The document provides tips for writing short stories, including focusing on the core message or "heart" of the story, using an unexpected point of view or voice for characters, including opposing elements to keep readers intrigued, crafting a strong title, and keeping the story brief. It emphasizes showing rather than telling through techniques like vivid descriptions, creative openings, developed characters, impactful events, and satisfying endings. Additional sections give specific examples and suggestions for crafting different elements of short stories, such as descriptive settings, character traits, types of openings and endings, and using grammar techniques like varied sentence structures and creative word choices.

1. Story Writing Mantra
Tips To Writing A
Short Story
By
Dr. Nicholas Correa,
ELT Trainer, Ratnasagar,
Publication

2. Tips To Writing A Short Story

3. Every story has a beginning,
middle, and end. But the secret to
successfully getting a short story
published is to add something
special to your storytelling
mix…something that captures the
attention of editors and readers
alike.
While there are no hard and fast
rules for creating a great short
story, here are a few secrets that
will help your writing stand out:

4. Identify The Heart Of Your
Story.
Explore your motivations,
determine what you want your story
to do, then stick to your core
message. Considering that the most
marketable short stories tend to be
3,500 words or less, you’ll need to
make every sentence count.
If you over-stuff your plot by
including too many distractions,
your story will feel overloaded and
underdeveloped.

5. See Things Differently.
Experiment with your short story’s
POV. A unique, unexpected voice can
provide the most compelling, focused
experience of the central story. Just
be
careful
that
you
don’t
inadvertently give the story to a
nonessential character.
Narrating the story line through a
character who’s not central to the
action is a common mistake many
new authors make, often with
confusing or convoluted results.

6. Opposites Attract.
Elements that work against
your character’s central desire
will keep the reader intrigued
and prevent your story from
getting stuck. You can also try
approaching your core idea
from an unusual direction.
Dialogue,
setting,
and
characterization are all areas
that will benefit from an
unexpected twist.

7. Craft A Strong Title.
This can be one of the most difficult—
but one of the most important—parts
of writing your story. How do you
find inspiration for a great title? Have
friends read your story and note
which words or phrases strike them
or stand out.
These excerpts from your text just
might hold the perfect title. Try to
stay away from one- or two-word
titles, which can seem to editors as
taking the easy way out.

8. Shorter Is Sweeter.
Resist the urge to go on
and on. With a shorter
short story, you will have
more markets available to
you and thus a better
chance
of
getting
published.

9. Use these simple tips to
polish your prose and
assess any potential short
story shortcomings. With
these insider guidelines,
you can increase the odds
of your short story being
selected for the pages of a
literary journal.
That’s the best ending any
author
could
devise—or
even
better,
a
great
beginning to your future
success!

10. Structure &
techniques
Openings
Characters
Setting
Events
Ending

11. Story openings
Always try to make the opening of a
story interesting or exciting for
the reader(Don't start with One
day - that's boring!)
There are three different ways to
start a story:
Dialogue: "Sharks!" shouted the
ship's look out, "hundreds of
them!"
"They seem to be heading our way,"
cried the Bo'sun.

12. See Things Differently.
Experiment with your short story’s
POV. A unique, unexpected voice can
provide the most compelling, focused
experience of the central story. Just
be
careful
that
you
don’t
inadvertently give the story to a
nonessential character.
Narrating the story line through a
character who’s not central to the
action is a common mistake many
new authors make, often with
confusing or convoluted results.

13. Action: An ear splitting
whistle made all the pirates
leap to attention. At once
they
ran
in
different
directions, bumping into
one another, scrambling
over untidy piles of ropes
and tarpaulin, sliding down
rickety ladders, all trying to
be the first in the queue for
lunch

14. Description:
The
sea
glistened like a sparkling,
silver mirror. Waves lapped
gently at the sides of the
Saucy Sue as she sailed
silently along in the cool,
refreshing breeze, her Jolly
Roger flag fluttering limply.
Seagulls circled overhead,
calling to each other. No-one
would guess what terrible
adventure lay ahead for
Captain Peg-Leg and his crew
of daring pirates.

15. See Things Differently.
Experiment with your short story’s
POV. A unique, unexpected voice
can provide the most compelling,
focused experience of the central
story. Just be careful that you don’t
inadvertently give the story to a
nonessential character.
Narrating the story line through a
character who’s not central to the
action is a common mistake many
new authors make, often with
confusing or convoluted results.

16. Description:
The
sea
glistened like a sparkling,
silver mirror. Waves lapped
gently at the sides of the
Saucy Sue as she sailed
silently along in the cool,
refreshing breeze, her Jolly
Roger flag fluttering limply.
Seagulls circled overhead,
calling to each other. No-one
would guess what terrible
adventure lay ahead for
Captain Peg-Leg and his crew
of daring pirates.

17. See Things Differently.
Experiment with your short story’s
POV. A unique, unexpected voice
can provide the most compelling,
focused experience of the central
story. Just be careful that you don’t
inadvertently give the story to a
nonessential character.
Narrating the story line through a
character who’s not central to the
action is a common mistake many
new authors make, often with
confusing or convoluted results.

18. Take a look at the
openings of some of
your favourite
stories to see how
the authors started
their stories.
Try different ways
of starting a story,
then use the one you
like the best.

19. See Things Differently.
Experiment with your short story’s
POV. A unique, unexpected voice
can provide the most compelling,
focused experience of the central
story. Just be careful that you
don’t inadvertently give the story
to a nonessential character.
Narrating the story line through a
character who’s not central to the
action is a common mistake many
new authors make, often with
confusing or convoluted results.

20. See Things Differently.
Experiment with your short story’s
POV. A unique, unexpected voice
can provide the most compelling,
focused experience of the central
story. Just be careful that you don’t
inadvertently give the story to a
nonessential character.
Narrating the story line through a
character who’s not central to the
action is a common mistake many
new authors make, often with
confusing or convoluted results.

21. See Things Differently.
Experiment with your short story’s
POV. A unique, unexpected voice
can provide the most compelling,
focused experience of the central
story. Just be careful that you don’t
inadvertently give the story to a
nonessential character.
Narrating the story line through a
character who’s not central to the
action is a common mistake many
new authors make, often with
confusing or convoluted results.

22. See Things Differently.
Experiment with your short story’s
POV. A unique, unexpected voice
can provide the most compelling,
focused experience of the central
story. Just be careful that you don’t
inadvertently give the story to a
nonessential character.
Narrating the story line through a
character who’s not central to the
action is a common mistake many
new authors make, often with
confusing or convoluted results.

23. Characters
Two or three characters are usually
enough for a short story. Here's how
to make the characters sound real:
Give them suitable names.
For example:
Pirates: Captain Peg-Leg, Scar-faced
Bill, Sly Sam, One-eyed Pete
Astronauts: Commander Ben Lewis,
Assistant Commander Buzz Owens,
Captain Tilly Jones
Don't just use your friend's names in
a story!

24. See Things Differently.
Experiment with your short story’s
POV. A unique, unexpected voice
can provide the most compelling,
focused experience of the central
story. Just be careful that you don’t
inadvertently give the story to a
nonessential character.
Narrating the story line through a
character who’s not central to the
action is a common mistake many
new authors make, often with
confusing or convoluted results.

25. Describe what they look like
and how they move.
For example:
A wizened old man shuffling
about the house in slippers. A
giant, hairy, orange
caterpillar creeping slowly
along. A ten year old girl,
rather small for her age,
skipped merrily along the
street, her long fair hair
flying in the wind.

26. Try to show their
personalities in the things
they do, for example:
Careless - always breaking
or losing things
Lazy - never wants to do
anything, finds quicker ways
of doing things
Coward - nervous, hides
behind the others, stammers
and stutters
Competitive - tries to do
things better and faster,
wants to win
Posh - Talks very properly,
snooty, thinks better than
everyone else

27. Try to show how they feel
using adjectives and
adverbs, for example:
tired, excitedly, grateful,
angrily, happy, sadly, curious,
worriedly, relieved, nervously
Write what they say and
what they think.
For example:
" I'm sure I'll be able to fix
the spacecraft." At that
moment she believed herself.

28. Improving setting descriptions
Imagine you are taking a video of
everything you can see happening in
the scene. Write detailed
descriptive sentences Expand
sentences to
explain who, what, how,where, when,
and why something happened, like
this:
The tiny bird hopped quickly across
the garden, picked up the bread,
andimmediately flew off to a safe
place to eat it.

29. Write colourful sentences by
grouping adjectives together to
create: Alliteration(words
starting with the same letter) e.g. dark, dank, dreary forest;
crowded, cobbled
streets Rhyme - e.g. hustle and
bustle; a rumbling and a
tumblingPatterning - e.g. in the
highest branches of the furthest
tree; travelling faster and
faster Onomatopoeia (words that
sound like the thing they
describe)- e.g. jingling, jangling,
tinkling coins.

30. Use similes and metaphors for richer
descriptions
Similes compare one thing to another
and are introduced by the words 'like'
or 'as', e.g. The wet mud was
sticky like fudge
cake. Metaphorscompare one thing
with another, but are not introduced
by 'like' or 'as', e.g. The wet mud was
sticky fudge cake. Similes for the
following topics could be:
•The moon hung in the sky like it was
on an invisible thread.
•The storm was as violent as a ranting
bull.
•The wind was like a roaring lion
shaking its mane.

31. To change the similes
to metaphors, take out
the words as and like:
•The moon hung in the
sky on an invisible
thread.
•The storm was a
ranting bull.
•The wind was a
roaring lion shaking its
mane.

32. Events
An interesting story will contain
several events.
A strong exciting plot centres on an
unexpected event, a crisis, or a
problem, which needs to be sorted
out by the end of a story. Stories can
contain more than one problem. Plans
could go wrong:
•There could be an accident.
•Someone or something could get
lost.
•A machine could break down.
•Something important could get
stolen.

33. Descriptive sentences of
different lengths can create
suspense:
Suspense or mystery is
created by
building up to events slowly.
Don't just write: The monster
attacked.
Hint at the attack by, for
example, using speech:

34. A very hairy monster slid amongst the
trees, hid behind a bush and watched
hungrily. The monster growled.
"What was that?" asked Christopher
in a very scared voice.
"Probably just the wind," replied Luke.
"No, it sounded like a lion's roar," said
Christopher anxiously.
"Listen and see if you can hear it". The
monster growled again and this time
Luke heard it.
"That noise?" he asked.
"Yes!" replied Christopher. Next
moment the monster leaped from
behind a bush and started to attack.

35. Story endings
Explain the result of the events or
show how the problem was solved. (But
don't end with everyone going home
for tea or someone waking up to find it
was all a dream - that's boring!)
Endings usually bring the story round
'full circle'. For example,
Start: Three scruffy pirates sat
gloomily around a table in the Lord
Nelson pub, staring down in to their
empty beer glasses. One by one they
emptied out their pockets. It seemed
they had all run out of money.

36. Ending:
The pirate gang made their way down the quay to
their favourite pub to celebrate their success.
They had earned enough money now to buy a year's
worth of beer - and have change.
The final sentence is as important as the opening
sentence. It usually sums up the story's theme or
message.
•It had been the best day of my life.
•I'll never forget her.
•If only he hadn't been so selfish.
•She realised taking part is much more important
than winning.
•It just goes to show, crime really doesn't pay.
•They were richer than they could ever have
dreamed.
•I still laugh when I think about it.
For more ideas, look at some of your favourite
stories and check out the very last sentence in
each.

37. Grammar & style
Sentences
Words
Punctuation