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a35c9965 | 1 years ago (raw) | root | parent | reply | flag 
 @fbd8d4b4 >that reason is, and check that you've conveyed it to your audience.

Another approach from narrative theory is to identify the story's 'central enigma' - this is the problem to which characters are responding that drives the action. The central enigma sometimes arrives a bit later in the story than the beginning, but in a short story you don't have a lot of space to grab a reader's (or submission editor's) attention, so you should at least tease about the central enigma in the opening>
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a35c9965 | 1 years ago (raw) | root | parent | reply | flag 
 @fbd8d4b4 >on this theory, the central enigma must be resolved by the end. I'm always a bit of an 'anti-narrative' fan, who enjoys story structures with surprises, which is maybe why I prefer the other way of putting it, but even if you do want to buck trends, narrative theory can help you get unstuck when you don't know why a story doesn't feel right yet. So, one way is to take a step back and ask what the central enigma is. What problem are the characters solving? Does it get solved?>
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a35c9965 | 1 years ago (raw) | root | parent | reply | flag 
 @fbd8d4b4 >Can you strengthen how you show that it has been solved at the end? If part if what you want to do is show that the problem is unsolvable (maybe you like bleak, depressing ends - I sometimes do) can you bring *that* out more strongly?

If the story just kinds peters out the reason is usually that you have characters and a situation, but you haven't clearly identified what you want to tell people about those characters in that situation, or there's no specific problem you've shown readers>
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a35c9965 | 1 years ago (raw) | root | parent | reply | flag 
 @fbd8d4b4 >must be solved that arises from the characters being in the situation. You can improve it by clarifying existing issues in the narrative or introducing a problem for the characters to solve.

Example: The Tell-tale Heart is a short story about a man who goes mad with guilt because he killed someone and still hears the beating of his heart beneath the floorboards. Strictly speaking not a lot happens, but by the end of the story we are in no doubt about what the beating is, why the man is>
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a35c9965 | 1 years ago (raw) | root | parent | reply | flag 
 @fbd8d4b4 >plagued by it, and that he is mad. The story has answered the question it set out to address, and the central enigma is the beating of the heart the man wrestles with, ultimately losing the fight with his guilt to reveal his crime, resolving the enigma (for the reader, at least).

Sorry, I went on a bit here. I hope it's helpful. Once I started thinking about short stories in this way I got a lot better at actually selling the stories I wrote.