Planning Your Short Story

Part 2 of "How to Write Short Stories"

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Planning your short story in advance of writing ensures that it is actually going to be both short and a story.

Many failed attempts at a short story is just an idea without a narrative of increasing tension. Others meander aimlessly as characters go through scenes that the author finds interesting but without any true progress. Sometimes writers complain that their characters take over the story and they can’t achieve the goal the way the author wanted.

Some very successful authors have no true planning – they take interesting characters, put them in an interesting situation, and just let them play things out and see what happens. But if you don’t already have a huge fan following, meandering aimless stories are difficult to find an audience for. Planning your story is for the rest of us.

The first article in this series established that the modern short story generally meets a standard plot structure of increasing tension and high-stakes payout, but there is more to planning a good short story than just a basic plotline.

The Protagonist's Conflict

Let’s start with the protagonist.

What is the true inner conflict for the protagonist? Remember, the ultimate solution will end up being something that the character would absolutely reject doing at the beginning of the story because the risk and cost would be so high that it would be the very last thing he would ever consider doing. In many ways, that resistance against doing the final action is the real barrier to the protagonist’s success.

We’ve gotten unused to this in a world of television. Television is episodic, but a short story is about the single most important event in a character’s life. That single biggest event might look like a simple physical challenge, but almost always there is an underling internal struggle. The kid who stands up to the bully has to overcome his fear or feelings of inadequacy or commitment to pacifism or some other reason he hadn’t done it already. The action hero who fearlessly charges through a series of opponents to get to the big boss fight isn’t nearly as interesting as the one who hates what he is doing and has to overcome his considerable doubts about whether he is actually the good guy in order to engage in the final fight.

Knowing the inner conflict before you start writing lets you sprinkle in the hints and signs well before you are faced with it later in the story.

Looking Inside

So if the real conflict in a story is in the protagonist’s own head, how do you know what is going on in there? In The Martian, the protagonist kept a video journal. In The Wizard of Oz, Dorothy talked to her dog. Many stories are written first person, so the protagonist is telling the reader his thoughts as the story progresses. In buddy cop movies, the protagonist has his partner to talk to and sometimes hide information from. And in some stories, the inner thoughts are done entirely by actions and word choices rather than dialog.

Is your character going to talk to a mirror or a volleyball? Is he going to have a quiet scene with his best buddy sitting at a campfire drinking beer? Maybe you don’t want to have the readers know anything at all in the character’s head. Knowing this in advance lets you know that you have to put in a video camera, a dog, a mirror, another character, a tendency to talk about feelings all the time, or whatever you want into the story and make it natural.

Now that you know how you’ll communicate the protagonist’s inner thoughts, how will the readers know that the inner conflict has been resolved? In many movies, there is an almost obligatory scene where the protagonist’s decision to act against his patterns is signaled to the audience. The pacifist picks up his weapon, the alcoholic pours out his liquor, the company man delivers his resignation letter. It may not be quite so over-done, and if the story is written in first person, it might actually be explicitly stated “that’s when I decided to act”.

The Other Characters

You may have included other characters in the story because they are essential to the plot. But the characters can also add contrast to the protagonist.

We’ve established that the protagonist is the one person in the entire universe who the problem is both the most important thing and the most difficult thing. But what about the other characters? Do any of the characters have a similar or parallel problem that they will attempt to resolve differently? How about someone who has exactly the opposite problem?

A protagonist who is a reluctant soldier might interact with someone who glories in warfare. Or the same protagonist might interact with another reluctant soldier who chooses to run away. Another character might test an obvious solution to the problem, proving it to be disasterous, so that you don’t have the protagonist attempt it. None of these are essential, but they may be useful.

The Perfect Setting

Now what about your setting? Every setting comes with overhead in terms of words and in reader’s attention, but that’s a minor consideration. The real question is – what setting will increase the stress on the protagonist? A soldier reading a Dear John letter could read it while on R&R back home, or he could be reading it in the back of a helicopter on the way to a fierce firefight, but one has considerably more impact on him and the rest of the story. Would the setting work better to increase the jeopardy if set in the past or future or in a situation where the protagonist is forced to be on his own?

How It's Delivered

Finally, how will the story be presented. At the simplest level, you might want it to be first person, or third person. But what about third person close-personal, where the protagonist is in every scene, but you don’t look inside his head? Is it best presented with heavy dialog, or perhaps as journal entries? Don’t go with your default method of writing simply because it is default, choose the one that is the very best for the story.

In all of these options, choose the ones that are best at telling your story. You may not go with any of them, but if you don’t take time to consider them, you may well lose an opportunity to make the story the best it can be.