How to Write a Short Story – Bridget Whelan

I recently came across the WikiHow entry on how to write a short story. The actual article contains good advice, but I arched an eyebrow when I read the introduction. “While writing a novel can be a Herculean task, just about anybody can craft and, most importantly, finish, a short story.” No, they can’t – unless the writer means that almost anybody can produce 1000+ words of grammatically correct sentences that somehow link up together, but that’s no more a short story than a roll of material pinned into a tube is a dress. I resent the idea that short stories are an easy option. The very size means there’s nowhere to hide flabby ideas and weak sentences. A clunky phrase stands out as brashly as if it had been highlighted in neon yellow. But what is a short story? Sir Angus Wilson who, with Malcolm Bradbury, helped set up the first MA in creative writing at the University of East Anglia in the early 1970s, felt that short stories and plays were similar. “You take a point in time and develop it from there; there is no room for development backwards.” I think Alice Munro, the Canadian short story writer who won the Nobel Prize for Literature last year, was saying much the same thing when she described short stories as ‘a world seen in a quick glancing light. ’ Usually a short story has a very restricted range of characters and the action takes place over a relatively short period of time – days rather than years – and there’s no room for time slip...
Source: The Hysterectomy Association - Category: OBGYN Authors: Tags: Hysteria Writing Competition bridget whelan hysteria 2014 writer in residence Source Type: news