Shelley Weiner - Writing Short Stories: A 60-Minute Masterclass

A good short story seems effortlessly achieved, almost as though it has emerged fully formed out of the page. It feels natural, authentic and best of all its short, which can make it appear an easy option compared to the much longer haul of its extended literary cousins.

But it is not easy at all. Which is probably why there are so many bad short stories clamouring in vain for attention on editors desks and online; half-baked tales with amorphous characters and only the vaguest sense of structure, setting or plot.

So lets look the short story in the eye right from the start and acknowledge the technique and the art that feed its brevity. Like a luminous poem, at its best it can capture the essence of tragedy or comedy in a small, powerful moment and no one says composing a sonnet, say, is easy. But given the tools and the rules and some serious dedication, it is possible to produce an effective piece of poetry; and in the same way, with the help of this 60-Minute Masterclass and a clear sense of the challenges ahead, I firmly believe that a well-made short story is achievable.

However, for your story to reach the heights of the exceptional, rather than merely the well-made, more than tools and rules are needed. An element of magic is required, and it is for this elusive element that we are striving. As John Steinbeck writes, no one has ever been able to reduce the magic of fiction to a recipe that can be passed from one person to another. The formula, he says, seems to lie solely in the aching urge of the writer to convey something he feels important to the reader.

This can seem loftier and more fanciful than it really is. The aching urge can be rooted in something as mundane as bursting into a room with an item of juicy gossip: Youll never believe this

It can be triggered by a tiny nugget culled from an insignificant corner of the morning newspaper that somehow catches light and is fanned into a narrative.

It can be a secret ambition, a compelling stranger, a quirky observation.

But more important than the origins or depth of your urge is its power to ignite your story. Which is why, before covering the technical building blocks, this Masterclass engages with your idea: the primary source of your fictional energy.

But where, how do I find my idea? is a common entreaty. Almost as widespread is, Im bursting with ideas but dont know which one to pick, or how to develop it.

I shall answer both these appeals, and more. My aim is to help you to identify a promising story seed and, having done this, to give you clear and concise guidance on how to cultivate it into a strong and evocative piece of short fiction.

We know the short story is short. We also know that its a story: something has to happen. But what distinguishes it from other forms of fiction? What defines the short story? And, apart from its brevity, is it very different in essence to, say, the novel?

Important questions if youre setting out to be a practitioner of the form. After all, athletes with aspirations for the 100-metre sprint tend not to focus their training on the marathon. Supreme fitness is, of course, an overall requirement, but the brief dash calls for a particular set of skills. And so does the short story, which although it draws on core fiction techniques such as in-depth characterisation, strong narrative structure and a convincing setting has special requirements and calls for its own method of approach.

So what are the features that typify the form?

Length: quantifying the short story is subjective and can be erratic. According to Edgar Allan Poe in his essay The Philosophy of Composition, it is a piece of fiction that can be read in one sitting. But since a single sitting can vary according to available time and attention span, this avoids the issue. So lets be more specific and define the term as a work of fiction of between 1,000 and 10,000 words, with most short stories falling in the middle of this band at 3,5007,500 words. Between 7,500 and 17,000 words we have the coy-sounding novelette, followed by the novella (17,00040,000 words) and, finally (when the 40,000-word barrier has been breached), the full-blooded novel. At the other end of the scale, stories with fewer than 1,000 words are sometimes called short short stories, flash fiction or taking brevity to its extreme Twitter fiction, comprising all of 140 characters.

Pace and plot: with so few words at their disposal, short-story writers cannot afford to splurge on meticulous description or redundant detail. Whatever happens has to begin happening almost at the start and sustain momentum until the end. Unlike the novel, which has space for the writer to indulge in side-trips to explore nuances of setting and wordy sub-plots, short-story plots tend to be quite simple and linear. They often conform to a traditional three-part structure (introduction, conflict, resolution) and the timescale is generally tight.

Characters: casts of thousands are, again, an unaffordable luxury. The population of short stories is usually much sparser than that of their wordier relatives and the few characters that there are tend to be described with subtle allusions rather than detailed prose. This is not to advocate taking shortcuts in invention (of which more later), but is a case for economy of expression, which is an excellent discipline for us all.

The stipulated dimensions and guidelines can suggest prescriptive rigidity in the form. This is not so. Great short-story writing is about taking risks, breaking rules, shattering any mould. This is why, as a new writer to the genre, it is essential that you take time to engage with the stories of others not as a reader or a literary critic, but as a fellow scribe exploring technique and effect. As Stephen King wisely said, If you dont have time to read, you dont have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that.

Have a look at the short stories of Chekhov, for instance. His famous The Lady with the Dog (described by Graham Greene as having a sense of perfection that novels seldom possess) was written in 1899, five years before his death. Until Chekhov, almost all short stories were plot driven. There were O Henrys distinctive twist-in-the-tail stories, for instance, and the whodunits of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. But the revolution that Chekhov initiated was to make the plot of his stories as random and apparently meaningless as the plot of our lives. He believed it was time that writers, especially those who were artists, recognised there was no making out anything in this world.

The Lady with the Dog is a prime example of this real-life approach. It challenges conventional storytelling rules: there is no problem, no real climax, the ending is indeterminate. And yet, by Vladimir Nabokov among others, it is acclaimed as one of the greatest stories ever written.

Exercise 1: a mini-masterclass within a masterclass

Read The Lady with the Dog with care and precision (it is widely available online). Do you agree with the overwhelming reverence this work inspires and, if so, try to pinpoint the techniques Chekhov employs to achieve his effects. More specifically, consider the story under the headings delineated above and decide to what extent it conforms, or not, to the given specifications, namely:

Length

Pace and plot

Characters

Your close reading will reveal that although the word count (6,645 words) is below the prescribed maximum, and despite the focus being limited to two central characters (Dmitri Dmitritch Gurov and the eponymous lady, Anna Sergeyevna), the story flouts orthodox advice on speedy pace and tightness of plot. While its philosophical undertow may be about the arbitrariness of life, its lesson for us as writers is that the essence of a great short story is far more important than its adherence to any rules about the form.