Here are ten tips from Barbara Taylor Bradford to help aspiring authors write short stories:
- Write something you would want to read yourself.
- Before you start writing, know how your story is going to end. Think it all through.
- Try and make the first few paragraphs of your story gripping. Use hooks to grab the reader’s attention from the beginning.
- Wherever you can, use actions and speech to let readers know what’s happening. Show, don’t tell.
- In order to develop a living, breathing, multi-faceted character, it is important to know more about the character than you will use in the story. Perfect characters are not very interesting!
- Make every word count and don’t crowd the story with too many characters. You haven’t got the space.
- Plot: if you over-complicate it by including too many distractions, your story will be overloaded and underdeveloped.
- Remember to check your spelling and grammar. It makes a difference.
- Read your finished story out aloud – it will help you to spot mistakes.
- Ensure your short story has a proper resolution, an ending which will satisfy the reader.