A Short Story Template

        This may or may not help.

        I actually put this template together a long time ago when I was trying to figure out how the short story thing works. I haven't often found this template helpful when it comes to writing short stories. However, when it comes time to edit a short story, then that is when I start doing the kind of analytical thinking suggested by the template.

        (In my case, "when it comes time to edit a short story" generally means when it has been emphatically rejected by ten or twenty different editors.)

        You might conceivably find this useful in the planning or writing of a short story, or you may find this kind of analytical tool more useful at the editing stage.

        Or you may find it useless - what works for one person will not necessarily work for anyone else.

        1. Character (A): hook associated with Character (A), and associated characteristic action, habitat, whatever.

        2. Disruption of status quo: anything from bad weather to a mechanical breakdown.

        3. Clock: the clock, set in motion by disruption of status quo, should be made explicit. No clock, no tension.

        4. Character (A) emotes: situation MUST be important to character (A). Need strong emotion.

        5. Chacter (B): characteristic action, habitat, whatever.

        6. Promise/mystery: these are pretty much one and the same thing. Can have a revelation known to POV hero but not known to reader, something along the lines of eg "Now I understood" or "but did not tell her what I had just found out". Or some half-told thing tagged with eg "Tell you later".

        7. Conflicting desires of (A) and (B) (even if they are allies they may vary re strategy - for instance, they may have different approaches to risk, or their personal goals may make for different clocks).

        8. Interaction (A) and (B) - NOT (A) alone

        9. (A) seeks resolution.

        10. Perversion of expectations.

        11. Things get worse: time shortage gets worse.

        12. crisis

        13. denoument

        .... and so what is a perversion of expectations?

        Pretty self explanatory, really. Protagonist does A expecting outcome B but, instead, the outcome is C.