Writing an Effective Short Story 5 Tips for Writing Your Story.
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Transcript of Writing an Effective Short Story 5 Tips for Writing Your Story.
Writing an Effective Short Story
5 Tips for Writing Your Story
1. Have a clear theme.
• What is the underlying message or statement behind the words? This will leave more meaning in the minds of your readers.
2. Cover a short time span.
• It may be one single event that proves pivotal in the life of the character, and that event will illustrate the theme.
3. Don’t have too many characters.
• Each new character will bring a new element to the story, and for a short story too many different dimensions (or directions) will water down the theme. Use only enough characters to effectively illustrate the theme.
3. Know the character you do have.
• To help with the effectiveness of your writing, be sure to know your character as a whole person. The character interview sheet can help.
4. Make every word count
.
• There is no room for unnecessary extension in a short story. If a word is not working towards getting across the theme and moving the story along, delete it. A longer story is not necessarily better!
5. Focus
• Your story’s point is its theme. It's tempting to digress, but in a 'short' story you have to follow the straight and narrow.
FOCUS!
• If you do not have focus, you end up with either the beginning of a novel or a group of ideas that don’t add up to a meaningful story.
FOCUS
The best stories are the ones that follow a narrow subject line.
Short Story Writing Tips
1. Have a clear theme.
2. Cover a short time span.
3. Don’t have too many characters.
4. Make every word count.
5. FOCUS!
One more thing…
• No cliff hanger endings
• No “It was just a dream” endings