This week: It's All About The Feels Edited by: Legerdemain  
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This newsletter aims to help the Writing.com short story author hone their craft and improve their skills. I would also like to inform, advocate, and create new, fresh ideas for the short story author. Write to me if you have an idea you would like presented.
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It's All About The Feels
To evoke deep feelings in short stories, focus on creating relatable characters, showing emotions through actions rather than telling, and crafting a plot that harmonizes with the character's emotional arc. Explore complex emotions by delving into character thoughts and using subtext, and balance emotional intensity with compelling storytelling.
Dialog can help show emotional states, like tone of voice. Setting, like the weather can reflect the mood of the character. Backstories, as long as it's not too lengthy, can show where theses emotions come from.
Plot and Character should run parallel arcs, including the internal conflict of your character. Even though your story is short, layer emotions and keep them subtle. This isn't OMG social media, this reflects your characters life and struggles. The characters can have complex struggles, but don't delve too deep and lose the plot.
So, I hope a few of these suggestions are helpful, and as always...Write On!
This month's question: Do you enhance the 'feels' of the story as you write or in edit? Send in your answer below!  Editors love feedback!
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WDC SITE CONTEST
Character Prompt for May 2025: Write a story where a character who finally achieves the lifelong goal they've been working toward. What did they just achieve, and what do they do next?
Excerpt: We left early, car groaning with all the stuff we thought we might need to enjoy our Mexican getaway. We’d missed out on having a honeymoon thanks to Covid, so this trip – albeit five years too late – was supposed to make up for that.
Excerpt: I heard a noise downstairs only seconds ago, but don't dare to check it out. I can hear Daddy snoring and Mommy listening to her audiobook, so I know it isn't them.
Excerpt: Grid City, once a beacon of progress, had rotted from the bottom up. The Lower Stacks a crumbling district of rusted scaffolds and flickering neon was a pit where the poor clawed at scraps and survival.
There was only one way out: The Bridge.
| |  | The Meeting (ASR)
Two crime groups are at odds with each other. Will there be an agreement?
#2340288 by brom21  |
Excerpt: The group of men in suites that sat a rectangle table in dim light. Everyone looked expectantly at a man at the head of the table.
“This is it, gentlemen. This is the last chance we must broker a merger with our archrivals, the Black Syndicate,” said the man.
Excerpt: And in the desert there stood the walls of a ruined city, and it was Pyr Thouthi, of many stories and myths. But the walls were silent, and the great stones of the dwellings and shops and barracks within were broken and strewn about. There was nothing left, and no stories would ever again be made about Pyr Thouthi, City of Sand and Dream.
Excerpt: Reema Sullivan clasped her hands, staring at the shining red Corvette in the driveway. Sunlight flashing off its windshield briefly created an illusory form in the driver seat. Her joy at how beautiful her husband’s gift was became overwhelmed by financial concern.
"Oh, Dan—you shouldn't have!"
Excerpt: "Paula, come here quick," called Pete.
"What is it?" asked Paula, rushing to the window.
"Look across the lake. The mansion is all lit up."
"It can't be. There's nobody there." She leaned her head against the windowpane. "Never been anyone there. Do we have new neighbors?"
Excerpt: The potato arrived in the mail, lumpy and bruise-colored, as if it remembered pain. No note, just a postmark from a town I’d buried a decade ago. Mom would’ve called it an omen. Mom believed in omens—tea leaves, bird patterns, the way the neighbor’s tabby stared at our porch like it owed him money.
Excerpt: Sometimes what constitutes as a culinary delight can be a choking nightmare to an unsuspecting palate. I refer, of course, to Japanese sushi--a raw piece of fish, about the size of a hacked-off finger, stretched across a scoop of sticky rice.
Mmm-mmm...sounds good, doesn't it?
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This month's question: Do you enhance the 'feels' of the story as you write or in edit? Send in your answer below! Editors love feedback!
Last month's "Short Stories Newsletter (April 23, 2025)" question: What is your typical story size? Why do you enjoy that size??
Milhaud - Tab B : The typical length of my short shorties is about 2500 words. My stories simply fall into that arc length.
Jellyfish : 500 words or less - I prefer to write Flash Fiction if I write stories, I suppose because I am impatient, and because I always have lots of other things to do   !
staiNed  : For reviews my sweet spot is flash fiction, for reading bigger the better.
Jeffrey Meyer : Typically, 500 words or fewer. I just don't have that stamina anymore.
Dave Ryan  : I've not crossed the 2k word barrier yet. The longer I make them, the worse they get.
Bilal Latif : Anywhere from 2-5k. Sometimes shorter or longer depending on the story's requirements or contest rules. I don't really think about it in terms of enjoyment - it's simply the range I tend to need to tell a story well.
Rick Dean : The ones on here are really short - 2000 words or so. But mostly 100-200k novels. If it's a really good story I'll dedicate a year or two to the project.
S 🤦 : My average short story sits around 3500-5000 words.
Bob : My short stories, if they be worth reading, usually become novellas.
deemac  : It depends on a number of factors, including the target audience/readership. Over the years, my own short stories have mainly been written for reading aloud at writing groups, where a 7-minute rule of thumb has been advised to stay within the dreaded boredom threshold. Depending on reading speed, I guess this would roughly equate to 1500/2000 words.
Jaycin Alexis  : I'll let you know when I find out. I have yet to actually finish something. I like longer stories to read though because you can fit more details in and answer more questions.
Thank you all for your responses! L~
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Short Stories: May 21, 2025 Issue [#13145]
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