Unlike reading novels, short stories must capture the reader’s mind in a split second. There simply isn’t enough time to gently lay out a narrative or long, winding plot or message.  Instead, the craft of writing a great short story is to develop a potency and connection that draws the reader in. This is the essence of my findings (so far) into what makes a short story.

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            Early in my research, I found a veritable compendium on the topic in a blog post entitled How to Write a Short Story: A Writer’s Ultimate Guide by Savannah Cordova. Short stories are all incredibly unique yet still follow a set of guidelines that define the genre. In general, these stories are complete within 1000-7000 words and feature only two to three characters or events. As like all stories, they carry these key elements: characters, conflict, and themes. What’s special, Cordova writes, is “a single line about a character [or event] in a short story must do the work of several pages in a novel.” It is this impact that defines the genre, every sentence must carry layers of meaning that connect key moments, conflicts, and themes with powerful delivery. Cordova advises that the author must meticulously craft every line, especially the first and last lines; concluding with the advice to “drop the mic and get out” (Cordova, litreactor.com).

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            One wonderful reading sample provided in that guide was Ten Year Affair by Erin Somers. Reading it felt like a thrill thanks to its dynamic contrasts in language, setting, and characters and provocative language that kept me hooked. The narration didn’t bother to overtly explain what was happening, instead it took me on a ride. In this story, for example, the author didn’t clarify that certain thoughts from the main character weren’t literal. Instead, allowing it to build tension between the internal and external world which succinctly showed Cora’s unspoken obsession with Sam – like in this line, “during the hour-long drama that she watched with her husband, she was blowing Sam in the back seat of his car” (Somers). Similarly, I identified places where Somers left room for one to read between the lines. For example, in one pivotal point on Cora’s journey, the man she’s romantically obsessed with tells her how much he and his wife like her. In response, Cora’s internal dialogue says succinctly, “an extremely fucking likeable woman – that’s what the plaque could say” (Somers). In my annotations, I noted how clearly this line was a stand-in for deeper, yet overt thoughts and connections to “being unlovable” and her feeling of disappointment over the proverbial death of her fantasy. Overall, I’d describe Ten Year Affair as succinct, dreamy, detailed, excruciating, clenching, and magnetic. Reading it truly left a profound impression on my understanding of short stories and the feelings they can convey. By the end, I was prepared to give Somers a standing ovation as the final lines came to a natural end with a bang.

           Stepping back from examples of final products, I found some helpful frameworks for developing and refining the plot, or bones, of the story. First, I’d like to address one well-known method called the Seven-Point story structure. I learned about this on Lancy McCall’s blog, in a post called How to Map Your Plot with the 7-Point Plot Structure, in which she provides a synthesis with Dan Well’s style of using the 7-point structure. For me, this method is easiest to understand through visual representations, so below are some visual tools from McCall’s post.

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          As you can see, the chart and its labels very neatly guide us in identifying the highs and lows of the story. This structure can be seen as a remedy (or prevention) for a common issue she describes as “I write myself into a corner where I can’t see how I’m going to get where I need to be” (McCall). This is accomplished by treating each of the seven points as a subplot and outlining them individually. Then, once you have the key ideas lined up for each point, you can create a plot as visual representation to organize in what order things will occur and when they overlap or connect.

A second tool, Antonya Nelson’s 9-Step Framework for writing short stories, will be a fantastic resource in further developing the plot points and crafting the delivery. I learned about this in a wonderful post by Navneet Maini which serves as a guide for using Nelson’s Framework and provided helpful details on how to accomplish each step. For me, this resource was pivotal in my newfound understanding of the genre. While reading his summary, I noticed how the techniques described were applied in the writing by Erin Somers. Below is my adaptation of Maini’s guide to using the 9-Step Framework, much of its content is directly quoted so all rights to the author (Maini).