Top 3 Short Story Problems

For nearly five years, I read submissions for the Baltimore Review, a literary journal for poetry, fiction, and nonfiction. I read hundreds and hundreds of short stories and saw a huge range of writing voices and styles. And right now I’m currently judging for Writing Battle, a quarterly contest that allows writers to get professional feedback on their stories.

So I’ve seen a lot of great writing, and I’ve seen a lot of really-not-great writing. But among all the various issues that pop up in these submissions and contest entries, there are three big ones that make me go “Nope.” In Submittable, there’s actually a thumbs-down button to reject a story, and whenever one of these three showed up, I clicked on it.

In this blog, I’ll be going through the top three short story problems I’ve seen so you won’t make them in your writing.

Short Story Problem 1: No Character Arc/Theme

Character arc is the growth your character makes from the beginning of the story to the end. They must end up in a different place, and I don’t just mean physically. There needs to be an internal change, whether positive or negative, to make them relatable, realistic, and relevant to the reader.

Theme is the idea behind the story, the point of view you as the author want the reader to consider. It could be “war,” with the message that “war is sometimes necessary.” It could be a theme of “repentance,” with the message that “it’s never too late to change.”

I mention both theme and character arc together here because the two are tightly connected. Theme is expressed in a story through a character’s actions. How else would you convey something so abstract and theoretical? The way a character interacts with the conflict shows the author’s point of view. And that’s why if the character doesn’t have any growth in the story, then the theme hasn’t been fully expressed. And if the theme isn’t expressed, the story lacks meaning. I’ll read a story and go “What was the point of that?” And that’s really the last question you want any reader to ask about your story.

You might think that there’s no room in a short story for a solid arc. That’s 100 percent wrong. If your story doesn’t have an arc for both character and theme, it will not touch your reader. Period. You might have a great plot with super fun starship battles or an intriguing murder, but readers will not remember it if they don’t have a character to care about or a thought-provoking idea to lend the story meaning.

So let’s get practical. What’s an example of this?

Let’s say you have a character in prison. We’ll call her Poppy. She’s on Day 65 of 486 for involuntary manslaughter. Drinking while driving. It’s Friday, her one day a week to call home to her daughter. The daughter is 14 and has no desire to speak to her, as every time they speak, Poppy tries to defend herself, make excuses for what happened, and give insincere apologies.

Well, there’s the start of an arc right there. Poppy wants to reconnect with her daughter. What she needs (theme/lesson to learn) is to admit fault and stop making excuses to her daughter.

What I’ll often see in stories is a conversation between Poppy and her daughter that will have some element of “hope” at the end, a hint of reconciliation between the two, but it’ll happen out of pity from the daughter’s end, or because Poppy will say something unrelated to the theme to change her daughter’s heart. In a good story, Poppy must first learn the theme to get what she wants/needs. She must admit fault for upending her daughter’s life; whether her daughter accepts that isn’t up to Poppy. But it’s the saying of it that will complete Poppy’s arc.

Remember this: When a character makes an internal change (theme/lesson), that’s when they change the external plot. For more on this, see Dara Marks’s Inside Story, where she breaks down plot, theme, and character and how they’re all connected.

Short Story Problem 2: Writing Mechanics

Look, I’ll be the first person to tell you that message matters more than spelling. If you have a good enough story, the reader will forgive the grammar mistakes. HOWEVER, that’s only to a point. If there are too many errors, and especially of the kind that really get in the way of understanding what on earth is going on, then you no longer have a good story. You have a rough draft that needs editing.

Here's a short example of what I mean:

“Are you ready sire?”

Lucas never wanted to be king. Really he shouldn’t have, four older brothers and all and all of them way more suited for the crown than himself with his skinny legs and quiet voice. The oldest Jasper, was supposed to assumed the crown. And then: he, Marlon, Isaac and Preston died, in an avalanche everyone said was the worst in centuries, not the least because it had killed four royals crown prince among them of course. Now, Lucas was king, or almost, the coronation was in one hour. Already long shadows cast tenebrific darkness over everything so that even the spark he’d held for so long was flickering, gone.

“I’ll never be ready.”

You don’t need to know where all the commas go. You don’t need to be a wizard at sentence structure. But you do need to write clearly. The whole point of grammar is clarity. If you don’t know what you’re doing, ask a friend who does to give you feedback. (Or hire me. Hi. I’m available.)

But seriously, “not knowing grammar” isn’t an excuse when you’re submitting to professional journals or contests—the judges are taking time to read your work. Do them the courtesy of making it as clean as possible. Do yourself the courtesy of giving your writing a decent chance.

Short Story Problem 3: Resolution

There have been dozens of times when I was reading a story, really enjoying it . . . and then reached the ending. And the ending was FLAT. Flatter than soda that’s been left out for months, flatter than concrete after a 300-pound man walked on it. That kind of flat.

Do I blame them? No. Endings are SO hard. Finding the right one, and then finding the right words for it, is often the hardest part of writing a story. But if it’s not done right, then no matter how good the rest of it was, the reader leaves with a bitter taste and a lot of disappointment. It’s a betrayal, in a way; they expected a solid landing, and instead it crash-landed.

So how do you write a good ending?

That’s the million-dollar question. One thing I’ve noticed, though, is that 70 percent of the time, that ending could have been improved by thinking about theme. Go back to Problem Number 1, and see if your last few lines address the theme or arc in any way. Often enough, that’s what will give your story a neat, satisfying ending. Sometimes it’s the actual arc that’s missing, leading to a flat ending.

But sometimes the actual last line of dialogue, or the final line of exposition, is simply disconnected from the story. It leaves off with a random thought, or one that has no consequence on the story. It changes the tone by offering up a cute-but-inappropriate-for-the-story joke. There are so many ways to write a flat ending. But there are usually very few ways to write a good ending.

My advice? Think of theme, think of character, and then write several different “landing” options—some with dialogue, some with imagery, some with an internal thought from the character. It could be that the first line you come up with is the best. It could be you need to take a break from it and come back with a fresh head.

Thing is, a good story opening is important, but a good story ending is just as, if not more, important because that’s what the reader remembers when they walk away.

Conclusion

So those are the top three mistakes I’ve found in story submissions. Now it’s up to you to learn from them. Take a hard look at your writing. See what you can improve. And start revising. Trust me, I can tell when an author spent time and effort cleaning up their story. It’s like looking at two kids, one with a face covered in mud and the other scrubbed clean. Let yours be the latter.

Not sure how to fix your story or what it needs? I offer short story edits so you can up your chances of publication. Contact me here for info.