I had no idea when I began writing short stories I’d never show them to anyone else, much less have publication offers from editors. I began writing because I enjoyed it, making characters come alive on the page, and then following them through their adventures. I received an offer from a friend to write a few romantic love stories for her new e-zine for women. One of these stories got the attention of an editor with some influence. And the rest, as they say, is history.
Currently, I have published stories in five books, and have about that many pending publication. I’ve also won story contests in national magazines. Anyone who takes the time to work at it can develop a talent for writing. You can write a great short story, too.
So what makes a good short story? Well, for one thing, the genre of writing short fiction or non-fiction is limiting. It is impossible to capture the whole life story of a character, but a short, riveting snippet of their life can be just as compelling. I usually begin writing with a scene in my mind, such as, “The leaves were just beginning to turn brown, curl, and fall, crunching under the feet of anyone who happened to stroll down the tree-lined street’s sidewalks.”
I begin with a picture in my mind of this scene. I imagine the houses, the people who might live here, and who might have a story to tell. I might imagine a woman who lives in one of the houses, and a secret she might be keeping. Or a man who has the hearts of all his neighbors, but no one knows the pain he carries inside himself. Begin with a scene, choose a character to wrap your story around, and then look closely at what story they may have to tell. If I sound like I see my characters as real people, I do. I think all good writers have to do that. If you don’t believe in the character and care about what happens with him, how can you convince your readers to believe or care?
I never plan the ending of my stories, as any idea I might have at the beginning tends to change as the story unfolds. I really do believe the characters tell us how to close their stories in a way that will touch people. It may end up the good girl is not so good, and the bad guy is not such a bad guy after all. As with life, most good stories offer something unexpected.
If you are new to writing, I suggest beginning writing only with yourself in mind. We tend to let our imaginations run more freely when we aren’t trying to please other people with our writing. Writing for you just might result in a great tale you want to share with others. Or it might not. However, either way, you’ve had fun writing it.
If you are having trouble getting started, a good way to begin is to write what you know. Do you have a person in your family that is outrageous in some way? He or she might make a good basis for a character. Does Uncle John tease his wife unmercifully in public, but act like an adoring puppy when they are alone? Does your young teenage cousin battle shyness, but have a gregarious personality on the pages of her diary? Take someone you know who is a little on the quirky side, and develop that.
When writing, show, don’t tell. It’s much more interesting to say, “She rinsed out her stained coffee mug, and placed it beside the chipped enamel sink, as she had every morning for twenty years, ” than it is to say, “She finished her coffee and put the cup in the sink.” Don’t be afraid of words. Words paint pictures for the reader, so if your vocabulary is lacking, begin learning new words. One way to do this is to do more reading, as that is an excellent tool to learn new ways of saying what you want to say.
Don’t think every story has to be profound in order to be valuable. Anything you write on paper is valuable. Many times, I have begun to describe a scene and then scrapped the idea to go with something else. I always save those scraps in my document files, and have found myself many times reaching a point in another story that cries out for the description I had tucked away previously.
It’s very nice when money starts coming in for your short stories, and I am always amazed that 1200 words from my mind can be worth two hundred dollars to an editor. I also find that I’m not always the best judge of my work, and the story I pick as my favorite doesn’t sell as quickly as something I wrote that I didn’t value as much. I suggest writing for yourself for a while, and then choose a few favorites to submit. This is the hardest part, as no one likes rejection, but if you don’t get your writing out there, chances are you won’t ever sell anything (which is fine, if that’s what you want). Type in “short story submissions” into a search engine to find out which editors are currently looking for content.
When writing short stories to sell, the number one rule is patience, patience, patience. I’m currently signing publication agreements for stories I wrote two years ago, and submitted over a year ago. Once I sell a story, it might well be another year before the book goes to publication and I am paid. Therefore, patience is definitely a needed virtue in writing.Anyone can write a great short story. All it takes is becoming a keen observer of human nature and our surroundings, and putting it to paper. A great story starts with a single sentence.
