I read about 300 short stories a year and I’d like to share some thoughts on how to improve your story.

Know where to start your story. Sometimes you’re five pages in and you realize that the fifth page is the start. Don’t be afraid to throw out those first five pages.

End your story in a manner that feels finished. Your story should not sound like the first part of a novel, or a few chapters from your latest work.

Don’t be afraid to rain the pain on your characters. They aren’t real.

Make the reader feel like your character is real and not just a cookie cutter trope.

Watch your pacing. I can tell when you’ve run out of room and are on a deadline.

Don’t make me guess what’s going on unless it’s part of the plot. If I have to guess at the setting, the time period, or the genre I am too confused to figure out if the narrator is unreliable or the characters are.

Just because something is a trope doesn’t mean you can’t make it yours.

Learn to edit yourself, your family, friends, and fellow writers are unreliable. Mainly because they aren’t experienced or they are envious.

And on a side note:

I like to say that there are 100 ways to tell a story and you only have to pick one.

This is the hardest thing to learn as a writer.

You are not alone.

Kerrie