how can reading short stories help someon write them?

Yup!

Read the good ones and work out why they work.

To some extent, yes. They give you some idea what sort of plot you can wrap up in 3,000 words. At least that's how it's been in my experiance. I admit I write a lot of short stories and don't read very many.

In my view, a short story is a very different animal from a longer work (novel, novella, etc.).

With longer works, you can use cumulative details to inform the reader and to give them a sense of place and time. In a short story, the author must often decide what is vital and trim everything else.

That is easier said than done. After all, you CAN go to far and trim away everything that makes your story interesting. This is where reading other short stories is useful. There is much to learn not only from the author, but from the editor's choice.

It also helps to be well versed in what has been done before. I can't tell you how many times I wrote a story that I thought was clever and was promtly told it was essentially a "cookie cutter" plot.

Like Mubling Sage, I should probably read more.

No. Reading short stories will definitely not help you to write them.

I'm joking. Of course it will!
Usually short stories get character and setting established very quickly and then go straight into the action (if they are narrative driven shorts).

Lots of shorts seem to be written in first person, presumably because you can get a bead on the narrator from the first line. One paragraph in and you can show a lot about them, and then move on to other stuff. If you keep the wordcount low you have to be extremely selective, and 1st person is one way to establish character fast.

If your idea is so deep that a sketch won't do it justice then maybe it has to be written longer. But if you have a one-act sort of idea, read some shorts and see how others do it.

I agree with all the posts above. Reading short stories will help you better to write them. Because when your reading, you'll sometimes notice "Oh, that flows nicely, that's pretty cool... Oh what an interesting way to put that." And you'll just become a stronger writer overall.

I'm just starting to study mystery stories. I bought a copy of Best American Mystery Stories of 2008, and I'm not just reading them, I'm analyzing them. In particular, I'm looking at the nature of the central conflict and the resolution.

I'm doing this because while I'm pretty good at setting up situations and conflict, I have so far been lousy at resolving stories. So I'm hoping to learn something about what kinds of resolutions I like, and perhaps what kinds of conflict are resolvable.

Dale

Writing is a tricky beast. I think it is easy to become complacent with the knowledge we have and think it is enough.

"I know all about structure."
"I know all about POV."
"I know all about cliche plots."
"I know all about..."

But like any career path, it is the things you don't know that you don't know which can stagnate your growth. Like a scientist who fails to read the research papers of his peers. Bit by bit, you fall behind in your knowledge of new things that have been done, unexpected things, which may push your own writing to places you did not conceive. Bit by bit, you fall behind in knowledge of what has been done before, what the new cliches are, the new structures, the new POV twists, and so forth. Stagnation.

So read short stories. Read them first because you enjoy reading them. Read them secondly because even if you are unaware of it, your craft is changing subtly by the influx of new possibilities.

It also does not hurt to occasionally read only for the purpose of deconstructing the craft of another writer. Read over twenty paragraph openings to the latest anthology of best stories in your genre and see what makes them work. Read through twenty endings, twenty middles. Dissect twenty POV choices and how they affected the stories. Learn the why's behind each author's narrative choices and through your questions learn more about your own choices and how you can raise your craft higher.




-Michelle

Reading stories can also help sell them. I like to read some of the stories published by markets I intend to submit to in order to get a feel for the kind of thing they buy.

You wouldn't expecta great chef to become great without eating food, so why expect top be able to write without reading?