By Ratika Deshpande
It’s an infallible rule that the more you read, the better you’re able to write (provided, of course, that you’re also doing a lot of writing).
For about two years now, I’ve been reading science fiction and fantasy short stories and flash fiction to curate lists of recommendations for Reactor magazine. After having read hundreds of such stories, I’ve started noticing that there are certain features in a story that make me want to share it with everyone so that they can see how awesome and brilliantly-written it is, and certain features that make me stop reading or leave me disappointed or confused.
And so, when I sit down to edit my stories, I keep an eye out for these features. I can’t force the good elements into my stories because each piece is different, but I can make sure to remove the stuff that would make someone stop reading. Here are some examples:
Too many characters/concepts introduced in the beginning
Worldbuilding is a difficult task, so is telling a story of complex politics or royal intrigues. But the skill of a writer lies in making sure that we don’t make our readers’ task difficult by introducing too many characters in the first few hundred words. It’s better to introduce them in consecutive scenes, or, if possible, consider if your short story could do without dozens of characters.
The same goes for any institutions, festivals, laws, etc. “The Yallar will be upset if the Derivers don’t show up to the Pala-Deir’s misena on time” is a sentence that may be grammatically correct and perfectly understandable to your characters, but you need to make sure your reader knows clearly what all those nouns refer to, especially if it’s part of the beginning. Otherwise, your reader will be lost, because the sentences won’t make any sense.
Two or more characters have names that begin with the same letter
This makes it difficult to track who’s who. Unless there’s a really good reason for this naming (maybe the villain is envious of the hero because despite sharing the same names they have different legacies, hence their desire for revenge), give your other characters names that start with a different letter.
Secrets hidden in an annoying/confusing way
Sometimes, there are things that the reader can see clearly but the protagonists can’t, because they’re inside the story while the reader is outside. Sometimes, neither the protagonist nor the reader can see what’s up. Both these circumstances make for an intriguing reading experience–in the first case, we’re curious, we’re trying to nudge the protagonist, warning them of traps and traitors, cheering them on in their quest. In the second case, we’re reading to find out what’s going on, accompanying the protagonist on their search.
And then there’s a third situation: the protagonist knows what’s up, but the reader doesn’t. There’s a secret that, if revealed, would end the story right at the beginning. The only thing that keeps the story going, that requires so many words, is that the writer will tell the secret to the reader at the end. This makes for an annoying and confusing reading experience. Whatever the protagonist knows should be known to the reader too. If it’s hidden, it must be for a good reason that’ll make for a satisfying ending. The reveal deserves all the words that came before it; those words shouldn’t be filler for what could have otherwise been a 100-word story. We don’t want our readers to feel like their time was wasted–not because they couldn’t appreciate the story, but because we didn’t find a good way to hide/unveil a secret.
Buildup leading to nothing or ending right where the good stuff begins
A lot of stories have an interesting question or mystery or rich descriptions that keep me reading…only for me to find myself at the end just as I thought things were finally getting started. For example, the protagonist might finally accept a truth they’d been denying, or take the step they’d been building the courage to take, which I thought would happen somewhere in the first-third or the middle of the story, with the rest of the text detailing the consequences of those actions.
Stories that end this way are especially disappointing, because they had enough good stuff to keep the reader reading, curious to see what would happen.
Relatedly, it’s also disappointing when the reader is halfway through, but it’s still not clear to them what the story is about. One scene followed by another doesn’t make for a story–something has to happen. At the very least, it must feel like those scenes or fragments are building up to something, or are at least related to one another in some logical, consequential way. The action-consequence-action chain is what carries a story forward, as Mary Robinette Kowal explains in this excellent lecture on writing short fiction.
Making things tragic for the sake of tragedy
Life on this planet is miserable, yes, and we humans are unfortunately good at making each other suffer; there’s hardly anyone so blessed that they’ve never been hurt or sad. But sadness or trauma is not the sum of all human experience. We’re all much more complex and deeper than that. Yet it seems that the internet’s tendency to romanticise suffering is also affecting the kind of stories we tell. This doesn’t mean that one should only write stories where everything is bright and sunny, but the next time you kill your darlings slowly, drawing out their suffering or bludgeoning them with traumatic event after traumatic event, take a moment to think: is the tragedy there for a reason, or are you adding it in because that’s what everyone seems to think makes for a good story?
An editing exercise
As writers, our job is to tell a good story, and tell it well—that is, tell it clearly, without mistreating the reader, and without overdoing any element because that’s what seems to be selling. We must have faith in our stories, in our ability to tell them, and in our readers.
To get started on this, consider these reading lists, if you love sci-fi/fantasy or pick up a book of the most anthologised short stories (in English). Examine what makes them unputdownable—as with every reader, your reasons may be different, but you’ll notice common traits that make those stories un/readable. Then, when you sit down to revise your drafts, consider removing the elements above. It would be hard work, but then as a famous quote (attributed to various people) goes: “easy writing is damn hard writing.”
Ratika Deshpande is a writer from India. Her work has appeared in Authors Publish, Reactor Magazine, the Brevity Blog, and other platforms. You can support her writing here.
