#toolsandresources

In reading John Dufresne’s ‘FLASH!’ for my grad school thesis, the biggest thing that stuck was that all stories have a common theme, and one of the most popular ones is the idea of characters reconciling after alienation or life after being ostracized from a group.

This could be a family member being disowned because of a religious or cultural choice. Or a friend being shunned after a rumor was spread around school. Or it could be a relative returning home after being deployed, or a loved one returning from a mental health rehabilitation facility.

No matter the plot of the story, the main thread is that your character is having to re-learn life, either when they returned to their community or after they left.

Pulled from Dufresbe’s book, start with this example:

A woman is sitting by a window in a crowded bar over looking the clock tower where she had agreed to meet Mr. X, a man she met online. The only man waiting at the clock tower did not look anything like the pictures on Mr. X’s profile. She waits there a little longer watching him, and what she sees makes up her mind.

Write two short stories, one in which she decides to meet him and one in which she doesn’t.

Remember, short stories are made up of what is left off of the page. A good short story has characters with depth, a great short has a plot with depth.

What can you imply by a character’s body language? What important narration can you omit by describing a scene from a close point of view, or through dialogue instead?

The art of omission is important when writing short-shorts. As a writer, you have to know what needs to be implied, and what needs to be narrated. You need to know how the information will be absorbed and best affect the story.

– Do you want to say the woman lost her child, or do you want to imply it by describing a woman returning infant clothing to the store?

– Does the reader need to know that your character is moving out of his now ex-wife’s house, or do you want to imply it by describing a moving truck with only boxes full of his clothing, his tools, a lawn mower he got for a gift, and the bedsuit his parent’s bought them when they got married.