I love the short story format and I’ve written several hundred in a range of lengths. What I like about writing short stories is that they are so complete and satisfying in themselves, and can have as much impact in a few thousand words as any novel.
So let’s start at the beginning and look at exactly what makes a short story?
There are various definitions of a short story. The Cambridge Dictionary is typically brief and concise, if somewhat unimaginative. It’s definition is that a short story is ‘an invented story that is no more than about 10,000 words in length’.
I prefer more evocative descriptions such as that of Stephen King, that a short story is ‘a kiss in the dark from a stranger’, or Will Self, who describes it as ‘A shard? A sliver? A vignette?
Having said that, let’s consider the defining characteristics of a short story
· It should be short! Anything from a few words – as we’ll see later in this workshop it can be as few as 6 – up to a maximum of about 10,000. Most of my stories are between about 1,500 to 3,000.
· It has a limited number of characters peopling it – you haven’t got the time or space for a cast of thousands.
· A short story often contains a moment of revelation or change or conflict or a predicament – and frequently, but not always, a resolution.
· The action is often simplified – there isn’t usually space for multiple plot lines, many different landscapes, or a variety of times or themes. There’s not a lot of room for expositions and back stories either.
· A short story is NOT a chapter of a novel, a piece of description, a straightforward reflection or an essay.
· Most importantly – and obviously – a short story tells a story, often – but not always – based on a character, an event or a circumstance, and sometimes a mixture of the 3.
And having said all this, a really skillful short story can break all the above rules.
As you know, the theme of this year’s short story competition is Loss.
Right, pick up your writing equipment and I’d like you to write down three possible subjects for your story about loss. And when you’ve done that, can you add a possible title for each of those three subjects. You’ve got 5 minutes.
[5 minutes Breakout]
Done that? Can you look at what you’ve written and say whether the title indicates whether the story is mainly character, event or circumstance driven? It doesn’t matter if it isn’t, but it’s interesting to see whether right from the start you have the focus of your story.
Would anyone like to share one of their ideas and its title? Possibly not the one you might want to develop for the competition…
Structure of a short story
Next, let’s consider the structure of the short story.
One of the descriptions of a short story that most resonates with me is the difference between an article – such as in a newspaper – and a short story.
The most important thing about an article is the headline, and the first sentence. This catches the reader’s attention; the first paragraph tends to summarise and explain the main points, and then the rest of the article goes on to explore them in increasing detail. In other words, an article is a journey from the first sentence.
In contrast, in a short story, the first sentence still needs to be a hook and catch your reader’s attention, but the most important line in a short story, in my opinion, is the last one, and, for me, the whole story is a journey to the last line. Indeed, in many stories, the whole point of the story may be contained in the last line. That’s not to say that the last line always explains everything. Often the last line launches you into a whole new exploration or leaves a questionmark, but if it does that, it still has to satisfy.
The best stories resonate in the mind – or even haunt you – long after you have finished reading them.
Over break, I’d like you to pick one of the possible subjects that you have just written down for your story and write the first one-to-three sentences. Remember, you’re trying to hook the reader. Perhaps you could indicate a direction the story might take but don’t reveal everything. If you’re a tad stuck, you might like to think about your story being based on a character, event or a circumstance – any or all three in varying degrees of emphasis. And, if so, is that reflected in your first few sentences?
Or you can jump right into the action. Or even into the middle of the action.
Or sometimes the first sentence is, in fact, the same as, or a variation of, the last sentence, like bookends if you will, and then the whole story relates the journey of how you got to that ending.
Remember, you haven’t got a lot of time in a short story so don’t wait until page 2 to begin it.
Your first sentence should invite your reader in. You could perhaps indicate something significant is about to happen such as ‘My father lost me to the Beast at cards’ (that’s the first line of ‘The Tiger’s Bride’ by Angela Carter). Who is the Beast and how did the protagonist feel about being a gambling chip? And what happens next?
Or you might want to lure your reader into a strange and intriguing situation – ‘From the beginning of summer until it seemed pointless, we lifted the thick mattress on to the heavy oak table and made love in front of the large open window’ (that’s from Ian McEwan’s, ‘First Love, Last Rites’). Here the unexpected use of the word ‘pointless’ immediately raises the question in my mind why did it become pointless?
Or you could ignore both the above approaches because, like Saki the famous short story writer, you’re so witty and engaging. ‘Arlington Stringham made a joke in the House of Commons. It was a thin House and a very thin joke.’ That’s the first line from his story ‘The Jesting of Arlington Stringham’.
Okay, enjoy the break and see what you can get down. Just 1, 2 or 3 sentences remember.
[Breakout]
Let’s continue.
When preparing this workshop, I thought back to some of the short stories I’ve read that stayed with me long after – years after – I’d read them. I’ve picked four by famous classic authors that all relate to different kinds of losses. I’m going to look at the beginnings, summarise what happens, and then the last sentence or two of each of these stories.
The first story I’ve chosen is one I studied for GCE a few decades ago. It’s by one of the earlier – and most brilliant – practitioners of the short story form. Any guesses? It’s ‘The Necklace’ by Guy de Maupassant.
Beginning: She was one of those pretty and charming girls, born, as though fate had blundered over her, into a family of artisans. She had no marriage portion, no expectations, no means of getting known, understood, loved, and wedded by a man of wealth and distinction; and she let herself be married off to a little clerk in the Ministry of Education.
This opening reveals it’s a character driven short story, but circumstances – in particular her reduced circumstances – are key, and it also does involve an event.
Summary: There’s a strong, linear plot with a twist. Mathilde, a woman in reduced circumstances borrows a rich friend’s necklace, loses it, and she and her husband put themselves into debt to buy a replacement. They spend their lives trying to pay off their debt. Years of toil and scarcity later, when the debt has been repaid, and the
protagonist, Mathilde, has become unrecognizable through hard work and worry, she confesses the whole story to her rich friend, delighted that she had done the right thing and smiling ‘in proud and innocent happiness’. And the friend reacts…
Last lines: Madame Forestier, deeply moved, took her two hands. ‘Oh, my poor Mathilde! But mine was imitation. It was worth at the very most, five hundred francs!…’
So in a single sentence Mathilde and her husband discover they have wasted their entire lives. However, although this is a tale with a twist at the end, the twist is entirely reasonable, and is borne out by the information in the rest of the story. There are no misleading clues.
Any tale with a twist has to be logical and not a ‘cheat’. Roald Dahl was very good at this.
The next story I want to look at is ‘Breakfast’ by John Steinbeck which falls into the category of a sliver of life. The loss is not explicit but implicit in this story: a drifter, finding something and choosing to let it go again. I find this story haunting, perhaps because the memory of the event haunts the narrator. This story is, perhaps, circumstance-driven, and the actual event is an everyday event but the fact that this everyday event stood out in this instance is signified by the title. The story is also significant for what it doesn’t say.
Beginning: This thing fills me with pleasure. I don’t know why. I can see it in the smallest detail.
The beginning indicates that the story is event and circumstance driven.
Summary: Written around 1936, the story is probably set in Northern America during the Depression. A drifter encounters a family camping by the side of the road having breakfast and he is invited to join them. As well as the evocative descriptions, it is powerful for what it doesn’t say…for the last 12 days the family have found work, been eating well and have new clothes. They comment on this, and so the reader understands without it being said that previously they had none of these things.
Last lines: That’s all. I know, of course, some of the reasons why it was pleasant. But there was some element of great beauty there that makes the rush of warmth when I think of it.
This is an example where the sentences in the opening paragraph reflect the end of the story.
The third story I’d like to mention is ‘The Verger’ by Somerset Maugham. This is character-driven, as implied by the title, but here the loss involves the loss of a job.
Beginning: There had been a christening that afternoon at St Peter’s, Neville Square, and Albert Edward Foreman still wore his verger’s gown. He kept his new one, its folds as full and stiff as though it were made not of alpaca but of perennial bronze, for funerals and weddings (St Peter’s, Neville Square, was a church much favoured by the fashionable for these ceremonies) and now he wore only his second-best.
Summary: To cut a long short story short, after 16 years the new vicar finds that his verger can’t read or write and when Albert says he is unable to learn, he loses his job. Walking home, although he is a non-smoker, he craves a cigarette, but the long street he is on has no tobacconists…which gives him an idea. He thinks of all the other people who must crave a cigarette whilst walking along the street. He opens a little shop on the street which is highly successful, and then another on another long street and another, until he has 10 shops in total and is making a fortune. At an interview with his – now very friendly – bank manager, the latter is shocked to find that Albert has achieved all this yet can neither read nor write. He exclaims: ‘Good God, man, what would you be now if you had been able to?’
Last lines: ‘I can tell you that, sir,’ said Mr Foreman, a little smile on his still aristocratic features. ‘I’d be verger of St Peter’s, Neville Square.’
I want to mention one short story about loss that is often mistakenly attributed to Ernest Hemingway. Many of you – and all of you who write flash fiction – will know it. It’s six words long.
For Sale. Baby shoes. Never worn.
I realised when planning this workshop how many short stories are about loss. These include those of James Joyce, ‘The Dead’, Borges such as ‘Funes the Memorious’, and Angela Carter’s collection The Bloody Chamber.
To bring my examination of short stories up to the present, we have Hiromi Kawakami’s ‘I Won’t Let You Go’ published in Granta in 2023. Is it about the loss of self? Or the loss of willpower? Or the loss of a mermaid? Or something else entirely?
Beginning: I came by something strange while I was travelling.
Last line: Each of us continued to stare out the window.
Now I’d like you to consider your prototype short story about loss. You have a subject, a title and the first few lines. I’d want you to spend a few minutes thinking about what happens – or doesn’t happen – in your story. And then I’d like you to write the last line or two.
· The last line might be the whole point of the short story.
· It might explain the title.
· It might repeat the first line.
· It might reveal a twist.
· It might be a springboard, prompting your reader to explore what happens next.
· It might end on a note of ambiguity, like Henry James’s ‘The Turn of the Screw’, but it shouldn’t just fade away. It should be clear that it has ended.
Before you set to, let me give you a couple more last lines. There’s a story by John Wyndham, entitled ‘A Long Spoon’. The title is already beginning to tell you what the story is about – anybody got any ideas? It’s actually about loss again – this time the loss of a soul. And the last lines are: ‘You wait until he’s had time to look in the files – if they know what files are down there. How do you think I ever managed to raise enough capital to start this place…?’
And in deference to a former member, Steve Hammond, I had to include a Sherlock Holmes short story, in this instance – ‘The Adventure of the Engineer’s Thumb’ – that involves the loss of a body part. This ends:
‘I have lost my thumb and lost a fifty guinea fee, and what have I gained?’
‘Experience,’ said Holmes laughing. ‘Indirectly it may be of value you know; you have only to put it into words to gain the reputation of being excellent company for the remainder of your existence.’
And, if I may, my prizewinning story – ‘Crane Spotting’ – included in the Cambridge Writers 2021 publication Visitors, was about the loss of a husband. Yes, the topic is something of a cliché, but the plot focused on a romance between two mechanical objects.
Beginning: John’s gone. He warned me, but I refused to believe he’d really go.
Summary: The story is about a lonely woman, weaving a romance between two mechanical cranes she can see through one of her windows.
Last lines: John would have laughed at me, of all people, choosing to plant flowers of such a garish red colour. But he will understand.
[Breakout]
So you now have a subject, a title, a beginning, and an end. And nearly two months to write the rest of the story. When you have done so, edit it ruthlessly. Does it start where it should, or should it really start two paragraphs later? What can you cut out? Does the beginning still work when you get to the end?
Finally, as the judge of the competition, what am I hoping for?
· A story that abides by the rules of the competition, in terms of length etc.
· A character or perhaps characters that engage me.
· Something that surprises me – avoid clichéd plots. For instance, unless you are Jorge Luis Borges or Lewis Carroll, avoid ending it ‘and it was all a dream’, or having someone realise at the end they are a ghost or a dog, or a deathbed confession.
· On the other hand, you can begin with a cliché, but then develop it in an unpredictable way.
· A story that has pace.
· A story that is concisely written and doesn’t use big words or clever literary devices for the sake of them.
· A story that resonates with me, that I will keep remembering long after I have finished reading it.
Good luck!
© Josephine Warrior 2025