Crafting Short Stories

The short story is the most elegant and penetrating of fictional forms. It is also, notoriously, one of the most difficult forms to write. Join novelist and short story writer Dr Gretchen Shirm for a workshop that provides guidance on this form and gives participants an excellent understanding of key aspects of narrative and story structure.

In this workshop, participants will discuss the short story form as a narrative in miniature, looking at Ernest Hemingway’s ‘iceberg’ theory, and the way the short story often works by what is left unsaid. You will consider examples of short stories as different ways in which the short story structure can be realised, such as through precision, absence and clarity. Participants will also examine ways of finding voice and the techniques of short story writers such as Anton Chekhov, Helen Garner, Anne Enright, Lauren Groff, Melissa Lucashenko, and Elizabeth Strout, to name a few.

Since endings are often defining of the short story form, we will discuss different approaches to endings and how an ending might be uncovered as we write. Finally, we will consider the way the short story, though small, expands outwards, drawing in meaning that extends beyond its own words.