How to Write an Award-Winning Short Story
Summary - This article outlines some of the most critical elements to winning short story competitions. It focuses on how to capture and hold the imagination of the judge, and how to end the story in a way that will make it impossible for the judge NOT to vote for your short story as the winner.
Article - Writing a short story is like creating a painting. You can be taught to follow a structure and a technique that outlines how a short story is written. However to write a short story that will win writing competitions takes practice, and more importantly it requires a writer to think of writing a story as though they are painting on a canvas.
A short story is different than most forms of writing in that it is a way for you to paint a picture on a page with the written word. Furthermore, this isn’t simply a static picture, but a movie that flows from scene to scene seamlessly and with enough detail that the reader is immediately pulled into the plot.
Grab Them with the First Sentence
Since most short stories typically range in length from one to three chapters of a regular novel – this “capture” of the reader’s imagination needs to be done immediately, preferably from the very first sentence.
While the first line, “It was the best of times. It was the worst of times.” – is already taken, that doesn’t mean that you can’t create a similar first line that will be just as memorable.
Some examples of a first sentence that will immediately draw the reader in are:
“The moment the gun hit the pavement, he knew that his life was over.”
“Suzy woke to the sound of birds outside the window, sunshine flowing through the drapes, and suddenly and without warning – the sound of military jets flying low over the house.”
Describe, Act, and Move on
There is a perfect balance in every short story between too much description and slow action or too little description and rapid plot. A middle ground is critical. The way to do this is to follow the same pattern in equal measure – Describe, Act, and Move On.
DESCRIBE – Upon entering a scene, the first and most critical thing to do is to paint the scene in the eyes of the reader and then quickly move on into what the characters are doing. Briefly include character descriptions as well – but try to incorporate their descriptions into their actions with statements such as: “As she held the phone to her ear with one hand, listening to her mother criticizing her qualities as a mother, Linda held her other hand up by her ear, nervously twirling a lock of her curly, dirty blond hair with one well-manicured finger.”
ACT – You’ve painted the scene. You’ve described the room and surroundings – so you should then move into actions filled with descriptive words wherever possible. Always use balance and don’t overdue the adjectives. Just imagine the story as though it’s occurring on a movie screen and you are talking to someone on the phone. Your task is to help your friend see the same thing you are seeing, and to feel the same emotional reactions to the plot and the story as you are feeling. Creative descriptions and quickly developing your characters into real thinking and feeling people is central to doing that.
MOVE ON – Don’t linger on a certain scene for too long – your reader (the judge) will get bored. If there isn’t anything really going on that adds to the plotline, then you don’t need to be there. The movie camera of your mind only records places and events in your characters’ lives that tell the story. You don’t need to tell a play-by-play story of the character’s life – simply those parts that tell the story that you want to tell. Doing this will keep your reader constantly enthralled and on the edge of their seat to see what happens next.
Be Fresh and Different – Avoid the Cliché
There is nothing that destroys a story quicker – and gets it taken off the “winner list” of the judge, than a cliché. These are elements within a story that have been overdone too often in so many stories before it. A cliché is very hard to prevent, however in rereading and revising your story, you will learn to catch them quickly, even when you write them yourself. Some examples of some of these clichés are as follows:
“A tear came to his eye...”
“It was a dark and stormy night…”
“The sun struck my face as I woke up…”
They are lines that have been used countless times in countless stories. The way to recognize them is to read a lot. The way to avoid them is to try to use descriptive phrases that are fresh, unique, and sound good as you read it aloud to yourself.
Write what you Know
The best stories that you write will be the ones that you’ve experienced. This doesn’t mean that you need to base a story on a true experience, but it does mean that you should base a story around elements of what you’ve experienced in life. For example, if you are an avid camper – a good story to write would be about two campers who get lost while walking the Appalachian Trail. While you may never have gotten lost, or have never walked the Appalachian trial – you know camping. You know the tools, techniques, and the process of camping and surviving in the wilderness. This will make the descriptions and actions in your story more convincing. The more convincing, the more enthralled the reader (the judge) will be. The more enthralled they are – the more they will enjoy the story and, finally, vote for your story to win.
Make it Emotional
Nothing impresses a judge more than when you can paint a scene that actually brings them to the verge of tears. Or one that actually makes them laugh out loud while they’re reading it. Creating such emotion in your readers is accomplished by making the descriptions and actions of your characters match the mood of the scene. If two friends are drinking at a bar and cracking jokes together – you want the mood of the scene and of each of their actions to be so funny that the reader starts laughing along with the characters.
End with Feeling
The flow of your story will be fast – but will always follow the same basic structure. It will be a quick painting of the scenario, a problem or issue that needs to be dealt with, the climax, and then finally a resolution of some sort at the end.
Your final few paragraphs should draw to a sweeping and heartfelt conclusion that helps the reader contemplate the overall story and what the experience meant to the central character. Imagine the end of the movie where the camera backs away, the music starts, and you have an overview of everyone at a wedding party having fun, or two friends sitting together on a front porch sharing iced tea and laughing together. The final scene and the end of your story lets the reader know, in a passionate way, the point of everything they just read. It does it subtly yet clearly, and ends in a way that leaves the reader to blink a few times, and then say… “Wow…that was really good.”
That is a story that will win writing competitions every time.
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