Shaping up Short Stories (an article), by Susan J. Letham Options

[Cleo_Serapis]

Shaping up Short Stories
By Susan J. Letham

Beginning writers often think that writing a short story is
easier than writing a full-length novel. You can whip up the
first draft of a 2,500-word story in a couple of evenings--
the reasoning goes--add an hour or two for tweaking and
polishing and presto, a short story is born!

Oh, wouldn't it be nice...? In fact, it takes as much care
and planning to craft a successful short story as it does to
plan a novel, if not more.

You can ease your way into a novel. Readers who pick up a
full-length novel expect to be entertained, led along
meandering scenic pathways, and allowed to rest beside quiet
streams occasionally. Writing a novel gives you the scope to
spread a story out like a patchwork quilt and point to
individual patterns. If the story is good, a gracious reader
will allow you the time to tease and tantalize, to hint and
hide again. You can afford to spin a slow and sensuous tale
with a cast of thousands and manifest your visions word by
word in deliciously intricate ways.

A successful short story needs a different approach. Your
short story should cover only one clearly defined event, a
limited time span, and involve a handful of characters at
most. Your words should be purposefully chosen and tightly
written. The story needs to progress at a steady pace from
beginning to end. As a short story writer, you need a clear
idea of what you want to say and a plan that will help you
say it. No more. No less.

The tips in this two-part article are based on criteria that
judges use to evaluate short stories. We'll walk through the
most common short story problems, and look at remedies for
each point raised.

Problem #1: The story is too ordinary, or has the kind of
predictable outcome everyone has read before.

Remedy: This happens a lot when writers base their stories
on real life happenings. Real life is a little too, well,
realistic for fiction. You need to make the story a little
larger than life; the heroine more heroic. If your
characters are based on people you know, you may be tempted
to make them too complicated or stay to close to the way
events actually happened.

Simplify your characters. Reduce them to one or two main
traits and magnify those traits to make them more prominent
and interesting.

Rearrange action details for effect. Leave out (real life)
events that need too much background understanding and focus
on the essence of the situation. Look to see if you can
change the way you've approached the underlying theme and
give it a fresh twist. Can you use wordplay and double
meaning? Analogy? Parody? Can you surprise me?


Problem #2: The story is slow to begin. Readers are
bombarded with information without knowing the context. We
learn a lot, but nothing actually happens.

Remedy:  Check to see that you've introduced your main
characters and their conflict by the end of page two (in the
first 500 words). The story challenge should appear on page
three at the latest. Once you've set the scene, get into the
action as soon as you can.


Problem #3: The wrong central character. We learn a lot
about a character who doesn't seem to play an important role
in the story.

Remedy: This can happen more easily than you think. You
start out with one character and introduce another who turns
out to be more interesting, so you go into detail...

Go back and ask yourself whose story it is you are telling.
Who changes most during the story? Who acts to make the
story happen? Make this person your central character.

Your reader will normally assume that the first person named
in the story is the central character.


Problem #4: ...including a cast of thousands!

Remedy: Short stories should contain as few characters as
possible. Most feature only two or three characters with
important roles. Check to see whether the story will work if
you delete one or more of the roles. Do you really need all
those walk-ons?

Problem #5: The story doubles back, loses the thread, or
doesn't seem to be coherent.

Remedy: Short stories are usually written in a linear way,
i.e., from start to finish. No flashbacks, no time
outs, and no asides, in most cases.

Every story needs a clear beginning, middle, and end. The
beginning introduces your characters, the setting, and the
problem. The middle develops the action, adding to the
suspense as it goes, until it reaches the climax and turning
point, where the main character gains an insight and acts on
it to resolve the story problem. The end tells us how she
puts insight in to action and ends the story situation for
better or worse. Each of these sections should be clear.

Check to be sure that your short story contains a beginning,
a middle, and an end, and moves forward from start to finish
with as few detours as possible.

Problem #6: Parts of the story seem to be in the wrong place
or missing entirely.

Remedy: Lack of clarity is the result of poor plotting and
planning. Go back and make a clear list of the steps and
scenes involved in the story. Check that each step or scene
appears in the right order.

- Is the scene progression logical?
- Does the character complete each task or meet each
  challenge in the right order?
- Is it clear who your main character is?
- Is it clear when and where the story takes place?
- Are you clear about the main character's goal?
- Do you know what the message of your story is?

Do a self-check. Finish the following sentences:

This story is about a  
but first has to overcome __


Problem #7: Time span too long

Remedy: A short story is about one event or development. The
usual time span of a short story is somewhere between a few
hours and a few days. If your time span is too long, it's
often because you've introduced too many situations for your
character to deal with.

Can you edit your story to leave out events that aren't
strictly necessary?

If your story covers a long period of time and needs a lot
of characters and description, you may be better off writing
it as a novella instead.

Problem #8: Parts of the story were too contrived or simply
unbelievable within the context of the genre.

Remedy: Yes, fiction characters can have a lot more luck
than real people and most of the risks they take pan out,
unlike ....

Even so, your reader needs to be able to believe that the
things and events you describe could a) happen and B) happen
the way you write them. Readers are ever ready to suspend
their disbelief -- that's why fiction works -- but don't
expect them to go too far. You can get away with a lot in
the comedy and fantasy genres, but if you've written a
straight story, keep things feasible.

Write about long shots that work out, but leave out the
magic or miracles. If you must have Divine Intervention to
save the day, at least credit the role of the mortal helper.

Problem #9: Nice writing, interesting character, but where's
the problem?

Remedy: A short story without conflict is an anecdote.
Anecdotes are nice at a Thanksgiving lunch or family
feelgood, but don't make good fiction.

There must be a problem or dilemma at the core of your
story. Your character must solve it and make a point by
doing so.

She wants something -- badly and immediately. She can't get
it -- sadly and disastrously. Something or someone is
standing in her way -- gladly and menacingly. This is the
stuff of conflict. Tell us about it.

Problem #10: The story is progressing nicely and all of a
sudden the hero starts reminiscing about his first day at
school. Excuse me. What does this have to do with the price
of potatoes?

Remedy: Irrelevant episodes are another result of poor
planning. Remember, a short story is about one event. Go
back and make a clear list of the steps and scenes involved
in the story. Cut everything that isn't directly relevant to
the story and doesn't help to move it forward. Above all,
try not to use flashbacks in short stories. No matter how
beautifully written, flashbacks deflect the reader's
attention from what should be the straight-track problem at
hand.

Problem #11: The central character seems lifeless and bland.
It's hard to work out why s/he is the focus of the story.

Remedy:  Of course, you don't need to lay out a short story
character's entire biography. We won't expect to come to
know the character as deeply as we would a novel
protagonist. What you do need to show is what part of your
character's biography or personality is relevant to the
story issues. Try to include at least one positive and
negative personality characteristic for each of your major
characters.

Problem #12: The point of view changes during the story.

Remedy: The short story is usually told from either a first
person (I, me) POV, or from a third person limited POV (Zack
thought carefully). Decide which of these best suits your
purpose, then tweak your story to reflect your choice
consistently.

Tip: This problem is sometimes caused by choosing the wrong
central character (see part one).

Problem #13: The story contains a lot of trivial details.

Imagine this: You are standing at the water-cooler in your
office talking to your colleague, Jim. Jim has the address
of the hottest restaurant in town. You'd like to eat there
tonight. Big date and all that.

Jim starts writing down the restaurant's address and phone
number, but mid-write, he launches into a family story that
includes a blow-by-blow account of Junior's first spinach
dinner at said establishment. How interested are you in
this?

Back to your story. Do I really need to know what the
salesperson said to Aunt Jemima on the day she bought the
china service from which the main character will drink her
breakfast tea on the day before the story begins in earnest?
Do I really need a description of the color, material and
design of each item of clothing the main character dons
after his morning shower?

Frankly, no.

Remedy:  Unless it's a vital point, cut it!

Problem #14: Waxing lyrical is another form of padding you
can do without. When this happens, nothing is simply as it
is in life. Doors aren't doors, they mutate into portals,
usually preceded by a string of far-fetched adjectives.

Remedy: Don't: Jemima proceed toward the tentative barrier
to the elements that were the French windows. She drew aside
the graceful veil of designer Brussels Lace drapes, and gaze
longingly into the faux-Versailles landscaped garden, past
the whimsical roses, past the delicate and heartrending
loneliness of the lilies, to allow her glance to rest
heavily on the sadness of the rain-laden clouds, that
mirrored the depth of emotion stirring in her abandoned
heart.

Do: Jemima felt sad and lonely as she looked out of the
window to check the weather.

Problem #15: Too little dialogue. Your romance-gone-wrong
swells to a crescendo. The lovers are about to have an
almighty argument, and all your reader learns is that they,
'hurled angry words at each other.'

Remedy: Come on! Don't tell your reader about conversations
between characters, let the characters hold their
conversation on the page. To paraphrase the old song, "A
little conversation goes a long, long way." Get the talk
down on the page. Let us hear the verbal shots your lovers
fire at each other. This helps you show their characters and
gets information across to readers in as natural a way as
possible. It also creates tension and moves the story
forward faster than description alone.


Problem #16: Stilted dialogue. Two workers leaving the
factory.

John: Joe, would you care to go to the bar for a drink?
Joe : I think that might be a good idea.

Oh really? If that sounds stilted to you, too, try something
like this:

Remedy:

John to Joe: Hey, Joe, wanna go for a beer?
Joe to John: Sure. Why not?

Dialogue should sound natural. Let your characters talk the
way they would talk if they were real people. Of course,
you'll need to cut out the hmms, ughs, and pauses. Unless
your characters are upper class and educated, use
contractions (can't, don't, it's). Ask someone to read your
dialogue to see if it flows well.

Problem #17: Sloppy writing. This point covers a multitude
of sins: choosing the wrong words, long descriptions instead
of tight terms, weak verbs instead of strong verbs, overuse
of adjectives and adverbs, poor editing, poor punctuation,
poor spelling, overly informal language, overuse of dialect,
meaningless or missing breaks.

Imagine: You are approached on the street by an untidy
person pushing a shopping cart stuffed with carriers. Stop.
Rewind. You are approached on the street by a smart young
person dressed in a neat business suit carrying a leather
briefcase. Which of the two would are you more likely to
talk to?

The first person might have the better character, but the
chances are, you won't stop long enough to to find out.

Remedy: Appearances count. While it's true that content is
king in the creative phase of writing, the moment you go
public, grammar and style matter very much indeed. There is
no way around this except to learn the rules of grammar,
punctuation, spelling, formatting, and other writing skills.
Creativity may be all that matters in some fields, but
precision, diction, and form certainly matter if you want to
be a published writer. They are the tools of your trade. If
you don't feel confident enough to go it alone, find a
professional who'll check your writing for you.

Problem #18: Too much generalization or background. The
story events could have happened to anyone. Or we get a
background explanation that reads like the course outline
for Sociology 101. We don't learn how the story events
affect the main character or what the character thinks and
feels as an individual.

Remedy:  Tell us about the story events as they relate to
the story character in particular rather than to people in
general. Don't go into long background explanation of issues
and alternatives. In short: K.I.S.S. (Keep It Simple,
Sunshine).

Problem #19: Flat ending. You watch a TV adventure movie.
The story reaches its climax. You bite our nails and suffer
as the hero makes his agonizing choice: Good? Evil? Right?
Wrong? Save the world? Take the cash? He chooses the world,
of course. The next thing you see is someone is shaking the
hero's hand and thanking him as the credits roll. Huh?

Remedy:  Your ending needs to show the consequences of some
kind of meaningful change that has taken place in or for the
hero since the beginning of the story. What did the hero's
choice mean? What consequences did it have and for whom? Who
does your reader get to cheer for? Whose relief does s/he
get to feel? How has the experience changed the hero? An
ending that doesn't show development, change, and resolution
is a disappointment.

Problem #20: "...and she awoke, thankful to find it had all
been a bad dream." "...as she stood on the precipice, ready
to jump, an angel appeared."

Cheat endings are usually an attempt to compensate for poor
planning. The old Greeks were good at this. As soon as one
of their characters got in a pickle, zap! a god would
appear, work a quick miracle, and save the day.

Remedy: Handy Greek gods are thin on the ground these days,
so readers tend not to buy miracle solutions. Don't cheat on
a proper ending. Go back and see if you can resolve the
issues in a more earthly or realistic way. Most readers want
to learn something from your story that might help them
understand or change something in their lives. If you take
away the learning experience and replace it with a miracle
or dream, you've robbed your reader of a valuable and
satisfying experience.

Show consequences. Make them as realistic as possible in the
context of the story. Make your characters work things
through and come to some kind of story-logical conclusion
and insight.

These tips can help you avoid the most common short story
mistakes. A quick pre-submission check of your short story
manuscript can make all the difference.

© 2000 Susan J. Letham

Susan J. Letham is a British writer and Creative Writing
teacher. Visit http://www.Inspired2Write.com for quality
writing classes and competent 1-on-1 coaching.
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Permission is granted to Lorraine Kanter to use this article on the Mosaic Musings website, dated Jan 08, 2004 by Susan Letham.