Short Story Structure Part 2
Reviewed notes from August 16, 2017, as deadline for “coming up with short stories” on October 8th, 2023 is fast coming for Garage Fiction. Realized that my foray into improv and standup between 2021-2023 was a significantly helpful diversion in understanding setup, 3-things/escalation, payoff.
At <5,000 words, you have about 4 to 6 scenes. That’s enough for one encounter, one dynamic relationship (or conflict) between two characters, and one truth/reveal. Really, it’s the protagonist against one antagonist or one dynamic character. A short story has just enough time to reveal ONE THING. That “one thing” can be a hidden cost, an escalated cost, or a secret truth.
I’ve also noticed that the more tropey a story, the less backstory/mechanism-explanation is required. But that also accounts for an story that doesn’t break new ground into a new worlds. New worlds/settings require rules-explanation… even if as mundane as the elevator inside a 60s New York Apartment (I forget what Cheever story that is)… Or a recent Dominican/Haitian nanny hired by a white suburban family (I forget what Adichie story that is). In Lahiri’s A Temporary Matter, it’s literally a madeup game wherein the wife has to explain the rules.
If the story is “really” mundane (as a lot of Cheever stories tend to be), the progress part is your typical “Rule of 3” where you show variations of the setup until the third one where something horrifying/terrifying happens that nails the theme.
| SETUP | PROGRESS | PAYOFF |
|---|---|---|
| 3-Things/Escalate | Truth or Reveal | |
| Yes, but/No, and | Yes, and/No, but | |
| — | — | — |
| Prot meets a stranger | Reveal goal, 3 arguments | changes mind |
| Prot goes to a place | Affects 3 NPCs | realizes consequences of actions |
| Prot abandoned/exiled | Meets savior, deals with change | goes or gets taken home |
| Prot ran away | Meets savior, savior gives rules | Prot breaks rules, discovers truth |
| Prot must follow ritual | Refuses and runs, or argues | Truth of why ritual revealed |
| Antag coming | Prot preps and defends | Deal with Antag |
| Antag attacks | Dynamic helps | Prot taken away |
| Prot new lover/ally | 3 encounters | truth revealed |
| Prot bullied/attacked | Ask Dynamic for help | hidden cost |
| Ally gets new X (wife/kid/pet) | Prot finds X sus, hijinks | truth about X |
| Prot imprisoned, don’t know why | Escapes or tries to | real reason of trap revealed |
| Prot must beat rival(s) | Enlists help from X | Hidden cost revealed |
| Prot assigned McGuffin job | Job reveals hidden cost(s) | Prot decides to abandon, or pay cost |
Payoff/Reveals
- Halfman warns Prot of consequences - Prot decides to take the risk and pay it, or leaves
- Underworld with own rules is reveale - Prot gets burned
- The bad thing that happened in the past wasn’t X’s fault, it was Y
- Two characters voice the shared unspoken secret they’ve held back on saying
- The enlisted help is actually a monster (worst thing) and now Prot is trapped
- Prot can’t really escape without paying the cost
- Fuck around and find out. Found out.
- Secret from the past revealed (affair, old promise/deal, real reason behind a death/breakup/firing)
- The McGuffin quest was a decoy/distraction from the real goal