there is nothing at stake in your story, you need to “raise the stakes.”

6. Show, Don’t Tell

Don’t just tell me that your dad is hilarious. Show me by what he says and does, and then let me decide if he is funny or not.

There’s a difference between writing an anecdote (the type of story you would tell a friend over dinner) and a quality short story (the type of story where readers are set inside the action).

Take these two different types of writing, for example:

1. I’m a pretty easy going person. I get along with everyone including the obnoxious guys from my hometown, but there’s a certain event that rolls around every year that puts most of them on the wrong side of the fence from me. These “couple” games are all athletic based and are meant to build trust and teamwork between “couples,” but no one cares for that. Everyone is after the prize money. Unfortunately, I am pathetically unathletic, so none of the athletic guys from my town have ever wanted to team up with me. I’m too “small,” “weak,” “uncoordinated,” and “clumsy.” They’re not wrong.

2. My eyes scanned the auditorium, but all of the boys seemed to be avoiding my gaze. Basketball scholarship boy was excitedly whispering with the tumbling queen of University of the Cumberlands cheer squad, and the soon-to-be marine was already exchanging information with the girl who had broken our high school hurtle record. Only Seth, the art major who assisted in coaching the middle school soccer team met my eyes with a malicious grin as he put his arm around his most recent fling – a rock-climbing pro from Etowah.

The difference between these two passages is the same as the difference between a good story teller and a good story writer .

Telling will give the reader the facts, but showing engages their mind, emotions, and imagination. Sometimes it’s good and necessary to give the cold, hard facts (such as emails to your boss), but the writing we’re interested in makes the reader feel something. A story like this will engage the reader in such a way that he or she won’t easily forget it.

If you struggle with being a storyteller , do some writing exercises to help you get better at showing and not telling. One idea would be to take your setting and, without listing the name, describe it. Describe everything about it from the smell, the taste, the appearance, the texture, etc. Leave nothing undone. Imagine yourself as waking up in this setting with no recollection of where you are or how you had gotten there, and now you are straining over every minute detail trying to remember.

7. Advance the Action (Plot!)

Every sentence must do one of two things–reveal character or advance the action. -Kurt Vonnegut

The plot is what your story hinges on because it is the series of events that take place in your story. It is the storyline , and the sequential events in your novel (exposition, rising action, climax, etc.) are big factors in determining whether or not your story is individually unique or just about the same as everything else out there.

If you want to keep readers on their toes, the plot of your story should always take an unexpected turn, whether at the beginning or the end.

Because it keeps the story interesting!

Another example:

I went home, opened my laptop, and stared at the black screen for thirty minutes asking myself, Do you really want to do this? Do you really want to dish out around a hundred dollars just to prove a point? I turned the laptop on, took out my debit card, and typed in the search bar, “rent a guy for a day.” Because yes. I really did want to do this.

8. First Draft

Don’t worry so much about having a catchy first paragraph or too many details right now. Now, you simply need to worry about getting everything on paper.

An 8,000 word story will probably end up as a 4,000 word short story after you go through cutting out unnecessary sentences.

When you finish:

Edit again. Maybe three or four times.
Remove sentences that don’t serve a purpose.
Make sure your beginning is catchy
Make sure you have a solution to your conflict (can be open-ended with character beginning to change and now see things differently)
Show it to a critical writing friend and revise based on their suggestions.
Submit to a literary magazine or publisher!

9. A Final Crucial Trick

I once heard some valuable advice that has stuck with me:

When you write a story, don’t save any of your ideas for later, grander books, and don’t write like you want everyone to like it. Pour your soul into every word and write as though you are writing to please one person.

Writing to please everyone will water your story down and steal its uniqueness. Even if you’re planning to please a group of people, remember that nothing in the world can replicate the individuality of a single person, and that’s how you should want your story to be.

Also remember that giving your all on every book is important because this book may be the only book that someone reads by you. What imprint do you want to leave in their mind?

No related posts.

Top 100 Short Story Ideas

by Joe Bunting | 128 comments

Do you want to write but just need a great story idea? Or perhaps you have too many ideas and can’t choose the best one? Well, good news. We’ve got you covered.

Below are one hundred short story ideas for all your favorite genres. You can use them as a book idea, as writing prompts for writing contests , for stories to publish in literary magazines , or just for fun!

Use these 100 story ideas to get your creative writing started now.

Editor’s note: This is a recurring guide, regularly updated with ideas and information.

If you're in a hurry, here's my 10 best story ideas in brief, or scroll down for the full version.

Top 10 Story Ideas

Tell the story of a scar.
A group of children discover a dead body.
A young prodigy becomes orphaned.
A middle-aged woman discovers a ghost.
A woman who is deeply in love is crushed when her fiancé breaks up with her.
A talented young man's deepest fear is holding his life back.
A poor young boy or girl comes into an unexpected fortune.
A shy, young woman unexpectedly bumps into her soulmate.
A long journey is interrupted by a disaster.
A young couple run into the path of a psychopath.

Why Creative Writing Prompts Are Helpful

Below, you'll find our best creative writing prompts and plot ideas for every genre, but first, why do we use prompts? Is it just a waste of time, or can they actually help you? Here are three reasons we love writing prompts at The Write Practice:

1. Practice the Language!

Even for those of us who are native English speakers, we're all on a language journey to go from beginners to skilled writers. To make progress on this language journey, you have to practice, and at The Write Practice, believe it or not, we're really into practice! Creative writing prompts are easy, fun ways to practice.

Use the prompts below to practice your storytelling and use of language. The more you practice, the better of a writer you'll become.

2. When you have no ideas and are stuck.

Sometimes, you want to write, but you can't think up any ideas. You could either just sit there, staring at a blank page, or you could find a few ideas to help you get started. Even better if the list of ideas is curated from our best plot ideas over the last decade that we've been publishing lessons, writing exercises, and prompts.

Use the story ideas below to get your writing started. Then when your creativity is warmed up, you'll start to come up with your own ideas!

3. To develop your own ideas.

Maybe you do have an idea already, but you're not sure it's good. Or maybe you feel like it's just missing some small piece to make it better. By reading other ideas, and incorporating your favorites into your story, you can fill your plot holes and generate creative ideas of your own.

Use the story ideas below to develop your own ideas.

4. They're fun!

Thousands of writers use the prompts below every month, some at home, some in classrooms, and even a few pros at their writing “office.” Why? Because writing prompts can be fun. They get your creativity started, help you come up with new ideas of your own, and often take your writing in new, unexpected directions.

Use the plot ideas to have more fun with writing!

How to Write a Story

One last thing before we get to the 100 story ideas, let’s talk about how to write a great short story . (Already know how to write a great story? No problem. Just skip down to the ideas below.)

First, read stories. If you’ve never read a story, you’re going to have a hard time writing one. Where do you find great stories? There are a lot of places, but check out our list of 46 Literary Magazines we’ve curated over here .
Write your story in a single sitting. Write the first draft of your story in as short a time as possible, and if you’re writing a short story , try to write it in one sitting. Trust me, this works. Everyone hates being interrupted when they’re telling compelling stories. Use that to your advantage and don’t stop writing until you’ve finished telling yours.
Read your draft. Read your story through once, without changing anything. This will give you a sense of what work it needs going forward.
Write a premise. After reading your first draft, get your head around the main idea behind your story by summarizing your story in a one sentence premise. Your premise should contain four things: a character, a goal, a situation, and a special sauce. Not sure what that means or how to actually do that? Here’s a full premise writing guide .
Write, edit, write, and edit. Good writing is rewriting. Use your second draft to fill in the plot holes and cut out the extraneous scenes and characters you discovered when you read the first draft in step #2. Then, polish up your final draft on the next round of edits.
Submit! Real writers don’t keep their writing all to themselves. They share it. Submit your story to a literary magazine , an anthology series , enter it into a writing contest , or even share it with a small group of friends. And if it gets rejected, don’t feel bad. You’ll be in good company.

Want to know more? Learn more about how to write a great short story here .

Our 100 Best Short Story Ideas, Plot Ideas, and Creative Writing Prompts

Ready to get writing? Here are our 100 best short story ideas to kickstart your writing. Enjoy!

10 Best General Short Story Ideas

Our first batch of plot ideas are for any kind of story, whether a spy thriller or a memoir of your personal life story. Here are the best story ideas:

Tell the story of a scar, whether a physical scar or emotional one. To be a writer, said Stephen King, “The only requirement is the ability to remember every scar .”
A group of children discover a dead body. Good writers don’t turn away from death, which is, after all, the universal human experience. Instead, they look it directly into its dark face and describe what they see on the page.
A young prodigy becomes orphaned. Orphans are uniquely vulnerable, and as such, they have the most potential for growth.
A middle-aged woman discovers a ghost. What do Edgar Allen Poe, Ron Weasley, King Saul from the Bible, Odysseus, and Ebenezer Scrooge have in common? They all encountered ghosts!
A woman who is deeply in love is crushed when her fiancé breaks up with her. “In life every ending is just a new beginning,” says Dakota Fanning’s character in Uptown Girls.
A talented young man’s deepest fear is holding his life back. Your character’s biggest fear is your story’s secret weapon. Don’t run from it, write about it.
A poor young boy or girl comes into an unexpected fortune. Not all fortunes are good. Sometimes discovering a fortune will destroy your life.
A shy, young woman unexpectedly bumps into her soulmate (literally bumps into him). In film, this is called the “meet cute,” when the hero bumps into the heroine in the coffee shop or the department store or the hallway, knocking her books to the floor, and forcing them into conversation.
A long journey is interrupted by a disaster. Who hasn’t been longing to get to a destination only to be delayed by something unexpected? This is the plot of Gravity , The Odyssey , and even Lord of the Rings .
A young couple run into the path of a psychopath. Monsters, whether people who do monstrous things or scaly beasts or a monster of a natural disaster, reveal what’s really inside a person. Let your character fall into the path of a monster and see how they handle themselves.

Now that you have an idea, learn exactly what to do with it. Check out my new book The Write Structure which helps writers take their ideas and write books readers love. Click to check out The Write Structure here.

More Short Story Ideas Based on Genre

Need more ideas? Here are ideas based on whichever literary genre you write. Use them as character inspiration, to start your own story, or borrow pieces to generate your own ideas. The only rule is, have fun writing!

By the way, for more story writing tips for each these plot types, check out our full guide to the 10 types of stories here .

10 Thriller Story Ideas

A thriller is any story that “thrills” the reader—i.e., gets adrenaline pumping, the heart racing, and the emotions piqued.

Thrillers come in all shapes and forms, dipping freely into other genres. In other words, expect the unexpected!

Here are a few of my favorite thriller story ideas :

Rosa Rivera-Ortiz is an up-and-coming lawyer in a San Diego firm. Held back by her ethnicity and her gender, she works twice as hard as her colleagues, and she’s as surprised as anyone when she’s requested specifically for a high-profile case. Bron Welty, an A-list actor and action star, has been arrested for the murder of his live-in housekeeper. The cop heading the case is older, ex-military, a veteran of more than one war, and an occasional sufferer of PTSD. Rosa’s hired to defend the movie star; and it seems like an easy win until she uncovers some secrets that not only make her believe her client is guilty, but may be one of the worst serial killers in the past two decades… and he knows she found out .

It’s the Cold War. Sergei, a double-agent for the CIA working in Berlin, is about to retire when he’s given one final mission: he’s been asked to “defect” to the USSR to help find and assassinate a suspected double-agent for the Kremlin. Sergei is highly trusted, and he’s given to understand that this mission is need-to-know only between him and very few superior officers. But as he falls deeper into the folds of the Iron Curtain, he begins to suspect that his superior officer might just be the mole, and the mark Sergei’s been sent to kill is on the cusp of exposing the leak.

It is 1800. A lighthouse on a barren cliff in Canada. Two lighthouse keepers, German immigrants, are alone for the winter and effectively cut off from the rest of the world until the ice thaws. Both Wilhelm and Matthias are settled in for the long haul with warm clothes, canned goods, and matches a-plenty. Then Wilhelm starts hearing voices. His personal belongings disappear from where he’d placed them, only to reappear in strange spots—like the catwalk, or dangling beneath the spiral stair knotted in brown twine. Matthias begs innocence. Little by little, Wilhelm grows convinced that Matthias is trying to convince him (Wilhelm) to kill himself. Is the insanity real, or is this really Matthias’ doing? And if it is real, what will he do to defend himself? There are so many months until the thaw.

20 Mystery Story Ideas

Enjoy a good whodunit? Then you’ll love these mystery story ideas .

Here are a few of my favorites:

Ever hear the phrase, “It is not who fired the shot but who paid for the bullet?” This is a philosophy Tomoe Gozen lives by. Brave and clever, Tomoe follows clues until she learns who ordered the murder: Emperor Antoku himself. But why would the emperor of Japan want to kill a lowly soldier?

Mystery writer Dan Rodriguez takes the subway every day. Every day, nothing happens. He wears earbuds and a hoodie; he’s ignored, and he ignores. Then one evening, on his way home from a stressful meeting with his publisher, Dan is startled out of his funk when a frantic Middle-Eastern man knocks him over at a dead run, then races up the stairs—pursued by several other thugs. The Middle-Eastern man is shot; and Dan discovers a mysterious package in the front pocket of his hoodie. What’s inside, and what does he need to do to survive the answer?

A headless corpse is found in a freshly-dug grave in Arkansas. The local police chief, Arley Socket, has never had to deal with more than missing gas cans and treed cats. His exploration of this weird murder digs up a mystery older than the 100-year-old town of Jericho that harkens all the way back to a European blood-feud.

20 Romance Story Ideas

Ready to write a love story? Or perhaps you want to create a subplot with a secondary character? We've got ideas for you!

Hint: When it comes to romance, a sense of humor is always a good idea. Have fun! Here are a few of my favorite love story ideas :

She’s a cop. He’s the owner of a jewelry store. A sudden rash of break-ins brings her to his store over and over and over again, until it becomes obvious that he might be tripping the alarm on purpose—just to see her. That’s illegal—but she’s kind of falling for him, too. Write the moment she realizes she has to do something about this crazy illicit courtship.

Colorado Animal Rescue has never been more challenging than after that zoo caught on fire. Sally Cougar (no jokes on the name, or she’ll kill you) tracks down three missing tiger cubs, only to find they’ve been adopted by millionaire Bryce Champion. Thanks to an antiquated law on the books, he legally has the right to keep them. It’s going to take everything Sally has to get those tiger cubs back.

He’s a museum curator with a fetish for perfection. No one’s ever gotten close to him; how could they? They’re never as perfect as the portraits, the sculptures, the art that never changes. Then one day, an intern is hired on—a young, messy, disorganized intern, whose hair and desk are in a constant state of disarray. The curator is going half-mad with this walking embodiment of chaos; so why can’t the he stand the thought of the intern leaving at the end of their assistantship?

20 Sci-Fi Story Ideas

From the minimum-wage-earning, ancient-artifact-hunting time traveller to the space-exploring, sentient dinosaurs, these sci-fi writing prompts will get you set loose your inner nerd.

Here are a few of my favorite sci-fi ideas :

In a future society, neural implants translate music into physical pleasure, and earphones (“jacking in”) are now the drug of choice. Write either from the perspective of a music addict, OR the Sonforce agent (sonance + enforcer) who has the job of cracking down.

It’s the year 5000. Our planet was wrecked in the great Crisis of 3500, and remaining human civilization survives only in a half dozen giant domed cities. There are two unbreakable rules: strict adherence to Life Quality (recycling doesn’t even begin to cover these laws), and a complete ban on reproduction (only the “worthy” are permitted to create new humans). Write from the perspective of a young woman who just discovered she’s been chosen to reproduce—but she has no interest in being a mother.

So yeah, ancient Egypt really was “all that” after all, and the pyramids turn out to be fully functional spaceships (the limestone was to preserve the electronics hidden inside). Write from the perspective of the tourist exploring the ancient society who accidentally turns one on.

20 Fantasy Story Ideas

Need a dose of sword-in-the-stone, hero and/or heroine packed coming-of-age glory? We love fantasy stories!

Here are a few of my favorite fantasy story ideas:

Bored teenaged wizards throwing a graduation celebration.

Uncomfortable wedding preparation between a magic wielding family tree and those more on the Muggle side of things.

A fairy prince who decides to abandon his responsibilities to become a street musician.

Just try to not have fun writing (or even just reading!) these fantasy writing prompts.

The Secret to Choosing the Best Story Idea

Stories, more than any other artistic expression, have the power to make people care. Stories have the ability to change people’s lives.

But to write a great story, a life-changing story, don’t just write about what your characters did, said, and saw. Ask yourself, “Where do I fit in to this story? What is my personal connection to this story?”

Robert Frost said this:

If you can connect your personal story to the story you’re writing, you will not only be more motivated to finish your story, you might just be able to change the lives of your readers.

Next Step: Write Your Best Story

No matter how good your idea, writing a story or a book can be a long difficult process. How do you create an outline, come up with a great plot, and then actually finish it?

My new book The Write Structure will help. You'll learn how to take your idea and structure a strong plot around it. Then you'll be guided through the exact process I've used to write dozens of short stories and over fifteen books.

You can learn more about The Write Structure and get your copy here.

Get The Write Structure here »

Have a great short story idea? We'd love to hear it. Share it in the comments !

Choose one of these ideas and write a short story in one sitting (aim for 1,000 words or less!). When you're finished, share your story in the practice box below (or our latest writing contest ) for feedback from the community. And if you share, please be sure to comment on a few stories by other writers.

Joe Bunting

Joe Bunting is an author and the leader of The Write Practice community. He is also the author of the new book Crowdsourcing Paris , a real life adventure story set in France. It was a #1 New Release on Amazon. Follow him on Instagram (@jhbunting).

Want best-seller coaching? Book Joe here.

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5 High-Impact Writing Strategies for the Elementary Grades

Simple, effective exercises can help elementary students develop the foundational writing skills they need for their academic journey.

Elementary students writing at their desks

When considering writing as part of the instructional day, teachers may think only of the type of writing where students engage in storytelling or informational pieces. While the ability to leverage student choice and produce fiction and nonfiction text is beneficial for all grade levels, it’s important to consider how writing can be incorporated and layered across all content areas, as well as develop the deep foundational understanding to prepare young writers for authoring texts.

For us as teachers, it’s vital that we share a common language and understanding about the types of high-impact writing strategies that students can engage in and how to effectively implement them in the classroom.

1. Handwriting in the Early Grades

In the digital age, prioritizing handwriting education during phonics instruction remains instrumental in nurturing well-rounded learners and sets them up for success when more stamina is required of them. The tactile experience of handwriting establishes a profound connection between language and sensory perception, contributing increased cognitive development .

Teachers can adopt a common path of movement language (language used to describe how to form the letters) when teaching the letters. In addition to that, providing students with multisensory ways of forming the letters helps create a strong understanding of the letters’ features.

A practical example of this type of instruction is having students trace a lowercase a in a tray full of salt, repeating the path of movement language, “over, around, down.” Then, students practice writing the letter using a pencil or dry erase marker. As the teacher models the directionality, it’s important to ensure that students know what “over,” “around,” and “down” mean and look like and that the teacher is using on-the-spot intervention for correction.

2. Dictated Sentences

Utilizing dictated sentences in elementary phonics instruction holds profound importance in nurturing early literacy skills. This strategy serves as a powerful bridge between decoding individual phonemes and comprehending them within a meaningful context.

For example, in a phonics lesson where students are practicing decoding and spelling words with a short i vowel and have practiced reading the high-frequency words they and the , the teacher may end the lesson with students writing the dictated sentence, ”They will fill the big bin with wigs.”

This method encourages the application of phonics knowledge in real-word scenarios, promoting fluency and automaticity. In addition, dictated sentences provide a valuable opportunity for students to hone their listening skills, enhancing their ability to discern and reproduce distinct phonetic elements accurately and to authentically apply irregularly spelled high-frequency words in context. This practice benefits students of any grade level working on phonics skills.

3. Writing to Read

Another foundational type of writing that prepares students for more demanding types of writing in later grades is writing to read. This is an interactive approach to early writing instruction where the teacher models early literacy and print concepts starting as early as prekindergarten through early kindergarten. Through collaboration with the students, the teacher models drawing pictures and sentence creation.

Teachers can start by engaging students in a conversation around an event in a book or nursery rhyme they read together. Then, the teacher offers a prompt: “In the story, the characters went to play at the park. That gives me an idea for a story. What kinds of things do you like to do at the park?” Students can share multiple ideas for the story, and the teacher chooses one to model.

While the teacher explicitly models drawing and develops a sentence about the drawing, the students offer ideas on where to start writing, count the words in the story, identify the sounds they hear as the teacher spells out each word, and notice where spaces will occur. The more that students engage in this type of instruction, the more responsibility we can hand over to them, and they can write the story along with us. As students are given more opportunities to apply early writing principles and rereading strategies, they begin to understand the reciprocal relationship between reading and writing.

4. Reading to Write

When the foundations for early writing have been established, students can quickly move into another layer of high-impact writing, which is writing about the texts that they’re reading.

Even starting in kindergarten, encouraging students to write and/or draw in response to reading across multiple content areas is a valuable strategy that helps deepen comprehension and understanding of a particular topic, as explored in Linda J. Dorn and Carla Soffos’s book Teaching for Deep Comprehension .

These “writing about the reading” prompts require students to analyze, synthesize, and connect ideas, fostering a deeper understanding of the material. For example, if first-grade students are working on story elements, after reading a story, a student might write, “The character in the story is a bear who lives in the forest. The problem in the story is that he is sad, but he solves his problem when he learns to be happy.”

This expression encapsulates comprehension, language reinforcement, and academic vocabulary. As students progress through grade levels upward to 12th grade, the scaffold of giving the students a prompt for writing about the text should decrease as they develop enough self-regulation to write about their own thinking.

5. Writing About Learning

Similar to reading to write, this strategy is solely focused on writing about what the student has learned, why the learning is important, and when to use the learning. This type of writing can happen as early as kindergarten, but in a highly scaffolded manner that mostly focuses on articulating why the learning is important.

Students up to 12th grade can benefit from writing about their learning because it keeps the purpose of what they’re learning in various content areas relevant and promotes quick retrieval of the information.

This strategy also promotes metacognition , because it helps learners organize their thoughts and reflect on their learning process. For instance, a second-grade class could collaboratively study the nature of bees in a nonfiction text. Then, because the teacher focuses on the skill of identifying and explaining main ideas and details, a student may write, “I learned the main idea by using headings and key details. Knowing main ideas helps us understand the most important information in a text.”

If you’re looking to inspire your students’ writing and creativity, turn to these fun and exciting writing prompts. Perfect for overcoming writer’s block or even starting a brand-new short story in a different narrative, creative writing prompts can help students begin a new piece with confidence.

Plus, these story starters can also encourage students to explore different genres while honing their writing skills. There are a lot of ways you can use writing prompts in your classroom. Try:

Reading a book in a genre, then having students use a story starter in that same genre.

Starting off class with 10 minutes of writing, using one of the prompts below. If you'd like, you can ask a volunteer to share their story! Students may be surprised by the variety of stories that are written based on the same prompt.

Using these prompts as an introduction to a creative writing unit.

Providing fast finishers with a way to stay busy — and have fun.

Using story starters to encourage students to write at home.

Adventure Story Starters

Take inspiration from classics like Treasure Island and newer popular series like The Bad Guys to explore how to write thrilling adventure stories. And to encourage students to begin writing their own adventure-focused stories, share these creative story starters:

You’re part of a pirate crew in search of a long-lost storied treasure trove. What is happening on the ship and where do you find the treasure?

You get the chance to use a time machine to meet one historical figure of your choice. Who do you go meet, and what will you do to explore that time period?

You receive a fortune in a fortune cookie that changes the course of your life. What does the fortune say, and what happens when it comes true?

Get students excited about adventure stories with these great books:

Fantasy Story Starters

Have fans of dragons, unicorns, wizards, and other mythical creatures in class? Encourage them to give fantasy writing a shot.

You’re on a quest through a hidden underground world that no one else has ever seen. What magical creatures do you come across? What do they look like, and how do they act?

There is a witch who lives in a nearby legendary haunted house. She puts a hex on you that needed to be broken by the time the clock struck midnight the next night. What kind of hex is it, and how do you break it?

You stumble into an enchanted forest. How did you find it, and what do you discover in it?

Check out these fun fantasy titles for more inspiration:

Sci-Fi Story Starters

Kids interested in STEM concepts will love science fiction! Try these prompts to see how your students combine science with their wildest imaginations.

You’re the first person to ever set foot on Mars. What is it like? What do you explore first?
You and your friend have the same dream in the middle of the night about a prophecy that involves another dimension. What is the prophecy, and what is this other dimension? What do you and your friend have to do to reach and alter this dimension?
After NASA discovers a whole new world of giants in a nearby nebula, they send a team of scientists through a wormhole to study them. You are one of the scientists on board. What does the journey feel like? What do the giants look like in this world?

Plus, find great kid-friendly sci-fi here:

Genre Scrambler Story Starters

Have some fun with genre studies by combining them! Try these prompts to get started:

You are on an expedition in the Arctic and discover a new species of animals living in the harsh climate that no one has ever seen before. What kind of species is it, and what characteristics do they have?
You’re walking home from school and notice that the front door of a neighbor’s house is wide open, and no one is in sight. The old man who normally lives there is nowhere to be found. Curious, you go into the house and find that everything is fake: the furniture, the food, the technology, etc. In fact, the whole property is made of plastic, even the grass and trees! What happened to the old man who lives here? Why does this house exist, and why is everything fake?
You are a child living in the early 1800s in an unnamed country when an asteroid hits, releasing aliens that want to make contact with your leaders. What do these aliens want? How does everyone react?

Shop popular books of all genres that will inspire young writers below! You can find all books and activities at The Teacher Store .

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What the Data Says About Pandemic School Closures, Four Years Later

The more time students spent in remote instruction, the further they fell behind. And, experts say, extended closures did little to stop the spread of Covid.

By Sarah Mervosh , Claire Cain Miller and Francesca Paris

Four years ago this month, schools nationwide began to shut down, igniting one of the most polarizing and partisan debates of the pandemic.

Some schools, often in Republican-led states and rural areas, reopened by fall 2020. Others, typically in large cities and states led by Democrats, would not fully reopen for another year.

A variety of data — about children’s academic outcomes and about the spread of Covid-19 — has accumulated in the time since. Today, there is broad acknowledgment among many public health and education experts that extended school closures did not significantly stop the spread of Covid, while the academic harms for children have been large and long-lasting.

While poverty and other factors also played a role, remote learning was a key driver of academic declines during the pandemic, research shows — a finding that held true across income levels.

Source: Fahle, Kane, Patterson, Reardon, Staiger and Stuart, “ School District and Community Factors Associated With Learning Loss During the COVID-19 Pandemic .” Score changes are measured from 2019 to 2022. In-person means a district offered traditional in-person learning, even if not all students were in-person.

“There’s fairly good consensus that, in general, as a society, we probably kept kids out of school longer than we should have,” said Dr. Sean O’Leary, a pediatric infectious disease specialist who helped write guidance for the American Academy of Pediatrics, which recommended in June 2020 that schools reopen with safety measures in place.

There were no easy decisions at the time. Officials had to weigh the risks of an emerging virus against the academic and mental health consequences of closing schools. And even schools that reopened quickly, by the fall of 2020, have seen lasting effects.

But as experts plan for the next public health emergency, whatever it may be, a growing body of research shows that pandemic school closures came at a steep cost to students.

The longer schools were closed, the more students fell behind.

At the state level, more time spent in remote or hybrid instruction in the 2020-21 school year was associated with larger drops in test scores, according to a New York Times analysis of school closure data and results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress , an authoritative exam administered to a national sample of fourth- and eighth-grade students.

At the school district level, that finding also holds, according to an analysis of test scores from third through eighth grade in thousands of U.S. districts, led by researchers at Stanford and Harvard. In districts where students spent most of the 2020-21 school year learning remotely, they fell more than half a grade behind in math on average, while in districts that spent most of the year in person they lost just over a third of a grade.

( A separate study of nearly 10,000 schools found similar results.)

Such losses can be hard to overcome, without significant interventions. The most recent test scores, from spring 2023, show that students, overall, are not caught up from their pandemic losses , with larger gaps remaining among students that lost the most ground to begin with. Students in districts that were remote or hybrid the longest — at least 90 percent of the 2020-21 school year — still had almost double the ground to make up compared with students in districts that allowed students back for most of the year.

Some time in person was better than no time.

As districts shifted toward in-person learning as the year went on, students that were offered a hybrid schedule (a few hours or days a week in person, with the rest online) did better, on average, than those in places where school was fully remote, but worse than those in places that had school fully in person.

Students in hybrid or remote learning, 2020-21

80% of students

Some schools return online, as Covid-19 cases surge. Vaccinations start for high-priority groups.

Teachers are eligible for the Covid vaccine in more than half of states.

Most districts end the year in-person or hybrid.

Source: Burbio audit of more than 1,200 school districts representing 47 percent of U.S. K-12 enrollment. Note: Learning mode was defined based on the most in-person option available to students.

Income and family background also made a big difference.

A second factor associated with academic declines during the pandemic was a community’s poverty level. Comparing districts with similar remote learning policies, poorer districts had steeper losses.

But in-person learning still mattered: Looking at districts with similar poverty levels, remote learning was associated with greater declines.

A community’s poverty rate and the length of school closures had a “roughly equal” effect on student outcomes, said Sean F. Reardon, a professor of poverty and inequality in education at Stanford, who led a district-level analysis with Thomas J. Kane, an economist at Harvard.

Score changes are measured from 2019 to 2022. Poorest and richest are the top and bottom 20% of districts by percent of students on free/reduced lunch. Mostly in-person and mostly remote are districts that offered traditional in-person learning for more than 90 percent or less than 10 percent of the 2020-21 year.

But the combination — poverty and remote learning — was particularly harmful. For each week spent remote, students in poor districts experienced steeper losses in math than peers in richer districts.

That is notable, because poor districts were also more likely to stay remote for longer .

Some of the country’s largest poor districts are in Democratic-leaning cities that took a more cautious approach to the virus. Poor areas, and Black and Hispanic communities , also suffered higher Covid death rates, making many families and teachers in those districts hesitant to return.

“We wanted to survive,” said Sarah Carpenter, the executive director of Memphis Lift, a parent advocacy group in Memphis, where schools were closed until spring 2021 .

“But I also think, man, looking back, I wish our kids could have gone back to school much quicker,” she added, citing the academic effects.

Other things were also associated with worse student outcomes, including increased anxiety and depression among adults in children’s lives, and the overall restriction of social activity in a community, according to the Stanford and Harvard research .

Even short closures had long-term consequences for children.

While being in school was on average better for academic outcomes, it wasn’t a guarantee. Some districts that opened early, like those in Cherokee County, Ga., a suburb of Atlanta, and Hanover County, Va., lost significant learning and remain behind.

At the same time, many schools are seeing more anxiety and behavioral outbursts among students. And chronic absenteeism from school has surged across demographic groups .

These are signs, experts say, that even short-term closures, and the pandemic more broadly, had lasting effects on the culture of education.

“There was almost, in the Covid era, a sense of, ‘We give up, we’re just trying to keep body and soul together,’ and I think that was corrosive to the higher expectations of schools,” said Margaret Spellings, an education secretary under President George W. Bush who is now chief executive of the Bipartisan Policy Center.

Closing schools did not appear to significantly slow Covid’s spread.

Perhaps the biggest question that hung over school reopenings: Was it safe?

That was largely unknown in the spring of 2020, when schools first shut down. But several experts said that had changed by the fall of 2020, when there were initial signs that children were less likely to become seriously ill, and growing evidence from Europe and parts of the United States that opening schools, with safety measures, did not lead to significantly more transmission.

“Infectious disease leaders have generally agreed that school closures were not an important strategy in stemming the spread of Covid,” said Dr. Jeanne Noble, who directed the Covid response at the U.C.S.F. Parnassus emergency department.

Politically, though, there remains some disagreement about when, exactly, it was safe to reopen school.

Republican governors who pushed to open schools sooner have claimed credit for their approach, while Democrats and teachers’ unions have emphasized their commitment to safety and their investment in helping students recover.

“I do believe it was the right decision,” said Jerry T. Jordan, president of the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, which resisted returning to school in person over concerns about the availability of vaccines and poor ventilation in school buildings. Philadelphia schools waited to partially reopen until the spring of 2021 , a decision Mr. Jordan believes saved lives.

“It doesn’t matter what is going on in the building and how much people are learning if people are getting the virus and running the potential of dying,” he said.

Pandemic school closures offer lessons for the future.

Though the next health crisis may have different particulars, with different risk calculations, the consequences of closing schools are now well established, experts say.

In the future, infectious disease experts said, they hoped decisions would be guided more by epidemiological data as it emerged, taking into account the trade-offs.

“Could we have used data to better guide our decision making? Yes,” said Dr. Uzma N. Hasan, division chief of pediatric infectious diseases at RWJBarnabas Health in Livingston, N.J. “Fear should not guide our decision making.”

Source: Fahle, Kane, Patterson, Reardon, Staiger and Stuart, “ School District and Community Factors Associated With Learning Loss During the Covid-19 Pandemic. ”

The study used estimates of learning loss from the Stanford Education Data Archive . For closure lengths, the study averaged district-level estimates of time spent in remote and hybrid learning compiled by the Covid-19 School Data Hub (C.S.D.H.) and American Enterprise Institute (A.E.I.) . The A.E.I. data defines remote status by whether there was an in-person or hybrid option, even if some students chose to remain virtual. In the C.S.D.H. data set, districts are defined as remote if “all or most” students were virtual.

An earlier version of this article misstated a job description of Dr. Jeanne Noble. She directed the Covid response at the U.C.S.F. Parnassus emergency department. She did not direct the Covid response for the University of California, San Francisco health system.

How we handle corrections

Sarah Mervosh covers education for The Times, focusing on K-12 schools. More about Sarah Mervosh

Claire Cain Miller writes about gender, families and the future of work for The Upshot. She joined The Times in 2008 and was part of a team that won a Pulitzer Prize in 2018 for public service for reporting on workplace sexual harassment issues. More about Claire Cain Miller

Francesca Paris is a Times reporter working with data and graphics for The Upshot. More about Francesca Paris

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How to Write a Short Story: The Short Story Checklist
In your story, start writing scenes around conflict, and make sure each paragraph and piece of dialogue relates, in some way, to your protagonist's unmet desires. 4. Write Your First Draft. The scenes you build around conflict will eventually be stitched into a complete story.
Short Story Writing for Students and Teachers
In short story writing, you'll find the key story elements such as characterization, plot development, themes explored, etc., but all within a word count that can usually be comfortably read in one sitting. Short stories are just one of many storytelling methods; like the others, they help us derive meaning from our world.
How to Write a Short Story in 9 Simple Steps
Know what a short story is versus a novel. 2. Pick a simple, central premise. 3. Build a small but distinct cast of characters. 4. Begin writing close to the end. 5. Shut out your internal editor.
How to Write a Short Story: Your Ultimate Step-by Step Guide
1 - You learn the skill of showing. Short story writers have a challenge that requires some patience to overcome, but it's worth it. When you only have a few pages to hook readers, paint a clear picture of the main character, and tell a story, you end up mastering the skill of showing instead of telling.
How to Write a Short Story: Drafting, Edit, and Polishing
1. Make a plot outline. Organize your short story into a plot outline with five parts: exposition, an inciting incident, rising action, a climax, falling action, and a resolution. Use the outline as a reference guide as you write the story to ensure it has a clear beginning, middle, and end.
How to Write a Short Story from Start to Finish
You get a sort of theme in what you want the story to communicate. You write bits and pieces but the biggest challenge is making all fit together. Particularly you want a series of actions and you want the reader to think of the theme naturally occurring out of accumulated flow of the story. Larry B.
How to Write a Short Story
When drafting a short story, one of the first steps is coming up with a core idea or premise to build the narrative around. Here are some effective techniques for generating initial story concepts: Brainstorming Prompts - Use writing prompts, either from online lists or ones you generate yourself, as a springboard.
How to Write a Short Story: Free Tutorial : The Write Practice
Begin a Career In Writing. Short stories are a good way to start your career in fiction. We'll show you how short stories have been used by other writers to build their writing careers, and how you can do it, too. Join thousands of other writers who trust The Write Practice to help them improve at the writing craft through deliberate practice.
How to Write a Short Story That Gets Read (In 7 Steps)
Writing a great short story usually requires help. The help comes from a fellow short-story writer, writing workshops, or using writing software to guide you and help you start writing. There are many options for this, but here are two that will help you create the best short story possible. Squibler. Squibler is perfect for writing short stories.
How to Write a Short Story: 6 Steps & Examples
The objective of this step is to jot down ideas, not to build a complete story. 5. Take a break and revise with a fresh eye. After developing the first draft of your short story, it's time to rejoice, relax, and celebrate. It is essential to keep your work aside for a bit before getting back to it.
How to Write a Short Story for School: Tips and Techniques for Success
Learn how to write a compelling short story for your school assignment with these tips and techniques. Choose a topic that interests you, develop characters and setting, outline a clear plot, and write with engaging voice and style. Follow the basics of storytelling and craft a captivating story that captures your reader's attention.
How to Write a Short Story in Middle School
Never fear, for although that blank piece of paper may seem intimidating, writing a short story is quite simple if you follow these six steps! Brainstorm - Stephanie Meyer's famous Twilight series began with her imagining two people in a field, one of them sparkling in the sun. While it does not sound exactly like the vampire young adult ...
Short Story Writing For Beginners
Step 4: List your ideas at the end of your document and start writing. Transfer your best ideas, plot points, pieces of dialogue or other phrases to the bottom of your document. Now it's time to write. At this point, you probably have an image in your mind as to how you want to start off your story. Go from there.
How to Write a Short Story: Tips, Definitions, and Examples
So without further ado, here are the steps to writing a short story: Step 1. Get to know your character. Although a short story does not trace a character's journey in depth the way a novel does, it's still important to get to know your character. Characters drive stories, whether they are full-length novels or short stories.
The Top 10 Tips For Writing Great Short Stories
Bypass the "before" and the "also related" and the "vaguely interesting thing that is also true of my character's life" snapshots. Make the plot obvious. 3. Keep up the pace. A fast pace is essential for short stories. Normally, the pace increases as the hero approaches the final conflict.
How to Write a Short Story: 10 Good Tips for Writers
Tip 9: Give Your Story an Interesting Title. Many writers give their short stories common titles, such as "Dust" and "Home.". If "Home" is the perfect title for your story, there's no rule against using it as a title. But the downside is that your story will feel more forgettable to your readers.
Lesson Plan on Writing Short Stories (High School)
Find two ready-made lesson plans for analyzing or writing a short story here! Making a short story lesson plan doesn't have to be a tedious task. Find two ready-made lesson plans for analyzing or writing a short story here! ... Teaching high school English students to write short stories requires a creative approach. By coming up with an ...
30 Great Short Story Ideas for Middle School and Beyond
30 Short Story Ideas for Middle School. It's the first day of school and your character finds a note on their locker door with a surprising message. Your character has been invited to a friend's house for a sleepover. Something feels eerie and mysterious about the home. Your character has the opportunity to go on the adventure of a lifetime.
How to Write a Short Story: The Complete Guide in 9 Steps
8. First Draft. Once you have a good idea of the story, a point of view, deep characters, and the idea of showing and not telling in your head, you must simply write. Don't worry so much about having a catchy first paragraph or too many details right now. Now, you simply need to worry about getting everything on paper.
How to Write a Short Story in 5 Steps
If you're an aspiring screenwriter, story editor, or director, or you're interested in the Script Writing for Film and TV Diploma at Toronto Film School, this guide will walk you through the steps to writing a short story. 1. Find Your Short Story's Idea or Concept. The first step might seem obvious: you need an idea. Ideas are the seeds ...
Short Story Fiction Unit Planning: How to Plan and Organize (Especially
YouTube has a plethora of videos to support the teaching of themes/units in ELA. A quick search for "Pixar movies" or "read-aloud books" will result in some excellent options. These videos provide an engaging and entertaining way to incorporate read-alouds of popular short stories that you can use throughout your fiction / short story unit.
Top 100 Short Story Ideas
Top 10 Story Ideas. Tell the story of a scar. A group of children discover a dead body. A young prodigy becomes orphaned. A middle-aged woman discovers a ghost. A woman who is deeply in love is crushed when her fiancé breaks up with her. A talented young man's deepest fear is holding his life back.
High-Impact Writing Strategies for Elementary Students
These "writing about the reading" prompts require students to analyze, synthesize, and connect ideas, fostering a deeper understanding of the material. For example, if first-grade students are working on story elements, after reading a story, a student might write, "The character in the story is a bear who lives in the forest.
Whimsical Story Starters to Get Kids Writing
Adventure Story Starters. Take inspiration from classics like Treasure Island and newer popular series like The Bad Guys to explore how to write thrilling adventure stories. And to encourage students to begin writing their own adventure-focused stories, share these creative story starters: You're part of a pirate crew in search of a long-lost ...
Write a family story that people will want to read
She is a creative writing lecturer at the University of Cape Town's Department for Extra-Mural Studies and has written many stories, features and columns for magazines and newspapers. Her collection of short stories, Women out of Water (Modjaji Books), was shortlisted for the SALA Nadine Gordimer Short Story Award in 2022 and her novel, Of ...
What the Data Says About Pandemic School Closures, Four Years Later
At the school district level, that finding also holds, according to an analysis of test scores from third through eighth grade in thousands of U.S. districts, led by researchers at Stanford and ...

How to Write a Short Story: The Short Story Checklist

The Core Elements of a Short Story

How to Write a Short Story Outline

How to Write a Short Story Step by Step

1. Start With an Idea

2. Outline, OR Conceive Your Characters

3. Write Scenes Around Conflict

4. Write Your First Draft

5. Step Away, Breathe, Revise

6. Compare Against Our Short Story Checklist

How to Write a Short Story: Length and Setting

How to Write a Short Story: Point of View

How to Write a Short Story: Protagonist, Antagonist, Motivation

How to Write a Short Story: Characters

How to Write a Short Story: Prose

How to Write a Short Story: Story Structure

How to Write a Short Story: Capturing Reader Interest

Where to Read and Submit Short Stories

Learn How to Write a Short Story at Writers.com

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Short Story Writing for Students and Teachers

What Is a Short Story?

How Do Short Stories Differ From Novels?

How to Write a Short Story

How t o begin a story

SHORT STORY WRITING STRUCTURE

Character Development IN SHORT STORY WRITING

Practice Activity: Reveal Mood through Action

HOW TO POLISH AND REFINE A SHORT STORY

Write Convincing Dialogue:

Vary Sentence Length:

Punctuation:

SHORT STORY WRITING CHECKLIST BUNDLE

SHORT STORY WRITING VIDEO TUTORIAL

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How to Write a Short Story in 9 Simple Steps

1. Know what a short story is versus a novel

Experiment with writing prompts

Turn to the originals

Keep a notebook

Craft a satisfying story arc

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Craft Your Own Short Story: The Complete Guide

Sample Short Stories

Brainstorming Ideas

Creating a First Draft

Polishing the Draft

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How to Write a Short Story That Gets Read (In 7 Steps)

TABLE OF CONTENTS

How to Write a Short Story

Understanding the Essence of a Short Story

Short Story Characteristics

The Role of a Strong Opening

The Economy of Language

Focused Pacing

Main Characters in a Short Story

The Significance of a Powerful Ending

Character Arc in Short Stories

First Impressions Matter

Effective Use of Dialogue

Key Character Moments

Minimal Yet Meaningful Backstory

Building Plot Elements in Short Stories

Establishing a Central Conflict

Streamlining the Story

Crafting a Strong Beginning

Developing Pacing and Tension