Short Stories

WRITING AND SELLING GREAT SHORT STORIES

PROLOGUE

What’s the difference between a man thinking about death and a man making his own coffin? One sounds like a philosophical tract; the other has all the essence of a fascinating story. Why? Because the man building his own coffin intrigues us. What sort of man makes his own coffin? Why is he making it now? Is he about to die soon or is he preparing for the future? It opens up possibilities which the writer must explore to produce a memorable story. 

But how do you know you’ve written one? Read it aloud and stop half way through.  If your audience say ‘You can’t stop - what happens next?’ You’ve succeeded; you’ve teased your reader with small hooking details and your audience is desperate to know more. And that’s the secret of story-telling in a nutshell – curiosity.  We love to know what will happen next. That’s why children’s eyes widen when Little Red Riding Hood walks in the woods; they are afraid for her and want her to be safe. All the writer has to do is to make the reader wait to find out if she is. The essence of writing a memorable story is to place three-dimensional characters within a vivid location and give them a number of complications they must try to resolve. Easy, isn’t it? Well, it can be, if you know how to do it.

The following pages will show you how to write stories that will have your reader eager to turn over the page to find out what happens next.