English HL- Short Story

Chris007

I've my englsh Christmas exam coming up and we have to do a short story, the thing is my english ain't the best and hasn't told us much (or anything actually) about how to write a short story. So my fellow LCer's, I turn to you! Would anyone like to enlighten me as to how I go about writing a short story, how long it should be, any tips etc. Many thanks!

PurpleFistMixer

A short story must have a beginning, a middle, and an end. That is to say, some form of plot arc. A bit of character development is also good. (ie your main character Frank is deathly afraid of the dark rooms because, as we learn at the end of the story, the night of his brother's death he came home to a dark house. Or something.)

Length... well, the essay is worth 100 marks in the exam so a decent 5 pages would do it. Depends on how long you have, though. An important thing to remember is this: it's a SHORT story. It's not the Lord of the Rings, it's not Harry Potter, it's not a big epic quest. You can write a short story dealing with an event that takes place in the space of half an hour. In fact, on that topic, try and keep it simple. And keep the number of characters down as much as necessary. There's no point introducing 50 people that will confuse the reader.

Don't spend pages describing everything that has happened until the moment the "story" begins, unless you feel it's necessary. I'm personally fond of flashbacks or references to earlier. (ie Frank is walking down the road on his way to the bank he's about to rob when he brushes past Aoife. Aoife is his exgirlfriend so he has a sudden memory of her screaming in the kitchen, throwing plates because he wouldn't give up gambling. Funnily enough, it was his gambling that led him to this... And if you haven't told the reader that he's about to rob the bank, it's increases intrigue and shells him out as a character - shows some of his motivation - fuelling his gambling habit, perhaps?)
That bit in brackets got a bit long. The point is, you didn't need to start the story with Aoife leaving, then skip forward 4 months to today... unless you really wanted to. I think it really disrupts the flow of a short story to include big time gaps like that. It can be done of course, just harder to pull off, imo.

Another useful technique that makes a story interesting is to show, and not tell. Frank is nervous. Don't tell us, "Frank was very nervous as he walked down the road", show us; "Frank's hands shook as he pulled the cigarette from the packet. The day was warm but for some reason his stomach was full of ice." ... or something.

I've just been making up this Frank story as I went along, but with what I've said so far it could easily be: Frank is about to rob a bank because he's got a gambling problem and needs money. He may be about to meet up with accomplices who he probably doesn't know very well (this means there's an added layer of insecurity in his character because he doesn't know what they're going to do, can he trust them?). He has a deathly fear of dark rooms and when the accomplices send him into the vault (okay let's assume this is a very fancy bank) he starts freaking out and remembering the death of his brother, and realises that it was this event that caused the general downward spiral of his life.
At this point if you want you COULD get all morally, ie, "Suddenly it was all so clear... the string of broken relationships, the late nights on the roulette tables grasping for lady luck to take him away... Frank had been running all those years from the grief, and now, he could finally embrace it and become whole" blah de blah. I don't really like stories that end up all perfectly happy in the end, I think they're unrealistic, but tugging the hearstrings, if done well, could result in a nice grade.

And finally, a good opener and closer is important, so keep your snappy lines till then. I'm a fan of throwing the reader straight into the action, but you don't have to... just make sure your opening and closing scene/line/statement is memorable/decent.

I could rant about short stories all day, but the main point is:
Don't overcomplicate it. Make your characters realistic (try and avoid cliches... the "annoying one" isn't ALWAYS annoying, they probably have a human side.), and remember they don't have to win all the time.

Dubs

just out of interest, how long would you spend and how many pages would you write, on each part of paper 1?

ironclaw

Comparative - About 4 pages

Personal Composition - 3 Pages

(Average hand writing)

Dubs

ironclaw wrote: »

Comparative - About 4 pages

Personal Composition - 3 Pages

(Average hand writing)

you mean comprehensions instead of comparative?

ironclaw

Apologises,

Comparative (Paper 2) - About 4 pages

Personal Composition (Paper One) - 3 Pages

As regards Comprehensions, it depends on the questions. Answer should be in the region of a paragraph, max about half a page.

The section B bit of the comprehension, I'd say 2 pages (ish)

Chris007

PurpleFistMixer wrote: »

A short story must have a beginning, a middle, and an end. That is to say, some form of plot arc. A bit of character development is also good. (ie your main character Frank is deathly afraid of the dark rooms because, as we learn at the end of the story, the night of his brother's death he came home to a dark house. Or something.)

Length... well, the essay is worth 100 marks in the exam so a decent 5 pages would do it. Depends on how long you have, though. An important thing to remember is this: it's a SHORT story. It's not the Lord of the Rings, it's not Harry Potter, it's not a big epic quest. You can write a short story dealing with an event that takes place in the space of half an hour. In fact, on that topic, try and keep it simple. And keep the number of characters down as much as necessary. There's no point introducing 50 people that will confuse the reader.

Don't spend pages describing everything that has happened until the moment the "story" begins, unless you feel it's necessary. I'm personally fond of flashbacks or references to earlier. (ie Frank is walking down the road on his way to the bank he's about to rob when he brushes past Aoife. Aoife is his exgirlfriend so he has a sudden memory of her screaming in the kitchen, throwing plates because he wouldn't give up gambling. Funnily enough, it was his gambling that led him to this... And if you haven't told the reader that he's about to rob the bank, it's increases intrigue and shells him out as a character - shows some of his motivation - fuelling his gambling habit, perhaps?)
That bit in brackets got a bit long. The point is, you didn't need to start the story with Aoife leaving, then skip forward 4 months to today... unless you really wanted to. I think it really disrupts the flow of a short story to include big time gaps like that. It can be done of course, just harder to pull off, imo.

Another useful technique that makes a story interesting is to show, and not tell. Frank is nervous. Don't tell us, "Frank was very nervous as he walked down the road", show us; "Frank's hands shook as he pulled the cigarette from the packet. The day was warm but for some reason his stomach was full of ice." ... or something.

I've just been making up this Frank story as I went along, but with what I've said so far it could easily be: Frank is about to rob a bank because he's got a gambling problem and needs money. He may be about to meet up with accomplices who he probably doesn't know very well (this means there's an added layer of insecurity in his character because he doesn't know what they're going to do, can he trust them?). He has a deathly fear of dark rooms and when the accomplices send him into the vault (okay let's assume this is a very fancy bank) he starts freaking out and remembering the death of his brother, and realises that it was this event that caused the general downward spiral of his life.
At this point if you want you COULD get all morally, ie, "Suddenly it was all so clear... the string of broken relationships, the late nights on the roulette tables grasping for lady luck to take him away... Frank had been running all those years from the grief, and now, he could finally embrace it and become whole" blah de blah. I don't really like stories that end up all perfectly happy in the end, I think they're unrealistic, but tugging the hearstrings, if done well, could result in a nice grade.

And finally, a good opener and closer is important, so keep your snappy lines till then. I'm a fan of throwing the reader straight into the action, but you don't have to... just make sure your opening and closing scene/line/statement is memorable/decent.

I could rant about short stories all day, but the main point is:
Don't overcomplicate it. Make your characters realistic (try and avoid cliches... the "annoying one" isn't ALWAYS annoying, they probably have a human side.), and remember they don't have to win all the time.

Thanks very much for the advice! Would you draw up a rough plan before writing the essay? And if so, how do you plan?

PurpleFistMixer

Oh, aye. A plan is very important. Even if you don't write it down, don't start writing your story until you know how it's going to end (and what happens in the middle.)
Normally I'd start off with a brainstorm, think about your character... write a bit about them, what are they like,
(don't need to be all "they are 5 foot 7 with grey eyes yadda yadda, more stuff like personality quirks and general temperament. Regarding temperament, as I said before, don't make them too 2d, so don't have them be "the angry guy" out and out. You want them to be reasonably likeable, so even if they are a "bad person" they need some redeeming features a reader can identify and sympathise with.)
and think about what sort of situation they're in.. ie the plot of the story. What are they doing, what's their motivation? Maybe they're being the victim of some chain of events as opposed to starting it, in which case, what caused those, how will they react? From this you should be able to form a series of events...
A method we used to use in a writing group I was in was to write a bit about the character at the start, and their "problem" (the conflict the plot of the story will be based on), and then write a bit about how they are at the end of the story, and what's happened with the problem (not necessarily resolved!). That way you can see "oh, right, Mary started off hating her parents, and she ended up not hating them", then ask yourself why? What would Mary do because she hates her parents? Maybe she ran away, maybe she got into an argument with them, maybe (if you're feeling violent) she killed them? So what happened then? She got lonely on the streets, they locked her in a dungeon, she had to dispose of the bodies? How did that make her feel? What does she do then? And so on, and so forth. Basically if you can come up with an interesting character that you understand, you can stick them in a situation and reason your way around what'd happen next, and this may be your story!
Of course you don't have to do it like that, you could decide "I want Mary to punch her sister in the face at some point in the story" and then hinge it around that - why did she do that, what lead to it, etc. The main point is that there needs to be some form of conflict - something that happens that motivates the character(s) to try and resolve it or to deal with it somehow. Nobody wants to read a story about a perfectly happy person going about their normal life (well okay you COULD do this, there are no hard rules in writing, but it's so much easier to include a point of conflict - which doesn't have to be physical conflict, btw, it could be a character's indecision on whether she should run away or not, etc).

That got somewhat rambly. Anyway. Once you've dreamed up your situation and know vaguely how your story is going to go, sketch out roughly how you're going to write it. As I said before you don't have to write it from the beginning, so while you know Mary runs away because she had a fight with her parents, you could start the story with her on the streets and get her to think back on it. Or you could start it with what caused the fight, or the middle of the fight, or whatever. Once you're familiar with how your story goes you can lay it out in an interesting way - think of it as being like a film director/editor person - you can cut up the bits of film and rearrange them... so long as it still makes sense, of course. : p You'll ideally have a good balance between exposition (explaining the background to the story - ie if it's set in the future you have to make that be known at some point, if Mary's parents are separated and she alternates living with them it'd be confusing if she seemed to live in two different houses all the time for no apparent reason etc) and action, so while you don't spend the entire story going "Mary was born in 1995 in Dublin to Edwina and Cornelius blah blah", the events that take place are credible for the characters (ie while burning a house down might be very unusual and unbelievable for most people, maybe Mary is some kind of radical anarchist and is inclined to these actions).
Of course, that comes with the warning that you don't have to explain EVERYTHING. I won my school's prize for short story writing in 6th year and the story I wrote was about a girl sitting on a bus going to visit her boyfriend. The fact that she was going to see him was relevant (the story consisted of her looking at the other people on the bus and speculating about their own relationships), but nothing else about her was, so she didn't have a name, she didn't look like anything in particular (it was written from her point of view - why would she stop and go "I am a girl with brown hair"? maybe she'd look in the window and curse her ringlets, but otherwise unless it's part of her character she wouldn't be overly concerned with her appearance), in fact all you learned about her was she has a boyfriend who lives far away, and is pessimistic (she didn't speculate very nice things), but is ultimately hopeful. This way if you don't explain your character right to the ground it makes it easier for a reader to identify with them - they can fill in the gaps as they choose.

Dear jesus I just cannot be concise about this. I've probably confused you utterly now with the "explain your character! ... but not too much"... anyway.
Point is - yes plan is very good, otherwise you go rambling. If you write down the story arc you can be, unlike me, concise about what goes on, and not feature too much "And she walked down the road for about ten minutes..." as you try and figure out how to tie in the next "event".

Ri na hEireann

ironclaw wrote: »

Apologises,

Comparative (Paper 2) - About 4 pages

Personal Composition (Paper One) - 3 Pages

As regards Comprehensions, it depends on the questions. Answer should be in the region of a paragraph, max about half a page.

The section B bit of the comprehension, I'd say 2 pages (ish)

Comparative...If you're going for top mark you should be hitting 5/6pages.

Personal Comp...I'd say 4-5.

Section B....3

Answers to comprehensions (Part A) should not be a mere paragraph....Just short of a page minimum I'd reckon.

And just a tip....unless you become quite good at doing short stories I'd reccommend avoiding them in June as they can become quite messy and disastrous. It always looks like a nice question but can become meaningless and confusing for the examiner, unless written with clarity and imagination.

Fad

Ri na hEireann wrote: »

And just a tip....unless you become quite good at doing short stories I'd reccommend avoiding them in June as they can become quite messy and disastrous. It always looks like a nice question but can become meaningless and confusing for the examiner, unless written with clarity and imagination.

Just because you think your stories are good doesnt mean they are too!

A friend of mine, while very good at English, writes the most hopelessly confusing short stories that he has to explain to the teacher after they get marked.

Keep it simple, no obscure references!

Ri na hEireann

Fad wrote: »

Just because you think your stories are good doesnt mean they are too!

A friend of mine, while very good at English, writes the most hopelessly confusing short stories that he has to explain to the teacher after they get marked.

Keep it simple, no obscure references!

When I was doing my Leaving Cert it was my best and my favorite subject. At the same time, I wasn't any good at writing short stories. Very few are.

Imallin9989

ok, just learn one off.... make one with a good story line.. delevop it until you get an A standard.. I did this and got a B1 last year.. without it would not have got my course:D:D

bythewoods

Imallin9989 wrote: »

ok, just learn one off.... make one with a good story line.. delevop it until you get an A standard.. I did this and got a B1 last year.. without it would not have got my course:D:D

Careful though- lots of people can lose mega-marks by slotting in a learned off essay where it just doesn't fit.
And essays which people only half know can be disastrous.

implausible

Ri na hEireann wrote: »

Comparative...If you're going for top mark you should be hitting 5/6pages.

Personal Comp...I'd say 4-5.

Section B....3

Answers to comprehensions (Part A) should not be a mere paragraph....Just short of a page minimum I'd reckon.

It's quality, not quantity guys. Some people can get a perfect part B in 1 page. No examiner wants to read a three page letter for example.

Careful with learning off a short story and expecting to slot it into a title. At this year's marking conference, they really tightened up on this. Stories HAD to be relevant to get the marks.

If you're not good at short stories, don't do them in the exam.

Imallin9989

bythewoods wrote: »

Careful though- lots of people can lose mega-marks by slotting in a learned off essay where it just doesn't fit.
And essays which people only half know can be disastrous.

This is what I thought, but if you look at one of the pictures you can easily slot something about your essay. It says that you only have to make an implicicit connection...:D

implausible

Imallin9989 wrote: »

if you look at one of the pictures you can easily slot something about your essay. It says that you only have to make an implicicit connection...:D

This year at the HL conference, they were looking for more than an implicit link. Try and work the picture into your story e.g. change the time of year to suit the story, make the person in the picture your narrator/central character

Imallin9989

deemark wrote: »

This year at the HL conference, they were looking for more than an implicit link. Try and work the picture into your story e.g. change the time of year to suit the story, make the person in the picture your narrator/central character

Oh ri, forget everything I said there then lol.. thank god that didn happen last year... I wouldn have got my course.......

PurpleFistMixer

Imallin9989 wrote: »

This is what I thought, but if you look at one of the pictures you can easily slot something about your essay. It says that you only have to make an implicicit connection...:D

Also, you can't assume the pictures are going to be any good. If I recall there wasn't a picture question on it this year, which put me off somewhat because I was always planning on doing a short story on the pictures, and had I just learned off a story it may not have fit either of the options that were up (story about a rebellious youngster, or story about a location).

Stev_o

You cant really learn of a short story this year and i wouldnt suggest doing it at all, unless you have a secret talent as a novel writer your shooting yourself in the foot as you will get murdered in the short story. Discussion essay on the other hand so much easier and alot more practical

Imallin9989

Stev_o wrote: »

You cant really learn of a short story this year and i wouldnt suggest doing it at all, unless you have a secret talent as a novel writer your shooting yourself in the foot as you will get murdered in the short story. Discussion essay on the other hand so much easier and alot more practical

Yes you can I did it........... I am **** at English !! I did work on my essay for months !!!! I got 89 out 100 in my essay!

ironclaw

Just don't learn it off. It won't work. Comparative you can...

SarcasticFairy

I wouldn't recommend learning off an essay really. I reckon it'd be pretty obvious you were trying to fit an essay in around a title to someone who reads these essays all day...

Hmm, I don't know how to write a short story, but I mostly go for them, and do fairly well. I just have quite a vivid imagination. I would suggest that between now and June you read books/novels, to fuel your imagination, and also up your standard somewhat. That's what my english teacher has been saying for the last 5 years anyway!

That won't help much for your Christmas exam, but really that means nothing in comparison to your actual LC.

Twinkle-star15

Did your teacher tell you you have to do a short story?
If you haven't tried some of the other essay styles, it might be a good idea.
I'm normally good at writing stories, but I just can't do it in an exam, and not for 4 pages anyway!
I think personal essays are much easier- talking about myself for 4 pages, now that I can do !
Keep experimenting with different styles and story types until you find one that works for you.

As for length (writing= 8/9 words per line):
comprehension section A- 2-2 1/2 pages total
section B- 1 1/2- 2 pages
essay- 4-5 pages