SHORT STORY NARRATION

Natalie Bright

My critique group is busy crafting new short stories for Book 2 of our Route 66 Anthology series. My story is going great. It’s not all on the page yet, but it is in my head. Also, the ending came to me clear as a bell. The main character spoke the last line of the story and I wrote that scene as soon as I could. I have two main characters and I have a theme: regrets. One problem I realized after our discussion is that my story has no antagonist.

Short stories have the same components as full-length novels.  Neil Gaiman talks about short stories in his MasterClass (well worth the price at masterclass.com). He learned from a mentor that “a short story is the last chapter of the novel that was never written.” How brilliant is that?

Here are your short story components:

1. Strong sense of place, setting.
2. The basic story conflicts apply, as we’ve noted in a previous blog: man versus man; man versus nature; man versus himself.
3. Plot (sequence of events)
4. Theme. Some examples: big idea, universal, underlying meaning such as ‘loneliness’, what lies beneath the surface ‘obsession’, moral of the story ‘love stinks’.
5. A protagonist and an antagonist.

Even short stories feature a main character (MC) that changes in some way from beginning to the end, called the character arc. What does your MC want? What are the things that prevent your MC from achieving that goal? Flat characters are boring and does not experience any growth from beginning to end.

Dig deep and make that emotional connection with your reader. Tug at their heart strings. Keep writing, and good luck with your short stories!