To write a short story: start with a character who wants something they can’t easily get, put them in a situation that opens up conflict, go through a series of complexities, and reach a moment of irreversible change. Short stories differ from novels in terms of compression – each element must take its place. A short story can be written in one draft session; revised over days or weeks.
Short stories are the most difficult form to master and the best place to learn to write. They give you instant feedback on every decision—character, voice, setting, scene—without the commitment of a long novel. This guide covers the entire process from idea to printed project.
What distinguishes a short story from a novel?
Short stories are not short novels. They work differently. A novel can hold many plot lines, develop many characters, and take time to build its world. A short story should do its job in one continuous movement—usually focusing on one character, one setting, and one significant change.
The short story creates rewards: compression, impact, precision of detail, endings that resonate rather than resolve. It punishes: over-explanation, too many plot lines, slow openings, and anything that doesn’t serve the central situation.
Step 1: Find Your Center Position
Every short story needs a central situation: a specific situation that puts pressure on the character. This is not the same as the plot. The plot is what happens. The central situation is the situation that makes things happen.
Examples of central situations: a woman learns that her estranged father has died; two strangers are stuck in an elevator; a soldier returns home and finds that everything familiar is strange. Each of these creates immediate pressure. Each involves a character with something to lose or gain.
How to find your status
The most reliable sources: something that actually happened (to you or someone you know), something you’ve been wondering about for a long time, something you’re afraid to investigate directly. Short stories that work are usually about something the writer needs to understand. If you are indifferent to the material, so will the reader.
Step 2: Create a character who wants something
Kurt Vonnegut’s first rule: every character must want something, even if it’s a glass of water. In a short story, you usually only have room for one fully realized character. This character needs desire – a goal that drives action, and fear – something that prevents them from acting directly.
Desire and fear must be in tension. If a character wants love but fears vulnerability, that tension creates a story. If a character wants money and isn’t afraid to take it, you have a procedural, not a story.
Specificity over species
A failure mode for beginning writers is to create character types rather than specific people. “Grieving Mother” is not a character. It is the mother character who still gives a seat at the table to the child who died six months ago, who started going to church not because of her faith, but because the priest did not know what was going on. A special detail is character.
Step 3: Choose where to start
Start as late as possible. Most first drafts start too early – the setting, background, or characters go about their normal lives before anything else happens. Instead, start in the middle of the situation, when the pressure is already on.
In media, res – the middle of everything – is not just a technique; a necessity in short fiction. You have no place to warm up. The opening line should already do the job: set the tone, express character, create tension, or raise a question the reader needs answered.
Strong opening lines
Three approaches that work: define the voice so clearly that the reader immediately wants more of it (“Call me Ishmael”); create a situation that requires an explanation (“Gregor Samsa woke up in the morning and found himself transformed into a giant beetle”); or present a destabilizing fact that must be resolved (“They shoot the white girl first”).
Step 4: Structure the Story Around the Change
Short stories are about change. Not necessarily a dramatic or positive change—an ultimately irreversible change in understanding, situation, or character. The character at the end of the story cannot go back to who they were before because they now know what they didn’t know before.
This change does not need to be planned in advance. Many writers discover what a story is about by writing a draft. But when revising, ask: what is changing here? If the answer is nothing, the story is not over.
Three stage structure
Many effective short stories can be divided into three scenes: the situation is created (character and conflict are introduced), corruption (the situation becomes difficult; the character’s assumptions are challenged), resolution (a change occurs; the character understands something he did not before). This is not a formula; this is a description of how most stories that work are constructed.
Step 5: Write the First Draft
Write the first draft without stopping to rework. The job of the first draft is not to be good, but to exist. A writer who revises each paragraph as he moves through it creates a technically polished work with no rush. The first draft must be live before it can be refined.
Practical guide: if possible, write the first draft in one session. A short story is 1,000-10,000 words long – it can be done in one long sitting. The consistency that comes from consistently writing stories is worth the burn.
Step 6: Review for compression
Short stories are revised toward compression rather than length. Every scene, line, and word must earn its own existence. Test: if this were removed, would the story lose something important? If not, remove it.
What should be cut first?
- First page: Most first drafts open very early. Cut until you find where the story actually begins.
- Adverbs: Adverbs usually modify weak verbs. Substitute the verb instead.
- Explanation: If you explained something the scene already shows, cut the explanation.
- Last paragraph: Many stories end with one shot too late. The last moment of resonance is usually the second to last paragraph.
Step 7: Write an ending that carries weight
The ending is the last thing the reader takes away. It carries more weight in short fiction than in any other form. Worst endings: the ones that tell what the story is about, the ones that are too neatly resolved, the ones that come before the story wins them over.
The best short story endings create resonance rather than closure. Something is understood that cannot be said. A character (or the reader) cannot go back to the beginning. The last picture or line should contain the whole story in miniature – not explain, but embody.
Where to publish short stories
Short stories are published in both print and online literary magazines. Start by reading the publications you want to submit — this is optional; blind submission is a waste of everyone’s time. The main online submission system is Submittable. Most literary journals accept simultaneous submissions; some don’t.
- Online literary magazines: Sun, One Story, Plowshares, Tin House, Missouri Review
- Flash fiction (Under 1000 words): Flash Fiction Online, SmokeLong Quarterly, Fractured Lit
- Short fiction genre: Clarkesworld (science fiction), The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Nightmare Magazine
- Award anthologies: Best American Short Stories, Pushcart Prize — these compile the best of the year from literary magazines
Frequently asked questions
How long should a short story be?
Short stories are usually 1000-10000 words. Flash fiction under 1000 words. Literary magazines vary: most prefer 3,000-7,000 words. Over 10,000 words is generally considered a novella or long story. Word count is less important than whether the story uses exactly the space it needs—no more, no less.
What makes a good short story?
A specific character in a specific situation that undergoes a real change, is explained in precise language, and ends at just the right moment. Compression is the key quality: nothing is wasted. A good short story contains more than meets the eye—rereading reveals layers it only hinted at on first reading.
How to write a short story for beginners?
Start with something that actually happened – to you or someone you know. Write as clearly as possible, if it’s easiest, in the first person. Don’t try to make it literary; try to make it happen. Read it back and find the moment you felt most alive. That moment is the center of your story. Rebuild the draft around it.
What are the elements of a short story?
Key elements: character (who the story is about and what they want), conflict (what prevents them from getting it), setting (where and when), plot (the sequence of events that moves the character in the conflict), and theme (what the story is ultimately about). In short fiction, all five must be squeezed into a small space—which means that each must do more than one thing at once.
