Short Story Writing

What defines a short story?

Short stories are generally less complex than novels: they typically focus on a single incident, with a limited number of characters, in a single setting, and the action takes place over a short period of time. Often they start close to the action with little or no exposition and end just as abruptly, often with open endings. There are numerous categories and sub-categories of short story, based on genre and subject matter. For example, those that are used to illustrate a particular moral or ethical principle are categorized as Fables or Parables.

How long is a short story?

Short Story Writing

This is dependent on many factors, including the genre, needs of the story, and the market it's aimed at. For example, if writing for submission to a specific magazine, the author will be bound by the magazine's submission guidelines. Generally though, short stories are less than 10,000 words. Perhaps the best and most agreed-upon convention is that one "should be able to be read in a single sitting".

History of short stories

This used to be a very popular form in the 19th century because it was a staple of magazines, and there was strong demand for short fiction of between 3,000 and 15,000 words. These days popularity is very much on the wane, with few outlets. Nowadays they are most often published in anthologies, although some authors release collections of their own works.

How to write a short story

Because short stories are shorter and less complex than novels, it's tempting to think they are also easier to write. However, many regard short stories as the more difficult form because they call for precision writing where every word is important.

Short Story Writing
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For practical advice on how to write a short story, please have a look at The Crafty Writer's online creative writing course.

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Writing 101: The Short Story

The most difficult and easiest task of all writing is the Short Story. It's easy if you have a great idea. It's impossible if you don't. To me the best short story ever written is The Book of Job. The most beautiful short story is The Book of Ruth. The best modern short story is Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea.

Now you will say, The Old Man and the Sea is a short novel. Well you are right and I'm right. Let's keep it that way so that we remain friends. The Old Man and the Sea has the elements needed in a good short story except as you said, it's too long if you put a length limit on short stories. My novels are "short" stories if you compare them based only on length to War and Peace. They do not have the elements of a short story. Well, maybe the first chapter of Revenge on the Mogollon Rim does.

In a novel you can wonder hither and yawn and your readers will not only enjoy it, but they will forgive you. In the short story, you must stick to the point. The "point" is the whole purpose of the short story.

Writing 101: The Short Story

Edgar Allen Poe was the greatest writer from Boston. I put it that way as to not offend the other greatest writers. I hope it doesn't offend Poe. I don't want him haunting me every night. Some of his poems are short stories that he didn't stretch out. His short stories are weird but poignant. He invented the detective story.

Poe was found delirious in a Baltimore gutter and died on October 7, 1849 (see http://www.online-literature.com/poe/). Also, Hemingway shot himself up the road a few miles from here. One mustn't take short story writing too seriously. That is why I've remained a hack writer. I call myself "Taylor Jones, the hack writer" to remind me of that fact.

Hemingway learned his writing techniques from the Kansas City Star. He said, "Those were the best rules I ever learned for the business of writing. I've never forgotten them." Here are the rules: short sentences, short paragraphs, active verbs, authenticity, compression, clarity and immediacy. (See http://www.lostgeneration.com/childhood.htm.) Go sit in a corner and memorize these rules. You will need them to write a good short story.

You must remember emphasis and subordination. My old text says so. In other words, "What's hot and what's not?" Emotions, settings, the theme (only one allowed), must be fused snugly together. Here are some examples:

The Book of Ruth: A clever lady snags a husband.

Heart of Darkness: A weird jungle tale by Joseph Conrad. Speaking of MOOD! The horror!

Miss Brill: Katherine Mansfield tells of an old lady losing her self esteem due to thoughtless comments of youngsters. This story is sad.

The Killers: Hemingway's famous story about how Nick Adams is more concerned about death by assassination then is the elected victim.

For Esmé-with Love and Squalor: The story about a little girl and a soldier. You must read this story by J. D. Salinger. Have a hankerchef at the ready.

The Book of Job: The devil picks on God's servant, Job.

Let's write a short story now.

First, take an idea, hook one end to the shady side of your barn and the other end to your mule walking south. Your idea is a wide rubber band. As the mule walks and stretches the band, the band narrows. When it reaches what we engineers call its elastic limit, it will break. Just before it breaks, it is War and Peace. When stretched thin, it is still a novel. Somewhere before that you have a short story.

Now think of point of view. First person is good. Poe liked this view. At any rate, don't go beyond what the protagonist can see and hear with his or her own eyes. Remember this if you write in the third person as did Hemingway. You must not stand back and look at your story through a telescope. It must be intimate.

The protagonist is the main character. Who is the antagonist? You may need one in your story to be mean, nasty, cruel, uncaring, or having some other less than wonderful human trait. (You don't need an antagonist in every short story. Most but not all such stories are called "boring.")

Okay, let's take an idea and run with it.

The sun beat down on the soggy field. Trevor was soaked from the rain, but now the warmth of the sun was quickly drying him. He slapped Bossy on the rump and said, "Let's get to the barn, Bossy. If I don't get you milked before Pa comes home, I'll get the stick." That's when Trevor slipped on a cow patty and slid down the hill into the irrigation ditch. Bossy stared at the irrigation ditch for a while and then went back to chewing her cud.

Writing 101: The Short Story
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Writing Your Life Story - Tips And Techniques For Success

Once a luxury of the rich and famous, technology has, for the first time in history, made it possible for anyone to capture, share and preserve their most precious life stories. With the advent of computers, the Internet, digital photography, video, and audio, anyone can capture the richness and texture of their life stories. These personal histories will be appreciated by family, friends, and future generations.

Today it is possible to easily blend the art of traditional biography and memoir with powerful new technologies into a new form of individual life storytelling: the personal life history. Personal life histories are satisfying to create. And, because of the interactive multimedia possibilities inherent in computers and the web, a well-done personal life history can be rich and fully rounded in ways that are impossible to achieve in text-only memoir or biography. But most importantly, personal life histories preserve vital individual and family stories. And, when properly done, they will last for generations.

In this article you will discover how to use time-honored life story writing techniques along with the latest technologies to create a story that is uniquely "you."

Writing Your Life Story - Tips And Techniques For Success

The Art of Traditional Life-Story Formats

For anyone interested in creating their own autobiography, memoir or personal life history, it is important to understand the distinctions between these forms of telling one's own life story. To over-generalize for a moment, an autobiography is more fact-based, while a memoir is more emotion-based.

Autobiographies are written by the subject, sometimes with the collaboration of another writer. Autobiographical works take many forms, from intimate writings made during life that are not necessarily intended for publication (including letters, diaries, journals, memoirs, and reminiscences) to the formal autobiography. Interestingly, the autobiography format does not necessarily have to be true. It may also be a literary fictional tale.

Memoirs are a form of personal recollection that has grown enormously in popularity in recent times. Memoirs often focus on more subjective recollections such as memories, feelings, and emotions and are generally written from the first-person viewpoint. The memoir is often focused on capturing certain meaningful highlights or moments.

In his own Memoir, Palimpest, Gore Vidal writes that "a memoir is how one remembers one's own life, while an autobiography is history, requiring research, dates, facts double-checked."

Memoirs usually focus on a brief period of time or a series of connected events (an autobiography covers a longer time period). In a memoir, the writer is usually retrospective, and contemplating past events. Memoirs may incorporate the techniques of storytelling such as setting, plot, conflict, character development, foreshadowing, flashback, irony or symbolism. And lastly, writing one's memoir often has a therapeutic effect for the writer.

Oral History Recordings

An oral history is a verbatim transcription of an interview, left in the narrator's exact words. These are usually left in a question-and-answer style and are an economical way to preserve family stories. A recording system with a good-quality microphone and a quiet spot free from interruptions are all that is really needed to capture an oral history. It helps to have questions prepared in advance of the interview.

Oral histories are usually recorded using analog tape or digital recording equipment, but it is also possible to record directly into a personal computer. Oral histories are often transcribed (typed or word processed) into a document format. The conversational style is appealing for its easygoing informality.

Caveats: Recording formats and standards are constantly evolving and could become difficult or impossible to play back if the equipment becomes obsolete. Taped recordings decay over time.

Video History Recordings

Do-it-Yourself: At the basic level, it's easy and fun to create a basic video history. Camcorders are relatively inexpensive, and many computers today come with basic editing software. Capturing a good video history shares all of the same prerequisites as an audio recording: a quiet spot, with questions prepared in advance. Plus, you will want an uncluttered background, flattering lighting, and right clothing to improve the quality of the end product. White shirts, pants or dresses, for example don't show up well on video. Likewise, busy patterns can be distracting. Solid light-colored neutrals or pastels are usually safe.

Professional videographers: A large number of professional video companies specialize in the creation of life story productions. Productions may range from a 10 or 15 minute short to an hour or longer mini-movie, complete with titles, music, and other Hollywood-style effects. Naturally, you'll pay more for a professional production than a homegrown effort.

When selecting a professional use all the usual smart-consumer tips. Ask for references. Ask to see samples of prior work. Get all costs, production timetables and commitments in writing. It's delightful to have movies of an individual or family. When well-executed they often have entertainment value and are great for special occasions.

Caveat: As with audio recordings, formats change over time, and media can degrade, even with proper storage methods

The Integration of Art and Technology: Web-Based Personal Life Histories

Just in the last few years, the Web has emerged as a powerful new medium for creating and sharing life stories. On the web it is not only possible, it is enjoyable and easy to create a rich multimedia story with text, photos, audio and video. This is the new format of the personal life history.

Web-based personal life histories enjoy several advantages over paper-based publishing, audio, video, or even CD life stories. Specifically, Web-based publication is updateable-one can add new information at any time. It is easily shareable among friends or family. The most advanced sites offer choices of privacy and security protection. The web is also multimedia, meaning you can add text, photos, audio, and video. Photos, audio, video are never lost, damaged destroyed. An finally, many sites offer print-on-demand, allowing you to create instant books. The books may be printed on your home printer, or sent out to small-run publishers. If you choose the small-run option, be sure to specify archival quality paper.

One of the biggest advantages of web publishing is the ability to build community around similar interests, occupations, backgrounds or life events. For example, a WWII veteran pilot who posts his story to the Web and makes it available to the public may be contacted by long-lost friends, other veterans, students, historians, museum personnel, or others interested in this pivotal chapter in American history.

Why Create Your Personal Life History?

Mark Twain once said: "There was never yet an uninteresting life. Such a thing is impossibility. Inside everyone, there is a drama, a comedy, a tragedy."

A personal life history can be as short as a few pages, or several volumes in length. Whatever the length or medium, it requires thoughtfulness and sometimes quite a bit of work to accomplish. But the work is worthwhile because it has the ability to influence generations ahead. Your personal life history may leave a legacy for your children and grandchildren. As with memoir, writing a personal history allows you to examine and reflect on your life up to the present day. It lets you add your story to the larger historical record of your family, city, and country. And lastly, if you don't do it, who will?

Start with a Timeline of Life Chapters

How does one start to tell the story of a life that may cover 60, 70, 80 years or more? Often it's helpful to create a chronological timeline of major events in your life. It helps to jot down a few notes around key phases in your life. In fact, you may already be thinking of your life as a book, with separate, distinct chapters built around important life episodes.

Of course, not everyone's life follows an identical chronological sequence, but here are a few ideas for chapter headings for your book or story. GreatLifeStories.com uses the following "chapters" to organize life stories:

o Your Beginnings

o In Your Neighborhood

o School Days

o Off to Work

o Romance and Marriage

o War and Peace

o Triumphs and Tragedies

o Words of Wisdom

o Humor

o Words of Gratitude

The chapter system is very flexible. For example, you don't have to start your life story with the days of your birth and youth. Perhaps you had a fascinating experience during the war. As with a movie, you might open your life story with that "scene," then tell the story how you got there.

Once you've got an idea for the "flow," of your story, here are some more specific guidelines to help add color, texture, and authenticity:

Just start writing! Do a mind dump. Get it out of your head and down on paper, the computer, the tape recorder, wherever. Don't worry about how it sounds. Just write. Resist the temptation to edit yourself; there will be time for editing later. Be yourself. Don't worry if your grammar or spelling isn't perfect. Write it as you would say it.Honesty is everything. The best writing tells it like it happened. Include humor. Favorite jokes, stories, anecdotesDetail, detail, detail. What kind of floor did the kitchen have? What color was the scarf she wore when you first met? Go at a comfortable pace. Don't try to capture an entire lifetime in a single session of furious writing. Write, allow time to reflect, and return again to writing. Consult others. Family members and friends can be invaluable sources of facts and interpretation.Use photos to jog your memory. Tip: Set out photos in a timeline of your life, starting from your very youngest days, and moving through current times. Write or record to your visual storyboardLook for themes in your life. Themes are broad ideas that are central to your life. Did you always want to be a pilot? A preacher? Own a restaurant? Be a farmer? Tell the story of how you met your goal, or how the goal changed to something else totally unexpected.

Here are just a few other thematic life story possibilities: a. The Spiritual quest b. The Confession c. The Travelogue d. The Portrait e. The Complaint f. Humor g. The Family history h. The Road to Recovery i. War Story j. Romance

Another Option: Hire a Professional

Most of this article has been focused on creating the do-it-yourself personal life history. There is, of course, the option of working with a professional. The right professional writer or videographer is a highly skilled interviewer and has the proper tools and equipment. And, believe it or not, it is sometimes easier for someone to open up in front of a stranger rather than in front of a family member.

There are many approaches to working with writers or videographers. However, there are a number of similarities in common. The writer/videographer often:

1) Meets with you to determine the scope and cost of the project.

2) Usually sets up taped interview sessions. Depending on your objectives, these may be an hour or two, or 10, 20 hours or more.

3) The recording is transcribed and edited with your input and guidance

4) Once a final manuscript/movie is agreed upon, it may be sent out for printing or duplication.

5) For books, personal history professionals recommend archival bindings and acid-free paper for longevity

6) You receive the number of books/movies agreed upon in your contract.

7) Be sure to discuss services, fees and end products in advance, and get all agreements in writing.

Thanks to high technology, the art of capturing and preserving the stories from one's own life is now open to more people and easier than ever before. A new genre of personal storytelling is emerging that draws on the literary traditions of the autobiography and memoir, while adding audio, video, and web technology to create personal life histories. On the Web, these personal stories personal life histories are multimedia, collaborative, shareable, and instantly updateable.

Enjoy capturing your life story!

References and Further Reading

Web Sites:

http://www.greatlifestories.com

Associations:

The Association of Personal Historians is a 600+ member organization of professional personal historians who create life stories in all formats: text, audio, video. http://www.personalhistorians.org

How-to Books:

There are many good books filled with different approaches and tips for writing a personal life history. Here are just a few:

Daniel, Lios, How to Write Your Own Life Story

Rainer, Tristine, Your Life as Story Books

Roorbach, Bill, Writing Life Stories

Writing Your Life Story - Tips And Techniques For Success
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Mike Brozda is one of the founding members of the GreatLifeStories team. A veteran journalist, he has more than 30 years experience writing for national and international publications. He has also created more than 150 personal life histories for people across the US, Canada, and Mexico. Contact him at mike.brozda@yahoo.com

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Short Story Writing: Article 11: Dialogue

Dialogue

Dialogue, perhaps more than any other aspect of writing, is something one has to develop a feel for, but like other aspects, observing a few simple principles can help us on the way.

Dialogue is definitely not a representation of the way people really speak. Everyday speech is full of repetition and hesitation and mundane comments which are extremely tedious when written down.

Short Story Writing: Article 11: Dialogue

"Good morning Janet, how are you?"

"Oh I'm fine thanks, how are you?"

"Not too bad thanks. Lovely weather today isn't it?" "Yes, gorgeous. Thank goodness that rain has stopped."

"Yes, I thought it would go on for ever. That's a nice dress you're wearing."

"Oh this old thing. I've had it for ages." "Did you watch any television last night?"

"Yes, I saw that film, it had that actor in it, what's his name? Oh goodness what is his name? It's on the tip of my tongue hold on a sec. . . . "

"Johnny Depp?"

"No, um, hold on a sec, it's coming . . . "

The yawning restless reader will not hold on a sec - he will abandon the story.

Dialogue should always be used to convey something important to the plot, and should be a distillation, or edited version, of real speech. It conveys the rhythm and syntax of real speech at its best, with all the roughness and redundancy pared away.

Dialogue needs to convey information to the reader, but in a way which sounds natural. For example if Janet says to Mary:

"Have you heard that John Jones is coming to work for us?"

This line conveys to us that there is a character around called John Jones with whom Janet is acquainted, and it does so in a way which sounds perfectly natural.

Don't overload dialogue with information. If you do it becomes conspicuous and sounds unnatural. For example:

"Have you heard that John Jones, the guy I met on holiday in Majorca last year but who already had a girlfriend and lived in Manchester is coming to work for us?"

Don't be reluctant, as some people seem to be, to put in 'he said', 'she said', 'said Janet', 'said John' after lines of dialogue, but on the other hand, don't put them in too often. We don't need them after every line, but we do need enough to keep us in touch with who is speaking. In a scene with only two characters they can largely be dispensed with, but with three or more characters present the reader will get lost without them. They are much less conspicuous when read than they seem while writing them.

The main objective in writing modern short story dialogue is to keep it brief and to the point. Every word must count, and it must sound natural. Listen to it as you write, and write it as the character would say it.

Copyright: Ian Mackean

http://www.literature-study-online.com/creativewriting/

Short Story Writing: Article 11: Dialogue
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Ian Mackean runs the sites http://www.literature-study-online.com, where his site on Short Story Writing can be found, and http://www.booksmadeintomovies.com. He was a short story and novel writing tutor for many years, and had many of his own stories published in literary magazines. He is the editor of The Essentials of Literature in English post-1914, ISBN 0340882689, which was published by Hodder Arnold in 2005. When not writing about literature or short story writing he is a keen amateur photographer, and has made a site of his photography at http://www.photo-zen.com

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Short Story Writing: Article 1 - Introduction

This is the first in a series of articles I shall be publishing on the subject of short story writing. I wrote the articles during many years' work as a creative writing tutor. I believe they will offer useful practical advice on technical aspect of the craft of fiction writing, and on some of the psychological aspects of writing, such as finding inspiration and overcoming writer's block. All the topics I mention are covered in greater depth on my site Short Story Writing. See the link at the foot of the page.

I began teaching, just as I began fiction writing, with a healthy scepticism about the value of guidelines in a field which is essentially creative, but after teaching hundreds of students and assessing hundreds of stories it became apparent that although every piece of work I saw, was unique, certain types of problem were appearing again and again. I began to write lessons on these subjects, and those lessons were the basis for the articles I shall publish.

I do not pretend that I can to offer an approach to story writing which will suit everyone, but my guidelines will help you to appreciate the technical issues involved in fiction writing, and to decide on the approach you want to adopt in your own work. Familiarity with these issues will also help you to analyse techniques used in any published short stories you read.

Short Story Writing: Article 1 - Introduction

Even if you find that you do not agree with some of the advice I have to offer, the articles will show you aspects of fiction writing which need to be borne in mind, and I believe they will show you the best way to learn to write fiction.

Writing for money?

Many other sources of advice on fiction writing assume that the only reason the for writing short stories is to make money, and advise would-be writers to tailor their work to suit a market before even setting pen to paper. This attitude is alien to my own approach to creative writing, which for me is primarily an art form and means of self-expression, and was alien to the approach of most of the students with whom I worked.

In fact I found that the hope of financial reward was a motivating factor for only a small minority of students. I would say the main motivation was the wish to master an art form which appealed to them, coupled with a wish to express their own perceptions and visions of life, whether based on real experience or imagination.

But everyone who attempts writing wants to bring their work up to publishable standard, and the principles of good short story writing are the same whether the motive is artistic or financial, and the guidelines I offer are relevant to all types of story.

Novel writing

The topics I shall discuss here are as relevant to novel writing as they are to short story writing. Some of the principles, such as the recommendation to stay with a single character's point of view, are not adhered to so frequently in novels as they are in short stories, but nevertheless you need to consider the question of point of view when planning a novel and my article on Point of view will show you the options available to you.

Some novels do stay rigorously with a single point of view, perhaps one of the most famous being Catcher in the Rye by J D Salinger, and my view is that novels are more compelling when presented in this way, but the majority of novels are presented from the omniscient narrator point of view.

Among my students some had stories and novels published or broadcast, and some gained recognition in writing competitions. It was always rewarding to hear about this kind of success, but the main source of satisfaction for me as a tutor was the conviction that every student I taught, whether beginners or experienced, finished the course a better writer than they were when they started. I hope this series of articles, which emerged directly from my practical work with students, will prove useful to anyone who wants to write short stories.

More articles to follow.

Ian Mackean

Short Story Writing: Article 1 - Introduction
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Ian Mackean runs the sites http://www.literature-study-online.com, where his site on Short Story Writing can be found, and http://www.booksmadeintomovies.com. He was a short story and novel writing tutor for many years, and had many of his own stories published in literary magazines. He is the editor of The Essentials of Literature in English post-1914, ISBN 0340882689, which was published by Hodder Arnold in 2005. When not writing about literature or short story writing he is a keen amateur photographer, and has made a site of his photography at http://www.photo-zen.com

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Writing Poems and Short Stories

There's no better way to practice the art of writing than to write a few poems and short stories. Have you ever tried your hand at them? It's surprising the number of writers that have never done this. Instead they jump straight in with their first novel.

Poems

Poems are a great way to get your creative juices flowing. Why? Because they force you to either rhyme or scan or express your feelings. And most poems are quite short, probably less than 200 words or so. Stuck for a subject? Then just pick a sentence from a book and write a poem about it. It doesn't have to be very long. Or else choose something in your house, or your son or daughter, or your cat or dog. There are a hundred different subjects you can find. Let me try my hand at a limerick:

Writing Poems and Short Stories

I once had a big tiger cat
Who got incredibly fat.
I cut out her food
She got in a mood
And she swallowed my other pet, rat!

There we go, less than five minutes and that included being attacked by my cat, Pipsqueak. She's a little one year-old tabby by the way. The point is it's not that difficult to write poems and practice the art of writing. As we've said already, the more you write, the better you will get.

Short Stories

Onto short stories. The beauty of short stories is that you don't have to sit at the keyboard for days on end to finish them. Ideally, short stories should be somewhere between 3,000 and 10,000 words in length. Assuming you write at about 1,000 words an hour, you can see you've only got to write for three to ten hours. I write at about 1300 to 1600 words an hour usually, so I ought to be able to write a short story in two to seven and a half hours. That's only a couple of days work! Think about it, you can have a complete story in two days!

How do you write a short story? First spend a day or so planning the story. Lay out a simple plot, introduce a couple of characters, add some conflict and there you go. Then jot down somewhere between ten and twenty story points. Next re-order them to make sure the pace of the story is correct and the conflicts are in all the right places. Finally, start writing. The objective is simple. For each story point you are going to write somewhere between 300 and 500 words. Don't worry about getting it exactly right, just write. Don't self-edit, don't re-read what you've written. Just write each story point and move onto the next. At the end of your exercise you'll have a short story that will be ready for editing at some point in the future. And I'll say this again; just leave the story and let it mature on its own in the dark. Let the book 'cook' for a while and for now just be happy that you've written a short story.

Another reason for writing short stories is to discover those that could be turned into full-length novels at some point in the future. Sometimes an idea we have for a story doesn't go anywhere. We write the ten to twenty story points and that's it. There's nothing more in it. But sometimes, we write the short story and suddenly realize there's a whole world waiting to be discovered in this story. It has the makings of a full-length best seller. Welcome to the world of finding your niche!

At the beginning of this article I wrote that some people jump straight into writing their first novel instead of practicing with poems and short stories first. Hopefully you understand the point a little better now. The truth is that most writers have a hundred story ideas, and sometimes one or two they are convinced will turn into novels. But that's it; they're just ideas. Like anything in life, you need to prove the idea. You need a prototype. The short story is your prototype. Once you start writing your ten to twenty story points, you'll soon discover how long the legs on your story are. As an example, when I write my YA fantasy novels I generally need between 200 and 250 story points to complete the novel, and each story point converts to about 550 words. This gives me a novel of about 125,000 words. It's tough to come up with 200 story points out of the gate and it would be terrible to get half-way through a novel and discover you have nowhere to go.

So, your task is to write a short story over the next few days so that by the time we get to the article on self-editing you have something to work with. Enjoy!

Writing Poems and Short Stories
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Paul Dorset invites you to interact with him directly on his author blog at http://pauldorset.blogspot.com. He is very active in the field of young adult fiction and always welcomes queries and reader comments. His first YA fantasy book can be found on Amazon and Smashwords and is available for download for only Signature.99!

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14 Tips On Writing The Short-Short Story

The short-short story has been likened by some as being closer to writing a poem than a story. And that makes sense--every word has to be packed with power; every line has to move the story along.

The Writing For Success short story competition requires you to write a very short story--the word limit is just 900 words. Here are some tips to help you make every word count.

Short Stories

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(C) Copyright Marg McAlister

14 Tips On Writing The Short-Short Story

14 Tips On Writing The Short-Short Story

Marg McAlister has published magazine articles, short stories, books for children, ezines, promotional material, sales letters and web content. She has written 5 distance education courses on writing, and her online help for writers is popular all over the world. Sign up for her regular writers' tipsheet at http://www.writing4success.com/

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Writing Essays - The Monster in Faulkner's Story, A Rose for Emily

To help you write essays about literature, here's a little analysis I've worked up on William Faulkner's highly acclaimed short story, "A Rose for Emily" (NOTE: You may want to read and study the story online as you follow my reasoning, here, so create another tab in your browser, then go to Google Search and type in "A Rose for Emily" and be sure to type the quote marks; you can use ALT-TAB to move between the story and this article):

As I've pointed out in other articles, every story - whether a short story or a novel - has to have some major change by the end. This change is the most important factor to keep in mind when you analyze and then write essays about any story, whether short or long.

Short Stories

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What is that change? Why, a new view reverse, of course - always!

Writing Essays - The Monster in Faulkner's Story, A Rose for Emily

I'll show you how to use the following three-step new view analysis process on Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily," which you can then use on any short story -

#1 - At the beginning of a short story, a strong value statement, an old view, is given by or about the main character, asserting an evaluation or describing some characteristic, goal, or desire.

As we start this masterful short story, the old view pops right out at us - it's the very first sentence:

When Miss Emily Grierson died, our whole town went to her funeral: the men through a sort of respectful affection for a fallen monument, the women mostly out of curiosity to see the inside of her house, which no one save an old manservant-a combined gardener and cook-had seen in at least ten years.

Note that I've bolded respectful affection. That sounds like a pretty strong value statement, doesn't it, especially since the "whole town went to her funeral." Question is, how will that strong positive value about Emily change by the end of the story?

#2 - In the middle of a short story, the old view is supported or undercut with descriptions, conflicts, and resolutions to conflicts that set up the new view at the end.

Now, I'm not going to comment on everything in the story. But did you notice that every section of the story has something to do with the townspeople's respect for Emily? Sometimes there was even affection along with the respect.

DESCRIPTION: Several descriptions occur in this short story, but one stands out from the rest. In the first section, after the brief introduction, the board of alderman from the town (city councilmen) have come to her mansion to meet with Miss Emily to convince her to pay her taxes, and - They rose when she entered - a small, fat woman in black, with a thin gold chain descending to her waist and vanishing into her belt, leaning on an ebony cane with a tarnished gold head. Her skeleton was small and spare, bloated....

Note that Miss Emily is dressed in black, with a contrasting thin gold chain descending to her waist and vanishing into her belt. At the end of that chain, no doubt, is a watch, which makes a figure eight of the chain with the out-of-sight watch at the end, over her abdomen. Her body is covered in black clothing and she is bloated, both face and abdomen, while her arms and legs are small and spare or thin, like the cane she carries.

We cannot grasp the significance of this description until the new view in the final scene of the story, which I'll comment on then, of course. Just keep this description in mind, okay? We'll bring it up again at the end of this discussion.

CONFLICT: In the second section, neighbors complain that bad smells from Emily's house are contaminating the neighborhood. But the town's aldermen respectfully refuse to talk to Emily about it, refuse to accuse a lady to her face of smelling bad.

RESOLUTION: To avoid a conflict with Emily about the smell, the aldermen respectfully took it upon themselves to go out at night and sprinkled lime about the grounds and in the cellar of Emily's house to get rid of the smell. The smell disappears in two weeks.

CONFLICT: Also in the second section, Emily refused for three days to admit that her father had died and wouldn't let anyone in to take his body to get it ready for burial.

RESOLUTION: The townspeople show respectful pity for Emily by not forcefully entering and taking the body to get it ready for funeral and burying. After three days, their respectful pity finally influences Emily, who literally broke down emotionally and let them in.

CONFLICT: The third section ends in a conflict that Emily has with the town druggist. She asks the druggist for some poison. But because he is required by law to record what the poison will be used for, the druggist keeps trying to get Emily to say what she'll do with the poison. But Miss Emily just stared at him. No matter what the druggist said, she wouldn't respond to the question.

RESOLUTION: The druggist gave Emily the poison anyway, in spite of the law. He merely filled in the information himself, For rats, without any input from her. He gave in to Emily out of respect for her social position, no doubt, as we have seen so often.

CONFLICT & RESOLUTION: Toward the end of the fourth section, a minor conflict and resolution occurred and passed quickly on, with Emily winning yet another conflict because of the town's respectful affection for her: When the town got free postal delivery, Miss Emily alone refused to let them fasten the metal numbers above her door and attach a mailbox to it. She would not listen to them.

In every case of conflict in the story, respectful affection for Emily and respect for her social position is what resolves the conflict that the townspeople have with Emily's conduct.

#3. At the end of a short story, a new view reverse of the old view is usually revealed.

In section five of the story, at Emily's funeral, the townspeople wait respectfully until Emily is buried before they break into (which can be viewed as a kind of conflict/resolution, too) the upper room of her mansion, which has been locked for years, probably decades. The room is covered with very fine dust, and they find there a decaying skeleton in the bed, obviously belonging to Homer, Emily's boyfriend of decades ago.

In the pillow right next to the skeleton is the surprise - they find a deep indentation where someone must have laid their head repeatedly and somewhat recently, because they find there a long strand of iron-grey hair in the indentation - Emily's hair, without a doubt, since Faulkner has described Emily's hair as iron grey.

Here's the new view-the respectful affection of the townspeople at the start of the story must turn around, must reverse to a strong revulsion after they learn that Emily killed her lover and slept with his decaying body through many years, even decades. It takes some kind of a repulsive monster to do something like that!

With that thought in mind, recall the description of Emily in the first section: a small, fat woman in black. While not a perfect match, that description is fairly close to that of a black widow spider. Remember the figure eight - the thin gold chain - ending out of sight on the bloated abdomen? And the spare or thin limbs, with the cane adding a fifth sort of limb, which is one more than half of the eight limbs of a spider? Remember the fat, bloated body? So this view of Emily killing her lover is very like a black widow spider killing her male partner.

Why did the townspeople break into that locked room in the first place? They weren't sure what was in there, but they expected to find something important there, obviously. And that something provided a new view reverse of respectful affection for Miss Emily, at the very least for the reader, if not for the townspeople, as well.

Now, these sample thesis statements can help give you a some ideas for writing a strong essay on William Faulkner's superbly crafted short story, "A Rose for Emily:"

Faulkner uses his short story,A Rose for Emily, to illustrate the theme that, 'Human nature can be corrupted when an individual is given too many unearned privileges and too much undeserved respectful affection.' In a surprise ending, William Faulkner's short story, A Rose for Emily, reveals how a society steeped in a tradition of respect for social position can be so tragically, so ironically wrong. In A Rose for Emily, Faulkner repeatedly uses conflict and resolution to hammer home the respectful affection the townspeople have for Emily-until the end. Descriptive imagery about the mansion in A Rose for Emily adds to the revelation about Miss Emily's true character at the end, which has been hidden by the house for decades. In A Rose for Emily, the single long strand of iron-grey hair at the end becomes a symbol suggesting Emily killed her boyfriend, which clears up the incidents of the smell, the rat poison, and the disappearance of Homer-not to mention reversing the townspeople's ever-present respectful affection for Emily.

Writing Essays - The Monster in Faulkner's Story, A Rose for Emily

Next, you'll want to read author Bill Drew's e-book, The Secret DNA of Analyzing Short Stories, which analyzes ten famous short stories using the NewView Analysis method that he demonstrated with Faulkner's short story, "A Rose for Emily."

To help you come up with new ideas and effective ways to support them in whatever writing you do, especially in writing essays, Drew has also authored and published these additional e-books, which are available at his website and at Amazon.com: The Secret DNA of Writing Essays - And Everything Else, The Secret DNA of Writing Thesis Statements, The Secret DNA of Topic Sentences That Entice Readers, and The Secret DNA of Analyzing Published Essays.

Drew's unique and effective NewView methods of writing, reading, analyzing, and communicating came out of his work on his Master's degree in English. His NewView principles and methods are currently being successfully taught in elementary, middle school, and high school classes, as well as by businessmen and marketers.

Upcoming books planned by Drew include NewView: THE Key Insight into Writing & Communicating, The Secret DNA of Analyzing Novels with NewView, The Secret DNA of Introductions and Conclusions, The Secret DNA of School Writing w/ Lesson Plans, The Secret DNA of Shakespeare's Plays, The Secret DNA of Communication, and many more to come in the Secret DNA series.

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Report Writing - How to Format a Business Report

Introduction

Report writing is a time consuming business so it is a great shame if, having devoted all that time to writing your report, the quality is such that hardly anyone can be bothered to read it. Quite frankly, most report readers do not actually read all the report; they are too short of time. You might as well know it and accept it -- that is normal. They only read the parts that interest them. Frequently these are the summary, the conclusions and recommendations.

Short Stories

Of course, some readers do need all the details you so carefully included, they are specialists, but most do not. Most readers just need two things: that the information they want is where they expect it to be so they can find it, and that it is written clearly so that they can understand it.

Report Writing - How to Format a Business Report

It is similar to reading a newspaper. You expect the news headlines to be on the front page; the sports coverage to be at the back; the TV listings on page whatever and the editorial comment in the middle. If what you want is not in its usual place then you have to hunt for it and you may get irritated. So it is with a report.

There is a convention as to what goes where. Stick with the convention and please your readers. Break the convention and people may get slightly irritated - and bin your report.

So what is that convention, the standard format?

Standard Sections

Title Section. In a short report this may simply be the front cover. In a long one it could also include Terms of Reference, Table of Contents and so on.

Summary. Give a clear and very concise account of the main points, main conclusions and main recommendations. Keep it very short, a few percent of the total length. Some people, especially senior managers, may not read anything else so write as if it were a stand-alone document. It isn't but for some people it might as well be. Keep it brief and free from jargon so that anyone can understand it and get the main points. Write it last, but do not copy and paste from the report itself; that rarely works well.

Introduction. This is the first part of the report proper. Use it to paint the background to 'the problem' and to show the reader why the report is important to them. Give your terms of reference (if not in the Title Section) and explain how the details that follow are arranged. Write it in plain English.

Main Body. This is the heart of your report, the facts. It will probably have several sections or sub-sections each with its own subtitle. It is unique to your report and will describe what you discovered about 'the problem'.

These sections are most likely to be read by experts so you can use some appropriate jargon but explain it as you introduce it. Arrange the information logically, normally putting things in order of priority -- most important first. In fact, follow that advice in every section of your report.

You may choose to include a Discussion in which you explain the significance of your findings.

Conclusions. Present the logical conclusions of your investigation of 'the problem'. Bring it all together and maybe offer options for the way forward. Many people will read this section. Write it in plain English. If you have included a discussion then this section may be quite short.

Recommendations. What do you suggest should be done? Don't be shy; you did the work so state your recommendations in order of priority, and in plain English.

Appendices. Put the heavy details here, the information that only specialists are likely to want to see. As a guide, if some detail is essential to your argument then include it in the main body, if it merely supports the argument then it could go in an appendix.

Conclusions and Recommendations

In conclusion, remember that readers expect certain information to be in certain places. They do not expect to hunt for what they want and the harder you make it for them the more likely they are to toss you report to one side and ignore it. So what should you do?

1. Follow the generally accepted format for a report: Summary, Introduction, Main Body, Conclusions, Recommendations and Appendices.
2. Organise your information in each section in a logical fashion with the reader in mind, usually putting things in order of priority - most important first.

Good luck with your report writing!

Author: Tony Atherton
© Tony Atherton 2005)

Report Writing - How to Format a Business Report

Tony Atherton is a freelance trainer and writer based in England. He has had four books published and about 90 of his articles have appeared in various magazines and journals. After an earlier career in industry he now runs in-company training courses in business writing, report writing (including technical reports) and taking minutes, as well as negotiation skills and time management. Over 6000 delegates have attended his courses. See http://www.tony-atherton.co.uk/reportwriting.htm for details of report writing courses, or see http://www.tony-atherton.co.uk for general information.

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