Writing Short Fiction Part III: How (Setting)

Okay, so I think it's time for another little blog series, this time on writing short fiction. A subject dear to my heart. I have written dozens of short stories and spent seven years as an editor of short fiction. If short stories are something you're interested in writing, hopefully I'll have some useful information. Feel free to leave questions in the comments and I'll do my best to answer them!

How to write a great short story!

Photo by Julien Tromeur

I once took a class from Orson Scott Card in which he compared writing short stories vs. novels to taking a boat across a lake. When writing a novel, you can take a rowboat across the lake. You can stop and fish and enjoy the scenery and paddle around all day. When writing a short story, you get into a speedboat, start the engine and race to the other side of the lake as fast as you can.

Short stories need all the same elements as a novel in order to make it truly a story and not something else. (See Part I). But you're going to handle those elements quite differently in a short story than you would with a novel.

Today, let's talk about the setting. Just as it is important for the reader to get to know and love the main character right away, they also need to know where and when the story is taking place. I know I find it frustrating to read halfway through a short story with no clue even what the time period of the story is! You need to ground the reader in the world of the story from the very first paragraph, if not the first sentence.

However, in the small space of a short story, you do not have room for long descriptions of the setting. Nor is it wise to info-dump on your readers. The trick is to choose the little, telling details that open up the world for the reader without bogging down your prose. Is the character using a cell-phone? Riding in a buggy? Traveling in space? What is the character wearing? How do they feel about their surroundings? It's the small details that will pack the most powerful punch in establishing the setting in a short story.

Because everyone likes to dwell in a different world from their own, even for just a little while!

(If you're interested, check out Part I and Part II of the series.)