How to Write a Short Story

Do you dream of writing the great American Novel? If you want to become a writer, you need to practice. You must write all the time. Write, write, write.

How do you practice writing? You can do writing exercises, write in your journal, write poetry, etc. but you should practice specifically what you want to write. If you want to write a novel or short stories, short stories are a great way to practice.

Learn how to write a short story.

This is why you are hear, to learn how to write short stories. You're probably searching for a step by step list on what to do. First do this, then that, then this. I will tell you, if you want to learn how to write a short story, you won't find it this way.

When you read novels and short stories, do you ever notice that they are all pretty much the same? No? Of course they're not the same. They are written by different authors with different styles and are just different. They don't all follow the same process to write their stories.

If you are completely clueless as to where to start, I can give you some pointers.

If you want to learn how to write short stories, you need to start brainstorming.

Don't know what to write about? Do a little thinking and brainstorming to come up with an idea. Think about what has happened to you that you could write about. Look around you and observe to see if you find anything interesting you could write about.

Just keep thinking and jotting things down. Organize your thoughts and try to write a short story about it.

Plan how you will write the short story in a general way.

Think about what your story will be like beginning, middle, and end. What is going to happen? What is the plot? What is the conflict? Who are the characters? What do you want to tell in your story?

You don't have to write out a detailed outline, but if that works for you, by all means, write out a detailed outline. Just writing down some ideas is good enough. Even if you just have the short story planned out in your head, if you won't forget it and it works well for you, stick with that.

Just start writing.

Now is the fun part. Just start writing. You don't have to decide how long you want the story to be. You don't have to decide how much you need to write about this idea and that. You've done your planning, just start writing.

Write a lot, write a little. Write whatever you need to write until the stories done. Don't start editing just yet. Right now you are just getting the story down. You don't want to mess with it too much.

Once you finish the first draft, start editing.

When you have it done, read through it and start editing. You may decide to just edit the grammar mistakes and small writing mistakes to start. At some point, you should work through the plot to make sure it's both what you want and consistent.

To learn how to write a short story, you need to learn how to find the entire meaning of the story. What are you trying to convey? Don't just fix the grammar mistakes. Make sure it flows well. Make sure it's consistent and written how you want.

Try to develop your own writing style. Be creative. Writing short stories that are fiction is all about creativity. You can get some inspiration from other writers, but don't mimic someone else's style. It must be all your own.

Writing a short story is great because it takes less time. Even if you want to someday become a novelist, if you start with short stories, you can practice more. You don't have to worry about having spent months or even years writing a story that just crashed and amounted into nothing.

Now that you know how to write a short story, you have one more huge thing to do. Start writing!