Short Stories & Titles

Larry asked me a question in another venue. To answer his question and dispel any possible confusion, note well: You will be turning in your American folklore short stories to me on Monday at 8:25 am. They must be written or (preferably) typed in the standard format for essays -- yes double-spaced, on one side, etc. The title of the assignment should be the title of your story -- without quotation marks and without being underlined.

On the subject of short story titles, a few tips are in order. Consider:

Titles should not be dull. When you browse a shelf full of novels, or a collection of short stories, aren't you drawn first to the more unusual titles? Not that "The House" or "The Tree" won't be a good stories, but titles with a bit more originality stand a better chance. Examples: Gone with the Wind, The High and the Mighty, "The Tin Star," The Silence of the Lambs, The Maltese Falcon, Watership Down, "The Snows of Kilimanjaro," Fahrenheit 451, The Color Purple, Atlas Shrugged.

Titles should be easy to remember. It's hard to tell a neighbor or a colleague about a story if the title's too long, too complicated, or hard to pronounce. It's a good idea to keep things clear and simple. Avoid titles such as Murder on the Wzcyiubjekistan Express or The Tallahatchie Backroad Honky-Tonk Boogie.

Titles should be appropriate. Author Lawrence Block mentions, in one of his books on writing, a Charles McGarry espionage novel called The Secret Lovers. Block says its title (which refers to spies, who love secrets) led some readers to believe it would be a romance. Examples of titles that "fit" their subjects: Raise the Titanic, The Firm, "A Rose for Emily," The Caine Mutiny, Presumed Innocent In Cold Blood, Riders of the Purple Sage, The Amityville Horror.

But the question remains: How exactly do you find a good title? Where do you begin your search? Consider:

1. A title can be a popular expression. Gone for Good, Something's Gotta Give, The Horse's Mouth, The Usual Suspects, Good As Gold, The Whole Nine Yards.
   
   
2. A title can be a play on words. (Sometimes a "twist" of an existing expression.) Burglars Can Be Choosers, The Canceled Czech, You Only Live Twice, Live and Let Die.
   
   
3. A title can have a hidden meaning, later revealed in the story. The Green Mile, Rain Man, Dances with Wolves, Catch-22, Hearts in Atlantis, Cool Hand Luke.
   
   
4. A title can come from an existing work. (The Bible, Shakespeare, etc.) The Grapes of Wrath, The Sound and the Fury, The Sun Also Rises, Absalom, Absalom, Something Wicked This Way Comes.
   
   
5. A title can be a person's name. Hannibal, Goldfinger, Carrie, Hondo, Rebecca, Doctor Zhivago, Shane, Forrest Gump.
   
   
6. A title can be a place name. Magic Mountain, Cimarron, Peyton Place, Jurassic Park, Lonesome Dove, Mystic River.
   
   
7. A title can be a possessive. Portnoy's Complaint, Angela's Ashes, The Optimist's Daughter, Charlotte's Web.
   
   
8. A title can be an association of ideas. Often these are words that have a "double meaning," and refer to more than one thing in a story. The Eye of the Needle, The Dead Zone, Misery, Silver Bullet, Lie Down with Lions.
   
   
9. A title can be an "event" or "activity." Pleading Guilty, Romancing the Stone, Waiting to Exhale, "Riding the Bullet," Raising Helen, Finding Nemo.
   
   
10. A title can be a memorable line from the story itself. To Kill a Mockingbird, Tell No One, Sleepless in Seattle, The Eagle Has Landed, They Shoot Horses, Don't They?

The Hook: Great Opening Lines of Short Stories

We've talked about the importance of a riveting first paragraph -- first lines -- designed to draw a reader into a short story and ultimately keep him there until the final lines. Known as the "hook," these opening lines needn't be obnoxious, overly sensational, or bizarre in order to garner attention; they just need to be strong and somehow gripping.

Consider some examples that spring to mind:

“None of them knew the color of the sky.” — “Open Boat” by Stephen Crane

“One day you have a home and the next you don’t, but I’m not going to tell you my particular reasons for being homeless, because it’s my secret story, and Indians have to work hard to keep secrets from hungry white folks.” —“What You Pawn I Will Redeem” by Sherman Alexie

"Two men in a smoking-room were talking of their private-school days. 'At our school,' said A., 'we had a ghost's footmark on the staircase.' " -- "A School Story" by M.R. James

"Young Goodman Borwn came forth at sunset into the street at Salem Village; but put his head back after crossing the threshold, to exchange a parting kiss with his young wife. And Faith, as the wife was aptly named, thrust her own pretty head into the street, letting the wind play with the pink ribbons of her cap while she called to Goodman Brown." -- "Young Goodman Brown," by Nathaniel Hawthorne

"The twilight of evening. Big flakes of wet snow are whirling lazily about the street lamps, which have just been lighted, and lying in a thin soft layer on roofs, horses' backs, shoulders, caps. Iona Potapov, the sledge driver, is all white like a ghost." -- "Misery" by Anton Chekhov

"On his bench in Madison Square Soapy moved uneasily. When wild geese honk high of nights, and when women without sealskin coats grow kind to their husbands, and when Soapy moves uneasily on his bench in the park, you may know that winter is near at hand. A dead leaf fell in Soapy's lap. That was Jack Frost's card." -- "The Cop and the Anthem," by O. Henry

"A man stood upon a railroad bridge in northern Alabama, looking down into the swift water twenty feet below. The man's hands were behind his back, the wrists bound with a cord. A rope closely encircled his neck." -- "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge," by Ambrose Bierce

Opening lines are of great importance to novels, too. Check out these "100 best first lines from novels" from American Book Review.

Tips: Writing Short Stories

As you're thinking about penning your American folk tales, you might take a moment to read through this tip sheet from Seton Hill on crafting short stories. Here are some salient excerpts:

What Is a Short Story?
A short story begins as close to the conclusion as possible, and grabs the reader from the very first line. It conserves character and scenes, typically focuses on just one problem, and drives towards a sudden, unexpected revelation.

Write a Catchy First Paragraph
In today's fast-moving world, the first sentence of your short story should catch your reader's attention with the unusual, the unexpected, an action, or a conflict. Begin with tension and immediacy. Remember that short stories need to start close to their end.

Choose a Point-of-View
Point of view is the narration of the story from the perspective of first, second, or third person. As a writer, you need to determine who is going to tell the story and how much information is available for the narrator to reveal in the short story. The narrator can be directly involved in the action subjectively, or the narrator might only report the action objectively.

Set Up the Plot
Understanding these story elements for developing actions and their end results will help you plot your next short story.

• Explosion or "Hook." A thrilling, gripping, stirring event or problem that grabs the reader's attention right away.
• Conflict. A character versus the internal self or an external something or someone.
• Exposition. Background information required for seeing the characters in context.
• Complication. One or more problems that keep a character from their intended goal.
• Transition. Image, symbol, dialogue, that joins paragraphs and scenes together.
• Flashback. Remembering something that happened before the short story takes place.
• Climax. When the rising action of the story reaches the peak.
• Falling Action. Releasing the action of the story after the climax.
• Resolution. When the internal or external conflict is resolve.

Create Conflict and Tension
Conflict produces tension that makes the story begin. Tension is created by opposition between the character or characters and internal or external forces or conditions. By balancing the opposing forces of the conflict, you keep readers glued to the pages wondering how the story will end.

• Mystery. Explain just enough to tease readers. Never give everything away.
• Empowerment. Give both sides options.
• Progression. Keep intensifying the number and type of obstacles the protagonist faces.
• Causality. Hold fictional characters more accountable than real people. Characters who make mistakes frequently pay, and, at least in fiction, commendable folks often reap rewards.
• Surprise. Provide sufficient complexity to prevent readers predicting events too far in advance.
• Empathy. Encourage reader identification with characters and scenarios that pleasantly or (unpleasantly) resonate with their own sweet dreams (or night sweats).
• Insight. Reveal something about human nature.
• Universality. Present a struggle that most readers find meaningful, even if the details of that struggle reflect a unique place and time.
• High Stakes. Convince readers that the outcome matters because someone they care about could lose something precious. Trivial clashes often produce trivial fiction.

Build a Crisis or Climax
This is the turning point of the story--the most exciting or dramatic moment. Jane Burroway says that the crisis "must always be presented as a scene. It is "the moment" the reader has been waiting for. In Cinderella's case, "the payoff is when the slipper fits." While a good story needs a crisis, a random event such as a car crash or a sudden illness is simply an emergency --unless it somehow involves a conflict that makes the reader care about the characters (see: "Crisis vs. Conflict").

Find a Resolution
This is the solution to the conflict. In short fiction, it is difficult to provide a complete resolution and you often need to just show that characters are beginning to change in some way or starting to see things differently.

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