At first, you may find you can’t write anything over 200 or 500 words. You get the satisfaction of structuring, shaping and, above all, completing things. Starting on short stories is a great way to build up your writing muscles.

You may have noticed that I went from failing to finish novels to writing short stories… to finishing novels. I’m also putting the finishing touches to another full-length MS, working title The Wolf in the Woods. But I’m still interested in getting novels published too, and my first, Work in Progress, a co-authored farcical novel-in-emails about an eccentric writers group, comes out from Unbound in 2021. I love writing short fiction, and I always have several stories on the go. And best of all, in 2020 I published my debut collection of short stories, Hotel du Jack. In 2019, a couple were nominated for the Pushcart Prize anthology in the US. I started writing more and more stories, and I’ve never really stopped since. I didn’t get anywhere with a story for over a year after that, but that small crumb of validation was enough to tide me over. One of my very first attempts won a modest prize (£40, I think) in a competition run by a small press. So I googled ‘short story competitions’ and found that, surprise surprise, there were actually quite a few out there, and all with a deadline. Deadlines concentrate the mind, deadlines force you to finish things.

Why don’t you have a go at short fiction?Īs a journalist and content writer in my day job, I like a deadline. You’re a sprinter, not a marathon runner. You’re used to writing short things – articles, web pages and the like. Then, one day, and only a couple of decades overdue, I had a rather marvellous thought. But I just never had the plotting smarts or the emotional stamina, and I became like a madman running again and again at a brick wall, doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. In this article, Dan Brotzel shares 10 simple steps and practical pointers to help you write shorter fiction, including how to start off and how to end a short story!įor about 30 years, I slogged away trying to write a novel.

Cute short stories to write about