charles raymond barrett

Learn to Write Short Stories That Win

Write short stories with confidence after reading How to Write Winning Short Stories, a great guide for anyone seeking writing tips, help with writing fiction (especially short fiction), and insider tips for winning writing contests.

This concise and practical guide includes developing a theme and premise, choosing a title, creating characters, crafting realistic dialogue, bringing the setting to life, working with structure, and editing. It also includes submission and marketing advice. The author, who manages an annual short story competition, offers guidance on manuscript formatting, submission options, contest entry, and how to get the attention of a publisher or contest judge.

Practical, Useful Guide for Writers at All Levels

The book is perfect for anyone who is considering writing a short story. It gives beginning writers a practical playbook for getting started and helps experienced writers build their skills.

Easy-to-Follow Advice and Examples

Based on the author’s experiences running an annual short story contest and working with dozens of writers to help them improve and perfect their stories, combined with extensive research (the bibliography contains 80+ sources), here, in one concise little guide, is the best advice and most successful tips for writing winning short stories.

Each chapter concludes with a handy checklist for reviewing what was learned and checking stories for possible areas of improvement.