How to Keep Your Short Story Short

By Rayne Hall, @RayneHall

Part of the Focus on Short Fiction Series
JH: If you’re used to writing novels, switching to short fiction can be rough. Rayne Hall shares tips on how to keep your word count down.

Shorter stories are quicker to write. This means, you can produce more stories, and multiply your chances of getting them accepted for publication. But stories often expand as we write them, trying to grow into novels, demanding more and more words. How can you keep your short story short?

Here are six techniques professional short story authors use. Apply them when you start plotting your yarn.

1. Condense the time frame.
Let the action play out in the shortest time possible a weekend, an afternoon, perhaps even just an hour. Plots spreading over weeks, months or years tend to grow into novels. Curb this by making everything happen quickly.
Continue ReadingWritten by Janice Hardy. Fiction-University.com