Crafting Story Arcs

Writing short stories often feels like trying to park a bus in a compact car space. You need precision, restraint, and just enough nerve to keep going when you begin to feel like the draft is wobbling off course. One of the biggest hurdles to a writer is finding ideas that are manageable enough to fit the form, but strong enough to leave an impact. A short story cannot survive on atmosphere alone. It needs conflict quickly, which is why creating tension matters from the opening paragraph.

Many writers also battle with self-doubt during the drafting stage. Trust me, that’s not unusual. They polish sentences too early, delete random plot points, or avoid going deeper and writing about emotional risks. Unfortunately, cautious writing usually produces cautious stories. Cautious stories are not exciting!

Starting can be just as challenging. What helps is to pick an idea, a character name or a situation, and let the words flow. Jot down a few thoughts about where you want your story to go and what characters will live there. Some folks spend a lot of time outlining and moving things around, aiming for perfection. Don’t fall into that self-defeating trap. Being organized is a good practice, but spending too much time on advance preparation won't get that story written. Your first draft should be a bit unruly. You'll tidy it up later when you've finished the piece and begin editing.

Especially in short stories, creating strong characters is essential. Readers have only a few pages to connect with them. A single vivid detail or contradiction can make a character memorable. In my experience, it’s often my characters who tell me what’s going to happen next, in terms of plot, conflict and resolution – and I listen to them.

Here are the first few lines of my novel, Kenora Reinvented.

“The free world wouldn’t topple into chaos if I didn’t conquer my performance anxiety but damn it, my carefully reconstructed life might.

Two years ago, if the Magic 8-Ball had predicted my forty-two-year-old self would willingly return to the place where I’d lurched into unemployment, I'd have tossed it into the garbage. But as I’d learned the hard way, life was unpredictable. Sometimes though, the irony was delicious.”

My objective was to catapult my protagonist onto the page with a strong voice, raise questions for the reader to want answers to (hooks), then set the tone and pace for the rest of the book. It took me many months to get the words and sentences for the opening right. Frustrating, yes, but through trial and error and much editing, I ended up with what I wanted.

Maintaining pacing is important whether you’re writing 500 words, 5,000 words or 50,000 words. Every scene must earn its place or the story will begin to sag under unnecessary exposition.

Writers who are struggling with story arc should remember that short fiction thrives on change. Even a subtle emotional shift can transform a simple anecdote into a satisfying story.

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Gooooooaaaaaallll!

by Hyacinthe Miller • 2 July 2026

When people think about international sporting events, they often picture the action inside stadiums jammed with tens of thousands of screaming fans. Yet, some of the most memorable moments happen far beyond the first and last whistles. What I’ve seen in Mexico during a FIFA match, is entire towns transformed by watch parties in homes or bars, convoys of vehicles honking horns and waving flags from windows, and everyone out celebrating. We’re all wearing green shirts in honour of our Mexican football team and it’s amazing. It’s been a time when strangers become neighbours for a few unforgettable weeks. Walking through the streets at any time of day, you can feel the energy. Hawkers are selling Mexican themed team shirts of all kinds. Families bring their lawn chairs to the malacon to watch the match on a big screen television set up by the skateboard park. Before and afterwards, folks gather in the central square. A few weeks ago, I was on a flight from Toronto to Mexico City connecting to Guadalajara. Fans from all over the world were wearing team jerseys. There was such a happy buzz of pride and laughter. The man I sat beside was born in Mexico but hadn’t been back in forty-one years (he’d had a complicated life). He had tickets to games in Mexico City (CDMX) and Guadalajara. When we arrived in Guadalajara airport, there were two lines of people dressed in team colours greeting everyone heading out of the terminal. Music, chanting, dancing—I’d never seen anything like it. Last night on my way home from watching the game with a group of friends, there were no cars on the streets. It was eerily quiet. Even the dogs were silent. Yet, form every house I passed by on the way home, I could hear the game and cheers behind the curtains. When Mexico ended the game with a 2-0 win, then the celebrations spilled into the streets. Lots of cohetes being set off, cheering, and horns honking long after the match had ended. Everywhere you look, people are wearing team jerseys, interesting headgear or draping themselves in the flag. The sense of excitement is contagious. What makes the celebration especially memorable is the friendliness of the Mexican people. We saw lots of that hospitality offered in Tijuana to the Iranian team, whose exclusion form the US meant they had to fly out of Mexico for every match, and return afterwards. The Korean team will remember Mexican hospitality for a long time. In fact, there are lots of memes circulating that in nine months, there will be dozens of Korean Mexican babies born with names like Fernando Kim, Yoon Sun Lopez, Andreas Lorenzo Lee, Lourdes Maria Park. Especially in these troubled times, events like soccer with teams from around the world, remind us that competition can unite people and give them a break from political shanigans.

Crafting Story Arcs

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Gooooooaaaaaallll!

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Maintaining Pacing

Start Writing!

I write because I breathe.