And then I woke up. The 'Dallas' gambit. This approach is nothing more than a cop-out for people with no imagination. Stories should reach a logical conclusion that satisfies the reader and resolves any conflicts. This method does neither.
And then I died. The 'Weird Tales' gambit. This one turned up regularly in horror tales during the early part of last century, until it was overplayed by HP Lovecraft, among others. A diary which ends in a string of nonsense words as a crawling terror from beyond comes for the author was fine the first time out, but most editors have seen it too many times.
And I found out I'd been dead all along. The 'Sixth Sense' gambit. This is an old one, which is why people who were well read in the genre spotted the twist very early in M Night Shyamalan's film. An overused variation is to have someone breaking out of a coffin after a supposedly premature burial. Don't do it; the editor will see it coming from a mile away.
And they called them Adam and Eve. The 'Bible' gambit or, as Michael Moorcock puts it, Shaggy God stories. If you start with a nuclear holocaust or human colonists on a new planet, make sure you don't use this ending or the story will be bounced back to you straight away. The other trap to avoid is having a computer become a god. That avenue was new in the '40s, but these days an editor will laugh himself out of his chair.
And then I saw the fangs, just before he bit me The 'singles bar pick-up' gambit. With this worn-out ending, a person visits a bar and is seduced by a pale, interesting stranger who turns out to be a vampire, a ghost, a werewolf or an alien. There are several variations seen nowadays, such as same-gender meetings and graphic sex scenes before the revelation, but the stories are all the same and editors know it.
And then I caught up with the '@!* who'd done me wrong and shot the @'!** out of them. The 'Death Wish' gambit is the beloved technique of Michael Winner fanatics and gun-nuts. It makes for a very dull story unless you can bring style, energy and a unique vision to it, in which case you'd probably be better off trying to sell it as a film treatment. There's a long tradition of revenge movies, but in the written word they all come across as being very similar. A variant on this handling is the Charles Atlas gambit, where the weedy nerd becomes a kung-fu expert to wreak revenge on his tormentors. Don't be tempted to use this angle. Editors will know what's coming.
And the next day I read in the paper that he'd died. The 'I talked to a ghost' gambit. This practice turned up frequently in Victorian literature. It's usually no more than an anecdote turned into a story. Variations include talking to someone who is later discovered to be the victim of a plane crash, an automobile wreck or a major catastrophe. Editors see a slew of these after a natural disaster, but whatever caused the person's death, the stories are all the same.
And it was my evil twin; we were separated at birth. The 'doppelganger' gambit. Stephen King got away with this in The Dark Half and Dean Koontz pulled off a variation by making both twins evil in Shivers, but unless you have their style and wit, you shouldn't attempt it. Another variation, beloved of the romantics among us, is to have the protagonist find out they're really the son, daughter or sibling of a rich family. This mode is really just wishful thinking on behalf of the writer. You shouldn't be sharing your daydreams with editors.
I'm really a dog/cat/demon/alien. The 'non-human storyteller' gambit is tried and tested. That's the problem. If you don't leave any clues to the fact, the reader will feel the ending is a cop-out. If you do leave clues, the reader and your editor will spot the ending coming unless you're very good at disguising the fact.
Remember, people have been writing stories for a very long time. If you've read a similar ending in a story or seen it in a film, you can bet the editor will be aware of it, too. There are only so many original endings to go around; make sure yours is one of them.
Short stories written specifically for inclusion in weekly or monthly magazines are a lucrative source of income for any writer. The pay rate per word is often high and the returns are good for the length of time devoted to any one story.
Yet this market has its own disciplines and one cardinal rule that aspiring writers must obey is the word count. This is the required number of words demanded by magazine editors for any story submitted and, whilst there may be some leeway, it generally isn't great. For 'five minute fiction' type stories it may be as little as fifty words.
This discipline is often found by new writers to be one of the hardest to master. They write a story - and it may be a very good story - then find it is two or three hundred words 'heavy'. I've done this myself many times when I started writing fiction and articles. It can be very disheartening to complete a story, sit back in satisfaction and hit the word count button only to see it ring up several hundred words 'over the limit.'
How, I asked myself at the time, can I possibly reduce my story by that sort of length? Let's face it, a 'five minute fiction' type story may only have a word length requirement of 1,000 words - to try and cut 1,300 down to 1,000 seemed to me, at that time in my writing career, a stark impossibility. How to do it?
That's when I began to learn about things like wasted words. Although in this article I certainly don't have space to discuss every aspect of this subject, at least I can list some of the worst culprits that new writers seem to use time and time again - like I did!
Many words and phrases rarely add anything to a sentence. Avoid these whenever you can. A very short list of some of these offenders:
Quite, very, extremely, as it were, moreover, it can be seen that, it has been indicated that, basically, essentially, totally, completely, therefore, it should be remembered that, it should be noted that, thus, it is imperative that, at the present moment in time.
These are fine in their place, but they often find their way into your writing with the sinister purpose of tempting you into the sin of padding your sentences.
I am convinced that the habit of padding sentences has at its root academic and, in particular, bureaucratic writing. Never have I seen one of these types of prose without the most outlandish and rambling sentences included - you probably know the sort of thing I mean. Such horrors as 'It should continuously be remembered that' and 'Morover and not withstanding anything to the contrary, it has been previously indicated' abound.
Since such letters are read by people in our ever-freer reading society, the tendency is to think that they are not only correct but also desirable within any sort of writing. Rubbish. Unless for effect, they should be excluded. Short stories are lean and fit, not bloated and slow.
S0 - how to 'lean-off' your story? Firstly check for any of the phrases above in the 'list of offenders'. Strike them out. Next read through your story and ruthlessly delete any and every word that you can whilst still preserving grammatical sense. I guarantee that you'll be amazed at the number that go.
Check in particular for adverbs and adjectives. I'm talking about sentences like 'How would I know?' he asked angrily. Much better is 'How the hell should I know?' The second sentence (without the adverb) implies anger in its use or words and is much stronger anyway - and shorter. In the same vein, 'a very light wind' should be 'a breeze'. Not only are you saving wordage by adopting this correcting tactic, you are strengthening your writing.
When you have finished these tasks read your story again. If my own experience is anything to go by, not only will you have dumped those excess words to bring your story into its wordage 'window' but also you will almost find that it reads a lot better. Congratulations - you have just mastered a basic facet of self-editing!
In conclusion, just remember these few points:
The adjective is the enemy of the noun. (choose a stronger noun instead of using an adjective.) The adverb is enemy of the verb. (Try to convey meaning via word usage instead of using an adverb.) Do not use any of the list of 'wasted words' above. Never use a long word, or two words, when a single short word fits the bill.
Keep these four points in mind and watch your short story writing improve!
Both William Meikle & Steve Dempster are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.
William Meikle has sinced written about articles on various topics from Writing, Sales People and Health. I have a confession. I've used some of these endings myself, and even successfully sold the stories. Read some of my short stories for free at