- The ordinary caveat: Every writer’s process is different, so attending a session such as this is not about finding “the answer” to the question of how to write short stories. It’s about being exposed to another writer’s approaches, and even for that writer, those approaches can vary from day to day.
- Writing a short story is like creek fishing. Sometimes you do everything right: you have the proper equipment, it’s the right time of the day, you’ve approached the creek with the wiliness of a fishing veteran, your technique is perfect, you’re persistent, but at the end of the day you’ve caught nothing. Not even a strike. You might have seen a fish dash under the bank. That’s the closest you had to success that day.
- The next day you a bent paperclip through a piece of week-old sausage that has been sitting on the table in your kitchen, tie it to an eight-foot long piece of twine, toss it into an irrigation ditch where no one has ever caught a fish, and you walk away with a trophy.
- You just don’t know.
- So, keeping that in mind, here we go.
- I’m a pantser, generally. So beginning a short story is hardly ever about having the whole story in my head. I begin with an interesting image, action, character, mood, situation or just a fun first line. Everything boils down to language eventually (or immediately) so for me, putting down the first sentence is my springboard into the story.
- Remember, all decisions when writing are fungible. That first sentence can change later to set up the ending better, but I’m surprised how often my choice of the language to begin remains.
- Here’s three of my first sentences. Each came with no story attached. I barely had a whisper of where I was going afterwards:
- I’d assembled my time travel device of circuits, microchips and clever wiring, but the gods or magic or fate controlled it.
- Willard was day dreaming about Elsa when the shark caught Benford, the new mail boy, directly in front of Willard’s desk.
- The women I’ve loved are all decades dead.
- Look for beginning sentences. Read a bunch in a row. I like opening an anthology so I can see a bunch of them at once. I also, when I’m in a bookstore, open a dozen books in a row to read their first sentence.
- The important tip is to begin. A first sentence is like the first step when you start a hike. You have to take the first step to get to the last one. As reluctant or nervous or insecure as you might be about that first step, the resistance to begin can only be overcome by taking it. The second step in a hike is almost never as difficult to take as the first one. A first step gives you momentum. Write a first sentence.
- By the way, this is the exact advice to write a novel.
- Also, by the way, if you’re sitting at a computer right now, or you have a notebook you’re writing in, you could begin a new short story in the next thirty seconds. All you have to do is write your first sentence. It could be anywhere from two words to dozens, but that’s all you have to do. Starting a story is always a first sentence away. Easiest thing in the world.
- Remember that the first sentence and the sentences that follow are a move, like in chess. They’re the opening gambit. Also, remember that the beginning is the setup for your ending. Whatever you begin with leads to the ending. Often the ending echoes something from your beginning. Keep that in mind.
- You have choices that generally fall into these categories:
- Begin with setting. Here’s a good setting beginning:
- “No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream. Hill House, not sane, stood by itself against its hills, holding darkness within; it had stood for eighty years and might stand for eighty more. Within, walls continued upright, bricks met neatly, floors were firm, and doors were sensibly shut; silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House, and whatever walked there, walked alone.” The Haunting of Hill House, Shirley Jackson.
- A setting beginning tells the reader that the setting is important to the story. The setting can immediately establish mood. Imagine you wanted to write a story that takes place here at the K Diamond K ranch. Go outside and wander around a bit with your senses open. Surely you can see (and feel, smell, hear, taste) the story potential in this place.
- Writer Brenda Cooper encouraged me to go outside last night and look into the moonless sky. The milky way stretched above us, a lazy river of stars. You don’t get that view in the city! Settings can be powerful!
- Begin with a character description:
- “MR. UTTERSON, THE LAWYER, was a man of a rugged countenance, that was never lighted by a smile; cold, scanty and embarrassed in discourse; backward in sentiment; lean, long, dusty, dreary, and yet somehow lovable.” From Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Lewis Stevenson.
- A character introduction starts the process of getting the readers to sympathize with a person in the story. The best stories often contain sympathetic characters. A sympathetic character doesn’t necessarily have to be one we like. To be “sympathetic” in this context means that we understand why the character is the way they are. If we care about the characters, we’re likely to be involved in the story and wonder what will happen to them next. It’s a weird way to think about it, but characterization is a writerly trick to keep the readers involved.
- Eventually every single problem in writing a story is a technical one. How do we get the readers to care? How do we get the readers to forget they’re reading? How do we create language that is memorable? How do we fulfill the promise to the reader that if they’ll give us their attention, that we will reward them with an experience that is worth their time?
- Begin with action:
- “I was surprised to see a white man walk into Joppy’s bar.” Walter Mosley, Devil in a Blue Dress
- An action beginning is sometimes called in media res, which means in the middle of the action. This is the most often recommended beginning. People are naturally drawn to movement, to action, to something happening. I grew up in a home with a party line—that’s how old I am! When we picked up out phone, we might hear the conversation a neighbor was having. Etiquette of the time was to hang up quietly, then make our call later when the line was open. But you know how people can be—how tempting it might be to cover the microphone part of the phone and listen. Here’s what’s interesting about that once you get past the creepiness factor: you have stepped into the middle of a conversation. The neighbors don’t know you are present. They don’t stop to give you any background information, but you can inevitably figure out what it going on in a minute or so. Starting in media res can be like that. Your reader will figure out pretty quickly from the action everything you might be tempted to tell them as a writer. Figuring things out is half the fun of reading.
- A hallmark of an inexperienced writer is a tendency to stop the story to tell the readers facts the author is sure readers need to know to understand what’s going on. Try to resist doing that.
- Begin with a distinctive, interesting voice:
- You don’t know about me without you have read a book by the name of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer; but that ain’t no matter. That book was made by Mr. Mark Twain, and he told the truth, mainly. Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain
- You better not never tell nobody but God. It’d kill your mammy. DEAR GOD, I am fourteen years old. I am I have always been a good girl. Maybe you can give me a sign letting me know what is happening to me. The Color Purple, Alice Walker
- First person narrated stories are always, inevitably about the narrator, no matter what else they might look like. The Great Gatsby, for example, looks like it must be about Gatsby, and it is, but Gatsby dies well before the end of the book (sorry, plot spoiler). The last chapters are about how Nick Carraway, the narrator deals with this death, and the end is about how watching Gatsby and what happened to him changed Nick.
- There are other ways to begin, like with an odd statement the reader wants clarified, like “Once a guy stood all day shaking bugs from his hair” which is from Philp K. Dick’s A Scanner Darkly.
- You could start with dialogue (that’s a variation of in media res) like when Charles Wallace says, “There are dragons in the twins’ vegetable garden” to start Madeleine L’Engle’s, A Wind in the Door.
- The point is that multiple kinds of writing exist, and you can begin with anyone of them. Think of the types of writing that go into a story: setting, character, dialogue, description, action, flashbacks, exposition, etc. Anyone of them is potentially an opening move.
- Remember, when readers pick up your story, they want you to succeed. They want to be entertained or informed or moved. They’ll cut you some slack, but you can’t waste their time. Give them interesting stuff at the beginning. Throw your heart into it and give them your best.
- This chat is about beginnings and ends, but I also said I’d offer “tips and tricks.” For me the middle of the story has three requirements:
- Very early on I need to establish the conflict. Conflict is a character wants something, something stands in the way, and something of value is at stake. Once I know those three things, I can progress. What does my character do to get what they want? How does the result of their action change the situation (most of the time what they do makes things worse)? I keep writing my character trying until they do or don’t get what they want, and that’s the ending.
- Remember in the middle that your character isn’t alone. Sometimes other characters do things that change the direction of the story. Sometimes there’s bad weather. Sometimes there are accidents. Sometimes a messenger doesn’t get Romeo’s letter with his plan to save his love by faking his death to Juliet in time, and Romeo and Juliet turns into a tragedy instead of a comedy.
- I compose a story almost entirely of scenes or episodes (if you prefer). A very short story might only have one scene. A longer one could have a bunch. A novel has a bunch of bunch more. (these are very technical writing terms).
- So, oh my gosh, my time is more than half gone and I haven’t talked about how to end stories yet. But as you can see, you can’t talk about a single element in writing short stories without eventually talking about the rest of them. A story is a combination of all the parts.
- Sheesh.
- To talk about the end I have to talk about the author’s intent. Why do we tell stories in real life? You’ll notice often when friends get together, they often tell little stories. Maybe somebody had an uncomfortable experience at the dentist office. Someone else had an amusing encounter at the farmer’s market. A third received a troubling phone call from a distant relative. The thing about these stories is that you hardly ever think when they’re done talking, “Why did that tell me that? What’s the point?”
- There’s always a point unless you have a friend who does tell you pointless stories, but they’re almost always damaged in an unidentifiable way, and you are kind enough to not tell them so. The point might be “dentist appointments can be scary,” or “people in farmer’s markets can be ridiculous,” or “I’m lucky my life isn’t like my distant relative’s life.”
- The stories you tell have to end in such a way that their point is revealed. I have to use an English-teacher word here—I apologize—but the point of a story are its themes.
- I told you at the beginning that I’m a pantser. I often don’t know why I started or where I’m going, but sometime in the process of writing the piece I ask myself, “Why does this story matter to me?” “Why am I attracted to the material?” Until I answer that question, the writing will slow down. I need to think about “what is the point?”
- The conflict of what my character wants, what stands in the way, and why is it important ends at the climax. My character has won or lost or some weirdly appropriate alternative occurs that isn’t a win or loss but is satisfying has occurred, but that’s hardly ever where the story ends.
- The end is sometimes called the denouement. It basically means in French, “the action of untying.” It’s the walking away from the climax. It’s what your characters are left with when it’s all over. The climax of Star Wars: a New Hope is the explosion of the death star, but the denouement is the awards ceremony where Han and Luke get medals. The point is something like “the brave and bold are rewarded at the end,” or “a good cause prevails,” or “white guys get medals, not wookies.” Sorry, couldn’t resist that last one.
- The end of John Steinbeck’s The Pearl ends with the peasant throwing an invaluable pearl back into the ocean. The point might be something like “greed and great wealth can destroy our lives.” Of Mice and Men ends with a farmhand commenting, “Now what the hell ya suppose is eatin’ them two guys?” as George and Slim walk away. The farmhand might not know, but we know George had to execute his friend and ward, Lennie, to save him from a lynching. We know the grim point of the story, even if we can’t say it, that maybe life is too cruel for our hopes to come true, at least for some people, or that the American dream isn’t for everyone, or you don’t know anyone until you have walked in their shoes.
- Stories have points, so your ending should give the reader a chance to see your point. You don’t need to spell your point out, unless you are writing fairy tales for children that end with “the moral of the story is . . .” But the story needs to take the readers to the place where they can see a point, and where they see the point is in what you tell them of the character’s reactions or fate after the climax.
- You have tons of choices in your ending, just as you did your beginning. Here are some options:
- Significant or meaningful dialogue
- A symbolic action
- A repetition of the beginning which will read completely differently now that the story has ended
- A symbolic scenic description
- A narrative reaction like the conclusion of Wuthering Heights that ends with “I lingered round them, under that benign sky: watched the moths fluttering among the heath and harebells, listened to the soft wind breathing through the grass, and wondered how any one could ever imagine unquiet slumbers for the sleepers in that quiet earth.”
- Or the end of Huckleberry Finn when Huck says, “Tom’s most well now, and got his bullet around his neck on a watch-guard for a watch, and is always seeing what time it is, and so there ain’t nothing more to write about, and I am rotten glad of it, because if I’d a knowed what a trouble it was to make a book I wouldn’t a tackled it, and ain’t a-going to no more. But I reckon I got to light out for the Territory ahead of the rest, because Aunt Sally she’s going to adopt me and sivilize me, and I can’t stand it. I been there before. THE END. YOURS TRULY, HUCK FINN.”
- For me, I think endings can be tough. They’re delicate constructions because they carry the weight of the story on their back. I’ll tinker with the ending more than any other part.
- An ending is like a poem where the impact has to be greater than the sum of its parts. I’m looking for resonance at the end
- Final thoughts,
- You have multiple options to begin a story.
- The beginning sets up the end. One of your first editing tasks should be to read your beginning and then your end to make sure it’s clear that they’re part of the same story, and the beginning knew were you were going to end up.
- In general, stories are told in scenes with action, appeals to the senses, and time passing. Essays give a lot of information, but they’re hardly ever stories. Write a story, not an essay.
- Revise the story with the point of your ending in mind. Reinforce the thematic points. Remember, when you’re writing you’re the writer. You may not know where you’re going. Writing is often an act of discovery, even if you are a planner instead of a pantser. When you’re revising, you’re transforming yourself from the writer to the storyteller. The story teller knows the middle and the ending and everything else. The storyteller knows where the story is going. Everything points to the end. Everything is a strategy or technical decision or a “move” you make on the page.
- Oh, and when you’re writing your first draft, don’t worry about much of this talk. Write to a conclusion. Finish the darned thing. You can’t make the decisions I’ve talked about here until you’ve really reached the end and go back to work your changes.
- Start as the writer and end as the storyteller.
One of the many fascinating aspects of English and writing is that anything that sounds like a rule has exceptions. The only real rule in writing is this: IT HAS TO WORK. If it works, it’s good. I’ve written stories in the past just to show that a “rule” can be broken. My latest story at Daily Science Fiction does exactly that. It’s called 
Denver Comic Con was this weekend. I heard that 120,000 people attended on Saturday, making the convention the fifth largest comic con in America (the world?). Since the biggest convention I’d ever been to before was a WorldCon, with maybe 8,000 or so people, you can understand that Denver’s event was overwhelming. You know how babies can sometimes be over stimulated? I suffered the adult equivalent.
From the “Top Ten Rookie Mistakes” panel at MileHiCon a few years ago. Here’s my quickie list of top ten mistakes. I’ve tinkered with this since I first put it together, but I think these are the basics. This is the stuff that marks rejectable manuscripts in the slush pile and allows an editor to quit reading before reaching the end. I’m open to suggestions for ones I’m missing or questions about the ones that I’ve included. Each is easily worthy of a separate, long discussion.