Write A Short Story in Three Easy Steps – Windy Lynn Harris

Short stories are fun to write, fast to compose (well, faster than books), and they get published every single day.

Writing & selling short stories and personal essays by windy lynn harris book cover

This post is by my guest Windy Lynn Harris, author of Writing & Selling Short Stories & Personal Essays: The Essential Guide To Getting Your Work Published (Writer’s Digest Books, 2017)

storyaday graphic divider

Writing a short story is a worthy mission. Short stories are fun to write, fast to compose (well, faster than books), and they get published every single day. Here’s a quick guide to help you craft short stories like a pro.

Before we get started, let’s put ourselves in short story mode. Your goal when writing a short story is to deliver a satisfying narrative in a very small package. Short stories aren’t tiny novels. They rarely have any subplots at all. Instead, the action revolves around one main conflict. The theme is revealed through a character and his or her obstacles. Tension keeps the reader invested in the stakes all the way through to the resonant ending.

That might sound like a lot to manage all at once, but if you break the artistic process down to three steps, you’ll find your way to a satisfying story without wandering off the map.

Continue reading “Write A Short Story in Three Easy Steps – Windy Lynn Harris”

100 – Read Like A Writer

This week I share some ideas on how you can read like a writer, and turn that effort into a resource that you can return to again and again.

StoryADay May 2018 starts in a few weeks. Reading short stories in the run-up to a big writing challenge, can be incredibly inspiring.

100th Episode Celebratory Look Back

Here are some episodes you  might have missed.

Jane Friedman and The Business of Being A Writer: https://stada.me/pdjane

Flash Fiction Essentials: http://stada.me/flash

Mastering The Magic of Opening Lines: https://stada.me/pdopenings

Another new episode of Write Every Day, Not “Some Day”

Write on Wednesday – Quick Story Formula

This is an awesome way to quickly launch (and finish) a new story, any time you have time to write but are short on inspiration. Try it!

 

Use this story formula to to create an interesting character, give them a desire, kick off some intriguing action and plan the kind of resolution you want. Continue reading “Write on Wednesday – Quick Story Formula”

[Reading Room] The Radium Room by Tony Conaway

This week I’m bringing you an interview with Tony Conaway whose story The Radium Room is in the anthology Spring Into ScFi.

We talk about his inspiration for the story, how his love of detail (he calls it “trivia”) informs his writing, and yes, we talk about homing rats… Continue reading “[Reading Room] The Radium Room by Tony Conaway”

099 – Jane Friedman & The Business of Being A Writer

Today I interview publishing industry expert Jane Friedman (www.janefriedman.com) whose new book The Business Of Being A Writer is billed as ‘the business education you never got’, for writers.

We discuss what writers should do when they want to go pro, the myth of the overnight success, the nature of ‘work’ and networking for introverts! Continue reading “099 – Jane Friedman & The Business of Being A Writer”

[Write on Wed] Story Sparks for May 2018

We’re less than a month away from StoryADay May 2018.

Yes, I’m going to be providing you with optional writing prompts. The best stories, however, come from ideas that you care about.

You can use my prompts, but it is going to be the sparks of ideas that you collect, that ignite your stories.

That’s why, before every challenge, I encourage you to gather Story Sparks, fragments of maybe-story-ideas.

The Prompt

Gather three Story Sparks a day for the next week.

Tips

  • Read this post on Story Sparks, with some ideas to get you started.
  • Read the “Secrets To Your Success” article from the StoryADay Essentials series, which defines a Story Spark and how you can use them to ‘win’ StoryADay.
  • If you’re already on the mailing list, dig out the Creativity Bundle you received when you subscribed, and use the Story Sparks Catchers I created for you. If you aren’t on the mailing list, sign up to get your Story Sparks Bundle now!

The StoryADay Productivity Bundle sign up button

If you collect three Story Sparks a day now, you will

  • Gather 21 interesting nuggets for inclusion in stories, this week alone
  • Start looking at the world like a writer does: it’s all material
  • Train your brain to start thinking creatively
  • Be bursting with ideas when you sit down to write!

Go!

[Reading Room] Paradox by Naomi Kritzer

I was blogging and podcasting a lot, last month, about short story forms, and how short stories do not have to read like mini novels.

And the month before that was all about Flash Fiction.

Today, I’m recommending that you take a look at this story Paradox, by Naomi Kritzer.

It is both flash fiction and a non-narrative story. And it’s great.

It starts,

This is the original timeline.

This is a great example of how you can make every word count, and how short fiction is a wonderful place to practice that.

That single word, “original” does all the heavy lifting. It tells you a lot about what kind of story this is going to be: confusing, time-travel-y, chatty. It conveys genre, style, and tone.

Five words. That’s all it took her to set the reader’s expectations.

(Note to self: write to the author and ask her what the original first line looked like. I’m betting it wasn’t this. Second note to self: rewriting is key!)

It is written in the first person (sometimes first person, plural) and we never find out the character’s name or gender. It plays deliciously, hilariously, with all the time travel tropes and questions out there, and talks, knowingly, to the reader.

This is no mini-novel.

And it leaves us with a flippant question at the end, the deeper question it asks is not about time-travel at all.

Recommended!

Read it online or listen here.

SWAGr for April 2018

Every month we gather here to discuss what we’ve achieved and commit to making more progress in our creative lives in the coming month. We call it our   Serious Writer’s Accountability Group or SWAGr, for short! (We’re serious, not sombre!)

What people are saying about StoryADayMay 2014

Leave a comment below telling us how you got on last month, and what you plan to do next month, then check back in on the first of each month, to see how everyone’s doing. Continue reading “SWAGr for April 2018”

098 – Why Can’t You Write That Story?

This week’s podcast is a pep-talk to get you writing, even when you’re having trouble getting started.

(Isn’t “getting started” the hardest part some days?)

And sometimes, getting started isn’t the problem. The problem crops up somewhere else: 

* Getting through the mushy middle

* Reining in a story that wants to become a novella

* Losing focus before the end.

I want to hear from you: what problems do you encounter when attempting to write short stories? 

(I’m not calling it writer’s block, because that sounds like an artificial, external problem, and I believe we can all find the solution to temporary ‘stuckness’ from inside ourselves.)

Leave your comment and join the discussion here: http://stada.me/wrong

Another new episode of Write Every Day, Not “Some Day”

Mini Episode: Sonnet writing prompt

Today’s mini episode is a writing prompt that challenges you to write a story in the form of a prose sonnet (don’t worry, I explain what I mean and give you a few different styles to choose from).

It’s a challenge, but it’s a good one!

Read more: http://stada.me/sonnet

Another new episode of Write Every Day, Not “Some Day”

Why Can’t You Write That Story?

dyslexia
Sometimes its hard to write.

Even when you want to.

Even when you’ve started a story.

Maybe your story wanders off the point and you get lost in the mushy middle. Or maybe your story immediately wants to become a novel. Perhaps you get interrupted and lose your mojo.

I’d love to hear from you. What happened last time you started a story and didn’t finish? What stalled you last time you sat down to write and couldn’t.

Leave a comment here and let’s get a discussion going about what goes wrong and what we can do about that.

 

[Write On Wednesday] A Prose Sonnet

Today’s prompt continues the month’s theme of looking at different short story forms you can try out.

This one’s a challenge, but really fun.

Right-click to download the audio only

The Prompt

Write a story in 14 sentences

Tips

  • You can simply write 14 sentences.
  • You could use the Petrarchan form of sonnet where the first 8 lines/sentences propose an argument or an idea and the second 8 answer or refute it.
  • You could use the Shakespearean form, with three groups of 4 linked sentences, followed by two lines/sentences that provide illumination, a revelation, a twist or an explanation.
  • You could write a sonnet series, with each group of 14 lines fulfilling a different function in your story.
  • Writing this way is hard but it frees you. Instead of worrying about writing well, you’re concentrating on the form. Sometimes that tricks your brain into writing really well; sometimes it’s just a triumph to have written at all.

Leave a comment telling us how it went!

[Reading Room] The Girl Who Circumnavigated The Globe In An Act of Her Own Making by Julie Duffy

Read The Story Online Here

I’ve never done this before: today, I’m writing about one of my own stories.

JulieDuffy.com blog screenshot

This is a story that I wrote during StoryADay May 2017.

I’m sharing it in today’s Reading Room post to demonstrate what you can do with a writing prompt that seems to suggest you must write a particular type of story. Continue reading “[Reading Room] The Girl Who Circumnavigated The Globe In An Act of Her Own Making by Julie Duffy”

Write On Wednesday – Writers Bloxx with Gary Zenker

Allow me to introduce Gary Zenker, a flash fiction writer, game designer, marketer, and awesome leader in my local writing scene.

After eight years of reading mostly-my-prompts, I wanted to give you the opportunity to play in someone else’s sandbox from time to time. I looked around for someone I trusted to be both creative and generous, and didn’t have to look any further than Gary.

Please leave a comment and make him feel welcome!!

Gary ZenkerHi!

Julie invited me to be her guest-prompter ongoing for each third Wednesday of the month. Thanks Julie!

As a flash fiction writer, I love short story writing and challenging myself in doing so. I found that sometimes, picking things that don’t go together brings out my creativity even better. The bigger challenge offers better results.

So I created a game, WritersBloxx™, that generates random prompts in six categories. We use a PromptGrid™ and six special 20-sided dice that point us to the prompts to be used.

writersbloxx, the party game for writers

Each PromptGrid generates up to 64 million different combinations.

As a game, participants are challenged to write a short story in 6–7 minutes using all six prompts and then compare them to the others’ stories. Solo writers can opt for a bit more time and a more developed story. I recommend 15 minutes with a hard stop.

Hints

In this play, you aren’t looking for perfection. You are looking to challenge yourself to complete a piece quickly.

Use all six prompts and tell a real story…don’t simply shove six prompts into a narrative.

You are looking to create at least one memorable character, a conflict and a resolution.

Your Prompts

We rolled the dice for you and here’s what you ended up with:

  • Genre – Crime/Detective
  • Character –  Auto Mechanic
  • Object – High Heel Shoes
  • Timing – 1970s
  • Setting – Italian Restaurant
  • Event – Fishing

Check out the full game at www.WritersBloxx.com.

writersbloxx, the party game for writers

Next time around we’ll make it more challenging by adding a few additional elements. Be sure to show us your resulting masterpiece!

Gary Zenker is a writer, a marketer, a game designer and co-wrote a book with his six-year-old son. He would love for you to share the stories you came up with, in the comments!

[Reading Room] The Business of Being a Writer by Jane Friedman

Normally, my Reading Room posts are about a short story I’ve read, and what I learned from it.

Occasionally, however, a book comes along that I really think you should know about. This week, it’s The Business of Being A Writer by Jane Friedman.

Jane has been around the business of writing and publishing for a while now and really knows her stuff.

Here’s the start of the review I posted to Amazon:

I read a lot of self-help and inspirational books, and writing advice (heck, I write some). Most of it is the “Woohoo! You can do this!” type necessary to psyching yourself up to do the difficult business of wrangling words and sharing them.

This book is not one of those books.

This book is your older, wiser, best friend who loves you, and sits you down to say,

“Girl, I believe you can do it if you want to–you know I do. But first, let me show you what ‘it’ really looks like… Continue reading “[Reading Room] The Business of Being a Writer by Jane Friedman”

097 – Short Story Forms

This month I’m focusing on short story form.

Watch out for a few mini-episodes coming your way, with more details on some short story forms.

Also in this episode, I recommend Jane Friedman’s new book, The Business of Being A Writer [http://amzn.to/2DyhhYL].

Another new episode of Write Every Day, Not “Some Day”

[Write On Wednesday] Epistolary Stories

This month I’m encouraging you to write stories in non-narrative forms. Last week was a story as a list, this week we’re back to one of my favorites: letters!

The Prompt

Write a story in the form of a series of letters/updates

Tips

  • The ‘letters’ can be anything really: letters, journal entries, log entries, found documents, Tweets, Facebook updates…
  • The letters might come from only one person — in which case we hear only one side of the story.
  • The letters might come from various sources and in various time periods.
  • You might mix letters with documentary evidence (school report cards, obituaries clipped from a newspaper, a termination document from an employer).
  • Your writing might be in the form of a ‘gospel’ for a new religious or political cult.
  • Your story might be the log entries left behind after a disaster.
  • Your updates might show the slow unraveling of an online scam on GoFundMe.
  • There are so many ways you can tell a story that don’t involve expository writing. Have fun with this!
  • This might grow to be a bigger project than you can handle in one day…

[Write on Wednesday] Lists As Stories

This month I’m pushing us to write short stories in odd forms, lists, conversations, letters, all kinds of things.

Short stories can be told in narrative form, like mini-novels, but they don’t have to be. Part of the fun of being a short story writer is the ability to twist people’s brains, surprise them, make the familiar unfamiliar. You can do that with your images, but you can also do it with a story’s form.

The Prompt

Write A Story In The Form Of A List

Continue reading “[Write on Wednesday] Lists As Stories”

[Reading Room] I’d Rather Go Blind by Jabari Asim

From A Taste of Honey – Stories by Jabari Asim, Broadway Books, 2010, ISBN 978-0-767679-1978-4

I knew a man who only read non-fiction because he “didn’t see the point” of fiction. Would it surprise you to know that this man was one of the least empathetic I never knew?

I firmly believe that fiction is more powerful than non-fiction, as a way to help us understand each other’s truths. So I used Black History Month as an excuse to seek out short fiction by writers of color. I  picked up this collection at my local library, and the first story in the collection has already confirmed my belief.

Opening Lines

“I’d Rather Go Blind” is the story of a moment in a pre-teen boy’s life during the ‘hot and forbidding’ summer of ’67.  In fact, that’s the opening line, Continue reading “[Reading Room] I’d Rather Go Blind by Jabari Asim”

Swagr for March 2018

Every month we gather here to discuss what we’ve achieved and commit to making more progress in our creative lives in the coming month. We call it our   Serious Writer’s Accountability Group or SWAGr, for short! (We’re serious, not sombre!)

What people are saying about StoryADayMay 2014

Leave a comment below telling us how you got on last month, and what you plan to do next month, then check back in on the first of each month, to see how everyone’s doing. Continue reading “Swagr for March 2018”

Making February Flash – A Round Up

Here’s all my best advice on writing flash fiction…

This month has been all about Flash Fiction. It’s a fabulous way to:

  • Tighten up your writing in longer projects
  • Practice writing quick stories, for StoryADay May
  • Rediscover the joy of finishing stories

Here’s everything you might have missed at the blog this month: Continue reading “Making February Flash – A Round Up”

[Write On Wednesday] Openings & Endings for Flash Fiction

Maria
People’s memories of events are shaped by their experiences in the last few minutes. Stories are no different. You could write the best story in the world but if the opening isn’t good, no one will read it; and worse, if the ending is bad, they will remember the let-down, not the beautiful writing and ideas in the body of the tale.

We’re going to work on avoiding that problem, today! Continue reading “[Write On Wednesday] Openings & Endings for Flash Fiction”

096 – How To Make Flash Fiction…Flash

Flash fiction is more than just a collection of fewer than 1000 words. Flash fiction must…FLASH!

In this episode I talk about,

  • how to surprise your readers,
  • how to craft openings and endings to keep your story in your readers’ hearts,
  • how to use titles as the sizzle that sell your story to a reader

I also remind listeners that it’s almost time for the March SWAGr post, where we make our commitments for the coming month.

Another new episode of Write Every Day, Not “Some Day”

[Write on Wednesday] Terrific Titles

Flash fiction writers often miss a fabulous opportunity by leaving a quick, ‘working’ title on their story.

That’s like selling a product by telling people how hard you worked on it, instead of selling them on what the it will Do For Them.

Here’s the thing:

  • Title are not usually part of the required word count, so you can go as long as you like!
  • Titles are the sizzle that sells the reader on the steak of your story.
  • Titles can add a whole new layer of meaning to the story, when the reader is finished.

    The Prompt

    Write a 300–500 word story,

    Then, spend an equal amount of time writing a title that is at least 3% as long as the story (that is, 9 words long for a 300 word story, 15 words for a 500 word story)

Tips

  • It is completely acceptable, for today, to use a flash story you’ve written in the past and just re-title it. (And yes, it can be a longer story, just remember I want you to make the title proportional to the story length, so this could get kind of crazy. Good crazy…)
  • If you’re stuck for ideas, write a story based on a Story Spark you’ve gathered, a character you’ve already created, or an issue that makes gets you excited (for good or ill).
  • Read through the story and pick out the theme.
  • Play with puns, double-meanings, and common proverbs.
  • Remember that your aim is to catch the eye of a potential reader and pull them in, intrigue them enough that they’ll want to read your story.
  • Write a title that is at least 3% as long as the story (word count divided by 100, multiplied by 3) 300 words=9 words, 400 words=12 words, 500 words=15 words, 1000 words= 30 word title! (For the rules-lawyers: you may round up or down as you feel appropriate. This is just an exercise!)
  • Try to make it have a deeper meaning, after the reader has read the story (or to add something to their understanding)
  • Bonus points: Post your title in the comments and see if we’d be intrigued to read it.
  • Extra bonus points: post on someone else’s title to say whether or not you’d read it.

Examples of Long Titles

Clearly Lettered in A Mostly Steady Hand by Fran Wilde, nominated for a Nebular Award for Short Story in 2018. Isn’t that an intriguing title. Why does ‘clearly lettered’ matter and why is the hand only ‘mostly steady’?

Sorry Dan, But It’s No Longer Necessary For A Human To Serve As CEO Of This Company by Eric Cofer

Further reading on Good Titling

Naming the Baby by Bruce Holland Rogers (Flash Fiction Online)

Choosing The Right Name For Your Story by Jason Floyd (Writing World)

 

Leave a comment, telling us your title. Bonus points: leave a comment on someone else’s title, saying whether you’d read on!

[Reading Room] The Breathtaking Power of Dracula – Rolli

Read it online here

This is a flash piece I stumbled across on Twitter.

It was an interesting format: a screenshot/image of a formatted short story, attached to a tweet.

And it’s really odd. Delightfully odd. It’s the kind of thing that makes me go: Yes! See this? THIS is why I love short stories.

Normally I try to provide some Lessons For Writers with this little reviews, but today I think I’m just going to say: go and read this. It’ll take you a minute.

I particularly like the way he promises one thing, delivers something else, but doesn’t forget his promise.

Sometimes writing (and reading) are just…fun.

What do you think of the story? Leave a comment

[Write On Wednesday] Specific to Universal

The best stories move from the specific to the universal (or vice versa).

Flash fiction is a wonderful venue for practicing the short-story skill of moving from the specific to the universal.

Stories relate a specific event happening to a specific individual and how it affects them. The best stories also contain ideas that apply to the wider world: to you, to me, to society.

The Prompt

Continue reading “[Write On Wednesday] Specific to Universal”

[Reading Room] The Worshipful Society of Glovers by Mary Robinette Kowal

It reads like a simple story, but is, in fact, a skillfully crafted tale that hides its author’s hard work well.

This is an excellent example of how to build a story world that feels real, while still telling a story about characters we care about.

(Read it online, here)

Uncanny Magazine screenshot featuring Mary Robinette Kowal's story The Worshipful Society of Glovers

It also comes with the fabulous gift of a blog post unpacking how the author went about writing it. Continue reading “[Reading Room] The Worshipful Society of Glovers by Mary Robinette Kowal”

095 – Flash Fiction Part 1

February is the shortest month, so we’re focusing on the shortest of fiction: flash! 

(And, yes, I know there are shorter forms, but this is the particular short-short form I picked, ok?)

This week I talk about what flash is and why you might want to be writing it. Includes bonus trivia about Impressionism.

 

LINKS

Last week’s flash fiction writing prompt: https://storyaday.org/wow-make-it-flash/

The latest Reading Room review featuring flash fiction: https://storyaday.org/rr-meteor-mccolough/

This month’s Accountability Group post: https://storyaday.org/swagr-feb-2017/

Follow StoryADay on Twitter: @storyadaymay

 

Another new episode of Write Every Day, Not “Some Day”