I’m busy editing a collection of short stories. It’s open submissions – and you still have a few days to get creative. I like shorts. I feel they’re an excellent training ground for writers, no matter what genre. A lot of people think because they’re short they’re a lot easier than a novel. Yeah, no. Doing them well is actually harder than doing a novel well. If you can write novels, you may well not have the skills to write a great short story. A few writers fail at taking the step from ‘good at shorts’ to ‘good at novels’ — but it is much rarer than the other way.

‘But why? I want to write shorts because I can knock it off in a couple of days/weeks. It’ll take me MONTHS or YEARS to finish a novel.’

True. Shorts one and only advantage is, to everyone’s surprise, the fact that they are short. To be short they are frequently one POV and one plot. The latter two while not always being easy, are at least easier to keep track of and not to make a horse’s behind of. Those are the good points.

On the other side of the slate… a good short actually requires all the same things a good novel does. You just have a LOT less space to do it in. Your reader requires the following things: 1) A character (at least 1) they feel something about (even hate. But something). 2) A situation (which usually involves a setting) which is interesting enough for people to care what the character does in it. The situation/setting is not the entire thing. 3) A STORY. Not a slice of life, or an interesting view of something weird. A situation in which the character/s the reader cares about acts to deal with the situation.

Occasional gifted individuals will manage a short story with no dialogue, just action. Even rarer individuals manage all dialogue and no action. Getting the balance is probably a wiser move. Your milage may vary, but that’s my take.

Your setting/situation. You have 5000 words. If you spend the first 3000 of them setting the scene, no matter how weird the planet, how interesting the back-story is… you’re unlikely to have held me as a short-story reader. Did I mention that short story readers like their gratification fast? Honestly, if there is ever a good case to be made for ‘in media res’ — it’s the short story. If the setting/situation catches me in two lines, and the character in line 3 – and the character takes action and resolves things by that action… you’re going to sell it. If not to me, to someone.

If I hate one thing more than endless situational settings and not meeting the main character until half a page from the end, it has to be the leaf-in-the-whirlpool story – where the character takes no action to resolve their situation, but I am supposed to be interested because the situation is interesting… spare me. Please. Even if he dies trying.

If it is me that you’re trying to sell a story to: All of the above apply, but add in the fact that I don’t enjoy misery, or not unredeemed misery. I’m not much on graphic sex either – especially the bizarre and squick (Save it for Liberal Arts Graduate editors. I’m a biologist who worked with marine species. I know more about successful weird reproduction strategies than you, or even than you can imagine. Mostly, I find it funny rather than impressive or avant-garde).

Shorts are a great way to learn your trade, and also to get your name recognized. Try it.