short story

Simply put, this assignment asks you to write a short story. As an instance of creative writing, this paper emphasizes descriptive writing techniques, appealing to the senses, as well as attending to other storied elements (setting, character, and climax or anticlimax). Most importantly, what makes a short story a short story–as opposed to a novel or epic–is how it limits action, time, and place.

Time and action:

Consider some of the stories we read this semester. They typically tell a story about an hour or a few days. They might include some backstory (referring to past events), but the action of the stories occur over a short period of time.

Setting:

Some stories take place in a single room, at a train station, or in one neighborhood. While a novel might move from town to city or country to country, a short story typically focuses on a single place.

Other issues to consider:

Narration: What kind of narrator will you develop? Will you use the third person (as if we are watching people from a distance)? Will the narration closely follow one character? Will your narration include the thoughts of the character or characters? Will you use first person narration? In other words, the there be a specific person telling the story?

Character types: Will characters be flat or dynamic throughout the story? Flat characters do not change. Dynamic characters go through a change.

Dialogue: Some stories use little dialogue; other stories consist mainly of dialogue. Technical tip: Start a new paragraph every time a new character speaks. Also, even when you use lots of dialogue, you still want to appeal to the senses, describing setting and character action and appearance.

Genre: Feel free to work out of a traditional genre–horror, romance, comedy, science fiction, or fantasy. You might even consider blending genres–romance and science fiction, for example.

Symbols and metaphors: Most creative fiction develops symbols or metaphors. For instance, an ocean, light house, or piece of jewelry might take on special significance in a story.

Ambiguity: A lot of short fiction emphasizes ambiguity–leaving the meaning up the reader–rather than moralistic certainty.

Irony: Whenever words or a situation take on a meaning contrary to normal context, we have an example of irony. (Tip: Irony and coincidence are not the same thing.)

Style: Consider the style of your writing. Do you want to use barebones, terse or simple language? Do you want to use poetic language? (Some stories read as prose poems.) If you are writing from the perspective of a narrator’s mind, then you might consider using stream-of-consciousness. Stream-of-consciousness ignores a lot of grammatical issues, instead following the rules of how a mind thinks–mixing what a person sees, hears, and does with his or her private thoughts. Some writers create a distinction by italicizing the thoughts of a narrator. You might also write in idiom, reflecting the slang and dialect of a person or people.

Climax or anticlimax?

Not all of our experiences involve major realizations or conflicts. Life is often full of fumbling and clumsy experiences. It is not unusual for comedies and antiheroic stories to involve anticlimaxes which are meaningfully disappointing. The reader is left wondering, “What did that mean? How weird, and yet I can’t stop thinking of it.”