Calling all short story writers! We’ve pulled together a list of short story competitions, awards and prizes for you to have on your radar. To the best of our knowledge, these competitions run every year, but do make sure to check with each of them directly for everything you need to know before submitting your work.
Short Story Competitions.
Aesthetica Creative Writing Award
This competition is run by the prestigious art magazine every year, writers can enter short stories up to 2,000 words. Find out more here.
Anthology Short Story Competition
Anthology Short Story Competition is open to original and previously unpublished short stories in the English language by a writer of any nationality, living anywhere in the world. There is no restriction on theme or style. Stories submitted must not exceed the maximum of 1,500 words. Get all the details here.
Bath Short Story Award
Launched in 2012 the International Bath Short Story Award has rapidly become established as one of the prominent short story competitions in the UK receiving over fifteen hundred world-wide entries each year and producing a yearly anthology of short-listed and winning authors. Head to their website to find out everything you need to know.
BBC National Short Story Award
This prize is run yearly and only open to authors with a prior record of publishing creative work in the UK. Stories up to 8,000 words are accepted and may be submitted by the author or by their agent. Shortlisted stories are awarded a prize of £600. Get the full details here.
Brick Lane Bookshop Short Story Prize
Run by the well-known and beloved London bookshop, the Brick Lane Bookshop Short Story Prize welcomes entries of original short fiction between 1000 and 5000 words. The winner will receive £1,000 and 12 shortlisted writers will be included in an anthology. Find out more here.
Bridport Short Story Competition
With one of the largest cash prizes for a short story competition, the Bridport Short Story prize has helped many writers launch careers and achieve success. Details here.
Creators of Justice Literary Awards
The Creators of Justice Literary Awards is an annual, international contest featuring works which highlight the struggle for human rights and social justice across the world. Writers can submit one poem, essay, or short story on an annual theme. More here.
Dinesh Allirajah Prize for Short Fiction
Run by indie publisher Comma Press, this prize is open to both published and unpublished writers and aims to seek out the best established and up and coming voices in the form. Find out everything you need to know here.
Inclusive Voices Short Story Competition
A unique competition, the Inclusive Voices Short Story Competition asks writers for stories up to 550 words and 'should feature a character with a print disability' which aligns with their mission as a charity who have been providing audiobooks to people who struggle to read print for fifty years. More here.
Mairtín Crawford Awards
For the Mairtín Crawford Awards, both published and unpublished writers are invited to submit a short story of up to 2,500 words for the short story award, with the only stipulation being that they have not yet published a full collection of poetry, short stories, or a novel. Details here.
Manchester Fiction Prize
The Manchester Fiction Prize is open internationally to anyone aged 16 or over (there is no upper age limit) and awards a cash prize of £10,000 to the writer of the best short story submitted.
Mogford Prize for Food and Drink Writing
A unique competition, the Mogford Prize for Food and Drink Writing is an annual short story competition open to writers across the globe. The prize awards £10,000 to the best short story that has food and drink at its heart. Head to their website to find out more.
Mslexia's Short Story Competition
Run by the magazine for women-writers, Mslexia's annual competition is for unpublished complete short fiction of up to 3,000 words. Get the full details here.
Rhys Davies Short Story Competition
The Rhys Davies Short Story Competition is a distinguished national writing competition for writers born or living in Wales. The first prize is £1,000 and publication in a short story anthology to be published by Parthian Books. More here.
Seán Ó Faoláin International Short Story Competition
The competition is open to original, unpublished and un-broadcast short stories in the English language of 3,000 words or fewer. The story can be on any subject, in any style, by a writer of any nationality, living anywhere in the world. Winner gets €2,000, featured reading at the Cork International Short Story Festival (with four-night hotel stay and full board) and publication in Southword. Find out more here.
The Aurora Prize for Writing
The Aurora Prize is a national writing competition, seeking outstanding new writing in short fiction and poetry run by Writing East Midlands. More here.
The Bedford Competition
Open internationally, there are prizes totalling £4,600 and all winning and shortlisted stories and poems are published as an anthology.
The Bristol Short Story Prize
This is an annual international writing competition open to all published and unpublished, UK and non-UK-based writers.
The Commonwealth Short Story Prize
The prize is open to all Commonwealth citizens aged 18 and over entering a story of between 2,500 and 5,000 words. The regional winners receive £2,500 and the overall winner receives a total of £5,000. The winning stories are published online by Granta and in a special print collection by Paper + Ink.
The Galley Beggar Press Short Story Prize
Galley Beggar Press' mission is to 'support talented new writers, and to demonstrate the wonderful things that can be done with the short story form.' Writers supported by the indie publisher's short story prize have gone on to achieve amazing things, such as signing with agents and securing book deals as a result of taking part in the prize. Galley Beggar Press have added that their 'winners have been profiled in the Bookseller, the Irish Times, Guardian and elsewhere.' Co-run by one of our brilliant Ultimate Novel Writing Course tutors Sam Jordison, we're big fans of this prize. Get more details about the prize here.
The Moth Prizes
The Moth Magazine runs an annual short story prize open to anyone from anywhere in the world, as long as their writing is original and previously unpublished. Details here.
The Royal Society of Literature V. S. Pritchett Short Story Prize
The annual prize of £1,000 goes to the best unpublished short story of the year. The winning entry is also published in Prospect magazine and the RSL Review. Check their website for more information.
The Society of Authors' Awards
The Society of Authors runs annual awards, which are open to writers at all stages of their careers. Among them is The ALCS Tom-Gallon Trust Award for a short story (applicants need to have had at least one short story accepted for publication); and The McKitterick Prize, which is given annually to an author over the age of 40 for a first novel, published or unpublished. All details here.
Here are our top tips for entering writing competitions.
Write, write, write. Then put your writing away in a drawer.
Time spent away from your story can give you a chance to return with fresh eyes. This is crucial as it allows you to see the story the way a reader will. The next best thing is to...
Share your writing with a trusted writer friend.
We say 'writer' friend and not friends or family for a reason: constructive criticism is what you need most before you send your work out into the world. Sharing your story with someone who cares about you (and might not be a writer themselves) might only elicit good feedback. It's great to have a nurturing support system, but at this stage, you want to focus on making your writing as good as it can be.
Once you have submitted your work, follow any suggestions the competition might have.
This could mean adding their email address to your contacts so any emails from them won't be sent to spam or it could be making a note of key upcoming dates. Some competitions require longlisted and shortlisted writers to send additional words if they reach the next round.
Before you submit your work to a writing competition, make sure you have checked the following.
The competition deadline.
Competitions typically have strict deadlines to submit your work, make sure to put a reminder in your diary so you don't miss out.
The submission guidelines.
Competitions tend to have specific guidance on how to enter your work. Read them carefully and make sure to follow the rules as detailed. Remember, if you have any questions, the competitions are usually happy to answer them, assuming you have left plenty of time before the deadline.
The terms and conditions of entry.
Competitions will have stipulations around who can enter, make sure you've checked you are eligible before potentially wasting time submitting and/or entry free.
That's it from us, if you do enter any of these competitions we wish you the very best of luck.
Not having enough time for all the things we want to do and write is probably the single feeling writers relate to most.
We all have those strewn around notes of new ideas and unfinished scenes that get tucked into a drawer for later. And they all go to live in the “unfinished” corner of your mind palace.
But sometimes, you’re feeling inspired to write but you want a final result that same day, with some closure.
If you want to be able to practice your craft and have something to show for it relatively quickly, why not write flash fiction. Maybe you can experiment, and write about an alternate universe or a post-apocalyptic future.
In this article, you’re going to familiarise yourself with the nature of flash fiction, and you’ll get more flash fiction writing prompts than you'll know what to do with.
What Is Flash Fiction?
Flash fiction is a very short story with a word count of approximately 100 to 1000 words. (Unless, of course, you're writing a story of just six words, like the one often attributed to Hemingway.)
These short stories usually start right in the thick of the action, at a dramatic moment, since there isn’t a lot of time to warm up. But the short nature of this sudden fiction form is also what makes it so exciting.
Flash fiction needs to feature some form of growth or development for the main character, as it's still a complete story, which can be challenging given the constraints of its length.
You can also play with different perspectives, from that of your best friend, to an evil wizard, or the young boy next door.
To make things easy on you here are some prompts for your great flash fiction story, separated by genre:
Flash Fiction Prompts
General Prompts
He stood outside the Chinese restaurant on 5th street a little too long to appear as someone contemplating the menu. But it was now or never. He had to tell her. The door swung open and he took his chance.
“This is not what I had in mind,” she said to her sister, as she picked the lock to the local metaphysical store. A moment later it gave a satisfying click.
She felt disappointment spread through her. “These experimental drugs don’t even work. What are they supposed to do again?”
Pushing a pram through the mall made shoplifting easy. 'The Christmas rush', James observed, as he walked slowly through carol-filled Westfield, 'only made it easier'.
She took one look at her new roommate, and realised she had made the biggest mistake of her life.
“Why are you wearing a wedding dress to the office?” she asked incredulously. I looked in the mirror, at the sea of diamantes and lace. “I have my reasons.”
“You look exactly like someone I used to know,” she said to the barista. The woman was trying her to best to ignore her, but Liz pressed on. “Where do I know you from?”
She opened her husband's text messages, even though she knew she shouldn’t. He was in the shower and she only had ten minutes maximum to prove her wild theory right.
I wasn’t supposed to speak at the wedding, and yet there I was, microphone in hand. 160 or so faces looking at me with concern.
“Why are you wearing Mum’s boots? You know it’s forbidden.”
She pointed at the cupboard and smiled, “The treasure is in there.”
“The code is 2412, but hurry we are running out of time.”
He had crashed his car and knew he would have to do the rest of the journey on foot.
The green dress was waiting for her in her hotel room.
“I can’t believe you brought me here,” she said to her husband. “You said that was the last time.”
Fantasy Prompts
One thing I didn’t expect was for there to be goblins in the world. And I really didn’t expect them be chewing on my furniture in the middle of the night.
She should never have cast a spell in the garden centre.
“When I said elves are good creatures,” her father thundered through the living room, “I didn’t mean bring one as a date to Thanksgiving!”
“Get the hell out of my way.” Suzy blinked in horror; not just because that was a rude way to start the day, but also because that was the first thing her cat had ever said to her.
Eliza always thought that vampires were supposed to be sexy. The man currently gulfing down Greek yoghurt from her fridge, fangs barred and creamy white for everyone to see, was decidedly not sexy at all.
As the beast soared into the sky, Kiera realised this was going to be the last time she would ever ride a dragon.
“Here you go,” the yellow-eyed mermaid said as she returned my mother’s locket to me. “And next time you scuba dive, don’t be so sloppy.”
She wasn’t like other girls... She could smell people’s emotions from miles away.
He downed the sweet potion and felt the spell spread through him. This was going to be one Bowling State Championship no one was likely to forget.
Eliza touched the flowers on the grave and they came back to life. “Being an elemental has its perks,” she said to her sister. “Now let’s get what we came for.”
The werewolf was waiting for her in the alleyway, artefact in hand.
She ran her hand against the merman’s scales, and smiled.
Romance Prompts
The last person you want to run into when you’re buying Ben and Jerry’s in bulk in your hometown’s Costco is your ex-boyfriend. The second is his mother.
“I’m pretty sure you are not supposed to find your divorce lawyer cute!” she whispered so he wouldn’t hear.
He had walked me home. The entire 6 miles, through the city and in the rain. It was time to tell him the truth.
“From the first time I saw you dancing on stage, I knew there would be no one else.”
His lips were inches from mine, his breathing heavy. “Say that to my face,” he growled.
He pointed up at the ceiling and grinned. “What about the mistletoe?”
“If you walk out that door, don’t bother coming back.” She took a step back and closed it.
1333 roses were waiting in her living room that morning, just like he had promised. She kicked one of the vases in anger.
“How dare you? After everything you’ve done, how dare you come back to this bakery?”
“Just shut up and follow directions,” she said, guiding his hands through the pizza dough.
He checked his pocket. There it was, a phone number with a little heart next to it.
“Who is your date?” her boss asked. “I’m not sure. I just met him on the bus ride over here.”
He kissed him beneath the cherry blossom tree. Just in time for the festival to begin.
Thriller Prompts
She looked down at the latest case file and took a bite of her cinnamon swirl. You would think looking at this kind of stuff would rob someone of their appetite, but double homicides only made Jennifer hungrier.
Her dog whined and pawed at the door, just as the outside sensors went off and a stranger became drenched in light.
“There’s something really wrong with this innkeeper,” I whispered to my wife as we took turns looking through the peep hole. The innkeeper knocked again as I shuddered. “Why is he holding a candelabra?”
Lucas was the first patient to ever tell me they had killed someone. As I sat there, facing him across my fancy office furniture, I wasn’t sure what my next move should be.
“Stop looking at me like I killed my husband,” Clara laughed that tinkling laugh of hers. “Here, try a cookie instead. Oatmeal raisin, my mother’s recipe.”
It was a very strange party. For one, all the drinks were mocktails. And two, there was a body in the living room.
He was standing right in the middle of the driveway, wet and angry. So, she pressed on the gas pedal.
“Open the garage door,” she screeched, clawing at the metal. “Open it!”
A shadow moved between the trees. Bruce tucked his camera away.
The precinct was a lot smaller and a lot quainter than she had imagined.
It was a good day to identify a body. She took a step forward.
Holiday Prompts
I held on to the stair railing for dear life, and looked down at the party. There was only one face I recognised, and it was the last one I wanted to see on Christmas day.
Suddenly, there he was... Santa Claus in the flesh, hovering over my mince pies. I said the first thing that came to my mind. “You don’t look anything like the Coca Cola adverts…”
Everyone at the party was staring at her Halloween costume in horror.
She squeezed it tight. It was the weirdest Christmas present she had ever received.
It was really hot inside the Easter Bunny outfit, but it was the only way to avoid him.
He was the last person she ever expected to see at her Chanukah dinner table.
'Thanksgiving was supposed to be fun. Not dangerous.' He thought, as he tucked the knives away into the safe.
The birthday clown had arrived 45 minutes late to the birthday party and smelling of rum.
She looked outside at the blanket of white. Finally, her first snowy Christmas!
She was the meanest carol singer in the province…
Science Fiction Prompts
I frowned at the sales person. “You’re telling me you sold me an AI that is meant to clean my home but instead just makes a mess and I… can’t even return him?”
The doctor smiled at me warmly. “Don’t be nervous, many people are interested in cloning themselves. Why don’t you take a seat and tell me your concerns?”
Tears streamed down her face as she stared at her husband. “I don’t want a robot son. I want a real child. I told you that before and you just don’t listen to me.”
This was her first time in a coffee shop on another planet and she hoped they did lattes the right way.
The suit melted directly into her skin. She looked at her new reflection in the mirror.
She turned to her 3D printer. It was time for some breakfast.
He avoided eye contact with the machine next to him. She gave him the creeps.
“I can’t leave the spaceship right now, I’m waiting for an important delivery.”
“You’ve been to the edge of the galaxy,” she said, twirling her wine. “Describe it to me.”
Frequently Asked Questions
What Are The Best Prompts For Flash Fiction?
The best prompts are the ones that leave something to the imagination and make us want to put pen to paper straight away. They should instantly make you think 'Who? What? Where?' and fill you with a desire to fill in those blanks.
How Do Flash Fiction Stories End?
Flash fiction should end with a problem being resolved and with the main character transformed in some way (however small).
Writing Flash Fiction
All of us writers have to hone our craft, and as we well know nothing works better than practice. Flash fiction is a great way to strengthen your writing because it’s quick, makes you think, and it’s a way to get feedback regularly.
These prompts will challenge your imagination due to the nature of flash fiction, and lead you to new ideas. Who knows, one of your flash fictions could end up being the seed for your next novel.
Do you prefer writing and finishing something quickly or taking a bit longer? Some writers prefer the scope of a novel and dislike the constraints of the short story, while others feel the opposite way. In between the two forms are the novelette and novella.
It can be difficult to define an acceptable length for a short story, novella or novelette, so you may not know which category your story belongs in. Is it too long or too short? Why does it matter?
In this article, we’ll go through the lengths of short stories, novellas, and novelettes; compare the three forms; and note examples of short stories, novellas, and novelettes.
Word Counts For Short Stories, Novellas And Novelettes
Short story: over 1,000 words, usually less than 10,000.
Novelette: 7,500 to 19,000 words.
Novella: 10,000 to 40,000 words.
As you can see there’s an overlap between a short story and a novelette. Also, between a novelette and a novella. We’ll examine these later in the article. Shorter stories can hold just as much power as longer pieces, and they too have meaning and resonance. The content is the most important thing. Success does not depend on the number of words, though word count may be important in certain circumstances.
Why Is Word Count Important?
Word count is a huge part of how short stories, novellas, and novelettes are separated and defined. So why is it so important?
1. Cost
One consideration in terms of word count is the cost to the publisher. The longer the story the more time required to read and edit it. If printed, the length of the story also affects the outlay required. For an anthology consisting of works by different writers, it makes sense for the publisher to choose shorter pieces for inclusion. In that way not only do they appeal to more readers, but they also have space to include more writers, and thus more people are invested in the anthology’s success. An example is an anthology published by Christopher Fielden called 81 Words. The challenge was to write a story in exactly 81 words. It consists of 1000 stories by 1000 authors, with profits going to the Arkbound Foundation. All for a good cause.
2. Marketing
Publishers may also have difficulty marketing shorter fiction. Although it seems short story collections and novellas are gaining in popularity, the novel always seems to take precedence in terms of easier marketing and categories.
Just as novels are labelled in different genres and sub-genres, not all short stories are the same. The nature of the writing could have a bearing on the length.
Literary stories tend to be longer and more introspective. Other genres, such as horror or crime, may, or may not, be shorter and more action-packed.
3. Reader Fatigue
It’s said that these days, with technology and our collective struggle with delayed gratification, concentration has diminished. In this regard, shorter stories are very accessible. Some stories can be read in minutes, making them the perfect read for those on the move. If stories are too long, the reader may become bored. Stories need to be engaging right from the start. With a novel, there is more space for preamble, but the short story, novella or novelette needs to get to the point. Faster.
4. Adaptability
Shorter stories, with their limited scale and number of characters, are easier to adapt for the screen and may appeal more to film directors, according to Screencraft. It makes sense. Fewer scenes and settings, fewer actors required. Think Alan Bennett's Talking Heads.
So, length and purpose are interrelated and we need to look closer at the definitions and word counts for short stories, novellas and novelettes.
How Long Is A Short Story?
A short story can be described as a story that can be read in one sitting, unlike a novel that may take days.
A short story will have a limited number of characters. With a short story, there’s no room for a complex plot. The narrative needs to be concise. Setting the scene in vast detail is a luxury kept for the novel. Economy is everything.
Some stories take one incident and examine it in detail. Others have a discernible beginning, middle and end. Often in a short story, the ending will reflect the beginning in some way. The character may have changed, gained some insight into their situation, or become involved in the action. Or, the story may have a nebulous ending, leaving much to the reader's imagination.
Some short stories are under 1,000 words. Often these are described as flash fiction.
The most famous short story is attributed to Ernest Hemingway, a master at crafting tales. You’ll probably have heard of it.
For Sale: baby shoes, never worn.
Ernest Hemingway
Why is that acceptable as a short story when it’s only six words long? There’s no character development, no description of the setting, no plot and yet there’s a story there – the story behind the words which the reader can imagine. Beauvais talks about the ‘readerly gap’ in reference to picture books. I’d argue that leaving the ‘readerly gap’ is essential in any writing. Short story writing at its best excels in this. What is omitted is left to the imagination of the reader.
Most short stories seem to be between 1,500 words and 7,500 words long so about 3- 30 pages long (a typical printed page is somewhere between 250 and 450 words) depending on font and print formatting. Also, pages of dialogue may have fewer words, which affects length too.
In some cases, the reader judges the length of a story by the number of pages to estimate how long it will take to read. Often websites will give a reading time linked to their stories. A five-minute read is about average.
In terms of pages, looking at collections of short stories, these also vary in length from three to thirty pages. If you look at some of the great classic storytellers, they had a varied word count in their short stories.
Examples Of Short Story Lengths And Word Counts:
Virginia Woolf’s A Haunted House is just over 700 words. About two or three pages.
One of These Days by Gabriel Garcia Marquez is shy of 1,000 words. About three pages.
Why Don’t you Dance by Raymond Carver is just over 1,600 words and an estimated five pages.
Hearts and Minds by Jack Petrubi is less than 2,000 words. Six pages.
The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allen Poe is a similar length at just over 2,000 words.
A Child’s Christmas in Wales by Dylan Thomas is over 3000 words. This is often produced with illustrations as a child’s book, but printed pages would be about nine or ten pages long.
A Sound of Thunder by Ray Bradbury is about 4,300 words long and around fifteen pages.
Award winning story The Edge of the Shoal by Cynan Jones is about 6,000 words and around twenty-five pages.
Ernest Hemingway’s The Snows of Kilimanjaro is 11,000 words long and about thirty pages.
To All Their Dues by Wendy Erskine is almost 11,000 words long. This could fit into the category of a novelette and is included in her story collection.
This would seem to indicate that length is not that important, but is that true? There will be times when the length of your story will have importance. If you are entering a competition where a word count is stipulated, for example.
How Long Is A Novella?
A novella is sometimes described as a short novel. The word derives from the Italian, meaning new. It usually has one character and one plotline. It will typically not be divided into chapters although there may be sub-divisions. For example, the aforementioned To All Their Dues by Wendy Erskine is sub-divided into three parts with three protagonists. This makes it more akin to a novelette.
Novellas tend to follow a linear structure with the main action centred on the protagonist’s development. This could be an inner conflict that is resolved or simply explored, rather than a series of events. Due to brevity, there isn't the scope for several sub-plots or settings although some elements of the novel may have some complexity.
The word count ranges from 10,000 to 40,000 words. It may contain between 100-200 pages. The usual length is over 17,500 words which enables more depth of character and plot development. Novellas are often published as part of a short story collection as a novella is difficult to publish except perhaps in terms of an e-book due to financial considerations explained previously.
Examples Of Novella Lengths And Word Counts:
Many of these are quite famous and have been made into films.
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck is 29,550 words and 107 pages
Animal Farm by George Orwell is 36,000 words and 144 pages
The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes is 40,750 words and 163 pages
Seize the Day by Saul Bellow is 36,000 words and 144 pages
The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway is 28,000 words and 112 pages
The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Leo Tolstoy is 32,000 words and 128 pages
Train Dreams by Denis Johnson is 29,000 words and 116 pages
The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros is 40,000 words and 160 pages
As with the short story examples, these vary in length. The Julian Barnes novella tips the scales at over 40,000. Also regarded as a novella is Solzhenitsyn’s One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, which is a hefty 52,000 words and 208 pages long.
How Long Is A Novelette?
If the novella is the younger sibling of the novel, then the novelette falls somewhere in between a short story and a novella.
With a word count of around 7,500-19,000 words, the novelette borders both the top end of a short story and the length usually acceptable for a novella. As with the short story and the novella, writers may be constricted in terms of the number of characters they can use and the amount of plot development they can include.
The plot will probably be linear and uncomplicated with few, or no, sub-plots. One or two characters will feature – not a cast of hundreds. It will have a defined focus and will be complete as a story. The novelette enables writers to give more flesh to the bones of their short story, though the writing still needs to be concise.
Examples Of Novelette Lengths And Word Counts:
The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka is 11,500 words and 46 pages
Death in Venice by Thomas Mann is 14,000 words and 56 pages
The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson is 13,500 words and 54 pages
The Spectacles by Edgar Allan Poe is 9,200 words and 35 pages
The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery is 16,500 words and 65 pages
As you can see there are examples here that are widely regarded as novellas. Distinguishing between these forms can be difficult and confusing. This may mean you end up editing your story, to make it longer or shorter, depending on the market you’re trying to appeal to, and where you want to publish it.
Writing Shorter Stories
It’s important as a writer to understand the different lengths and styles of these different types of writing.
It can be very difficult to distinguish between short stories, novellas and novelettes. As you can see from the examples, length is not everything. The essence of the narrative is what defines the form in many of these examples. The Lady in the Van by Alan Bennett clearly defines what the story is about. At 96 pages long it falls somewhere between a novelette and a novella and yet a film was made based on the story. In a similar fashion, Daphne Du Maurier’s short story Don’t Look Now was also translated into film.
There are times when word count and length are of importance. The length may depend on the purpose of your work. If you’re writing for your own entertainment or building a short story collection you may have flexibility in the number of words. If your aim is publication, there could be restrictions or guidelines. For competitions, it is always best to adhere to the rules.
With any story, you need three ingredients: people, place, and purpose/plot. These parts make up the whole and examining them will help you to decide if your story is the right length, and whether it is a short story, or if it needs more scope by becoming a novella or novelette.
It all goes back to the basic question of ‘what sort of writer are you’? Some writers can’t conceive of writing anything under 2,000 words. Others write a perfect story in less than 200. Margaret Atwood and Roald Dahl excel in both forms. The latter is famous for his children’s books, but he was a master of the short story and wrote some very dark material.
The best way to decide is to read anthologies or collections of short stories which often contain novellas and novelettes. Contemporary writers such as Alice Munro, Neil Gamain, Helen Oyeyemi, Etgar Keret and Colin Barrett give a flavour of what is popular now. Some of the classics such as Guy du Maupassant and Ray Bradbury should also be included in your reading list.
So, how long is a short story, novella or novelette?
A short story is a piece of fiction between 1,000-4,000 words (although it can go as high as 15,000 words). Simply put, it’s a story you can read in one sitting.
Short stories are notoriously difficult to write, and that’s often because the writer hasn’t understood the basics of good story structure. So, if after finishing writing your short story you’re left thinking, This is so boring!Where have I gone wrong?Is there a short story plot or structure I can follow? – then you’ve come to the right place. Because chances are you may need to rework your short story structure.
In this article I will be talking about what make a great short story and looking at the various structures you can use to keep readers gripped. But you can't start writing short stories until you have an idea. So let us begin there...
Getting Started: The Big Idea
Where can you get your short story idea from?
Some people have a great idea but struggle to turn it into a story (in which case you can skip to the next part). But for those of you confident about how to write a short story but need some inspiration to get you going, here are a few Jericho Writers articles to kick-start your creativity.
How To Find Inspiration In this article, award-winning author Patrice Lawrence will guide you through the myriad ways you can find inspiration - from reading poetry and other books, to observing real life around you.
Ideas For Writing In this article, Jericho Writers founder and author Harry Bingham, explains how to go from a seed on an idea to a novel (or short story)
How to build a fictional world And finally, in this article, Harry is back explaining world building in fiction and how to create setting that will help your story come alive.
Great. So now you have your amazing idea, it's time to structure it and turn it into short fiction.
Learn How To Write A Great Short Story
Firstly, let's look at the various types of structure used when writing short stories structures and how to analyse them.
It may seem formulaic or predictable in the beginning but trust the process and you’ll soon see results. Then, we’ll have some fun practising how to apply the generic story structure template to your work.
By the end of this exercise, you’ll have gained the confidence to create short stories that both make you happy and showcase your talent.
What Is Story Structure?
The structure for a short story is not dissimilar to that of a full-length novel – your readers still expect the same rise and fall. The most basic story structure is called the ‘narrative structure’ and is defined as ‘the order in which elements of a narrative are presented to the reader or audience.’
Essentially, there are two parts to it which are:
Plot
The elements of a story
Author of Plot & Structure, James Scott Bell, provides a further explanation:
‘Simply put, structure is what assembles the parts of a story in a way that makes them accessible to readers. It is the orderly arrangement of a story material for the benefit of the audience. Plot is about elements, those things that go into the mix of making a good story even better. Structure is about timing – where in the mix those elements go.’
Let’s take a closer look at what all this actually means.
Structural Features Of A Short Story
As stated, there are two parts within any short story structure. The first is the plot which is ‘what happens’ or the chain of events that occur in your short story. The other is ‘story elements’ which is the ‘underlying factors that drive the narrative action: protagonists, conflicts, setting, etc.’
Still confused?
A helpful analogy for how to create a traditional short story structure is when you weave a piece of fabric. Naturally, a finished product has to have a harmonious look and feel when it’s draped across your body. Similarly, when you properly weave together things that happen with things that matter in your short story, you make that vital connection with your readers. The reader should not only understand what is happening in your short story, but what it all means.
There are five main structural features of a short story:
Exposition
Rising Action
Climax
Falling Action
Resolution (or Denouement)
To show you how to analyse a short story with plot structure, I will be referencing the Bengali story of Devdas by Sarat Chandra Chatterjee, which was adapted into a very successful Bollywood movie by the same name.
1. Exposition
This is the part of the story where the characters and setting are introduced to the reader. There are generally four types of characters:
The Protagonist who is the main character whose journey we follow in the story.
The Antagonist whose goals are often the opposite of the protagonist’s.
The Dynamic Character who changes as a result of the events in the story.
The Static Character who does not change at all.
In the opening scene of Devdas, you meet our protagonist by the same name. He returns home to the love of his life, Parvati (Paro). She is the dynamic character who changes upon her marriage to another. The antagonists are Devdas’s father and family, who oppose the union. The static character is Chandramukhi, the woman to whom Devdas eventually turns to.
2. Rising Action
Here, the protagonist faces challenges and crises. It’s the catalyst which sets the story in motion, forcing the protagonist out of his comfort zone. In the story, Devdas and Paro admit to having fallen for each other, gradually becoming aware of his family’s opposition to this union.
3. Climax
Often the most exciting part of the story, the protagonist is tested at this stage. In Devdas, our protagonist makes a catastrophic decision to reject Paro and watches her marry another.
4. Falling Action
This refers to the events that follow the climax, often where the protagonist believes he’s failed. Devdas begins to drink with a vengeance and goes to live with the seemingly unsuitable courtesan named Chandramukhi.
5. Resolution Or Denouement
The conflict has been resolved and the character has changed. There can be three different outcomes: the protagonist gets what he wants; the protagonist doesn’t get what he wants; or, the protagonist doesn’t get what he wants, but realises that he has something more important.
In Devdas, it’s a mix because the protagonist does get his wish to go to Paro to die. However, he also acknowledges and reciprocates something important – Chandramukhi’s eternal love.
Types Of Short Story Structures
Now that you have an overview of a good short story structure, let’s delve a little deeper and look at some actual structures of stories beginning with the ‘Hero’s Journey’.
The Hero’s Journey
One of the best-known story structures, ‘The Hero’s Journey’ is a pattern that exists in many world mythologies. For the mainstream storyteller of today, Christopher Vogler created a simplified version and framework of it which can be applied to almost any genre of fiction:
The Ordinary World, which sets out the protagonist’s everyday life.
The Call of Adventure, where the protagonist is incited into taking action.
Refusal of the Call, where the protagonist is reluctant to take action.
Meeting the Mentor, where the protagonist meets a mentor (parent, teacher, spiritual master, etc.) who encourages him to take action.
Crossing the First Threshold, where the protagonist steps out of his comfort zone and takes action.
Tests, Allies, Enemies, where the protagonist faces challenges.
Approach to the Inmost Cave, where the protagonist gets close to his goal.
The Ordeal, where the protagonist meets his greatest challenge.
Reward, where the protagonist acquires what he was looking for and victory is in sight.
The Road Back, where the protagonist getting what he wanted may have made things worse.
Resurrection, where the protagonist faces a challenge that hinges on everything he’s learnt.
Return with the Elixir, where the protagonist returns home, triumphant.
Three Act Structure
One of the most notable forms of the basic short story structure is the ‘Three Act Structure’.
In some instances, the three acts are described as the Beginning, the Middle and the End. Place them within the context of the previously listed structural features of a short story, and they can be described as Setup, Confrontation and Resolution.
In Act 1 (Setup), include the element of Exposition where the protagonist’s ‘ordinary world’ is set up. Additionally, you’ll also have an Inciting Incident where an event will set the story in motion, and Plot Point One, where the protagonist crosses the threshold. The story truly moves into gear.
In Act 2 (Confrontation), increase the stakes for our protagonist by using the element of Rising Action. Next, move to the Midpoint where there’s an event that upends the protagonist’s mission. Act 2 ends with Plot Point Two where he is tested and fails. His ability to succeed is now in doubt.
Act 3 (Resolution) begins with the Pre-Climax which can best be described as the ‘the night is the darkest before dawn’. Our protagonist must muster all his courage and choose success over failure. Next comes the Climax where the reader must wonder if the protagonist will fail or succeed. Finally, there’s Denouement where, against all odds, the protagonist has succeeded. This part ends with the consequences (both good and bad) of such success.
Seven-Point Story Structure
Developed by Dan Wells, this structure encourages you to start at the end with the Resolution, and work your way back to the starting point. The elements of the Seven-Point Story Structure will include the following:
The Hook, which states the protagonist’s current situation.
Plot Point 1, where the protagonist is called to action.
Pinch Point 1, where the protagonist faces his first blow.
Turning Point, where the protagonist becomes active and decides to meet any conflict head-on.
Pinch Point 2, where the protagonist faces his second blow.
Plot Point 2, where the protagonist sees that he has had the solution to the problem all along.
Resolution, where the story’s primary problem is resolved.
A Few More Story Structure Examples
Although they’re uncommon, there are four more short story structures you can use.
Freytag's Pyramid
The first is Freytag’s Pyramid, which is described as a ‘five-point dramatic structure that’s based on the classical Greek tragedies,’ and used in more depressing contemporary tales.
Story Circle
Dan Harmon’s ‘Story Circle’ is heavily inspired by the ‘Hero’s Journey’. It is focused on the protagonist’s character and his wants and needs.
Save The Cat
A variation of the ‘Three-Act Structure’ is the ‘Save the Cat Beat Sheet’, created by a Hollywood screenwriter called Blake Snyder. A very precise structure, everything in the story happens exactly where and when it should. By working with key story 'beats', the screenplay or novel is broken down into the following sections within each act:
Act 1 (setting, inciting incident, and decision)
Act 2 (start of the journey, the fun and games where all the action and obstacles happen)
Act 3 (bad guys close in, all is lost, hero works it out, resolution)
Fichtean Curve
The ‘Fichtean Curve’ effectively starts with the Rising Action and does away with Exposition because the characters and setting will reveal themselves from this point on.
How To Write A Short Story Structure
Let’s look at these ideas and structure suggestions in action. Here is a breakdown of one of my own short stories, The Flame, long-listed for the Exeter Literary Festival.
Ordinary world: Nina receives a wedding invitation and encounters a familiar dilemma – “What should I wear?”
Something shocking happens to break the status quo and the protagonist receives a call to action: The dress code is surprising – ‘Ethnic Best’.
The protagonist vacillates, but ultimately answers the call to action: After contemplating other options, Nina decides to wear a sari.
Although the protagonist makes a sincere attempt to attain her goal/meet her need, she fails and feels defeated: Nina chooses a georgette-chiffon sari the family calls ‘The Flame’. Nina’s mother cautions her about wearing this sari.
This is the mid-point where the protagonist tries to defeat the thing preventing her from getting what she needs. If she succeeds, a bigger challenge faces her. If she fails, she has to face up to her weakness (usually internal). More often than not, she’s made the problem worse: Nina’s mother reminds her that it’s ‘a rule’ that women wear silk garments at Hindu wedding ceremonies. Nina stages a protest.
This is the time for self-reflection, a mentor’s pep-talk, or, the protagonist hits rock bottom: Nina does some research into this ‘rule’.
The protagonist accepts her fate and begins to make a concerted effort to overcome her weakness: Rejecting the ‘rule’ Nina insists on wearing ‘The Flame’.
At this ¾ mark, all seems lost. The protagonist figures out that there’s a chance at success, but it’s a long shot: ‘The Flame’ is nowhere to be found.
The final push where everything that is improbable yet plausible happens. Yet, the protagonist succeeds because she’s overcome all her weaknesses: Nina turns the house upside down looking for ‘The Flame’.
This is the wrap up where the protagonist returns to the status quo a transformed person: Nina finds ‘The Flame’ and is the only guest who’s comfortable at the wedding.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do you still have questions about writing a short story? Take a look at these questions short story writers have been asking us lately:
What Are The 5 Parts Of A Short Story Structure?
Exposition Give us a glimpse of what the main character's life looks like before the big thing happens. Who are they? What's the setting? What does their life look like? How do they interact with others?
Rising Action This is the big where the big thing happens - without this inciting incident there would be no story (In Romeo and Juliet it's the part where they meet, in A Christmas Carol it's the part where the ghosts visit Scrooge).
Climax Bang! It's all coming to a head, there's been a big twist in the middle, and now the bad guys are closing in. This is the part where people should be on the edge of their seats (or at least flipping the pages faster).
Falling Action Things are going from bad to worse but the main character is nearly there.
Resolution (or Denouement) And phew, they made it. Whether they got the girl, won the fight, or learned a lesson about themselves, the story is all wrapped up and the reader is (hopefully) happy.
Do Short Stories Have Structure?
Yes, they must, otherwise you are simply writing a snippet of prose (which is lovely, but you're not telling the reader anything). Like any story, regardless of its length, a short story must have a clear beginning, middle, and end.
What Is Plot And Structure In Short Stories?
The plot and structure of a short story (otherwise known as a story arc) is the logical order in which events happen in the story. It's important to set the scene, introduce the inciting incident and obstacles, then show the resolution.
But, as you have fewer words to play with its vital that you keep your theme simple, your storyline linear (no complicated subplots) and don't overcomplicate your characters (of which you don't need as many).
Try It Yourself!
I hope you have found this short story structure guide useful and are now eager to get writing. It's easy...
Once you have your story idea, take a look at our various types of short structures, analyse them, and decide which one will work best for your short story – then see what you create!
Writing a great short story takes time, but once you apply the skills you’ve learnt you’ll soon find yourself in the company of outstanding writers.
Have you been meaning to write flash fiction, but been put off by the different word counts and apparent ‘rules’?
In this guide you’ll get a brief introduction to flash and its history, then we’ll talk about the essential elements to include in your flashes. I’ll also give you a checklist as an aide-mémoire at the end of the guide. And if by the end you feel confident enough to enter a few competitions, check out our guide to the best flash fiction competitions.
What Is Flash Fiction?
‘Smoke-long’ is my favourite (albeit not very healthy) description for a piece of flash fiction, because it refers to the time it takes you to read the story – the same amount of time it would take you to smoke a cigarette. Some flash fiction is even shorter, one puff-long if you like.
Japanese writer Yasunari Kawabata referred to them as palm-of-the-hand stories. Flash fiction is also known as fast fiction, sudden fiction, postcard fiction, a micro-story, a nanotale, a short short, amongst other names.
So what exactly is flash fiction? In a nutshell it simply means very short fiction.
The longest flashes are generally considered to be 1,000 words, the shortest 6 words. Try writing and reading each of these and you’ll soon realise there’s a big difference. In 2007, the Guardian newspaper challenged several well-known writers to write 6-word short stories. Take a look and decide for yourself whether they succeeded.
Just as a short story isn’t a truncated novel, flash fiction isn’t a truncated short story. The challenge, with very short fiction, is to tell a complete story within the word count, one thing that differentiates flash fiction from prose poetry. This gets harder the shorter the word count, and that sense of challenge is one reason flash fiction is so popular.
For example, in the above Guardian article, Blake Morrison’s story “Womb. Bloom. Groom. Gloom. Rheum. Tomb” gives a sense of a whole life, with a beginning, middle and end, or an overarching narrative – but contains no detail – whereas Jim Crace’s “See that shadow? (It's not yours.)” suggests a story, which readers tell themselves.
Arguably a piece of flash fiction is unique in the way it invites the reader to tell themselves the story like this. Other forms of prose writing do this, but because of their length, they also provide detail and narratorial incursion. In flash, this detail and incursion has to be nifty, playful – or cut out entirely.
Hemingway’s $10 Bet
The above two stories were written in response to the famous 6-word short story allegedly written by Ernest Hemingway as part of a bet over dinner, which won him $10: “For sale: baby shoes, never worn.” As with Crace’s story, this one suggests a story which the reader then infers, and it’s probably the most famous flash fiction story in circulation today.
However, it is likely Hemingway never wrote this story. You can read the background in this article. There isn’t much evidence that the bet took place, and if it did, earlier versions of the story had appeared in newspapers several years earlier, so he was probably repeating something he had read, as an amusing riposte.
Writers from all over the world have used the flash form, including Jorge Luis Borges, Kate Chopin, and Italo Calvino. In fact, ancient myths and fables can be considered a form of flash fiction. This article by Sandra Arnold will give you a sense of the history of flash fiction – very handy if you want to learn about flash fiction in literature. She attributes the first use of the word ‘flash’ to an anthology edited by James Thomas in 1992 – giving more of a sense of the experience of reading the finished story, rather than the word length.
Flash Fiction Sub-Genres
Flash fiction has a range of subgenres but in the same way, they don’t necessarily have strict definitions either. But if you’re looking for a general guide to flash fiction word counts, we’re here to help.
Here’s a rundown, from the longest to the shortest:
1. Novel-in-a-flash and Novella-in-a-flash. This is essentially a sequence of flashes up to around 18,000 words.
2. ‘Sudden fiction’ or simply ‘flash fiction’ refers to stories of up to 1000 words or sometimes 1500 words, or two pages of an anthology. The ‘up to’ is important. These are usually loose guidelines.
3. Nanofiction or microfiction refers to stories up to 300 words, but the constraint can be stricter than that. Here are some examples:
Postcard fiction: stories that can be written on the back of a postcard.
Twitterature: microfiction, derived the original Tweet limit of 140 characters.
Not so exacting, some calls for submissions ask for fiction under 50 or under 10 words.
Twitter Flashes
Twitter is alive with flash fiction. I recently tweeted out a call for resources and the flash fiction writers of Twitter didn’t disappoint. Here are some of the responses.
Thank you to Laura Besley (@laurabesley) who suggested the following journals:
Edited highlights of the rest of the responses include: Shorts Podcast (@ShortsthePod), a podcast about the contemporary short story, including flash, @SmokeLong, a journal that has 18 years' worth of archives, and @RetreatWest, which has over 150 flash stories published on their website, plus 9 anthologies of flash and shorts.
Key Elements Of Flash Fiction
How do you go about writing flash fiction? Flash fiction stories usually include certain key elements, which I’ll explain here, but having said that, one of the elements of flash is its ability to surprise, and the continuous development of the form, creating new writing challenges and new ways of thinking about storytelling. Therefore, it is best to check several different sets of submission guidelines before editing and sending out your work.
Story Plot
Here are some general guidelines on how to create flash fiction, part of a range of techniques that go into creating short short stories:
A piece of flash fiction isn’t a scene from a larger piece of fiction, or an extract. It is a stand-alone, and a complete story.
Flash isn’t usually a ‘moment in time’ like a prose poem could be, or a discussion of the narrator’s opinion on something. It has narrative drive.
Most flash fiction stories have a beginning, middle and end. This is possible even with the shortest short stories, like Blake Morrison’s “Womb. Bloom. Groom. Gloom. Rheum. Tomb.”
But the shorter the flash gets, the more likely it is to use Jim Crace’s “See that shadow? (It's not yours.)” technique and to require the reader to create the complete story for themselves, through implication.
Morrison and Crace both provide us with a guide to plotting flash: 1) begin, grow, develop, make things get bad, provide resolution, and 2) make the reader form the story in their own mind.
Few Characters
What do you do about characters? How many should you include?
Read plenty of examples so you can see how other writers do it, but here’s a rough guide:
Keep the number of characters in your flashes to a minimum. Often, you’ll only use one character, or two, as protagonist and antagonist.
As you only have a few words available you can’t dwell on anything very much, and that includes character development.
To create characters, you can use brief but pertinent descriptions (he wore his best suit trousers over his broken leg), unusual connections (petunias always make the best guard dogs), suggestive statements connecting place and character (he worked as a stripper at the fire station) or assumptions (I didn’t fit in and neither did my imaginary friend).
A Hook
It’s important to start strongly when writing flash fiction. You don’t have time for explanations. The aim is to ‘hook’ your reader in, engaging them from the first few words. When Tania Hershman starts a story with ‘My mother was an upright piano’, from a collection of the same name, we’re hooked in by the unusual image, which hints at conflict with the narrator. Create your ‘hook’ from conflict because stories thrive on conflict.
Both ‘in media res’ and ‘mis en scene’ are important when writing flash. ‘In media res’ means starting in the middle of things, whereas ‘mis en scene’ refers to the arrangement of actors and props, scenery etc. to create a ‘stage picture’. With fiction, the stage is the reader’s mind. 1) Plunge right into the action, cutting extraneous introductions, and 2) create a picture in the mind of the reader using as few words as possible. Don’t do one without the other.
Strong Finish
Flash fiction writers often use a twist or (more loosely) an unexpected ending. The unexpected ending is like a punchline, it emphasises the ending. They make the ending live on in the readers’ memory, aiding the sense of the reader creating the story in their own mind. If the ending were subtle, the short short story could easily feel like an extract. Making the ending like a sort of punchline gives the flash a shape. That doesn’t mean to say that all short story stories use twists or the unexpected, but it is a technique you’ll see a lot when you read examples of the form.
Honed Editing
Editing is important with any piece of writing. In fact, I’d go as far as to say redrafting is writing. The first draft provides you with the words you’re going to play with, and in subsequent drafts you form those words into what you want them to be.
Editing takes on an extra function in short fiction writing – I mean specifically anything under 2,500 words – and the shorter the word count, the more this special function applies. Within whatever wordcount constraint you’ve undertaken, you are attempting to hone the writing to create the maximum meaning and story experience for the reader in the fewest words possible. You need to do both of those things for the story to be successful.
When writing flash, you may well write much more than you need in the first draft and then cut by chipping away at extraneous words and story threads until you’ve reached the word count required. It sometimes helps to do this in sections, like this:
Divide the word count into beginning, middle and end. Usually the middle is twice the length of the beginning and end, so in a 1,000 word story, the beginning and end = roughly 250 words and the middle = 500 words.
Write your story without worrying too much about word count.
Now edit each section in turn to get it to the required amount.
When editing, you’ve got to be hyper-aware of every word you choose to use.
Read Plenty Of Flash Fiction
From reading plenty of flash you’ll learn how to create a strong start, launching straight into the action, how other writers create characters economically and how they use as few words as possible. Because the flash fiction community is so vibrant, and there are so many opportunities to share your work, from reading you’ll also learn about being a literary citizen, and how to promote the work of other writers, while putting your own work out there.
Up For A Fun Challenge?
Writing flash fiction is a fun challenge and a great exercise for writers. You also get the chance to become part of the online flash fiction community. Here’s a quick summary of this guide:
Read plenty of flash fiction and become part of the flash fiction community.
Use your first draft to get your ideas down without worrying about word count, then edit.
Create a strong start by launching straight into the action.
Use as few words as possible.
Use ‘in media res’ and ‘mis en scene’: 1) Plunge right in, and 2) create a picture in the reader’s mind.
Use one or two characters and develop them economically.
End with a twist or an unexpected ending.
Use ruthless editing and redrafting to hone your flashes to get them down to the required word count.
Have fun, keep practicing, and in a flash you’ll become a flash fiction aficionado!
Writing flash fiction can be a lot of fun, but it can also be a real challenge.
I’ve been a children’s author for the past fifteen years, and I’ve also been writing flash fiction stories since before I knew the term. In this article I will be exploring the meaning and definition of flash fiction, its characteristics, and sharing my 12 top tips while drawing on my own writing experience.
What Is Flash Fiction?
Flash fiction is also known as Sudden Fiction, Drabble, Nanotale or Microfiction. It refers to very short pieces of prose writing. Usually under 1,500 words, the word limit can vary depending on which publication, website, or competition you are writing for. It was popularized in the nineteenth century by writers like Walt Whitman, Kate Chopin, and Ambrose Bierce, but some of the best flash fiction is still being written (have a Google and see what’s out there).
It is also a genre that lends itself well to competitions (way quicker for judges to read entries than your average writing comp). In a world of thumb scrolling and multimedia distractions, it is also an appealing form for writers and readers, because once you get the hang of it you can write an entire story on just one page.
Flash Fiction Characteristics
The defining characteristic of flash fiction is that it is both short and fictional. So, what is so appealing about having such constraints imposed on your creativity?
One of my publishers once set up a competition called 24/7 which involved several authors writing stories with a maximum of 247 words. After I had submitted mine, the editor commented that he was surprised that all the authors had chosen to make their stories precisely 247 words (and no less). It was not a surprise to me. Often the constraints of a commission like this are part of the appeal. They present a challenge. They are puzzles to be solved, and ones which require intricate and precise solutions.
So let’s take a look at my top tips for tackling the trickiest of short story writing…
How To Write Flash Fiction – 12 Top Tips
A good flash fiction story takes the reader into a world which is already established - where things are happening. But it’s not as simple as merely hitting a small word count. Here are some things to consider when writing flash fiction.
Select Your Genre
Flash fiction can be in any genre, therefore the perfect opportunity to try something new. Whether you usually write romance, thriller, horror or sci fi, consider using your flash fiction to try something new. Unlike novel writing, there’s no need to worry about worldbuilding or backstories – just jump straight in!
Choose An Overarching Theme
One of the things I notice when I write my flash fiction is that the ideas that most attract me are often related to current events: things I’ve heard on the radio or read about online. I take a news story then think about how one moment of that story could affect one or two of the people involved. From these thin slices of life, you can explore broader subjects such as love, death, power or family. Have a go yourself at re-writing a piece of history in just a handful of words.
Use One Or Two Key Characters
With such a limited word count, you might find it helpful to focus on fewer characters. Try making your protagonist complex or flawed or putting them up against their antagonist from the onset. Choosing first person over third person is also worth considering as it throws the reader straight into the action.
Make Every Sentence Count And Don’t Rush
As a writer, I both suffer and benefit from both optimism and selective amnesia. I always think that things won’t take long to write. You need a picture book text about dragons in a week? Sure? You need a short story on the subject of sharks in a few days? No problem.
I never learn.
Just because you have fewer word to manage, that doesn’t mean your piece of flash fiction will take any less time to write. Quite the opposite. In many cases, shorter pieces of writing will take more time than longer ones, as you are forced to peel away the unnecessary words in order to find the core of your narrative.
I often imagine writing as an act of carving. I throw a pile of words at the page then, through editing, chisel away until I find the shape of the story. This is precisely the technique that is required to make a short piece of fiction impactful and worth reading.
Prompt Visualisation
One way to draw readers into your story is to focus on one powerful picture or piece of imagery around which to build the story. For inspiration why not look at pictures in a magazine or newspaper, an old photo album, or a piece of art. Sometimes, something as simple as an image of a half-eaten apple, can inspire you to create a glimpse into a story that will entice your readers. Because that is what flash fiction is, a glimpse – a flash – of a story that could easily belong in a much larger world.
Start In The Middle & Use Descriptive, Concise Language
The reason a lot of flash fiction starts in the middle, is because there’s no time (ie words) to build a rambling intro. It’s the same when writing my children’s books - I don’t have time to spend on floral descriptions, I need to grab my readers from the first line. That’s why the story must start at the most exciting (or most dramatic/upsetting) point, which is often the inciting incident in a longer novel (at about 20%) or the midway point. This is also true of Flash Fiction. Don’t introduce the story - tell it. Your characterisation has to be precise, efficient and entertaining too, without relying on lazy stereotypes. Whether its dialogue or description, every word needs to earn its keep.
Deal With A Single Conflict
Flash fiction is not the same as prose poetry. Something should happen. Something should change. It requires a beginning, middle and end. In other words, your story requires movement. It is unlikely that you will have time for a subplot or backstory, but the longer you spend on your piece of writing, the more you will discover you can wrap things up in surprisingly few words. Most fiction is driven by conflict, but with flash fiction you will most likely need to limit your conflicts to one single struggle or choice that your character encounters.
Use Descriptive, Concise Language
Good writing is all about precision and there’s nothing quite like a strict word count to really sharpen your text. Keep sentences short, and don’t use three words where one will do.
Even if you have no intention of submitting your flash fiction for competition or publication, it is still a useful exercise to try to hone your writing skills. It’s also useful to learn if you write non-fiction or marketing copy - the more you can say, in as fewer words as possible, the more impactful your message.
Create Surprise And Provide A Twist
One subgenre of flash fiction is Twitterature, in which you have to tell a story in the form of a tweet. That’s 280 characters these days but it was even shorter when I wrote this in answer for a call for twitter stories using the hashtag #StoryShop.
“The shop sold plots, themes, characters, dialogue etc, but reaching the section on twists I realised it wasn't what it seemed. #StoryShop”
One of the things I struggle with when I write my own flash fiction is my natural inclination to include a dramatic or amusing twist. This is often seen as a key component for a good short story, and one which can certainly be put to good use in flash fiction, but for many publishers and judges it is not as necessary as you may think.
A good piece of flash fiction often simply illuminates a fleeting moment, causing the reader to pause and reflect on something or see something differently. If you can surprise your reader then you’re onto a good thing, but that surprise doesn’t necessarily need to appear at the end.
Present A Memorable Last Line
I once wrote a joke book, which also included hints and tips on writing jokes. In a sense, joke writing is another form a flash fiction. Comedians will tell you that a good gag relies on a precise choice of words and carefully formulated sentences to ensure that the punchline lands in exactly the right place. Just as flash fiction doesn’t require a twist, neither does it call for a punchline, but you’ll still want to find a final line with a little punch.
Write A Powerful Title
With my own writing, I often start with the title as that can ignite all sorts of ideas for the story. With so few words to play with in flash fiction, your title is a part of the story. Make it catchy, memorable, and in keeping with the theme. You can even be clever with it. Like a piece of art, the title may well provide a different angle in which to view the story.
Get Others To Review And Critique Your Story
Sometimes it’s hard to find beta readers to read your novel, but when writing flash fiction there’s no excuse for your story-loving friends not to take five minutes to look over your story and see if it impacts them the way you intended. Like with all forms of writing, it’s vital to be open to criticism and suggestions – plus you’ll be getting your friends hooked on flash fiction too!
And Finally… Enjoy The Challenge
I read various examples of flash fiction before I sat down to write this article, including several stories penned long before the term was coined. One of the most famous flash fiction stories - and one of the shortest - is this example of the six-word story.
“For sale: baby shoes. Never worn.”
The origin of this story is unclear, but the story of the story (that Ernest Hemmingway wrote it to win a bar bet) is as intoxicating as the alcohol that Hemmingway is said that have earned for writing it. It’s the idea that you don’t need a lot of words to move and inspire your readers. But to do this, you do need to find the heart of the story.
However short your piece of writing, flash fiction can be extremely rewarding. Not just in how it forces you to hack away all unnecessary words, but also because it affords you the opportunity to play with a nugget of an idea and, hopefully, come up with something interesting, fresh and illuminating.
Finding an affordable and engaging fiction competitions to enter is harder than you think- especially if you're a flash fiction writer.
Flash fiction writing contests are gaining popularity as well as notoriety. With many affordable (or even free entry) options out there today, it is no wonder that flash fiction competitions are worth seeking out!
But what exactly is flash fiction, and where can you find some of these fantastic opportunities so that you can submit your work to them? In this article I'll be introducing you to some great competitions, including deadlines and fees.
Let’s get started.
What Is Flash Fiction?
Flash fiction is its own unique form of short story. I’m sure you could have already guessed that it is designed to be brief - typically with word counts ranging from 5 words to rarely more than 1000.
There are many other terms used to refer to flash fiction: micro-story, nanotale, short short… It all depends on who you are talking to or submitting your work to. Short fiction competitions will all have their own specific guidelines to go over as well.
Keep in mind however that flash fiction isn’t simply a truncated short story - it’s a unique story form. Chopping up and editing your existing novella into a flash fiction piece is possible, but not necessarily recommended.
This writing style is unique, to the point, and fun, should you feel comfortable limiting your word count! Verbosity is common for writers, but whittling words down in order to fit a flash fiction brief is a talent all on its own.
So, what are some of these flash fiction competitions like, and what will they require of you before submitting your work? Let’s take a look at some of Jericho’s top recommended fiction contests out there in 2021, including up-to-date and relevant deadlines!
Flash Fiction Competitions
I doubt I’m the first person to tell you, but: there are a wide variety of flash fiction competitions.
Some are regular and routine to a particular magazine or website, some have annual submission opportunities with larger prizes, some are considered prestigious with publications, and there are also one-off contests with interesting themes.
There is a lot of merit to submitting flash fiction for contests and competitions. The most obvious is winning awards and prizes, and therefore becoming an award winning author.
However, there are many other reasons to consider writing and submitting your flash fiction, including gaining exposure, getting published, and receiving critiques or more experience writing in this innovative genre.
Looking for a home for your piece of flash fiction? Look no further! Here are some of the best contests out there, with upcoming deadlines and low-cost or free entry fees so that you don’t miss a beat.
Prime Number Magazine 53-Word Story Contest
First Prize: Publication in Prime Number Magazine + a free book from Press 53
Entry Fee: Free
Deadline: 15th of each month
Prime Number Magazine has a wonderful flash fiction competition posted every month, under a different theme. Each prompt should be inspired by a single word and can only be 53 words long. Should you win, you will receive publication of your short story and bio in Prime Number magazine, as well as a free book. Submission guidelines and prompts can be found on their site- just be sure to submit by the 15th of each month!
Flash 500 Contest
First Prize: £300
Entry Fee: £5
Deadline: Quarterly- 31st March, 30th June, 30th September, 31st December
Looking for a flash fiction contest with some decent monetary reward? Check out the Flash Fiction Competition from Flash 500. There is a small entry fee, and you can even receive critique on your work if you submit a little extra fee. The prize money truly reflects the skill required to encapsulate an entire story in just 500 words- and there’s even money for second and third place too! Check out more about this contest and submit at their website, here.
Tadpole Press 100 Word Writing Contest
First Prize: $1,000
Entry Fee: $10
Deadline: Twice a year- 30th April and 30th November
Now here’s a first prize! Tadpole Press has a flash fiction competition, normally reserved for writers on their own specific retreat. They have decided to open up the competition to everyone, with a $1,000 first prize to boot. Second and third place also get rewards. All it takes is 100 words to potentially win! More information regarding the submission guidelines can be found here.
Oxford Flash Fiction Prize
First Prize: £1,000
Entry Fee: £6 for 1 entry; £10 for 2 entries; £14 for 3 entries
Deadline: 31st January, 31st August
This flash fiction challenge comes from the Oxford Flash Fiction Prize, and has a word count maximum of 1000. It's an international competition, and the first prize is £1,000, second prize is £200, third prize is £100, and the New Voice Prize is £50. Shortlisted entrants will be offered publication in their end of year anthology. You can learn more about the competition here.
WOW! Women On Writing Quarterly Flash Fiction Contest
First Prize: $400
Entry Fee: $10
Deadline: Quarterly- 28th February, 31st May, 31st August, 30th November
WOW! is all about promoting the communication between women writers, and their quarterly flash fiction contest is no exception. With an open prompt and a low entry fee, submitting your flash fiction is easier than ever. Make sure your work is a minimum of 250 words and a maximum of 750 before you submit. More guidelines (including how to get your piece critiqued) can be found here.
The Third Word Press Great Eighty Challenge
First Prize: Publication
Entry Fee: Free
Deadline: Ongoing
With a free entry fee and as many short submissions as you’d like, The Third Word Press has a wonderful flash fiction submission option. Submit a piece of flash fiction of exactly 80 words of your own work- no theme, no genre. You can even take from a larger piece, if you’d like. Submit using this form here, and keep it 80 words or less!
Cranked Anvil Press Flash Fiction Competition
First Prize: £100
Entry Fee: £3 for 1 entry; £5 for 2 entries
Deadline: Quarterly- 28th (or 29th) February, 31st May, 31st August, 30th November
With a monetary reward for both first and second place, this flash fiction contest from Cranked Anvil Press may be worth checking out. You can even submit a second entry with a slightly raised submission fee. The deadline is quarterly, so don’t stress about missing out on this one. And you can read more about their publication here.
Bath Flash Fiction Award
First Prize: £1,000
Entry Fee: £9
Deadline: Tri-Annually
With a goal of bringing flash fiction to a wider audience, Bath hosts two international flash fiction competitions, including a novella option. With three yearly submission opportunities and a low entry fee, this contest is well worth checking out. There’s a large first prize, and decent second and third place rewards. Keep it all under 300 words, and learn more about Bath here.
Reflex Fiction
First Prize: £1,200
Entry Fee: £7
Deadline: Quarterly
One of my favourite flash fiction competitions is this one from Reflex fiction. It has a robust prize system, with monetary rewards for first, second, and third place. Their rules are also simple: entries must be at least 180 words but no more than 360 words. You can submit more than one piece, but you will need to pay the entry fee for each one. Winners (and many of the non-winning, honourable mention entries) are published on the Reflex Fiction website, where you can find more submission requirements here.
Craft Short Fiction Prize
First Prize: $2,000
Entry Fee: $20
Deadline: 30th April
This flash fiction contest from Craft is well-worth considering. Your piece will be published on their website, and you will even receive a free four-issue subscription from Journal of the Month. While $20 isn’t the cheapest submission fee out there, you can submit multiple 1,000-5,000 word pieces. Learn more about this competition here.
Conclusion
While this is a comprehensive guide to flash fiction competitions, there are still many more opportunities to consider. I encourage you to research contests that interest you, and submit before deadlines loom!
Have you found many flash fiction opportunities that spark your creativity? Let us know!
In this article, I'll share 10 simple steps and practical pointers to help you write shorter fiction, including how to start off and how to end a short story.
For about 30 years, I slogged away trying to write a novel. But I just never had the plotting smarts or the emotional stamina, and I became like a madman running again and again at a brick wall, doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.
Then, one day, and only a couple of decades overdue, I had a rather marvellous thought. You’re used to writing short things – articles, web pages and the like. You’re a sprinter, not a marathon runner. Why don’t you have a go at short fiction?
As a journalist and content writer in my day job, I like a deadline. Deadlines concentrate the mind, deadlines force you to finish things. So I googled ‘short story competitions’ and found that, surprise surprise, there were actually quite a few out there, and all with a deadline.
One of my very first attempts won a modest prize (£40, I think) in a competition run by a small press. This was encouraging. I didn’t get anywhere with a story for over a year after that, but that small crumb of validation was enough to tide me over. I started writing more and more stories, and I’ve never really stopped since. I must have written over 100 by now. In 2019, a couple were nominated for the Pushcart Prize anthology in the US. And best of all, in 2020 I published my debut collection of short stories,Hotel du Jack.
I love writing short fiction, and I always have several stories on the go. But I’m still interested in getting novels published too, and my first,Work in Progress, a co-authored farcical novel-in-emails about an eccentric writers group, comes out from Unbound in 2021. I’m also putting the finishing touches to another full-length MS, working title The Wolf in the Woods.
You may have noticed that I went from failing to finish novels to writing short stories… to finishing novels. And that, I believe, is no accident. Starting on short stories is a great way to build up your writing muscles. You get the satisfaction of structuring, shaping and, above all, completing things. At first, you may find you can’t write anything over 200 or 500 words. But after a while, you suddenly realise that your stories are getting longer and more complex, as you start to experiment with ideas and forms and voices.
A short story is often not so different in length and shape from a scene in a novel, or even several scenes strung together. And one day when pondering what to write a short story about, you may find you have a different, chunkier sort of idea, one that requires more than a few thousand words to really do it justice. And maybe that day is the day you start on a novel – which you’ll now have a much better chance of finishing, with all the craft and experience that you’ve developed by completing a slew of shorter pieces.
So: in a matter of months, I went from being able to finish nothing fictional to writing scores of stories and regularly getting them featured in competitions and magazines. If you’re looking to get your short-story writing off the ground, I hope these tips and ideas of mine will help you too…
How To Write A Short Story In 10 Easy Steps
Read widely
Get a great idea
Experiment with techniques
Take inspiration from everyday life
Start writing
Add more levels to your writing
Edit, rework, revise, repeat
Focus on your beginning…
…and your ending
Recruit beta readers
Short Story: What Is It And Why Is It Special?
I’ve always loved short stories. I remember my dad reading me the stories of O’Henry when I was little, studying Maupassant’s contes of the Franco-Prussian war for A level, discovering the (now deeply unfashionable) tales of Updike, marvelling at ‘The Language of Men’ by Norman Mailer and Katherine Mansfield’s ‘The Garden Party.’ ‘Cat Woman,’ Chekhov, the ‘murdered lady’ series of Cathy Ulrich (now collected as Ghosts of You), Aimee Bender, Salinger, Nadine Gordimer, Denis Jonson, Zadie Smith, David Vann… Oh, I could go on.
Sometimes I think short fiction is closer to poetry than it is to the novel. The best short stories are little universes of compressed perfection, where every paragraph, every word, every punctuation mark has to earn its place. Short stories can be intricately plotted or they can relate little more than the movements of a mind in conversation with itself on a small domestic topic. They can be all showing or – whisper it – all telling. They can range over years or take place in a lunchtime, relating the end of a friendship or the decline of a civilisation (though the former, if we are honest, is more common). They seem, for some reason, to talk a great deal about death.
Short stories can take one tool from the fictional toolkit – voice, character, dialogue, structure, point of view, idea – and major on that, almost to the exclusion of all others. They can talk of boring or obvious topics in fresh ways, or they can deliver great weirdnesses and wild thought experiments. In short, they can do whatever they like. They just have to be true to themselves, and make us believe in them, and not go on for too long.
For length, mind, we will need our piece of string. Short stories can be 30 pages long, or they can just be a few paragraphs. If we include flash fiction here – and why wouldn’t we, though it’s almost a whole separate article – we are looking at stories that can be as short as 100 words (technically known as drabbles).
There are those who look down on flash fiction, but this I’m afraid is mere ignorance (I can say this with confidence, as I languished in this sort of ignorance myself till not so long ago). Not convinced? Try reading this or this or this or this or some of these. Flash is a distinctive sub-genre of short fiction. It is much harder than it looks, very much not just the offcuts of longer stuff, and the best exponents are very fine writers indeed.
How Do You Structure A Short Story?
There are many ways to structure a short story. You could have a beginning, a middle and an end. You could have a mini-version of the classic novel structure or one of the seven basic plots. You could have a classic sting in the tale – think of the stories of Roald Dahl or O’Henry or Saki. Or the best way to start a short story might be to just start writing – and see what shape starts to emerge. Often voice or idea is far more important than structure in a short story, and you can often retro-fix the shape once you’ve nailed those essential components first. Because short stories are, well, short, you can sometimes even plan and draft them at the same time.
Some stories read almost like anecdotes or well-crafted jokes; others appear to have no obvious plot in a novelistic sense, but are more like tableaux vivants which, like an interesting painting, reveal more meaning and information with every look. In some, like Hemingway’s ‘Hills Like White Elephants,’ nothing really appears to happen; there is talk of ‘an operation’ in a tense conversation between a couple, but the reader has to look between the lines to intuit what’s happening. All this, again, points to the wonderful fluidity and flexibility of the form.
One classic way to tell a story is what I call the Pivot structure, where you set one non-human element against another, usually human, event or relationship. Over the course of the story, the non-human element starts to tick away like a metaphor engine for the human element of the story, resonating with different meanings as the narrative develops.
For example, I’ve just read ‘Little Tiger’ by JR McMenemie, a beautiful story told from the point of view of two children who have just lost their gran. Their Mum is upset at having lost her Mum, and Dad is trying to comfort her. The kids have never been to a funeral before, and returning to their house in the aftermath is clearly a very unsettling experience for all. Mum engages in some aggressive tidying up, while Dad – who is struggling to juggle the competing claims of his children and his wife – starts laying a little heavily into the booze.
Then, all of a sudden, the kids find a butterfly, sitting on top of a picture of a beach where they all spent many holidays with gran. This is odd, as in the story it’s February, in northern England. The children feed the butterfly some banana, and are keen to make a pet of it. All of a sudden, Mum announces that the butterfly is her Mum, come back to say goodbye. In the morning, however, the kids wake to discover that the butterfly is gone; Dad explains that they couldn’t really keep it. Do you really think the butterfly was Nan? they ask. The story ends with Dad’s reply:
‘I don’t know, son. It could have been. Your mum says some funny things sometimes. All I’m saying is that your grandma didn’t like bananas.’
This crude, simplified summary doesn’t begin to do justice to the patient, emotionally intelligent storytelling of the piece, but you can see that the butterfly acts as a pivot on which the whole story can keep turning. It is, by turns, a distraction, a projection of grief, potential proof of an afterlife, an emblem of marital devotion and, in its release, a key to the processing of loss and the attainment of a certain understated resilience. Do we live on after we die? Dad is doubtful, but he loves his wife and sees no value in challenging her theory. And she, in her turn, aching with love for her absent mum, can be forgiven a little magical thinking. If, indeed, it is magical: who, after all, can be certain that she is wrong?
10 Steps To Writing A Short Story, With Examples
1. Forage The World For Story Starters
One of the attractive things about writing short stories, as opposed to longer stuff, is that you don’t need to work out a fully-fleshed outline, snowflake-style or otherwise, in order to get started. Nor do you need oodles of background words about characters, stakes, setting, timeframe and so on. You just need an idea.
And that idea doesn’t even need to be an idea in the grand sense either; it can just be a prompt. It might just be a chance remark you overheard on a bus, a funny ornament in a front garden you pass every day, an odd-looking chap you spot on a holiday beach, a sudden childhood memory. It might be a smell or a view or a colour; it might be a thought triggered by a film or a radio programme or a children’s book. Of course, it might also be a break-up you’ve never got over, a terrible act of cruelty you once witnessed, or a historical event that has always had a special resonance for you.
When you start, you won’t necessarily know what’s a story-worthy idea and what isn’t. So the first thing to do is to cultivate the habit of looking and listening, both to the outside world and to the things that bubble up in your mind. Now this might sound easy, but often it defeats people because they can’t believe it will ever get them to a finished story. We sometimes envision creativity as this wonderfully crazed, instinctive outpouring, whereas this note-taking business feels like something rather dull and premeditated.
But your notebook, whatever form it takes, is where all the raw data of your stories will start to emerge. No data: no stories. So you have to get into the habit of jotting things down, and trusting that this is a worthwhile thing to do, and just repeatedly doing it even if you don’t really believe that yet, even when your first efforts are just dreadful callow things like So here I am writing in this book or Milk, wipes, olive oil. Post office! As with a half-used tube of toothpaste, you sometimes have to squeeze the crud out to get to the good stuff.
For inspiration, try Morning Pages – as popularised by Natalie Goldberg, Julia Cameron and others. Basically, you sit down at the start of your writing session – it doesn’t even have to be morning! – and you just write down whatever comes into your head for 10 minutes. Don’t censor what pops up – just record your thoughts.
You might be amazed what occurs – shopping lists, dreams, the fag-end of a row with your partner, a glimpse of a first crush, childhood memories, strange bits of wordplay, spiritual reflections, a person in your life you haven’t thought about for ages… It’s all good, and it could all get used somewhere in your fiction. Just as the stand-up sees the world as a bunch of set-ups waiting for a punchline, so the short-fiction writer sees the world as a bunch of prompts waiting for a good story.
2. Go With The Idea That Tingles
My Dad always said that he could tell a really good piece of cheese because it gave him a funny tingly feeling behind the ears. I spent much of my childhood trying (and failing) to experience this elusive dairy-led sensation. But I do at least get the tingle when it comes to stories.
Over time, you’ll start to look at the bits of mental flotsam in your notebook, and you may find there’s a phrase or an anecdote or an image that you keep coming back to. When that happens, you may well have the first tinglings of a story on your hands.
From time to time I go back through my notebooks and highlight bits of scribble that I think I might be able to use. Sometimes it’s a setting. My story ‘The Beach Shop’ in Hotel du Jack, for example, about a heartbroken man stalking his ex-wife on her holiday, was inspired by my early-morning stops at a cafe on a French campsite. I loved the locale, and just started writing about it till a story came.
Sometimes – often in my case – it’s a bit of anecdotal autobiography. My story ‘Plane-spotting‘ was inspired by reading a story to my young son about an airport where all the planes are animals. I thought it would be funny if the Dad was a real aviation nerd, increasingly infuriated by the inaccuracy of the drawings, and it just went from there. With the flash ‘Eau de l’avenir,’ the inspiration was a smell – or rather, a scent.
To give one more example of how ideas turn into stories, George Saunders says his flash fiction ‘Sticks’ came from something he saw from his car every day. ‘For two years I’d been driving past a house like the one in the story, imagining the owner as a man more joyful and self-possessed and less self-conscious than myself. Then one day I got sick of him and invented his opposite, and there was the story.’
When you note down stuff, you don’t know if you’ll ever use it, or if you’ll end up using it several times. You may use it in a way that’s a complete betrayal of the original memory. You may dredge it up again, years later, and forget you ever jotted it down in the first place. It doesn’t matter: you’ve got it down now, and it’s adding to your imaginative store. It’s all good.
3. Try A Thought Experiment
Another way to approach a story is to ask yourself: What if…? What if supermarket shelf-fillers and nurses were the most celebrated and best-paid members of society, and celebrities and lawyers were considered the lowest of the low? What if an epidemic of kindness broke out in the world – Agapia-117, let’s call it – and threatened the stranglehold of capitalism, with its built-in systemic reliance on rabid self-interest? (Just riffing here, obvs.)
These kinds of story offer you a rich counterfactual challenge. Depending on the challenge, you might offer the reader the pleasure of watching an unexpected idea play out, or you might challenge yourself to pull off a narrative feat that the reader doesn’t know about until the end: What if (to cite a notorious example) you could tell me a whole story that turns out in the end to have been narrated by a cat? What if you wrote an alien contact story, only for us to realise at the end that the narrator lives on another planet, and the ‘aliens’ are actually humans from earth?
The idea for my story, ‘Nothing So Blue,’ came to me when I asked my son for ideas of what I could write about. ‘Write about becoming invisible,’ he said. Now sci-fi isn’t really my thing, but then I thought: ‘What if you were granted a superpower, and it turned out to be a bit rubbish?’ Now that, I thought, was very much more my thing.
‘My lover is experiencing reverse evolution. I tell no one. I don’t know how it happened, only that one day he was my lover and the next he was some kind of ape. It’s been a month, and now he’s a sea turtle.’
4. Borrow A Form From Everyday Life
Structure doesn’t come naturally to us all (guilty), but an easy way to get round that is to give yourself a nice constrained timeframe, such as the hours of a day or the seven days of a week. I use this structure in a few of my stories, notably the title track of Hotel du Jack, because it offers a natural scale of narrative progression. On Monday, we meet the cast of the story and get a sense of what’s at stake. On Tuesday the first signs of conflict emerge. Wednesday sees problems escalate, Thursday brings a false dawn, and on Friday things really kick off. Saturday is the day the crisis resolves and the loose ends are tied up, and Sunday has that nice sort of epilogue feel to it. It is the day, as Craig David tells it, on which one chills; the day one rests after creating a world.
You might choose a lunch-hour, or a night, as Helen Simpson does with her insomniac narrator in ‘Erewhon’ (collected in Constitutional), a man in a roles-reversed world who stays up worrying about kids and money and sexism while his high-powered wife lies snoring indifferently next to him. It could be a date or a work meeting or a conversation between dads at the side of a junior football match, where the competitive nature of the chat echoes the changing fortunes of their kids’ respective teams and the climax of the story coincides with the final whistle.
Taking this idea a step further, hermit-crab fictions – also known as borrowed forms – are stories that are made out of everyday verbal templates. The more banal the form, the better – think product reviews, missing-person reports, recipes, maths problems, listicles, top tips, user instructions…
The trick is to try to stick quite closely to the structure you’re stealing, so that the story you tell will seem even wilder or more heartbreaking by contrast with its dull container. As you go through your day, you’ll come across thousands of these dead bits of copy – from insurance letters to FAQs to parish newsletters. Choose one, and make it your own.
I’ve written hermit-crab stories in the form of a shopping list, board game rules, FAQs and even a penalty charge notice. In Hotel du Jack, you’ll also find a ghost story told as a neighbourhood forum thread, a reflection on #metoo in the form of board meeting minutes, a meditation on grief in the form of a dishwasher glossary, and a product recall notification. Another story, ‘Active and passive voice’, dissects a flawed relationship through the structure of a grammar lesson. Meanwhile ‘My Mummy is…‘ was written – out of a sense of profound inadequacy – just after I’d read a book with my 5-year-old son at school entitled My Daddy is a Firefighter.
If you’d like to read more hermit-crab narratives, here’s a couple of great anthologies to inspire you: Fakesby David Shields and Matthew Vollmer, and The Shell Game, edited by Kim Adrian.
5. Start Writing
If you’ve got a prompt that feels rich and interesting – whether it’s a vague memory or a thought experiment or a borrowed form – the next thing to do is not worry about how to write a good beginning of a story, and just get something down.
My process at this point is crude: just bang a first draft out. If you have an idea that feels like a start, get it down and start playing around with what happens next. If you have an idea that feels like an ending, get it down and think about how your story might get you there. But do the thinking by actual writing. This is not a drill! And this is not a novel. Just write.
As you go along, the idea will start to build and coalesce, especially as, remember, you chose something that’s already glowing and tingling for you. As the juices start flowing, you will start to see possibilities open out for you – structural bridges, snippets of dialogue, observations that you sense suddenly belong somewhere within the fabric of your story’s world. You can start to put in little headers too, little pegs to mark out future sections. Jot all these extra thoughts at the bottom of your doc, keep typing, and fold them in as you go.
Sometimes, as the story starts to flow, you may get stuck on one bit but can start to see how a later section would work. Go with the flow, and start filling in that later section instead – just leave yourself some meta-notes for the bits you need to come back to later e.g. insert scene where elephant appears for first time or add in funeral-home bit here to explain why Moira’s always hated lilies.
The same process also works at a micro-level, too. Often your ideas for the story run ahead of how quickly you can phrase things. Thinking about the broad contours of your story and fine-tuning phraseology are different creative tasks, and it’s not always easy or efficient to flit between the two. Don’t waste time waiting for the mot juste to arrive – just put in a bit placeholder copy or add some “xxxxxxxxxxxs,” and move on. Just get the broad brushstrokes down, and then you can go back and finesse the detail later.
I guess the approach I’m advocating here is a bit like ‘writing by the lights,’ a phrase that inevitably takes us back to a line from EL Doctorow: ‘Writing is like driving at night in the fog. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.’ Sometimes the idea you have is a perfect little synopsis, and all (!) you have to do now to flesh it out in a way that does justice to the conception. Sometimes you just have an opening scene, or an image, or a character to work with, and you have to build the rest of the world around them. But the remedy is the same in every case: get that first draft down.
The more stories you write, the more you get a sense of the optimum length for a particular piece. Some short stories are almost like extended gags; they go out and back in a simple anecdotal arc that culminates in a snappy zinger. Others require patience and stamina to deliver their potential. Their form might be much more complex: a spiral, a mosaic, a musical symphony of contrasting and resolving themes. But the best way to build up to writing complex stories is to start by completing simpler ones. And the best way to complete a story is get a first draft down fast. Then the real work can begin.
6. Work In Another Level
A satisfying story can usually be read on more than one level. There is the surface level, and then there is a sense of an underlying meaning. If your story is to feel like more than a mere skit or vignette, we want to have a sense that there is another perspective, a subtext, a theme that’s whirring away in the background as we read.
I’m not suggesting that you start with a grand theme and try and mould a story to it; that will usually lead you somewhere strained and leaden. I just mean that when you write your story, you want to have an eye on how others will find it interesting or meaningful. You don’t have to have a pat answer to this question, quite the opposite in fact. Where novels often build up to an accumulated truth, the best stories often have an inconclusive, open-ended quality.
Often in life, when you think about it, we are working through familiar challenges and conflicts in a variety of different guises and permutations: freedom versus commitment, future hopes versus mortality, child versus parent, addiction versus abstention, ego versus altruism – the list is endless. What short stories often do is replay one of these central conflicts for us in a way that is both very specific – involving particular individuals in detailed interactions – but also has a timeless, universalising feel to it. Life is ambiguity, and things rarely get resolved. So, as your story takes shape, ask yourself: which pattern am I enacting here?
This might sound a bit complex, but really it’s very simple, because every story we tell inevitably has the potential to speak beyond its own obvious remit; the trick is just to polish your words in the light of their wider applicability. As you start to get your story down, have an eye on the meanings and themes that emerge with it, and shape your material accordingly. You don’t have to be able to say what the story is really about; you just need to leave enough space and enough interesting glimmers for the reader to want to fill in the blanks.
Take, for example, Conrad’s ‘The Secret Sharer.‘ This rich and subtle tale is full of nautical detail and has the feel of being based on a true incident, lightly fictionalised. But Conrad is careful throughout to dial up the elements we can all relate to: the fear of not being good enough, the loneliness of command, the terror of being brave, and so on.
Katherine Mansfield’s ‘The Fly’ – as well as being a pair of beautifully observed little scenes – speaks to us about bereavement, and the agony of a loss which can no longer even find expression. And in retrospect, we see that JD Salinger’s ‘A Perfect Day for Bananafish’ – for all its enjoyable elements of comedy and social satire – speaks also to the corrosive effects of trauma and the inadequacy of our responses to it.
7. Edit. Revise. Rework. Repeat.
Writing, as so many have said, is re-writing. Now that you have a rough draft down, the real work can begin, as you hone and polish and finesse your story into the best story it can be, and remove in the process all avoidable friction from the reading process. A few pointers:
Look hard at the movement and logic of the story. Read the story out loud to yourself, and see if it makes good narrative sense. Is the middle soggy? Are there any tedious info dumps? Is there too much telling at the expense of showing? Is there a good balance between different sections and viewpoints (if you have more than one)? Is the story long enough, or do you rush to the conclusion and throw the ending away?
Look out for redundancies. Strip away phrases, sentences and even sections that don’t add anything to the mood or voice or development of the story. Murder your darlings – all those bits (phrases, plot points, devices etc) that you’re really fond of but don’t really fit into the texture of the story you have developed.
Add in clarifications and bridges. Editing isn’t just taking things away. Sometimes it’s about adding things too. If a transition between two sections isn’t clear, or your intro throws up a commonsensical question that you don’t ever answer, the reader will be too busy scratching their head to fully appreciate your story. Sometimes just a clarifying phrase here or a subtle time or place reference there can be all it takes.
Look for words and phrases that you know you over-use. I’m a sucker for ‘suddenly,’ ‘seemed,’ ‘now’ and ‘screenwash’. I have certain pet thoughts and jokes that, if left to my own devices, I will happily try and shoehorn into everything I write. Watch out for ‘had’ too – if half your story is in the form of a past-perfect flashback, that’s probably going to be a problem. See more tips on self-editing here.
8. Look Extra Hard at Your Start…
The start of your story needs to work hard to lure us into the world of your narrative. It must intrigue us from the off. We want to feel instantly that we are in an interesting place, where interesting things may happen, and that we can trust and enjoy the person who is telling us about them. Ambiguity, cliche, long-windedness, unnecessary cleverness – these can all spell death to a good intro.
You might start with an intriguing hook (‘In the beginning, Sanford Carter was ashamed of becoming an Army cook’ – ‘The Language of Men’, by Norman Mailer.) You might set the scene with a sweep of historical backdrop (‘Paris was blockaded, starved, in its death agony’ – ‘Deux Amis’, by Maupassant.)
Or you might start by setting the rules of the world, as in ‘By the Waters of Babylon’ by Stephen Vincent Benét, in a way that has the reader wondering from the very start what will happen if one is broken:
‘The north and the west and the south are good hunting ground, but it is forbidden to go east. It is forbidden to go to any of the Dead Places except to search for metal and then he who touches the metal must be a priest or the son of a priest.’
Naturally I am instantly curious about what happens if I head east. And the Dead Places? These are things I need to know about.
You need to bring your story to a conclusion in a satisfying way that is of a piece with the style and mood of the narrative that you have created. If you have written a taut, sting-in-the-tale mystery, the ending should close things off with a satisfying snap that tells us the case is closed and justice – consistent in some way or other with the internal logic of your piece – has been served.
A story that is more reflective and interior in tone, on the other hand, will ideally finish with a line that adds a new perspective or dimension to our understanding of the whole, and keeps rippling and resonating in the reader’s mind long after they have finished reading.
The ending can be a shock to the system that makes sense of everything that’s gone before; ‘A Perfect Day for Bananafish’ is an obvious and powerful example of this. Or it can zoom away from the action, just as a camera takes leave of its subject. Or it can inject a twist that calls into doubt everything you’ve read so far. It can sometimes be read two different ways, leaving the reader to work out their own ending.
And it can of course just show that the world keeps on turning. My ‘Ella G in a Country Churchyard’, for example, brings a story of an uncomfortable parent-child conversation about mortality to a close with the Dad asking: ‘Ready for some sausages?’ This could be seen as an evasion, but then again there are no adequate answers to the girl’s impossible questions about what happens when we die. Life goes on, and it is almost teatime.
10. Get Another View
Don’t send out the story to any magazine or competition until someone else has read it and fed back to you. And not just anyone, but someone whose judgement you respect, and who can give a candid take on what’s working and what isn’t.
You may have a trusted beta reader – perhaps your partner, or a relative or friend – who always reads your stuff, or you may get feedback from a Facebook group. And of course there’s the Townhouse. These are great resources, but in my experience nothing beats being part of a real-life writers’ group.
In a writers’ group, you’ll have the experience of reading your words to others – itself often very instructive, as you can often sense where the story is working and where it’s dragging just from the quality of attention in the room. And you’ll get constructive, practical feedback from people who are dealing with the same challenges, albeit from different perspectives and genres. Short stories lend themselves particularly well to group critique, because they are often just the right length to read in full.
No doubt there will be feedback – from yourself as well as from others – and you will need to decide which bits you want to act on and which, not: learning the difference is a lifetime’s work. Inevitably you will find yourself returning to step 7, and perhaps steps 8 and 9 too, but that’s no bad thing. Writing is re-writing, remember.
How Do You Write A Short Story in One Day? Can you Write A Short Story in One Day?
Yes! It’s perfectly possible to write a story in a day, or less. Sometimes, when you get a great idea, the piece – especially it’s a flash or shorter fiction – may emerge fully formed.
That’s not to say you’ve only been working on it that day – in my case, a story might get drafted in a couple of hours that I’ve been turning over in the back of my mind for a couple of years.
And that’s not to say it’ll be the final version either. While you might be able to complete the draft in a day, it’s always wise to sleep on it and come back to it next day, to review and revise, and to get some other people’s feedback too.
Publishing Your Short Story
So, you’ve written your short story, but what next?
There are loads of litmags and competitions out there. Many of the editors and organisers are aspiring writers themselves, and can be wonderfully supportive with feedback even when they’re not able to accept your story. You can find useful lists here, here and here.
Sometimes there’s a prompt or a theme, which can be a great help when you’re stuck for an idea. With magazines, take some time to read a few stories and get a feel for what they like, and whether you’d be a good fit. Simultaneous submissions are generally acceptable, especially as it can take months to get a response (just make sure you let them know if you get accepted elsewhere). Before you enter, always read the requirements carefully, and get the formatting and labelling right.
Have lots of stories on the go, so you move on when you get stuck. ‘At any given moment, I have a half-dozen story ideas shelved in my mind,’ says Benjamin Percy, author of the collections The Language of Elk and Refresh, Refresh. ‘I always choose to write the one that glows brightest.’
Above all, don’t be afraid to keep submitting. For most of us, rejection is the norm and an acceptance is the exception. The more you submit, the luckier you’ll get, and the less those rejections will sting.
In a short story, where a whole world or emotional journey can be summoned up and dramatised in the space of a few pages, every line and word has to count – and that’s especially true of the way you begin. Here, for inspiration, are a range of starting strategies from some great exponents of the form…
1. The Telling Detail
“One Dollar And Eighty-seven Cents. That was all. And sixty cents of it was in pennies. Pennies saved one and two at a time by bulldozing the grocer and the vegetable man and the butcher until one’s cheek burned with the silent imputation of parsimony that such close dealing implied. Three times Della counted it. One dollar and eighty-seven cents. And the next day would be Christmas.”
Sometimes known as the American Maupassant, O Henry’s stories are tightly plotted narratives of ordinary lives with lots of humour that usually end with a classic sting in the tale that, while surprising, flows with unerring logic from the story’s premise.
In this classic tale, we know the whole set-up within a few lines. It is Christmas and Della has no money to buy a present for her beloved husband James. In their whole house they possess only two things that they really value: his gold watch and her golden hair. In a formula that has been much copied since, we watch Della sell her golden locks to raise money to buy a fancy fob for James’s watch, while unbeknownst to her he has pawned his watch to buy her a set of ivory combs that she has long coveted for her (now departed) hair!
It is a tale that sounds tragic, but is actually heartening, because in the end the couple are confirmed in their real gift: the love they bear each other. (Plus, of course, Della’s hair will grow back!) But it all stems from a single telling detail: that opening cinematic detail of a tiny sum of money, piled up in pennies and scrimped from tense negotiations with tradespeople, that is all Della thinks she has to show James how much she loves him.
2. The Paradox
“In the beginning, Sanford Carter was ashamed of becoming an Army cook. This was not from snobbery, at least not from snobbery of the most direct sort. During the two and a half years Carter had been in the Army he had come to hate cooks more and more. They existed for him as a symbol of all that was corrupt, overbearing, stupid, and privileged in Army life…”
Published in 1953, ‘The Language of Men’ tells the story of an over-sensitive, frustrated serviceman who, after years of being passed up for promotion and never finding his niche in the army, ends up as a cook – the thing he hates most about the army. Immediately we are curious: What will happen to a man who becomes the thing he most despises?
Carter feels that he never manages to understand other men, to feel either equal to them or able to lead them. ‘Whenever responsibility had been handed to him, he had discharged it miserably, tensely, over conscientiously. He had always asked too many questions, he had worried the task too severely, he had conveyed his nervousness to the men he was supposed to lead.’
Even after starting to enjoy his work as a cook, the story builds to an incident where the men come to him and ask for a tin of oil for a fish fry-up they are organising – a party to which he is not invited. Carter stands his ground, and earns some grudging respect, but then undercuts it all again after the event with his ‘unmanliness’ – the true source of his self-disgust.
The whole drama of a man failing to fit in with and gain respect among other men is foreshadowed in the paradox that’s set in motion in the story’s opening lines.
3. The Historical Backdrop
“Paris was blockaded, starved, in its death agony. Sparrows were becoming scarcer and scarcer on the rooftops and the sewers were being depopulated. One ate whatever one could get.
As he was strolling sadly along the outer boulevard one bright January morning, his hands in his trousers pockets and his stomach empty, M. Morissot, watchmaker by trade but local militiaman for the time being, stopped short before a fellow militiaman whom he recognized as a friend. It was M Sauvage, a riverside acquaintance.”
A protege of Flaubert and the author of the novel Bel-Ami, Maupassant wrote over 300 short stories, many of them – like this one – set during the Franco-Prussian war, and showing how innocent lives are swept up and crushed by futile, brutal conflict.
This story starts with a brief paragraph of context and another telling detail: the absence of sparrows. At this point in the conflict, the Prussian army has established a blockade around Paris and is seeking to starve out its citizens.
The two friends of the title were passionate fishermen in peacetime, and after a chance encounter they convince each other to go off and fish once again. As well as the hunger they feel, they are motivated by a hankering for a return to the innocent pleasures of their pre-war lives.
They slip out past the French lines, to an area where they think they will be safe, but after a brief interval of bliss the Prussians detect them, with tragic consequences…
The opening line describes the war situation in vivid, journalistic terms, after which we are plunged into the tale of these two innocents. In a few telling phrases, it provides context and general background for the very particular tragedy which is about to ensue.
4. The Anecdotal Approach
“Margot met Robert on a Wednesday night toward the end of her fall semester. She was working behind the concession stand at the artsy movie theatre downtown when he came in and bought a large popcorn and a box of Red Vines.
“That’s an… unusual choice,” she said. “I don’t think I’ve ever actually sold a box of Red Vines before.”
‘Cat Person,’ reportedly the first short story ever to go viral, tells a simple tale of a doomed romantic encounter. Margot, a student, meets an older guy, Robert, and they begin a flirtation that turns into a date that turns into a rather unsatisfactory (for her) sexual encounter.
Robert starts off as rather funny and charming, but over time we see that he is needy, insensitive, possessive, and utterly unaware of what Margot is thinking or feeling. Margot regrets the whole thing but doesn’t know how to tell him; Robert, when he is let down, turns all-too-predictably toxic. In short order he goes from mooning after her to demanding who she’s slept with to calling her a ‘whore.’
This sequence of events struck a chord with many, many people because it is clearly so familiar. The story emphasises the banality of the whole progression by narrating events in a straightforwardly chronological, anecdotal style, right from the opening paragraph. This approach serves to underline the depressing banality of Robert’s misogyny while implicitly asking the question: Why should women have to accept this as normal?
5. In Media Res
“And after all the weather was ideal. They could not have had a more perfect day for a party if they had ordered it. Windless, warm, the sky without a cloud. Only the blue was veiled with a haze of light gold, as it is sometimes in early summer. The gardener had been up since dawn, mowing the lawns and sweeping them, until the grass and the dark flat rosettes where the daisy plants had been seemed to shine. As for the roses, you could not help feeling they understood that roses are the only flowers that -parties; the only flowers that everybody is certain of knowing. Hundreds, yes, literally hundreds, had come out in a single night; the green bushes bowed down as though they had been visited by archangels.”
Literally ‘in the middle of things’, an in media resbeginning is where the story drops us into the middle of the action of the narrative, so that we are instantly caught up in events. In this case, we are plunged into the excited bustle of a well-to-do family preparing a sumptuous garden party, and the story does a fantastic job of building up the anticipation and painting a picture of the affluence of the hosts. There is a marquee to put up, a band on its way, an enormous delivery of fancy flowers, fifteen kinds of sandwich, and a retinue of servants to ensure everything is ready.
Beginning with ‘and’ adds to this effect, giving us to understand that garden-party fever has been going on already for days, and seeming to hark back to earlier worries about what the weather would be like on the day. But against all this blithely affluent gaiety comes the story’s turning point: news that a poor workingman living in a cottage nearby has died in a sudden accident.
Laura, a daughter of the house, wonders if it appropriate to continue with the party, especially as all the noise and music and bustle will carry to the grieving widow (who also has six children, we later discover). But just as happens to the reader with the introduction, she is swept along by the occasion, and only really reconsiders the incident at the end of a successful party, when her mother suggest she take a basket of sandwiches from the party down to the widow. Laura’s reaction to this difficult task is initially ambiguous, but ultimately it seems as if again she finds a way to paint the tragedy in complacently optimistic colours, choosing to find a serenity and beauty on the dead man’s face and so blind herself to the grim reality of the tragedy and the agony of the grieving wife.
6. The Refrain
“The thing about being the murdered extra is you set the plot in motion.
You were a girl good at walking past cameras, background girl, corner-of-the-frame girl. Never-held-a-script girl, went-where-the-director-said girl.
You’ll be found in an alley, it’s always an alley for girls like you, didn’t-quite-make-it girls, living-four-to-a-one-bedroom-apartment girls. You’ll be found in an alley, you’ll be mistaken for a broken mannequin at first, you’ll be given a nickname. Blue Violet, White Rose, something reminiscent of Elizabeth Short, that first girl like you, that most famous one. The kind of dead girl who never really dies.”
Cathy Ulrich’s extraordinary ‘Murdered Ladies’ flash fictions present a series of stories – there are 40 of them in her collection, Ghosts of You – which always begin with the same line: The thing about being the murdered extra/girlfriend/moll/classmate/witch/dancer [etc] is you set the plot in motion.
It’s a thought-provoking line, which grows in power with every repetition. On the face of it seems strange to see these women as setting the plot in motion, when they are all victims of male violence. But we start to see that what they set in motion is actually the story that the people who survive them will appropriate from their lost lives, and blithely relate in their absence.
Each woman may set her plot in motion, but in each case she is not alive to explain how everyone gets her wrong, or projects their own version of events to absolve themselves too easily. We see that this theft of each woman’s own story is another violence that is done to them, something the stories seek in some small way to redeem. As Ulrich says: ‘Every story is looking for the lost girl from the title […] I am looking for the lost in these stories. I don’t know if I will ever find them.’
7. Setting The Rules
“The north and the west and the south are good hunting ground, but it is forbidden to go east. It is forbidden to go to any of the Dead Places except to search for metal and then he who touches the metal must be a priest or the son of a priest. Afterwards, both the man and the metal must be purified. These are the rules and the laws; they are well made. It is forbidden to cross the great river and look upon the place that was the Place of the Gods—this is most strictly forbidden. We do not even say its name though we know its name. It is there that spirits live, and demons—it is there that there are the ashes of the Great Burning. These things are forbidden—they have been forbidden since the beginning of time.”
In any story that seeks to build a world that is not ours, there is some work to be done in establishing the reality of that world – its customs, its landscape, its people, its rules. World-building stories can sometimes fall down when they indulge in too much of an expository info dump, as the accumulation of background detail can quickly dent narrative momentum.
What’s so clever about the start of this story is that the rules are themselves the engine of the plot. We pan cinematically across the edges of the story’s territory, and understand the legends and forbidden areas of this world. But the quest of the narrator – who is indeed the son of a priest – will take him east, into the forbidden Place of the Gods (about which, of course, we are already very curious). At the outset of the story we do not the time in which the story is set, what kind of being he is, or where he lives. But all these things will be revealed as the narrator’s journey through a post-apocalyptic, post-technological world takes him to places that gradually start to seem very familiar…
8. Beginning With The Inciting Incident
“The day my son Laurie started kindergarten he renounced corduroy overalls with bibs and began wearing blue jeans with a belt; I watched him go off the first morning with the older girl next door, seeing clearly that an era of my life was ended, my sweet-voiced nursery-school tot replaced by a longtrousered, swaggering character who forgot to stop at the corner and wave good-bye to me.”
Screenwriting guru Robert Mckee describes the inciting incident as a moment that ‘radically upsets the balance of forces in your protagonist’s life’. It’s the moment when our main character is plunged out of their normal routine and a challenge or quest appears which will shape their journey, and with it the rest of the story. It’s common to locate this point near the start of the story after some introductory ‘normality,’ so that we can understand how the main character’s life is to be disrupted.
But here the inciting incident is placed by mystery and horror writer Shirley Jackson – best known for The Haunting of Hill House – at the very start of the story. Everything that happens flows from Laurie starting kindergarten. Laurie gets cheekier and less innocent with each passing day, as he brings home increasingly hair-raising tales of an even naughtier boy called Charles. The whole story deals with the comic escalation of Charles’ behaviour, as reader and narrator alike become ever more curious to meet the errant child and speculate on what his parents are like.
I won’t spoil the ending, except to say that there is perhaps a clue in the mother’s lament in the opening paragraph about the end of an era of innocence…
9. The Thought Experiment
“MY LOVER IS experiencing reverse evolution. I tell no one. I don’t know how it happened, only that one day he was my lover and the next he was some kind of ape. It’s been a month, and now he’s a sea turtle.”
Aimee Bender’s story begins by asking the reader to imagine something extraordinarily counterfactual: that her lover is regressing through millennia, going through the evolutionary process so fast – a million years a day, in reverse – that we can actually track his progress by the day. One day he is a baboon, another a salamander; eventually he is no longer even visible to the naked eye.
As with so many of Bendee’s stories the result is mournful, strange, poetic and profound. She takes a surreal thought like this and turns into a powerful meditation on memory, the difference between evolution and maturity, speciesism and loss. And it all begins with that challenging idea which confronts us in the very first sentence.
10. THE CONUNDRUM
“1-0. Who would expect the Embassy of Cambodia? Nobody. Nobody could have expected it, or be expecting it. It’s a surprise, to us all. The Embassy of Cambodia!
Next door to the embassy is a health center. On the other side, a row of private residences, most of them belonging to wealthy Arabs (or so we, the people of Willesden, contend). They have Corinthian pillars on either side of their front doors, and—it’s widely believed—swimming pools out back. The embassy, by contrast, is not very grand. It is only a four- or five-bedroom North London suburban villa, built at some point in the thirties, surrounded by a red brick wall, about eight feet high. And back and forth, cresting this wall horizontally, flies a shuttlecock. They are playing badminton in the Embassy of Cambodia. Pock, smash. Pock, smash.”
This subtle and absorbing story from Zadie Smith opens with a mystery: an embassy, set in a leafy north London suburb rather than a grand central district of the city, and a wall, behind which a mysterious game of badminton is being played. The rest of the story picks at this mystery and uses the imagined score in the ongoing game-playing as a backdrop to the unfolding tale of Fatou, a domestic servant to the affluent Derawals, who has escaped servitude and dodged abuse in Africa only to face privations and hardships in London.
Each mini-chapter of the story is headed with a score from the badminton match – from 1-0 up to 21-0. This mechanism provides a rhythmic framework to the tale. We may never learn who actually holds the rackets, but we see that the back-and-forth motion behind the wall of an embassy – an institution with the power to grant deny or people access to whole a country – is a fitting counterpoint to the enforced travels of impoverished migrants, and to the desperate movements of Fatou’s hopes and fears in a world where she has little agency or resources, and only one friend.
Now you’ve seen how these authors have done it, it’s time to get stuck into actually putting pen to paper – or fingertips to keyboard – and start writing your short story. For more from Dan, check out his top 10 steps for writing short stories (with even more examples!).
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