What Can Writers Learn Writing Short Stories?
Ideas come and go but the short story remains the same.
Anyone ever see the Hollywood film The Misfits starring Clark Gable, Marilyn Monroe and Montgomery Clft? I borrowed the tape from the library and watched it a few days ago. The director was John Houston. I watch movies so I can become a better flash fiction, short story writer.
Cover of The Misfits [Region 2]
What is a short story? For the sake of argument let’s say a short story is a journey that a writer takes and then a reader takes. Every journey has a beginning and an ending. So far so good.
A reader brings a certain amount of baggage for the journey. The baggage consist of personal experiences and certain expectations. If the writer does not meet enough of these expectations the reader may decide not to go on another journey that the writer has mapped out. Directors of movies must do with movie goers what writers must do with readers.
Image via Wikipedia
Well, the above is a nice metaphor for the relationship between a writer and his or her reader but what does it really mean? Writing short stories is such an individualistic process that describing this process is not the focus of this article. This article is about what the short story does to the writer.
What does the short story do to the writer? This is what it has done to me. It has forced me to take every idea I’ve ever had for a story and to strip that idea down to a few questions.
Who is my protagonist? What does he or she want? How does he or she go about getting it? Does he or she get it?
Every short story takes the writer to school.
John Huston did an excellent job with The Misfits.
Click here if you would like to download my ebook book of flash fiction short stories.
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Tags: article, ebook, Flash fiction, idea, ideas, short stories, short story, short story writer, writer, Writing
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April 4th, 2010 at 2:43 am
Great article. I might try watching more movies.
April 4th, 2010 at 4:18 am
Good one.
Inna
April 4th, 2010 at 5:34 am
Nice one
April 4th, 2010 at 6:21 am
LIKED THIS ONE GUY AND GREAT LINKS TOO CHEERS
April 4th, 2010 at 8:16 am
great way of summing up what must go into a short story.
April 4th, 2010 at 8:35 am
I love writing short stories and I like you have a definate beginning or hook for the reader, an interesting and character explaining middle and hopefully a twist in the tail ending! good advice Guy, LB
April 4th, 2010 at 8:35 am
true, good job
April 4th, 2010 at 11:48 am
I get the point and I loved the Misfits,
April 4th, 2010 at 1:51 pm
Love to write short stories ahd have a lot of them. hate to condense them down to articles so most will never be seen
This is a great post.
April 4th, 2010 at 2:31 pm
Well written and well presented guide to the arrival of a good short story. Yes, there are key elements to a good one and you’ve touched upon the most important. Thumbs up article!
April 4th, 2010 at 2:43 pm
It seems to me that the constant effort of trying to master the short story teaches a writer all kinds of things that can be used in article writing, too.
April 4th, 2010 at 3:08 pm
I just love to have one short story. Thanks for the thoughts Guy.
April 4th, 2010 at 3:32 pm
Great reminder of how we need to get back to the basics and establish the reason for our writing with just a few simple questions. Good article, thanks.
April 4th, 2010 at 9:56 pm
I love to write fictional short stories. I started writing for children but soon moved on to more adult stories. My last short story was taken from a dream I had. I wrote it in less than 30 min then reworked the ending for about 2 hours. I am proud of it. You have given good basic elements needed for writing short stories. A well done article.
April 5th, 2010 at 5:54 am
A good education in learning to write. Well done.
Christine
April 5th, 2010 at 11:30 am
Well explained. I think that an aspiring writer should read as much as possible so that they can learn from others too.
April 5th, 2010 at 2:00 pm
Writing short stories is fun and it takes only a few minutes. Good article. I love short stories,
April 6th, 2010 at 12:45 am
That was another elaborate share, thanks Guy.
April 6th, 2010 at 7:01 am
I try hard to complete my short stories.This is a great help Guy.
April 20th, 2010 at 10:22 am
Good article.