1. Short Story writing Strategies

2. Grade 8 Examples:
Write a story with a character demonstrating the importance of kindness.
Write a story with a character demonstrating the importance of overcoming obstacles.

3. If you think about it, our conversations are boring to read, for the most part. A normal exchange would go something like this:
"Hi Tony," said Katy. "Hey," Tony answered. "What's wrong?" Katy asked. "Nothing," Tony said. "Really? You don't act like nothing's wrong."

4. Instead of writing a dialogue like the one above, a writer could condense the scene:
"Hi Tony." Tony looked down at his shoe, dug in his toe, and pushed around a pile of dust. "Hey," he replied. Katy could tell something was wrong.

5. Keep the character's voice in mind but keep it readable
Keep the character's voice in mind but keep it readable. Dialogue doesn't have to be grammatically correct; it should read like actual speech. However, there must be a balance between realistic speech and readability

6. Tension! Sometimes saying nothing, or the opposite of what we know a character feels, is the best way to create tension. If a character wants to say 'I love you!" but their actions or words say 'I don't care,' the reader cringes at the missed opportunity.

7. Here’s an experiment. Go to a public place and eavesdrop
Here’s an experiment. Go to a public place and eavesdrop. It helps maintain your cover if you’re not obvious about it, but just listen to the flow of conversation around you. You’re likely to hear snippets:
                  “Hey, man.”
                  “No.”
                  “Shut up.”
                  “Get lost, will you?”
“ Really? She’s there now- wait, NOW?”

8. Notes:
Dialogue tags are the he said/she saids of quotations. Very often they are mistakenly used as forms of description. For example:
"But I don't want to go to sleep yet," he whined.

9. Notes:
The first thing to remember is that punctuation goes inside quotations.
"I can't believe you just did that!"

10. “She came home with me,” Will said.
   
Notes:
When punctuating dialogue with commas and adding an attribution after the dialogue, the comma goes inside the quotation mark:
                “She came home with me,” Will said.
When you’re punctuating dialogue with commas and adding a pronoun attribution, the comma goes inside the quotation mark, and the pronoun is not capitalized:
      “I hate you,” she said.
Mom said, “Sam came by to see you.”

11. With dialogue that trails away, as though the speaker has gotten distracted, use an ellipsis inside the quotation mark:
              “I just don’t know …” Jenny said.
When dialogue is abruptly interrupted or cut off, use an em-dash inside the quotation mark:
                “Well, I don’t think—”
                “Because you never think!”
For a non-dialogue beat to break up a line of dialogue, use commas:
                  “And then I realized,” Jane said with a sigh, “that he lied to me.”

12. Exercise: Write an interruption using a dash

13. Start dialogue on a new line

14. wrong
I wish I could fly,” John said longingly. “Why don’t you grow wings, then?” Sarah snapped back.
This is wrong because we don’t know it is Sarah speaking until we get to the end of the dialogue. The convention tells us that it is still John speaking.

15. Right
“I wish I could fly,” John said longingly. “Why don’t you grow wings, then?” Sarah snapped back.
With the line break, it keeps the reader on track, knowing that someone else is speaking.

16. Get out the short story you are working on and make observations on the dialogue

17. Write a hook to get your reader interested
“When the doorbell rings at three in the morning, it’s never good news.”
“ We went to the moon to have fun, but the mood turned out to completely suck.”
“There was a boy named Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it.”

18. Notes: When do you make a new paragraph in a short story?
A short story should not be one solid block of text. Make a new paragraph when there is a new idea, a time change, or when you feel it has been going on for a long time.
Look in your short story for paragraph shifts. When do they happen?

19. Tip: Start your short story at a high point of tension
Ex: I woke up that morning ready to board the airplane I had my purple travel suitcase zipped up and crammed full, and my dad was downstairs making me ceareal.
Vs.
The plane was a steal tube of death as I walked in, smelling the putrid fuel and others’ oxygen fill my nose. My stomach was filled with this morning’s cereal that my dad had fed me. I clutched my bulging purple travel sized case and crossed the threshold.

20. What else do you observe about the short story?