The Short Story: Getting Started
Originally posted 12-21-2010
There is no right way to start a short story. There are certainly no hard and fast rules about it, at any rate. When setting out to write a short story, I find it helpful to have one potent image or line from which to launch myself. I frequently find that when sitting down to actually write the story, it turns out that this line or image doesn’t actually appear until midway or later in the story, but the important part is that I have something to build the story around. I’m lucky enough that powerful images or title or lines tend to just burst into my conscious mind for no good reason at all. I’m giving credit to Billy the Idea Gnome, which is how I imagine the little part of my mind that dreams up these potent lines or images. Reliance on an idea gnome may not be your cup of tea, so there are other ways to go about getting started.
Build a character. With very few exceptions that I know of, all stories have characters. I’m using the idea of character loosely. An animal can be a character and so can a car. Stephen King has made good use of both at various points in his career. Think of Cujo or Christine. For most of us, the most natural characters are people. Establishing the features of a character can help to limit the scope of the story. A 13 year-old girl is not going to wind up in conflict with the IRS and a 45 year-old man is equally unlikely to be concerned by math homework. A clear character limits the context available to the writer. It’s been my experience that knowing your central character usually leads naturally to another good starting point: the conflict.
A good short story needs a clear conflict. This is not to say that the conflict must have a clear resolution, but the elements of the conflict must be available to the reader. Most good conflicts can be easily expanded into something novel length, which is part of the problem. Many short stories that I’ve felt didn’t work were those that tried to cram a novel’s worth of conflict complexity into a short story. The best short story conflicts are those that grab the essential essence of a conflict and work from that. This generally means giving up on those details that writers fall in love with putting down on paper. Let me give you an example of how you might introduce a conflict in a novel and then how the same conflict could be handled in a short story.
Novel Version:
Micah stared across the dusty street at the tavern door. The desert sun beat down on him and he wiped sweat from his brow. The sand trapped in the sweat scraped against his skin. He leaned against the post and the leather of his gunbelt creaked at the shift in stance. He had trailed Murdock for weeks, pushing one horse to death and nearly killing another. The image of Micah’s brother, sprawled dead in the street, flashed across his mind and he hardened himself against the killing that was about to happen. He stepped into the street and walked to the center of it, his spurs jingling with each step. He stared at the doors of the tavern, hate etched on his face and death in his eyes.
“Murdock! You killed my brother, you son of bitch! I’m calling you out.”
Short Story Version:
Micah stood in the street outside the tavern, hands ready to pull the Colts from their holsters and deliver swift justice.
“Murdock! You killed my brother, you son of bitch! I’m calling you out.”
Both versions deliver the same essential information. The main difference in introducing the conflict is the amount of time spent giving details about it. In the short story, you have to deliver the conflict as concisely as possible. To that end, when developing your conflict, it might be helpful to state it in as simple terms to yourself as you can. Knowing the backstory can be useful, but only deliver the amount the reader absolutely needs.
Next time, I’ll talk about setting.
