Writing
How to write a short story
To write a short story, start with a character who wants something, put a problem in the way, and build to a turning point where the character must act. Keep it focused: one main character, one main conflict, a few scenes. Most short stories run 1,000 to 7,500 words.
A short story is a complete piece of fiction you can read in one sitting. It has the same parts as a novel (characters, a setting, a conflict, a plot) but far less room, so every scene has to push the story forward. This guide explains the elements, gives a step-by-step method and an outline template, and ends with a complete sample story written for this page, built from that same outline.
What is a short story?
Definitions vary, but most magazines and contests treat a short story as roughly 1,000 to 7,500 words. Pieces under about 1,000 words are often called flash fiction, and longer works shade into the novelette and the novella. For a school assignment, follow the length your teacher gives you; 1,500 to 3,000 words is common. What makes a short story work is not its length but its focus: it usually follows one main character through one important change.
The elements of a short story
| Element | What it means | Question to ask |
|---|---|---|
| Character | The people (or animals, or robots) in the story | Who wants something, and why? |
| Setting | Where and when the story happens | How does the place shape what happens? |
| Conflict | The problem or struggle at the center | What stands in the character's way? |
| Plot | The sequence of events | What happens, and in what order? |
| Point of view | Who tells the story | Whose eyes do we see through? |
| Theme | The idea underneath the events | What does the story suggest about people or life? |
Conflict can come from outside the character (another person, nature, a rule or the community) or from inside (fear, guilt, a hard choice). The strongest stories often have both: a runner trying to win a race while also fighting the urge to quit.
Plot structure: the story arc
- Exposition: introduce the character, the setting and what the character wants. Keep it short.
- Inciting incident: something happens that starts the trouble.
- Rising action: the character tries to solve the problem, and things get harder.
- Climax: the turning point, where the character makes a key choice or faces the problem head on.
- Falling action: the immediate results of the climax.
- Resolution: how things have changed. Not every loose end needs tying, but the main conflict should be settled or clearly changed.
How to write a short story, step by step
- Start with a spark: a character, a situation, an image or a "what if" question. Our story starters can help.
- Decide who your main character is and what they want more than anything in this story.
- Choose the obstacle. What stops them from getting it? Make it something they cannot easily walk around.
- Pick the setting and the point of view.
- Outline the arc in five or six sentences, from the opening to the resolution.
- Write the opening scene. Begin in the middle of an action or a moment of tension.
- Write the middle, raising the stakes each time the character tries and fails.
- Write the climax: the moment the character must choose or act.
- Write a short ending that shows how the character or the situation has changed.
- Rest, then revise. Cut slow parts, sharpen the dialogue and check that every scene matters.
Choosing a point of view
| Point of view | Pronouns | Example |
|---|---|---|
| First person | I, me, we | I counted the coins twice, but the jar was still four dollars short. |
| Second person (rare) | you | You open the door, and the smell of burnt toast reaches you first. |
| Third person limited | he, she, they | Nadia counted the coins twice. She knew someone had been in the jar. |
| Third person omniscient | he, she, they | Nadia counted the coins, unaware that her brother was listening at the door and feeling guilty. |
Most short stories use first person or third person limited, because both keep the reader close to one character's thoughts. Whichever you choose, stay consistent. Jumping between characters' minds in the middle of a scene confuses readers. Pick a tense, too, and stick with it: past tense is most common, though present tense can feel immediate. Our chart of English verb tenses can help if you tend to drift.
Show, don't tell
Telling states a fact or feeling directly. Showing lets the reader work it out from actions, details and dialogue. Telling is fine for quick transitions (Two weeks passed), but the important moments need showing.
Telling: Leo was nervous about the audition.
Showing: Leo read the sign-up sheet four times, then wiped his palms on his jeans and read it again.
Telling: The house was old.
Showing: The stair rail wobbled under her hand, and the wallpaper had faded to the color of weak tea.
Writing dialogue
Dialogue shows character and moves the plot faster than description. Keep it short, let people interrupt each other, and cut small talk unless it reveals something. Start a new paragraph each time the speaker changes. Put the spoken words in quotation marks, and use a comma between the speech and the tag that tells who is speaking.
"I didn't take it," Sam said.
Grace folded her arms. "Then who did?"
"Maybe," he said, "it was never in the jar."
Short story outline template
Title:
Main character (name, age, one key trait):
What the character wants:
Setting (place and time):
Point of view:
Opening scene (where the trouble starts):
Obstacle 1:
Obstacle 2 (harder):
Climax (the key choice or discovery):
Resolution (what has changed):
Theme in one sentence (optional):
Title: The Jar
Main character: Nadia, 12, careful and proud.
What she wants: to buy her grandmother's birthday present with money she earned herself.
Setting: a small apartment and a shop down the street, the week before the birthday.
Point of view: third person limited, following Nadia.
Opening scene: Nadia counts her savings jar and finds it four dollars short.
Obstacle 1: She suspects her younger brother, Theo, who denies it.
Obstacle 2: Two days before the birthday, the scarf she wanted disappears from the shop window.
Climax: She finds a receipt in Theo's empty jar and realizes what he did with the money.
Resolution: They buy the scarf together, and Theo's name goes on the card.
Theme: Sometimes what looks like a betrayal is someone trying to be included.
Sample short story: The Jar
Here is the story from the outline, about 600 words. Notice how it starts with the problem, uses dialogue to show the characters, plants a clue (the empty window) before the discovery, and ends with a change rather than a stated lesson.
Nadia counted the coins twice, then a third time, sliding them across the kitchen table in stacks of ten. Forty-one dollars. On Sunday there had been forty-five.
The jar had sat on her bookshelf since March, an old pickle jar with GRANDMA written on the lid in purple marker. Every dollar inside came from walking Mrs. Okafor's dog, and every dollar was already spent in her head: on the blue scarf in the window of the shop on Fifth Street, forty-five dollars exactly, for her grandmother's birthday on Saturday.
"Theo," she said.
Her brother looked up from the floor, where he was building a tower out of paper towel tubes. He was seven and had the face of someone who had never done anything wrong in his life, which was exactly how she knew.
"What?"
"Four dollars are missing from my jar."
"I didn't take it." He went back to his tower. "Maybe you counted wrong."
"I counted three times."
"Then count four times," he said, and she had to leave the room.
For two days she watched him. She checked his coat pockets and the shoebox under his bed, which held only rocks and a broken watch. She asked their mother, who said, "I'm sure it'll turn up," which was what she said about everything from library books to the cat.
On Thursday, Nadia walked to Fifth Street after school to look at the scarf one more time. The window was empty except for a straw hat on a stand. She stood on the sidewalk for a long time, feeling foolish for every trip she had made just to look at it.
At home, she went to the shelf she shared with Theo to count her jar one last time and knocked over his jar instead. His was smaller, a jam jar with no label. It was empty, and as it rolled across the carpet something white slid out: a receipt, folded into a tiny square.
She unfolded it. Blue wool scarf. On hold for pickup. Deposit paid: $10.00. Balance due: $35.00. The date was Monday.
Nadia sat on the floor for a minute. Then she went to the living room, where Theo was lying upside down on the couch with his feet against the wall.
"You put a deposit on the scarf," she said.
His feet came down. "It was supposed to be a surprise."
"Where did you get ten dollars?"
"I had six." He looked at the ceiling. "I borrowed four. I was going to pay it back. I was going to tell you on Saturday, so we could give it to her together." He sat up. "You always do the presents by yourself. I wanted my name on the card too."
She thought about the stacks of coins and the three times she had counted them. She thought about the empty window, which had made her stomach drop, and the receipt, which said the scarf was already theirs.
"You still owe me four dollars," she said.
"I know."
"And your name goes second on the card."
Theo grinned. "Deal."
On Saturday morning they walked to Fifth Street together, Nadia carrying the jar and Theo carrying the receipt. The shopkeeper counted out thirty-five dollars in coins without complaining once. That left six dollars. Nadia handed four of them to Theo.
"Now you can pay me back," she said, and he did, right there on the sidewalk, and they both agreed it counted.
Their grandmother wore the scarf all through dinner, even while she ate her soup.
The story never says "Nadia learned not to jump to conclusions." The reader sees it in her choices: she keeps the deal fair (Theo still owes the money), but she shares the gift and the card. The small joke at the end, with the four dollars going in a circle, shows that the two of them are on the same side again.
Common mistakes in short stories
- Starting too early, with a long description of the weather or the character waking up.
- Too many characters for the length. Two or three main ones are plenty.
- A conflict that solves itself, or is solved by luck instead of by the character.
- Ending with "and then I woke up." Readers feel cheated when it was all a dream.
- Explaining the moral in the last paragraph instead of trusting the reader.
- Dialogue that sounds like a speech, with no contractions or interruptions.
- Switching between past and present tense by accident.
Revision checklist
- Does the first paragraph raise a question the reader wants answered?
- Is it clear what the main character wants?
- Does each scene change something?
- Does the main character make the key choice at the climax?
- Is the ending earned by what came before?
- Have you cut the slow parts? The rule to omit needless words applies to fiction too.
- Is the dialogue punctuated correctly, with a new paragraph for each speaker?
- Did you read the whole story aloud at least once?
If your assignment is a true story from your own life rather than fiction, see our guide to the narrative essay, which uses many of the same tools. For ideas to get started, browse 300 writing prompts sorted by grade and genre.
Check yourself
1. What is the climax of a story?
Answer: The turning point where the character faces the problem. The climax is the moment of highest tension, where the main character makes a key choice or acts.
2. Which sentence shows rather than tells?
Answer: Maya slammed the cupboard so hard the cups rattled.. It lets the reader infer anger from an action instead of naming the feeling.
3. Which point of view tells the story using I and me?
Answer: First person. First person tells the story through the narrator's own eyes, using I and me.
4. About how long is a typical short story?
Answer: 1,000 to 7,500 words. Definitions vary, but roughly 1,000 to 7,500 words is the usual range. Fifty thousand words or more is novel length.
Pick an answer to start.