Writing Short Stories - where to start to how to finish writing a short storyWriting short stories can be a method to get publishing credits and a way to put a book together bit by bit. A short story deal with the central fiction question "What would happen if?" within a limited word count. In other words the focus is on exploring an idea with a sense of brevity and focus. In a riveting short story dramatic characters in a dramatic situation and a dramatic setting follow a dramatic plot to a dramatic climax to prove a dramatic premise What is the essential short story elements?The above definition of a short story point to 6 essential elements of a short story. Your short story elements answer the who, what, where, when, how and why questions.
These elements are the basic buiding blocks or components of a riveting story. Writing short stories - how long?It seems silly to define a piece of fiction mainly on the basis of its length but a miniature painting is nothing other than a small painting while a sonnet has exactly 14 lines. But another way to limit the defining characteristic of a short story is to say that it must be a story.A story is a narrative of events. In other words something happens. Then something else happens and then something else. And everything that happens is somehow related, most probably through cause and effect. Therefore a piece of internal monologue, the description of a scene or random ramblings are not a story. The two defining characteristics of a short story then is that it is short and that it is a story. Exactly how short is a short story and when do it get to be too long to be a short story? Publishing houses, magazines and writers differ on what the exact legth of a short story may be. Let us say on the short side that there is no limit except for the fact that there still needs to be a story. So if you can do it in ten words power to you. This is then where you place flash fiction, postcard stories, short short stories or other names. As long as it is a story it is a short story. On the long side you have longer forms such as the novelette, the novelle and the novel (and beyond that the epic). In the broader sense a short story falls anything between 1 and 50 000 words. Encroaching on the novelette and novelle. What is exactly necessary to writing short stories?You need most of the basics of writing fiction. Aristotle's Unities are especially useful. That is characters, plot, dialogue and description. These are the elements of a short story but they are not particular to the short story. So lets rather look at what you do not need for a short story. One thing you can definetely do without is a subplot. One plot is sufficient. You can also do without too many secondary characters. Keep it to the most relevant characters and no more.
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