How To Write A Short Story
The short story is a narrative of interrelated events, involving a conflict and a resolution. Due to it’s length, every word must be exact and every event significant. Most short stories revolve around a single incident, a few characters in one locale and a rather circumscribed period of time. Because of its brevity, the short story aims at the unity of effect.
Conflict
This is an essential element in every short story. The conflict tells of some type of struggle: Man against Man, man against society, man against his environment, or man against himself. It may be physical or psychological, but whatever it is, it propels the story on to its final solution. The resolution of the conflict should be in keeping with the makeup of the characters, the influence of the environment, or whatever dominant element is suggested in the conflict. In order for the story to be successful, the reader must be aware of the conflict and must share in the revelation which the author suggests as the proper resolution.
Point of View
In every short story the reader can discern one of four basic points of view:
- The omniscient narrator knows and reveals everything about the characters, even their most inmost thoughts. This is the most common point of view.
- A limited omniscient narrator is an all knowing about one character through whose eyes and thoughts all the elements of the story are filtered.
- A character either tells his own story or one in which he is one of the participants. This story is told in the first person.
- An observer reports only what he sees and hears and nothing else. He has no insight into the thoughts or motives of the characters.
Setting
The setting involves two elements: the place and time of the incidents which are related in the story. Thus the locale, the social environment, and period of history form an essential, element in the short story.
The setting can play an active part in the short story in three ways: it can influence a character's emotions and ideas; it can radically shape his emotions and actions; a sudden change of setting can cause an equally sudden change in the character.
Character
Character can be considered an individual who appears in the story or as a complexes of emotions, values, beliefs, attitudes, strivings throughout the story or he may undergo some physical or psychological change. A way of revealing character is through dialog in which the character verbalizes his hope, ambitions, and fears. A character may be stereotyped or stock character, he may be distinguished by the role he plays in the story; he may be a reality. To be a reality, the reader must be concerned with the moral, religious, psychological, social, economic, and philosophical implications of his words and actions.
Plot
The plot involves the ordering of the happenings; that is, selection and arrangements of incidents of the story into a recognizable sequence. The heart of every plot uses the element of causality as its organizing factor. E.M. Forster gives us a classical statement on plot: 'The king dies; the queen dies' is not a plot according to Forster because there is no hint at a casual relationship. But, 'The king dies; because she could not bear to live with her guilt, the queen dies' is a plot because of the casual relationship between the two events. Every plot involves a beginning, a middle, and an end, but these elements may be inverted through the use of flashbacks, a brief summary of events, or by the paralleling of present events with past ones.
Style and Tone
The style of a writer is that which makes his writing different from any other writer. This can be seen in the texture and use of his language, the shape of his words, and the structure of his sentences. Two extremes are the clipped telegraphic style of Hemingway and the convoluted, periodic style of Henry James. Style also involves the author's view of the world which results in a specific sound or tone in his material and evokes the particular response from the reader.
Symbolism
Writers use symbols to underscore or punctuate a particular object, word, or event. These symbols may be used to indicate a state of mind, mood of one of the characters, or the importance of an experience. They can indicate a deeper level of meaning which the writer is trying to convey. Robert Penn Warren says, 'A symbol serves to combine heart and intellect, making a writer of experience manageable, graspable.'
Irony
There are three basic ways of expressing irony: by saying the opposite of what it is meant, by overstatement, or exaggeration, by understatement. Irony of situation involves elements of incongruity or complete reversal.