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How to Keep a Story Short

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When it comes to writing short fiction, sometimes it can be difficult keeping the word count low. In this post, as part of my NaNoWriMo series, we’ll take a look at three tips for keeping a story short. This is essential if you’re planning on writing a short story a day for NaNoWriMo, if you know how long each one is meant to be.

What makes a short story?

A short story is like any other story – it needs a beginning, a middle and an end, and should actually say something. It helps to understand general word count ranges for different lengths of story.

  • 0-7,500 words – Short story
  • 7,500-17,500 words – Novelette
  • 17,500-40,000 words – Novella
  • 40,000+ words – Novel

It’s imperfect, because everyone disagrees about one thing or another. Some people will specify word counts for flash fiction differently, whether it’s up to 100, 250, 500 or 1,000 words, and others will insert a noveletta into the mix, as well as specify word count ranges specific to genres.

With that in mind, how do you keep your word count down?

Start as close to the end as possible

The less build-up you have to do, the less time you need to spend wrapping up.

We don’t need to know how everything happened, just that it did, and pick a moment near the end to focus on. This will help you avoid the sort of set-up that a novel requires, and protects the short story from going stale before it’s gone anywhere else.

Introduce the premise, character and their motivation as quickly as possible

We should know everything we need to know from the get-go, especially for fiction of less than 1,000 words. 

If a character’s relationship with their father isn’t important to the story, you don’t need to mention it. If a character’s motivation is to become an astronaut, the story should be about that. 

Ideally, aim smaller: the character just needs to get through an interview, or a lunch, or get somewhere on time. Big motivations, long-term goals, are for novels, unless we’re close to the end.

Short-term goals, things a character can achieve in a day or less, are better suited for short fiction. And always refer back to the previous tip.

Outline in 3-5 bullet points

If you need 20 bullet points to plot your story, it won’t be short. Keep it simple. Refer back to the previous tips.

Your plan for your story can follow something like this:

  • Introduce the premise, the character and their motivation.
  • Introduce an obstacle.
  • Explore how the character will overcome the obstacle.
  • Climax.
  • Conclusion. Wrap it all up.

Write about moments, and let the story end, no matter how much you love the characters (or what you get to do to them.) That’s the key to making it short. If you like the characters, and you haven’t killed them all by the end, you can always write another story about them. Arthur Conan Doyle did it with Sherlock Holmes.

Do you have to plan?

Technically no, but I know a lot of people who try to write without a plan and end up going way over their target word count. Planning your story will help you figure out exactly how much will happen in it. Likewise, if you know how many words you’re allowed to write – if you’re writing for a submission to an anthology, magazine or competition – you need to be able to plan your story accordingly.

What’s next?

My NaNo prep series is done, at least this time around. Ahead of the July Camp session, I may write another series, covering other topics.

In the meantime, my own collection of short fiction,Tales of the Fantastical, is currently available on Amazon. You can download some sample stories below by signing up to my newsletter.

Pocket Prompt Expansion: Something Explodes #8 – Endings and Beginnings

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So far, while looking at the ‘Something explodes’ card, we’ve looked at types of explosions and Cause & Effect. For the final post in this series, before we move onto other cards and other ways of utilising them, we’re going to look the explosion’s position in the narrative.

We’ll start with one key question: Is this the start or beginning of something?

Explosions cause change, one way or another, and can either alter a story before it begins or punctuate a character’s arc. Two stories about the events of 9/11 – Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close and Remember Me – look at the explosions of the World Trade Centre at different points in the narrative. One uses the plane crash to launch a character’s story after the death of his father, while the other uses the death of the protagonist to roll out emotional conflict with other characters in the story.

For this post, I want you to answer a few questions that will help you figure out how an explosion can change the narrative.

  • Does the explosion occur before or after the story begins?
  • Is the explosion something that happens as a result of actions in the story, or does it sneak up on the reader as a twist?
  • How early into the story will there be a story?
  • How much do we know about what happened?
  • How much more information comes is revealed as the plot unfolds?
  • Do we ever really understand?
  • Are you ending on an explosion? Why?

Whether an explosion – be it literal or emotional – takes place before, at the beginning, in the middle or at the end of a story affects the sort of consequences that can be felt by it, and the type of story you’re telling. If the explosion is the climax of the tale, you’ll want it to appear later. If it is the premise on which your story is based, it’ll need to happen early enough into the book that the fallout can be felt.

This is true for both literal and emotional explosions. For those of us who focus on the narrative of relationships, a focus on emotional explosions is essential. Some questions you might ask:

  • Do the people involved rely on each other?
  • Are they separated as a result of an argument?
  • Are they stuck together, even if they don’t like it?
  • Have they been fighting since before the narrative begins?
  • Does the reader know this?
  • How does their meeting affect the story? Will they meet at all? Is that the point?
  • If a story is entirely about the relationship, what causes it to grow or break down? What can you do to leave suggestions over what might happen? Can you introduce a twist?

Whether you choose to start or end with a bang is up to you. Explosions within a story can cause a dramatic shift in the dynamics of your characters, and bring out the best or worst behaviour in people. Use tension to your advantage, and answer as many questions as you can about how you’ll use an explosion in your story.

Have you got your deck of Pocket Prompts yet? Order a set today!

Pocket Prompt Expansion: Something Explodes #4 – Cause & Effect

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So far, we’ve looked at types of explosions and how to use them in a story, and a disastrous (or hyperbolic) consequence of the explosion. Now it’s time to look a little further back: cause.

Every story has a beginning, middle and end, and even if we begin with the explosion, the root explanation for it can – and should – inspire a lot more to come later.

We’ll be spending more time on this in the coming posts, but for now we’re going to look at Cause & Effect.

Both the name of an okay movie and an element of quantum theory, the Butterfly Effect suggests that one tiny action can have huge consequences given enough time. Writers shouldn’t consider themselves trapped by genre when it comes to science.

A small action can roll forward in any story. In Stranger Than Fiction, Will Ferrell’s life is changed because he resets his watch to just a few seconds behind his schedule. In How I Met Your Mother, Ted only meets the Mother because, one day long before, he found her umbrella and was using it as his own. In Game of Thrones, the Stark children are only separated because Ned decided to pursue the idea that the king might have an illegitimate heir.

You don’t need to look so close at the finer details, of course. You could seek to explain your explosion as either an action or a response.

As an action, your explosion is a result of a decision or something out of the control of those in the story. A bomb could explode – or a person, depending on your genre – or a pipe could burst. Someone could be looking for a fight, and so begin shouting.

As a response, your explosion is a consequence of an action. A gas leak combined with a lit match, a man grieving for his late mother, or any number of things that can cause a literal or emotional explosion in the aftermath. (Including, of course, a literal explosion resulting in an emotional one.)

Some questions for your consideration:

  • Is the explosion natural or man-made?
  • If it is natural, is it a result of weather, or was it like a volcano, waiting to blow?
  • If it is man-made, who is responsible?
  • If it is emotional, who is reacting to what?
  • How much of a build up to the explosion was there, either within your story or before it begins?

We’ll continue our exploration of explosions in your writing in the next post, as we get down and dirty with that most difficult of topics: politics.

Have you got your deck of Pocket Prompts yet? Order a set today!