How to Write a Short Story: 10 Steps and 25 Story Ideas

A short story is a small thing that has to do a big job. In a few thousand words, it has to make you care about someone, put them under pressure and leave you changed at the end.

It is also one of the best ways to learn to write fiction, because you can finish one in a weekend and then try again. This guide walks you through ten steps, builds one example across all of them, and gives you 25 story ideas for when you do not know where to start.

How Long Is a Short Story?

There is no single answer, but there are useful reference points. The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America defines a short story, for its Nebula Awards, as fewer than 7,500 words, and calls longer works novelettes (7,500 to under 17,500), novellas (17,500 to under 40,000) and novels (40,000 or more). You can read those definitions in the Nebula Award rules, and see more ranges in our guide to how many words are in a novel.

Other magazines, contests and classes set their own limits, and many publish stories much shorter than 7,500 words. Always check the guidelines of the place you plan to send your story. If you are writing for yourself, let the story be as long as it needs and no longer.

The 10 Steps

We will build one story across all ten steps. The example is invented.

Step 1: Find an idea

You do not need a brilliant idea, only a spark: a "what if," an image or a character. Good sources are overheard conversations, an object with a history, a memory twisted into fiction or a prompt. If you need one, see our creative writing prompts or try the free story prompt generator.

Example: What if a lighthouse keeper's daughter found a message in a bottle that was written in her own handwriting?

Step 2: Create a character

Give your main character a name, a job or situation, and one trait that will matter. Keep the cast small. Two or three people is plenty for a short story.

Example: Mara, fifteen, lives in a lighthouse with her father. She is stubborn and curious.

Step 3: Decide what they want

Stories run on desire. The character wants something specific: an object, an answer, a person's approval, a way out. Make it concrete.

Example: Mara wants to know who wrote the letter.

Step 4: Add an obstacle

Something stands between the character and what they want. It can be another person, the world, or themselves. See our guide to the types of conflict in literature.

Example: Her father says to throw the bottle back. A storm is coming. And the handwriting is exactly her own.

Step 5: Write a strong opening

Start close to the action, with a character in a moment. Avoid long backstory and weather reports. Raise a question in the first paragraph, and the reader will keep reading to answer it.

Example opening: "The bottle washed up on Tuesday, and by Wednesday Mara had read the letter nineteen times. It was signed with her name."

Step 6: Build the middle

The middle is a series of attempts, each making things harder or revealing more. Aim for three or four beats. Each should change something: new information, a bigger risk or a worse choice.

Example beats: Mara compares the handwriting to her diary. She asks her father, and he lies. She sneaks out to the old signal room and finds more letters.

Step 7: Reach the climax

The climax is the moment of greatest tension, where the character makes a choice that decides the conflict. It should be the result of everything before it.

Example: In the signal room, Mara finds a letter that says, "If you are reading this, do not trust the lighthouse. Trust the sea." As the storm hits, she must decide whether to stay or leave.

Step 8: Write the ending

A short story ending resolves the conflict, or at least shows what changed. It does not have to tie everything up, but it should feel earned. Good endings often echo the opening.

Example: Mara chooses to light the lamp, bringing a ship safely in, and understands the letters were from a future version of herself who had also made that choice. She puts a new letter in a bottle.

Step 9: Revise

Put the draft away for a day, then read it aloud. Check:

• Does the opening make a promise the story keeps?
• Does every scene change something?
• Is there a clear want, a clear obstacle and a clear change?
• Can you cut the first paragraph? Often you can.
• Does the dialogue sound like people? See how to write dialogue.

Step 10: Share or submit

Read it to a friend, join a writing group or send it to a magazine or contest that fits. Read their guidelines first, including word limits and format, and expect rejections, which are part of every writer's life.

Common Short Story Mistakes

• Too many characters. Two or three is enough.
• Starting too early. Cut the warm-up and begin where something happens.
• No clear want. If you cannot say what the character wants, the story drifts.
• An ending that is only a dream or a sudden miracle.
• Telling instead of showing. "She was scared" is weaker than "Her hands would not stop shaking."
• Too much backstory crammed into the first page.
• No change. If the character is the same at the end, the story has not done its job.

25 Short Story Ideas

1. A lighthouse keeper's daughter finds a letter in her own handwriting.
2. Two strangers keep swapping umbrellas on the same train.
3. A town wakes up to find all its clocks showing a different time.
4. A retired spy opens a quiet bakery, and a customer recognizes her.
5. A child hides a very large secret in a very small closet.
6. A mapmaker draws a street that does not exist, and then it appears.
7. A librarian discovers that one book changes each time it is returned.
8. A violinist loses her hearing the week before her biggest concert.
9. A boy inherits a house full of doors that open to the wrong rooms.
10. A woman finds a voicemail from her father, left a week after he died.
11. The last bus of the night takes a route that is not on the schedule.
12. A chef cooks one meal that makes everyone tell the truth.
13. A girl and her grandmother trade recipes and secrets.
14. A town votes to ban a word, and the word starts to disappear.
15. A man finds a camera that photographs what will happen tomorrow.
16. A robot learns to lie to protect a child.
17. A sailor returns to find his village a hundred years older.
18. Two siblings meet at their childhood home to sort out their mother's things.
19. A runaway hides in a theater and becomes part of a show.
20. A gardener's tomatoes start to predict the weather, and then the news.
21. A teacher receives a note from a student who left the school years ago.
22. A snowed-in family in a cabin hears a knock at midnight.
23. A girl's imaginary friend turns out to be a very old ghost.
24. A taxi driver picks up a passenger who knows his name.
25. A boy wins a wish and spends it on the wrong thing.

For fantasy, science fiction, mystery, romance and more, with a first line and a twist for each, see our full list of creative writing prompts.

Get Help With Your Story

If you want a starting point, the free story prompt generator, story character generator and plot generator are free to use, and you can build from whatever they give you. For stuck middles, the plot twist generator can suggest a turn. The story itself should be yours, in your voice and with your choices. Our story writing page explains how writers use Writingful at each stage.

What This Guide Cannot Do

There is no single right way to write a story, and many fine stories break every rule above. Genres and markets have different expectations about length, structure and endings, so read widely in the kind of story you want to write and follow the guidelines of any contest or magazine you submit to. The example in this guide is invented and simplified.

Related Guides

• How to write dialogue
• Types of conflict in literature
• Creative writing prompts
• How many words in a novel
• Story writing with Writingful