On the 20th last week, I celebrated with my dad his 91st birthday. I took him to lunch, then sat with him in his apartment and talked about the past: “The Good Ol’ Days” as many people who lived in the ’40s, ’50s, and ’60s tend to call those decades. He grew up in a time when the short story was popular. I devoured many of his old periodicals, which were full of short shorts and novelette length stories of all kinds. Whether farm life, westerns, wartime, whodunnits, or sci-fi, I had my nose in the middle of those publications, eagerly turning the pages to find out what happened next.
Reading those stories drove me to be a short story author.
Short stories are quick. The good ones get to the point right away and keep the entertainment level high to the end.
By simple formula, all good short stories begin with interesting people in interesting situations. It’s their efforts to resolve their situations that create complications, which raise the story action to the highest crisis: the climax. Upon resolving the highest crisis, it’s all falling action from there, kept short, sweet, and again: to the point.
I use the plot formula featured above often. And like a gardener plotting a garden, it’s how I seed and tend to those seeds that decide the harvest’s bounty. I spend a lot of time gardening my short stories. Often, I grow good crops; other times I fail and need to resow.
Good seeding involves a lot of craft and technique; tending is revising and rewriting.
Perhaps because I’m an artist who creates visual art, I begin with sight—that which I want seen that’s important to the story to bring it into light but done carefully with judicial impact.
Next is sound. I listen to my characters and put their characteristics in their dialogue. Dialogue isn’t talking, but characterization that moves the story along without narration (and adverbs). Then comes the narration: describing the important sounds around the characters. What does the sound of cracking ice do to a character when they’re walking across a frozen pond? Sound must relate to the story’s mood.
Sight and sound are two of the five senses, so I sometimes throw in dashes of smell and taste. Smell can bring two people together or set them apart, alert someone of danger, and bring forth flashbacks if they’re crucial to the story.
Touch is another vital sense if it moves the story forward. Someone stopping to touch a favorite blanket, for example, must be important to the story I’m writing. And if I overuse this sense (and the others) and the story slips into self-indulgence, out it goes in the rewrite.
Of course, knowing what to cut and what to keep in takes both practice and learning the craft. And the best way I know of learning the craft of writing short stories is reading them first, then studying them second.
Now, if only I could love novels as much as I love short stories, then maybe I could write one. Until then, I’ll keep doing what I love best.
Thanks for joining me today. Before I go, however, I want to leave you with a quick excerpt from my novella Trespassing. This book has been popular at book fairs. Maybe it will do the same online.
My heart pounded like a galloping horse, and my mouth and throat thirsted for water. I had no time to stop and drink from my canteen, but perhaps the water we had waded through would quench my thirst.
If only I could outrun the dragon and get to it.
I groaned from the pain in my head getting worse and slowing me. I felt sick, then woozier. A clamminess wrapped itself around my body.
“Don’t pass out,” I told myself.
But I stumbled and fell as a wave of wooziness attacked me. I landed hard on the waterworn floor and hugged its coolness before I rolled onto my back and drank in the cooler air.
The relief was overwhelming but lasted only a moment. The dragon’s heavy and hurried steps stopped reverberating through the tunnel. Its long neck stretched my way, and its scaly green face peered down at me with angry citrine eyes. Its long fangs dripped with saliva, and its flared nostrils sniffed and snorted at me. A thick claw that looked capable of tearing through steel poked once at my chest. It snorted again, stirring my damp hair. Then it grabbed me with its hand of four long fingers and thumb and lifted me from the ground, clutching me at the midriff like a doll.
Its yellow eyes sparkled like gems filled with fire and its gaze remained transfixed on me with murderous intent.
Thanks for reading. If you enjoyed the above excerpt, you can find the book on Amazon. You can click this link to go there directly.
Peace and love to all.
Steve, 9/28/2025
This post “For the Love of Short Stories” copyright © 2025 Steven Leo Campbell at stevecampbellcreations.com – All rights reserved.
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