How to Write a Short Story

[size=medium]HOW TO WRITE A SHORT STORY* [/size]

If you read this carefully and apply the principles presented, you will be able to write a short story. What constitutes a good short story differs from reader to reader. For one reader, it's a slice of life marked by a gripping conflict. For another, it's a fascinating character study with a distinctive setting. For a third, it's a compelling use of science based in the future. And so on. We're going to concentrate on the "bare bones" of what, in my opinion, all good stories should have.

To write a good story, follow the numbered steps.

Step 1. Immerse yourself in language.

To be ready to write a story in English, your consciousness must be steeped in the best writing in English throughout history. Consider someone who wants to compose music. Before doing that, she probably performs in a band, and before that, she probably studies singing or an individual instrument. She learns how to read music, she studies harmony, she listens to all kinds of good music for years, and she may study at a conservatory. Wynton Marsalis didn't just decide to go into his first recording studio to play the trumpet one rainy day while he was recovering from the flu.

If you want to write stories, you should study the literary form. You should study the great masters of storytelling, starting with Homer and progressing to Stephen King and John Irving, and specifically the great masters of the short story, starting with Turgenev and Chekhov.

However, for erotica to be effective, image-rich language is mandatory. The only mechanism you have to transport the reader to the land of sexuality is the written word – word pictures. For that I would strongly recommend you read late 20th century poets. Their writing is full of well-drawn, magical pictures of few words; all of which take you to another world …. just like good erotica should do.

Step 2. Think of an idea for a story.

To a trained writer, this idea usually comes in a flash, you have to know how to cultivate the flash. Usually one element of the idea is settled from the start: "I want to write a story about my Uncle Leo" or "The summer we lived in Honolulu".

What about that summer we lived in Honolulu, then?

Concentrate on what makes that experience significant to you. What other idea would you like to attach to it? Suppose it were "the professional surfers".

That gives you "the professional surfers the summer we lived in Honolulu". What about them do you want to write a story about? Maybe it would be "the surfer who stole my virginity".

"The professional surfer who stole my virginity when we lived in Honolulu one summer". That's a start.

Step 3. Figure your angle.

"Angle" is a journalistic term meaning significance. You need to decide the angle or significance about this larcenous surfer. Your story could be about the theft itself, or tracking him down afterwards, or meeting up with him again, or dozens of other alternatives.

If you can't determine an angle, return to Step 1 and tinker with your idea. Maybe you need a new one.

Step 4. Outline your scenes.

Once you have an idea and an angle, it's time to map out your scenes. The story we're going to tell will be less ten pages long, so we need two to three good scenes.

(Whether to concentrate on writing scenes or not is a lively literary controversy. For the beginning writer, writing scenes is tidier and easier. In addition, this story you're going to write will be in 3rd Person. That's the best point of view to learn with. 1st Person is too easy, and Omniscient is rarely used.)

Using our larcenous Honolulu surfer idea, we might create scenes of: (1) meeting surfers at Waikiki; (2) holding party at Royal Hawaiian Hotel, where theft takes place; and (3) encountering larcenous surfer the next week.

Or we might say: (1) party for surfer friends at Royal Hawaiian, with theft taking place; (2) flashback to happier days at Waikiki; (3) encountering larcenous surfer the next week.

The outline you make can be loose and general, or it can be as precise as an agenda.

Step 5. First of all, some writers conceive their characters as Step 1. You may do it as you please.

For a ten-page story, three main characters is plenty. Don't plan more than four. You can have many minor characters, but they shouldn't get under foot or make the action confusing.

At this point, with your idea, outline, and characters, you're ready for the hard part: actually writing.

Step 6. Writing.

You should swing into this with the enthusiasm that you had when you first learned to dance. You knew you weren't Fred Astaire or Ginger Rogers, but you were still having fun.

Life is enthusiasm, and seeing something fresh for the first time.Put as much life into your story as you can. Don't worry about mistakes, because those can be edited later.

(If you are a touch typist a good trick is to sit at the keyboard, close your eyes and "channel" the thoughts, letting the story flow. Other writers prefer to scribble the story out as quickly as possible on a writing tablet or in a notebook.)

Step 7. Editing.

Editing is not only fixing all the mistakes, but also buffing the story to make it shine.

Once you write a couple of stories, you'll see most of what you did wrong. You'll be able to edit yourself, for the most part.

Every story needs editing, and this was once true even of Chekhov and Stephen Crane stories. It's not unusual for some professional writers to take their stories through 30, 40, or 50 editing cycles.

You will learn to sense when you've reached the Point of Diminishing Returns. This is the point where further editing will not appreciably improve your story. Let it go, and get to work on your next story.

Conclusion

That's how to write a story. Writing a novel isn't much different. For now, remember that practice is the only thing that can make you a good writer. Put it into perspective. For example, it's far easier to get accepted by mindspired.com than it is to publish a short story in The New Yorker.


* [size=x-small]Condensed from various articles by Paul Saevig. -- Paul Saevig was born and bred in Orange County, California. He has been a professional writer for the past 30+ years, and currently resides in Tustin, CA.[/size]