Writing a great short story may be one of the most important skills you will learn as a writer. It is a great way of using words to convey a powerful message through a brief passage. There are, however, many things that could go wrong. Here are a few mistakes that you need to be aware of and that many authors make when writing short stories.

Forget the word count

When writing a story, there is a tendency to continue on and on giving descriptions about characters and places. With short stories, though, you are limited to what you can include. If you have written longer works before, you may struggle and wonder what you can include and what you should leave out of your short story. The best way to resolve this issue is to keep in mind the main theme of your story. This will help you remain focused on the plot. Also, consider replacing lengthy phrases with single words. This way, you will leave more room for more critical descriptions.

For instance, in the first story in Ben Woodard’s Mystery, Myth and Mayhem, a collection of short stories that targets young readers, the work begins with a scene of an explosion. This takes the reader right into the action. The rest of the story is built from this scene. The setting of the explosion is already established as a lab. The relationships that exist between the characters in the story can be seen through the way they interact as they respond to the crisis. The lack of an introduction allows more room for the development of the story in later sections of the plot.

In The Task Force That Saved Christmas by Jack Gannon and Cyndi Williams-Barnier, the story begins with the main characters being held hostage by a gang. The dissension between the two groups becomes clearer in the end. The author does not begin by describing the feud. The characters and their backgrounds are also only explored where such details are important in describing the scenes.

Creating multiple themes

The brevity of short stories denies the author the chance to introduce different multiple focus points. If different themes are introduced and you are working with a limited number of words, most likely they will be underdeveloped. Even when other themes appear, there should be a dominant subject.

In Ben Woodard’s story described above, the main theme is teamwork which includes being able to put differences aside to defeat a common foe. The foe the children face is horrifying enough to require all the children to work together. The main theme is clear and, by the end, the children are able to refrain from arguing to save their teachers.

Every story also contains different features from characters, places, scenes or dialogue. With short stories, however, the author may not be able to change these features as the plot progresses. They need to think about the main message of the story and determine which one will best develop the overall theme of the work.