Creative Writing Resources: Short Story Development

Writing a short story is different from writing a novel. Just as writing a film is different than writing for television. Both the short story and the novel can be mastered by a writer. But each requires a different process.

"Good short stories are made from the writer's emotions alone...done with small personal experiences...let the imagination play with such incidences as a faintly heard song and an invaded apartment, and see what evolves. Other experiences are quieter...The writer will seize on even the smallest, and turn it use if he can." (Patricia Highsmith, p.16, 22, 24.)

So how long is a short story? According to Book Riot dot com, here is a general range for works of fiction:

• Flash fiction = less than 1000 words
• Short story = 1000 to 7500 words
• Novelette (or longer short stories) = 10,000 to 17,500 words (or up to 100 pages)
• Novella = 17,500 to 40,000 words (100 to 200 pages)
• Novels = anything above 40,000 words. Each genre of fiction has its own standard word count. But the word count is not set in stone.

• 9 Ways Writing Short Stories Can Pay Off for Writers: Writer's Digest post.
• Ray Bradbury's Greatest Writing Advice
• Encyclopedia Britannica article on the Short Story
• The Plot Generator for Short Stories
• Kurt Vonnegut's 8 Tips on How to Write a Good Short Story
• Writing a short story – where do you start?: Britain's National Centre for Writing post.

The eBooks are available through the links to EBSCOhost and O'Reilly Learning.