This short story checklist will improve your story writing technique. These strategies will help you get published because these are the kinds of questions editors ask when reading your short story. You’ll find information about characterization, dialogue, mood, tone, action, pacing, and plot in short stories. Use these tips to increase your acceptance rate, and get your creative writing published in literary journals and magazines.

• Is the opening sentence (and opening paragraph) of your short story strong, enticing, and confident? Does it set the mood and tone of your entire short story? Is it overly “anything” (overly cute, overly obvious, overly clever), or does it have a hint of mystery?
• Do you ground your short story in scene by appealing to the reader’s five senses? Does your description advance your reader’s understanding of character and plot? Does the relationship between dialogue and description support your short story’s goals? Is the description well-researched, accurate, and evocative?
• Do you show rather than tell? Is there a sense of immediacy? Do you reveal and imply, rather than explain and state?
• Are the characters unique and memorable—but believable at the same time? Are their motivations clear and are they well-rounded? Do your characters’ personalities complement each other in a way that makes the central conflict more pronounced?
• Is the dialogue believable and effective, striking the right balance between efficiency and realism? Does the dialogue show that the characters are challenged? Is the tension illustrated in a way that is not always “flat and obvious?”
• Are secondary characters as well-developed as main characters, even if their entire backstory doesn’t come across on the page? Have you taken care that your secondary characters aren’t more interesting than your main characters? Do secondary characters truly add to the short story, or can you cut them out?
• Is your pacing even and controlled? Is your beginning engaging (or full of too much backstory)? Is your ending well-developed? Does the action have well-controlled ups and downs?
• Is your ending surprising yet fitting? Does the tension level of your ending deliberately rise above the tension level of the rest of your story? And does the denouement (tying up loose ends) reveal that the character has made a choice (has changed in some way or has had the opportunity to change but instead remained the same)?
• Is your voice unique? Do you have mesmerizing, insightful, and impressive things to say (or imply)?
• Have you read your work aloud at least once?
• Have you had a professional proofreader look at your short story? Even the best writers need a proofreader—in fact, it’s often the best writers who recognize this fact, while new writers tend to think they don’t need help.
• Is your word count marketable? Stories over 4,000 words are very difficult to place. Have you developed an effective submission strategy that is proven to get results? Are you sending your work to the best-suited editors, in the proper format, during the open reading dates? Are your pages professionally formatted in a 12-point, easy-to-read font with standard margins? Is contact information included on the first page, with proper headers and page numbers on subsequent pages? Does your cover letter incorporate effective strategies?
  
  If not, you may want to contact an author’s submission service, like Writer’s Relief, for help increasing your acceptance rate. Writer’s Relief will proofread and format your short stories and will target your work to the best-suited agents and editors (at literary journals and magazines) in order to increase the likelihood of publication. If you do seek submission assistance for your short stories, be certain you’re working with an ethical company that has a proven track record, like Writer’s Relief.