Short Story Writing Tips

Creating believable characters

Read any good teen or YA novel and you’ll see that they all feature “rounded”
characters with both good and less than perfect qualities. You need to know
your characters’ motivations, the way they speak, how they react to situations
and other characters to make them seem like real people and step off the
page. Make sure that you are consistent and avoid your characters acting or
speaking in a way that makes the reader think “X would never do/say that!”

Point of view and narrative techniques

The most popular narrative points of view are first person and third person.
The first person narrator (using either past or present tense) is the “I” (think
Percy Jackson) which allows the reader access to that character’s thoughts and
feelings and promotes empathy. However, it can be restrictive as you can only
write from that one, fairly narrow perspective. Third person narrators do not
usually take part in the story as characters but rather tell the story from an
objective point of view. Writing in the third person gives a great deal of scope
to probe into the thoughts, feelings and motivations of more than one
character.
You can, of course, use a mixture of first and third person narration, but this
needs careful handling so as to avoid confusing the reader!

Dialogue
Why use dialogue in a story? The main reasons are:
 to develop characters and show their relationships, motivations and
conflict
 to move the story (plot) forward
It is important that there is a point to every piece of dialogue and this is
particularly relevant in a short story where you have limited words to play
with. Make every conversation or snippet of dialogue work. It is a good idea
to describe what your characters are doing when they are talking, ie standing,
sitting, eating, gazing, wringing their hands etc – which should indicate their
mood. If you can show rather than tell the reader what the character is
thinking or feeling, this will really boost the quality of your writing.

A few rules about dialogue:

 Start a new line every time a different character speaks
 Use “tags” to show the reader who is speaking – eg “John announced”
etc.
 Make sure that you use punctuation correctly! Use speech marks to
contain the actual words spoken. A capital letter begins each new line of
dialogue and punctuation (comma/question mark/exclamation mark)
stays inside the speech marks. For example:
“Can we have yule log instead of Christmas pudding?” I request.
“And no sprouts?” Paddy chips in.
“And nut roast instead of turkey because I am vegetarian?” Coco adds.

(“Marshmallow Skye” by Cathy Cassidy, p 121)

Story structure and plot

Plot happens when a character wants something but has to overcome certain
obstacles or conflicts in order to get it. Usually (but not always) the character
succeeds. The basic structure of a short story is:
 Beginning – introduces the character(s) and setting
 Developing the action – introducing conflict/tension and making things
happen that involve the character being in some kind of danger or
having to overcome problems
  Climax – the problem should worsen and then reach its most dramatic
point, usually involving some kind of change in the character’s mood,
attitude or a realisation about something.
 Resolution – this ties up any loose ends and concludes the story. Don’t
be tempted to introduce new information or characters here.

Finally, try to make sure that your writing flows and avoid using clichés – think
about metaphors, sensory descriptions and realistic-sounding conversations.

Happy writing!