For instance, maybe your story will start In Media Res — Latin for "in the middle of things." In other words, your story begins in the middle of the narrative, usually with some sort of crisis occurring. From there, the rising action towards the climax occurs (and the background information typically delivered in the exposition is presented to readers). After the climax comes the traditional falling action and denouement. This structure works particularly well for short stories, as it brings readers immediately into the main conflict of the story — which is important when time is of the essence.
In general, short stories don't have the same privilege of time when it comes to exposition. It's better to deliver this information within the action. Which is why another effective short story structure is the Fichtean Curve. The Fichtean Curve also skips over exposition and inciting incidents, going straight for rising action. Typically, this part of the story will see the main character meet and overcome several smaller obstacles (with exposition snuck in), crescendoing with the climax — and then, again, the falling action and denouement. While this model resembles the classic Freytag Pyramid, it encourages writers to craft tension-packed narratives that get straight to the point.
Alright, with your structure in mind — let's dig into the seven steps of actual short story writing!
What are the steps to write a short story?
Before we begin, it’s important to understand how to write a story. You might be tempted to apply standard novel-writing strategies to your story: intricately plotting each event, creating detailed character profiles, and of course, painstakingly structuring your beginning, middle, and end. But the trick to writing a good short story is right there in the name: short. All you really need is a well-developed main character and one or two big events at most.
Of course, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t plan your story, just that you don’t need to throw all your effort into it. Writing in this form isn’t about complex, masterful plotting — it’s about feeling. On the subject of writing short stories, F. Scott Fitzgerald once said, “Find the key emotion; this may be all you need.”
The revelation, the heart of the matter, the core meaning — all the same thing when it comes to short story writing. To pay homage to Fitzgerald, we’ll call this component the “key emotion.” The key emotion in your story is the feeling or impression you want to give your readers that will stick with them, possibly for the rest of their lives.
Despite the name, devising a key emotion is more complicated than simply picking an adjective out of thin air (“happy,” “sad,” “angry,” etc.). You need to focus on more than just the feeling — think about the context you will use to articulate it. What kind of story do you want to tell, and how will you tell it?
For example, you might know you want to write a sad story because despair is a powerful human emotion. But a sad story about a man losing his wedding ring is very different from a sad story about a family losing a child. The first might be a story of disillusionment with monogamy; the second deals with unimaginable loss and grief. Both of these fall under the umbrella of “sad stories,” but the nature of that sadness is distinct to each.
The most engaging key emotions come from real life, so you may already have one in mind. However, if you’re struggling to think of a key emotion for your short story, consider looking through some short story ideas or writing prompts for inspiration. You can also talk to friends, family, or a writers’ group to help you out. But no matter how you get there, get there you must if you want to write stories that are compelling and meaningful.
Having ruminated on your key emotion, you probably already have a good idea of how you want your story to unfold. Drafting is where you figure out how to communicate it: start to finish.
Writing a short story and its opening lines isn’t easy. You’ll want to strike the right tone, introduce the characters, and capture the reader’s attention all at once — and you need to do it quickly, because you don’t have much space!
One highly effective method for starting a short story is to write an opening hook: a sentence that immediately intrigues the reader. For example, in Mrs Dalloway (originally a short story), Virginia Woolf opens with the line, “Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself.” The reader then wonders: who is Mrs. Dalloway, why is she buying flowers, and is it unusual that she would do so herself? Such questions prompt the reader to continue with interest, looking for answers.
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