The Writing Jobs

By its nature a short story is SHORT! So my six easy pointers are:

1. Set your short story in a narrow time frame. Say one day, or one afternoon - even one hour. So find a situation that takes place briefly. If your short story idea needs some background, then make this brief, just a sentence or two, otherwise consider ditching it and go with something else.

2. Word length. If you're writing for a magazine or writing competition take note of how many words they are asking for and stick to that number. Competition judges will often throw out entries that go over the stated word length without even reading it. Similarly, magazine editors will opt for a story that fits the space on the page rather than having to go through the chore of editing one down to the required length.

3. Don't populate your story with a whole street full of characters. Keep them down to two or three. This still gives plenty of scope to include lively, meaningful dialogue which your readers will love. If the action takes place on a busy street or sports stadium, then the bustle and crowds can be referred to providing your character doesn't go around interviewing everyone! Keeping the numbers down helps to focus on what's happening. Too many characters will confuse the reader in a short story.

4. Use dialogue. Drive the story along with dialogue which will, in most cases, please your readers more than paragraphs of descriptive text. Your readers may be reading your story during a lunch break and have limited time. They will stay on the hook willingly if your characters are talking engagingly to each other.

5. Use a simple plot. In fact 'plot' is too heavy a word for what a short story needs. It's best to try to invent a single scene 'incident' and if you are struggling with this because your idea is too big, then consider turning it into a novella or even a full-length novel.

6. After you finish your story read it through then go back and take out every word and phrase that doesn't directly drive the story along. It's hard, I know, but you need to be hard and, dare I say it, business-like. You want your story to be published so that people read it, don't you? Then keep flowery and fulsome descriptions out. Just give your reader the bare background to the narrative and you will have a much more 'saleable' item.

So there you have it: keep to a narrow time frame, keep to the word length asked for, keep your characters down to two or three, use dialogue to keep your readers agog, use a simple scenario, and finally, edit ruthlessly. If you do magazine editors, competition judges and more importantly, readers will come back for more.

Mervyn Love is the webmaster of http://www.writersreign.co.uk a web site providing the writer with help, encouragement, resources, links, competitions and more. Sign up for the excellent free WritersReign Article Writing Course here: http://www.writersreign.co.uk/articlecourse.html