Tips on How To Write a Good Short Story

Let’s start from the start. We all have thought of writing a story at some point. The thing is that most of us just keep that in our mind and don’t really write. Let’s be honest now, the days since the lockdown started have begun to be pretty boring now. Binging videos on the net is getting more and more boring. 

Weebs have been on the safe side as they have a lot of choices but the recent news of the anime sites shutting down has been a shock for them as well. 

Taking all of the boredom into consideration, I have a suggestion for you creative peoples. Why don’t you try writing a story? You don’t know how? Well, I have got some tips for you:

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Step 1: Find Your Core/Base Emotion.

The title is a bit confusing I must admit but the content is not. We all have a core. Well in my case I am an edge lord. Some of you can be happy-go-lucky, some of you can be emo, some of you can be a comedian. What is the base of the core is the base emotion. Do you know the emotion that your face shows when you are not doing anything? That emotion. That is your core and that is where you start your story from.

What you want to show in the story always reflects what you are in real life and the core changes from time to time. The base emotion changes. So before you begin to write a story, find your current base emotion. The process is rather simple. Just look at the mirror when you are not doing anything. Whatever expression you have at that point is your current base emotion.

Step 2: Start With A Hook (Attractive Opening Line) 

One highly effective method for starting a short story is to write an opening hook: a sentence that immediately intrigues the reader and hooks them like a fish. This is a rather common practice among the writers of short stories. They usually begin with a deep quote by a character or a description of a unique scene that later comes in the story or is a flashback. What this does is keeps the reader interested in the plot. This keeps the reader curious to find where the sentence comes from. By the point they arrive at the scene or the sentence, they should already be hooked to the story to stop reading.

Step 3: Use the Existing Characters as a Base for the Characters in the Story

This is somewhat of a cheat and an easy tool as well. Thinking of a character is hard. To make it easy, use the traits of a person that you already know as a base. You can add and remove the necessary traits as you go on. 

We all know a lot of people and each person is unique so using that uniqueness in the story will not only make the character feel more natural but also relatable.

Step 4: Write the Plot

Now after defining the character, start writing. One thing to note is that in a short the maximum word is 20,000 – 30,000 words. This may seem like a lot believe me it is not. Now your focus should be on including the entirety of the plot within a limited word count.

You can do this by writing all that you want first and then reviewing and editing it multiple times. Believe me when I say this, regardless of how skilled you are, you have to edit the story at least once. You will find some places that you dislike as you read your own story.

Step 5: End with a Bang

Well if you have watched “Game of Thrones” then I don’t have to tell you the value of a good ending. Even the series “Dexter” had a bad ending so if you have watched any of these, you know how a bad ending ruins a good story. 

Remember the effort that you have put in the story and end with words that will make the readers feel something. 

Step 6: Edit

As mentioned in step 4, you have to edit at least once. This is especially important in a short story because of the word limit. You can remove some parts and replace them with something more effective or you can just correct the small grammatical mistakes that you have made along the way. Remember that as long as it is not posted, you can modify and edit as many times as you need.