How to Write Shakespeare in Ten Pages or Less

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By Brothers
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Write Shakespeare in Ten Pages or Less

When one really considers it, short stories are probably the single hardest writing style there is. Unlike a novel a short story must be just that, short. Usually a measly ten pages or so, yet unlike a poem a short story must follow the principles of plot, story, and character devolvement.

Difficulty: Moderately Challenging

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

Time
Pen
Paper
A Story you feel needs to be told

Step 1

Title: The first thing that any judge or reader is going to see is the title. The best way to approach a title is to do it last. Stories are like children they grow with time. As a work is written it takes a life of its own and may grown into something very different then what it was originally meant to be. By waiting till the work is fully complete the author has a far better grasp of what their work even is.
The next step is to play with words. A title should be unexpected yet still related. Sum up the story in one sentence, then cut all but a few of the words, and then arrange them in a bit of a poetic way. That is at least a start. The title should be a poetic, with a small about of rhythm and rhyme. That way the title literally bounces off the judge's tongue.
Step 2

Story and Plot: Plot movement in the story is one of the most important things in all works. The challenge of short stories is the limited time to develop a good plot flow. One way to help is to out line the whole story no matter how complex or long. Then pick the single most important event or time in that time line. That is the short story. No one expects the whole story, a short story is just a moment, or a day in time where something interesting happened.
Step 3

Characters: Like plot, characters take dozens of pages to fully explore. Also like plot there is a way to help make believe characters in a short story without going into their life story. Develop the history of the characters before the story begins down to every detail. The majority of these things will never be know to the reader but the completeness, the reality of the character will come across. There is nothing worse then a predictable and uninteresting character. There is nothing predictable about real people, show that in the characters.
Step 4

The Ending: An ending to a short story should be unexpected and even sudden. Leave the reader thinking and even a little disturbed. Remember, most judges have to read dozens of works, make yours stick in his head like glue.