7 Hour Short Story Sharath Komarraju Final

Contents
A Note to the Reader .......................................................................................................................... 1

The First Hour .....................................................................................................................................3
The Second Hour ................................................................................................................................ 6
The Third Hour ....................................................................................................................................8
The Fourth Hour................................................................................................................................ 11
The Fifth Hour ...................................................................................................................................13
The Sixth Hour ..................................................................................................................................16
The Seventh Hour ............................................................................................................................. 19
Final Words ....................................................................................................................................... 21
The 7-Hour Short Story Sharath Komarraju
A Note to the Reader

Welcome to the seven-hour-guide to writing a short story.
You must have received this eBook from my blog. Or a friend must have passed it on to you. Either
way, Im glad youre here. If youve opened this guide, it means that youre interested in writing fiction
whether professionally or for fun.
There are two main reasons for writing this guide.
1. Writing short stories is excellent practice for writing novels. If you want to be a novelist and
if you havent explored writing short stories as a means of developing your craft, then youre
missing out. Especially if youre just starting out, just beginning to learn, writing short stories
will hone your skill at plot, character, dialogue, setting, theme and all the other nice things that
you will need to write a good novel.
2. Writing short stories will get you into the habit of finishing a piece of work. You will learn
more from finishing stories than you will from abandoning them. Novels are harder to finish
because even a short one takes a good four months to write. A short story takes seven hours.
sharathkomarraju.com
Page 1
You begin. You finish. You learn. You write another one. Then when youre ready, begin your
novel. And then finish that too.
This eBook will focus completely on writing a short story, around the neighbourhood of 2000-2500
words, from start to finish. I will be as detailed as I can, and wherever possible I will break down the
theory into actionable steps. If I do my job well enough, you should be able to use the content in this
guide as a blueprint to generate decent short stories.
What I cannot do is write for you. I can only show you the path (or what I think is the path). Taking it
and indeed the decision of whether or not to take it is up to you.
I also cannot guarantee that your work will become immediately publishable if you follow this guide. It
will improve. Of that I have no doubt. But it may need a certain time of improvement before you hit the
necessary standard that readers demand of a good story.
If at any point of reading this guide you have questions or comments, please dont hesitate to contact
me. My email address is sharath40@gmail.com. I will be more than happy to hear your feedback on
this eBook, and also if youd like me to help you with your writing.
Page 2
The First Hour
need to do is write down the following details

about him.
Right, so youre set. Youre sitting in front of

your word processor, fingers poised over the
keyboard, expecting to fire away and write
perfect copy from first word to last.
Wait a second. It wont work out that way.
Name, age and gender

What does she do for a living?
What are two of her hobbies? In other
words, what does she do for fun?
What is her problem?
Before we begin to write the actual story, lets

spend the first hour to do some thinking,
planning and note-taking.
The last point is the most important. You must

have heard the quote: Fiction is all about
characters in conflict.
More specifically, we need to know more about

the following things.
Well, thats just another way of saying its all

about people with problems.
1. Your Main Character

Your story is going to be about one person.
Since were writing a short story, we will not
have a cast of characters. You will have just
one main character. In the first hour, all you
So the first thing that you should know about

your main character is what her problem is that
shes trying to solve in this story.
Page 3
Here are a few examples that can get you

started.
She wants to buy a pair of shoes but

cannot afford them.
She wants a raise but her boss does not
like her.
There is a piece of meat stuck in her
tooth but she cannot get it out with her
tongue.
She wants to take a holiday but she has
used up all her leave.
In each of the above examples, notice that

there are two things: there is a problem, and
there is a reason why she cannot surmount it
straight away.
At this stage, stay nimble. Dont fret over the
details just yet. Write your characters problem
down in one sentence.
2. The Helper and the Hinderer

Have a maximum of two secondary characters
who are going to either help or hinder your
main characters quest.
The easiest way is to have one of them
helping, the other hindering.
You can have two hinderers too, but you must
have at least one. Otherwise, where is the
problem?
For each of these also, write down the
following details.
Name, age and gender

What do they do for a living?
What do they do for fun?
What are their problems?
Page 4
Pay particular attention to the hinderer. Define

their problem with more care than you would
define the problem of the helper. Generally the
helper is a mentor figure or a kindly brother or
parent who wants to see the main character
happy. Their motivation is often altruistic.
have choice of country, and then you have

choice of rural or urban.
The hinderer, on the other hand, is pure evil. At

least your heroine must think so.
A note of caution
3. The Setting
The last thing we will do in the first hour is write
a few words about the place and time in which
this story occurs.
All stories happen somewhere and sometime.
Lets call this macro-setting, for now.
Examples:
Rural India, present time.

Urban India (Bangalore), circa 1950.
Unless youre confident of your storytelling

abilities, stick to times and places that you
know. For most of us it means current place
and current time.
I know that sounds vanilla, but its better to try
our hands at something simple first, isnt it?
With time, realistically, you have only three

options: past, present, future. With place, you
Page 5
The Second Hour

The second hour of our writing time will be
used to develop our characters and our setting
a little further. Notice how in the first hour we
just made generic notes? Here we will expand
on them a little bit.
1. Know Your Characters
Action
Thought
Here youre almost spoilt for choice. You can

make your character short or tall, fat or thin or
anything in between. She could have a mole
under her right eye, her one ear may be
smaller than the other, there may be a black
spot on the back of her neck.
We will do a bit of free writing on our three

characters to get to know them better. There is
no word limit on this, but I would suggest you
keep the notes down to a maximum of 200
words per character. For now, at least.
The kind of speech you give your story people

also tells your readers something about them.
What kind of voice does she have? Low and
shy, or loud and vibrant? Does she speak
quickly in bursts, or in slow, measured tones?
The four main things you want to know about

your characters are the following.
With action and thought you have the option to

bring in some inconsistencies. Your character
may be an animal lover and yet be a staunch
non-vegetarian. Were all contradictory in one
way or the other. By observing your characters
Physical appearance
Speech
Page 6
actions and by comparing them to their

thoughts, you will find out their inconsistencies.
Remember
Youre free writing here. So dont worry too
much about whether youre writing sense or
not. Let the only guiding force be in the
direction of the four elements listed above.
Trust your sub-conscious, and power through.
2. Know Your Setting

In the first hour, we wrote down a basic macrosetting for our story. Now, well take twenty
minutes to flesh it out just a little bit.
Write down 100-word descriptions of the
following micro-settings.
2. Her place of work

3. Her hobby place. This could be a bar or
a tennis court or an art studio.
Hopefully your story will happen in one or more
of these three places. Your helper and hinderer
must also be part of these places.
For example, if your helper is the characters
mother and the hinderer is the boss, the former
will be part of the place of residence and the
latter will be part of the workplace.
Work them into your little micro-setting
descriptions. Just remember:
Do not choose places where your helper
and hinderer cannot be present.
1. Your main characters place of

residence
Page 7
Are we ready to write yet? Not quite. But soon,

I promise.
So lets go with three scenes for now, shall we?

If youre feeling adventurous, you can write one
more story as soon as you finish this one.
Deal?
In this hour, we will write summaries of the

three scenes that will make up our story.
Right, so were going to make notes on the

following elements for each scene.
The Third Hour
You may ask: Why three? What if my story has

only one scene? What if it has five?
The answer is its up to you. Your story can
have as many or as few scenes as you want.
But my recommendation would be three.
Why? Because its simpler. Were going for a
2500-word-story, so three scenes of 600-800
words each gives you the best chance to
develop each one and to make sure they follow
one another logically.
1. The Purpose
Scenes exist to move the story along.
More specifically, scenes exist to move your
character along on her journey.
So for each of your scene, the very first and
the most crucial thing you should know is
how far and in which direction your character
will move by the end of it.
Page 8
Say Im the character. My big problem in life is

that I dont have time to write. My boss is
always asking me to work on weekends.
The purpose of this scene is to push me a little

further away from my goal of having the
weekend off to write.
In Scene 1, say I hatch a plan and lie to my

boss, that my mother is sick and that I have to
leave town. My boss agrees to this and
sanctions my leave.
So your job is to do something similar: write

down the purposes of your three scenes with
respect to your characters goal. With each
scene, you make her move, either towards or
away from her objective.
The purpose of this scene is to push me a little

closer to my goal of having the weekend off to
write. I have moved closer to my goal, because
my boss has bought my lie, and he has given
me a day off.
But in Scene 2, on Saturday morning I go out
to buy the daily groceries and I run into my
boss. He sees that Im in town, and he asks if I
can take a call from home. Unable to say no, I
relent.
2. The Setting
Here you will make notes about where each
scene takes place. In my stated example,
Scene 1 occurs in my office, probably in my
bosss cubicle. Scene 2 occurs near my home,
at the local grocery store.
You already know the three micro-settings of
your story. This step could be as easy as
matching one of them to each of your scenes.
Page 9
But if your story is refusing to be bound by the

list of settings you made in Hour 2, then now
may be a good time to dream up a new one.
But whatever you do, make sure that youve
assigned one micro-setting to each of the three
scenes.
3. Characters in each scene

Here we will make notes about which
characters will be involved in which scene.
There is an overwhelming temptation
sometimes to chuck your main character into a
room by herself and have her think all sorts of
deep, philosophical things.
But it also includes the far more interesting

animate objects that inhabit her world.
Make her interact with people.
Design your scenes, therefore, such that
people are talking to one another, thinking bad
(sometimes good) things about one another,
and generally behaving like real people.
So in your final scene summaries, you should
have at least these three elements:
Purpose of the scene

Setting of the scene
Characters in the scene
Resist this temptation.

Make her interact with her world. This includes
the inanimate objects that make up her setting.
Page 10
The Fourth Hour

Yes, were finally ready to write. In this hour,
we will write our first scene.
Just a tiny little reminder before we do, though.
We havent yet decided on the viewpoint in
which we will write.
This is not a hard choice. You effectively have
two options: first person or third person. Most
first-time authors pick first person because they
think its easier.
Its not.
Both have their advantages and
disadvantages. For now, dont let it bother you
too much. Just pick one. Since our story has
only one main character, it will work equally
well (or badly) regardless.
1. The Beginning
Much has been said by writers greater than me
about how to begin a story. In effect, it boils
down to this:
Dont get to the point. Start at the point.
We have no time to waste getting to the point.
By the time you begin writing your story, your
character is already at the point of disturbance
in her life.
2. The character and her world

Introduce us to your main character. Unless
you have a good reason not to, use her name
as the first word of your story.
Then give us a few lines about her world, and
the disturbance that has rocked it. By the time
youre three hundred words into the story, the
Page 11
helper or the hinderer must have made an

appearance.
goal, and get her to start fighting from Scene 2

onwards.
Remember to use all possible character

elements: action, thought, speech and physical
appearance.
The choice is yours. How you play with the

push-pull dynamics is up to you.
3. The Decision
Towards the end of this scene, your main
character makes a decision that will seemingly
move her towards her goal.
If in doubt, err on the side of more. The more

trouble your character is in at the end of Scene
1, the better.
Like how in my example I lied to my boss and

was granted a day off, leading me to think that I
had moved towards my objective.
But of course, something will happen at the
beginning of Scene 2 which will pull me away.
Alternatively, you could make the decision in
Scene 1 pull the character away from her
Page 12
The Fifth Hour

In this hour, we will write our second scene.
This can be loosely called the middle. The
structure of this scene will be similar to the first:
at the beginning, something will happen to
either push or pull the character on her journey
to her goal.
In the course of the scene, the character
makes another decision, which will make
matters decidedly worse. This could be on the
advice of the helper, on the goading of the
hinderer, or through the characters own
thoughts.
At the end of this scene, the protagonist is
farthest from her goal that she had ever been
in the story. Readers should wonder at this
point how shes ever going to succeed in

achieving her objective.
The end of scene two, therefore, marks the low
point of the characters journey.
A short note on narrative

There are four things any writer can do to
instantly improve and deepen his narrative
style.
1. Write in Active Voice
This may sound frivolous at first glance, but
many novice writers make the mistake of using
the weak active voice or the passive voice in
their descriptions. Especially when theyre
writing about inanimate objects.
For example
There was a water bottle on the table.
Page 13
A better way of saying that is: A water bottle

stood on the table.
Just by switching from passive to active voice,
the verb has become stronger (was versus
stood), the sentence has become more
assertive, and the language is tighter.
2. Include specific sensory detail
When you visualize your scene, force yourself
to go past the sights and sounds. Remember to
notice the smells, the tastes and the touches.
We all know how a rose smells, but can you
describe to us the reedy texture of its stem? Or
the way a petal tastes when you place it on
your tongue? Or the sound it makes when it
sways to the breeze?
secondary, unused senses? Can you bring to

your writing that dimension and make it
deeper?
You can, and you should try.
3. Use Descriptive Adjectives
Use adjectives that reinforce the sensory
image of the object youre describing, not the
emotion you want to convey.
So a ruddy face is descriptive whereas a sad
face is emotional and judgmental. Try and be
descriptive almost always.
4. Be Invisible
One of the hardest things for a writer to do is to
become invisible. But we must, especially while
writing fiction.
We identify almost every object by perhaps one

or two main senses. But what about the
Page 14
Its not about us. Its about the story. Its about
the people who live in the story world. Were
just narrators. Were not important.
The temptation is forever present to slip in a
wisecrack here, a philosophical aside there, an
aphorism here, a quick look-at-me there.
Resist it.
Stay out of sight. Focus on your characters.
Their struggles. Their wants. Their
experiences. Dont worry. Your readers wont
miss you.
Page 15
The Sixth Hour

This is the home stretch.
We will finish writing our third scene in this
hour, and with it the story as well. What ought
to happen here is self-explanatory; your
heroine will find a way to surmount the
challenge posed to her and come out
victorious.
The only point to note here is that ideally, this
switch from being down in the dumps to being
victorious should come about as a result of
internal change.
The idea is that the main character has a flaw
that has so far caused her to be defeated, but
the low point in her experience has forced her
to undergo deep internal change to claim
victory over her obstacles and reach her

objective.
An Example
Have you seen the first Matrix movie? Do you
remember the last act? Neo tries everything
throughout the course of the story to overcome
the machines, but at the end, with almost ten
minutes to go, he is being pummeled into a
wall, and he lies at deaths door.
But then he rises, and he resolves a deep
internal conflict: his reluctance to believe.
Once he overcomes this basic flaw in his
character, he is able to see the Matrix for what
it really is: a computer program that cannot
touch him unless he allows it.
So armed with his new-found inner strength,
he defeats the machines.
Page 16
In most stories, you will find that the ultimate

victory graces the hero only after he grits his
teeth and corrects an internal flaw that has
been his biggest obstacle.
Does your story not have this?

If it doesnt, dont worry. It will be ideal if it
does, but it is by no means necessary,
especially for a short story.
Its a good thing to keep in mind for your next
story, though. Make a habit of thinking in terms
of internal and external changes.
A short note on dialogue

Just to balance the four tips on narrative in the
previous section, here are three things that you
should keep in mind while writing dialogue.
1. Use said in dialogue tags

I know. Expostulated sounds better. Stated,
answered, gasped, sighed, smiled and all
the other nice words that you think should be
used instead of boring old said dont use
them. Use said instead. This is probably the
one time in your writing that you should use the
generic verb over the specific.
Why? Because your dialogue stub itself carries
all the emotion. The he said is just a tag. You
dont want readers to focus on the tag. You
want them to focus on the speech itself.
2. Minimize irrelevant dialogue
Most of human speech in real life is pointless.
We uhm and aah a lot. We speak in banalities.
We make a lot of polite, irrelevant
conversation.
Page 17
If fiction is to mirror real life, one may ask

whether dialogue in fiction should be the same
pointless and rambling.
So if you intersperse your dialogue with pieces

of narrative, depending on how you combine
them, you can achieve different rhythms.
No.
If you use all dialogue, your reader will be left

breathless. If you use all narrative, your reader
will get lulled into a slow sense of comfort.
Fiction is not a mirror to real life. Fiction is real

life with the dull bits taken out. (Yes. Hitchcock
said that.)
So take out the dull bits from your dialogue.
Give your readers only the bits that are
relevant to the story or to the character.
So play around with your narrative-dialogue

combinations. Experiment. See how it affects
the pace and rhythm of your prose.
3. Use dialogue for rhythm

One of the strongest tools available to the
fiction writer to achieve rhythm in his prose is
the use of dialogue and narrative in
combination.
Narrative is slower to read than dialogue.
Page 18
The Seventh Hour

What is this, you ask? Weve already finished
our story, havent we?
Well, not quite. Weve just done the first draft. If
its like most first drafts in the world, its
probably not that good.
Its almost certainly not publishable.
What we need is to edit it. In this hour, I will
give you a quick overview of what an edit
looks like whether youre editing a novel or a
short story.
The Line Edit

This is the lowest level of an edit. As the name
suggests, the focus here is on the clarity of
each line. Grammar, punctuation, style these
are all questions you must answer at this level.
Is every line in my story grammatically correct?

Is every line in my story tight enough? Is every
line in my story clear in meaning?
Obviously, in cases where you answer no, you
rephrase, you cut down, you clip.
The Copy Edit

In a copy edit, the smallest functional unit of
composition is the paragraph. Does one
paragraph flow into the next? Does each
paragraph have a self-contained meaning and
theme? Do the breaks come at the right times?
That last bit is quite important. In fiction, the
main function of paragraphs is to generate a
pause in the readers mind. You want to be
sure that the pauses are coming at exactly the
right times. If theyre not, re-structure.
Page 19
The Substantive Edit

Here youre looking at each scene of your story
as a unit. Is the story consistent from one
scene to the next? Are the meaning, purpose
and theme of each scene clear? And do they
all come together to deliver a unified message?
Because of all the planning work we did, you
may find that your scenes are all right. But then
you may not.
The Fiction Edit

For fiction writers, there is a further level of
editing that looks at all the fictive elements of
the piece. Are the characters well-rounded?
Does the plot flow smoothly? Is the pace of the
prose too jerky at places, perhaps? Is there too
much dialogue? Is there too little dialogue?
Many of these are subjective questions, to

which the right answer is just your answer. You
just go by feel. Maybe you can take the
opinion of a person you trust at this stage.
A word of caution
It is possible to get stuck in what I call the
editing loop. You edit, you take another look at
it, youre still not happy, you edit again, you
take another look at it, youre still not happy,
you edit again
And so on it goes.
Give it one, maybe two edits. And then move
on to the next story. Learn to let go.
You will learn more by writing new stories than
by editing written ones. So keep moving.
Page 20
Final Words
If you have a finished short story in your hands, congratulations! If youd like feedback on your work,
please dont hesitate to send it to me. I will give you my opinion (for what its worth) of where you
stand and how you should proceed going forward.
If you havent finished your story, dont worry. There is absolutely no need to beat yourself up. Go
back to the first page of this guide and try to work through it again. If youre still finding it hard, write to
me and I will help you.
Tell me what you think

I wrote this guide for you. If it didnt help you or if it did and if you have ideas on how to improve it,
let me know. I promise not to take it personally.
Pass it on
If you know anybody who is looking for guidance or a step-by-step approach for writing short fiction,
and if you think they will benefit by reading this guide, pass it on to them.
And if youd like to keep in touch, visit my blog and drop me a note.
Click here to visit my blog
Page 21

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Contents

A Note to the Reader .......................................................................................................................... 1

The 7-Hour Short Story Sharath Komarraju

A Note to the Reader

The 7-Hour Short Story Sharath Komarraju

The 7-Hour Short Story Sharath Komarraju

The First Hour

need to do is write down the following details

Right, so youre set. Youre sitting in front of

Wait a second. It wont work out that way.

Name, age and gender

Before we begin to write the actual story, lets

The last point is the most important. You must

More specifically, we need to know more about

Well, thats just another way of saying its all

1. Your Main Character

So the first thing that you should know about

The 7-Hour Short Story Sharath Komarraju

Here are a few examples that can get you

She wants to buy a pair of shoes but

In each of the above examples, notice that

2. The Helper and the Hinderer

Name, age and gender

The 7-Hour Short Story Sharath Komarraju

Pay particular attention to the hinderer. Define

have choice of country, and then you have

The hinderer, on the other hand, is pure evil. At

Rural India, present time.

Unless youre confident of your storytelling

With time, realistically, you have only three

The 7-Hour Short Story Sharath Komarraju

The Second Hour

1. Know Your Characters

Here youre almost spoilt for choice. You can

We will do a bit of free writing on our three

The kind of speech you give your story people

The four main things you want to know about

With action and thought you have the option to

The 7-Hour Short Story Sharath Komarraju

actions and by comparing them to their

2. Know Your Setting

2. Her place of work

1. Your main characters place of

The 7-Hour Short Story Sharath Komarraju

Are we ready to write yet? Not quite. But soon,

So lets go with three scenes for now, shall we?

In this hour, we will write summaries of the

Right, so were going to make notes on the

The Third Hour

You may ask: Why three? What if my story has

The 7-Hour Short Story Sharath Komarraju

Say Im the character. My big problem in life is

The purpose of this scene is to push me a little

In Scene 1, say I hatch a plan and lie to my

So your job is to do something similar: write

The purpose of this scene is to push me a little

The 7-Hour Short Story Sharath Komarraju

But if your story is refusing to be bound by the

3. Characters in each scene

But it also includes the far more interesting

Purpose of the scene

Resist this temptation.

The 7-Hour Short Story Sharath Komarraju

The Fourth Hour