Guidelines on Writing an Excellent Short Story

Stories often have a powerful message, and despite the length, most authors always try to communicate their message as effectively as possible. Short stories’ effectiveness can prove equally as vital as the long ones, with some quarters believing that short stories can even prove more impactful.  So how can you go about writing a short story? Will you get it right within the short context of delivering your message?

Tips on Writing a Brilliant Short Story

Writing a compelling short story can prove exciting because you can experiment with ideas that might not last when doing a novel. As writing jobz said, they get compared to tiny windows that give the audience a glimpse into different worlds and minds. Most short stories range between a thousand to five thousand words. Such stories come in various forms and can entail anecdotes, drabble, vignette, flash fiction, sketch, fable, etc.

Steps to consider

• Pick a specific mood you would love to evoke. It has to entail the emotion or feeling you want your readers to feel while reading the story. Further, it should also contain the elements that will work in tandem to endure the provoked emotion.
• Begin the story with a compelling opening. It has to start strongly to take care of the format restrictions that accompany short stories. So start by opening your story amid the act and filling in the details later on. It will also help you by taking you directly to the most crucial scene.
• Build the story. You have to develop the story by factoring in the word count. So do not waste space and time. Everything you write should play a key role in making the story more compelling. To achieve this, read multiple times and ensure that each piece in the write-up has a role to play. It also becomes essential to consider having a particular mood for the entire story, and here, every sentence has to build towards the mood.
• Write the ending. Every process has to lead to this crucial moment, and landing the ending will either break or make your story’s compelling nature. Try and concentrate on finishing the mood earlier build. The end should still make sense in the plot’s grand scheme and not become so apparent in the same vein.
• Edit and proofread your short story. It becomes essential to spend time doing other things before coming back to your write-up. It will help your return with fresh eyes to notice mistakes you would not have seen besides assisting you to keep within the confines of the story’s mood. Read it at least thrice and become attentive to how the characters, plot, scenes, dialogue, and settings mesh together to realize your set objective. If you notice any inconsistency, then you have to fix them immediately or do away with them.

Conclusion

Short stories can prove the perfect place to sharpen your literary tools, whether an expert writer or merely starting the profession. Some of the skills will get honed as you continue practicing through writing. So do not get confused or discouraged whenever you notice plenty of mistakes in your writing.