Tips and Advice on Writing a Short Story for a Kindle

Here are some writing tips and advice on creating short stories for the Kindle, or developing content for any electronic book reader.

To be fair to you I will not claim that this is entirely serious from beginning to end. Therefore if you are not blessed with a fondness for occasionally wasting your time, or prefer not to listen to an idiot and a charlatan - please feel no obligation to read on with the intention of subsequently reporting me to Google.

If you do decide to continue despite my warning then be aware that there is no legal recourse available to you in terms of the aforementioned time wasting matter. In any case it would come down to a definition of usefulness, and my solicitor has informed me that under certain conditions there are elements of the writing contained in this page which could be described as not entirely lacking in worth.

Praise indeed I think, and that is from a legal type of person.

So, if you are still there and I am of course still here, let’s crack on with some knowledge dissemination in an arguably humorous way.

Because the Kindle is slightly different to a real book in terms of effort mainly, and price.

Traditionally, a prospective reader might browse through a bookstore looking for something interesting to read. They would hold the book in their hand, skip through some pages and make a decision based largely on the look and feel of the product, er, book thing.

In electronic book story marketing we need a good summary of a hundred words or so, a very good cover, tons of marketing and a 99c price point. Your clueless purchaser will hopefully click on the thing and buy it without really checking it out first.

Hopefully my tips in this piece will show you how to aim at the right quality level to produce tons of these things within a sensible timeframe. We’re not talking life’s work output here! Just a few minutes of your time and another masterpiece will hit the shelves in a digital sense.

First up, let’s get the writing bit out of the way (ugh). Now I know what you’re thinking – writing equals boring, and yep, I’m with you all the way. But you can’t just sell a Kindle book with nothing inside – I mean you have to have some content.

Let’s assume you’re going for the short story market rather than the help yourself arena. Here’s how to craft a simple novel without too much effort.

There are a few basic bits to the old writing shenanigans that you need to acquaint yourself with in a brain learning mode.

• Title
• Character
• Background
• Premise
• Plot (added after comments pointed out I'd missed it)
• Start
• Middle
• End

This is so important. Several words, or maybe just one if you are a bit up yourself, that go on all the marketing. You need something attractive, interesting, inviting and a lot of other thesaurus style words. Adjectives they’re called.

Dull is not what you are looking for. Throw in a suggestion of sex and you are on your way.

I am Horny - is good.

I am Horace – less so.

This is your main person. He, or she I suppose if you must write about women, will be the hero of the piece. Or villain, but they don’t sell so well. Ideally you want to dream up someone who the readers might like, and especially they might want to be like.

Readers like aspiration. They generally have sad boring lives which is why they read books.

No, no, not premises. Premise is the theme, the hook, of your book. What’s it all about? This could be a situation our hero finds himself in, or some other scenario and his route to resolving it. Struggles against all the odds are good. Not in real life obviously.

To be honest, premise, was a mistake on my part. I was a bit hasty listing my story bullet points and totally missed the obvious... plot (see below).

Although... maybe you can have a premise, a concept, around the whole exercise. And the plot exists within the scenario you create. It all sounds a lot of effort to me.

I suppose this is the story, the reason for buying the thing. You can have as much fancy description as you like, or interesting characters, but the real reason for sticking with a book from beginning to end, is the plot.

At least, it is for me. I don't do empathy or historical backgrounds, whatever. I like a hero, a girl, a villain, two hundred million dollars and a suitcase with a nuclear bomb in it.

I vaguely remember some Hollywood exec saying there were only seven basic stories, the rest was window dressing. Maybe that goes for plotlines too. Anyways - you need one.

This is the most important bit, after the blurb, cover, marketing and price. You need to get that reader reading, so concentrate quite hard on a few lines at the beginning. Don’t worry! You can slacken off later.

If you can’t think of anything much, make open ended statements that encourage the reader to use their imagination. Half the battle is getting them to build up their own picture, which is often much better than the book.

Less important than the start, it’s OK if this drifts around for a while. Do some of that descriptive stuff, or throw in a red herring. Another brilliantly crafted character can enter the book during the middle bit and perhaps say “Hello” to our hero. Doesn’t matter if they’re still there at the end of it.

Some people, authors I suppose you could call them, weave complex tales around multiple characters and multi layered plot lines.

Yeah right. This is Kindle we’re talking about here! You don’t get a whole lot of anything for 99c.

Thank God for that. Try and finish it with something that makes the reader feel good. A positive message – the hero triumphs and gets the girl or the money. Girl is probably better - we don’t want the reader thinking about the money they just spent on this.

If your hero is female don’t worry – she can still get the girl. Women like that chick lit stuff. It’s art you see, not porn. Sling in some of that emotional crap, time permitting, and you might have a bestseller on your hands.

Two meanings here. You need to write a fantastic summary as the marketing blurb for your title. That's your Amazon advertising, the bit that draws in potential readers like flies to a book.

...

And in terms of summarising this page so far...

That’s the basics sorted. For the rest of this page I have crafted my own short story, using the techniques described earlier. If you want to use it, all you have to do is change some names, places, activities and so on.

Mark was sitting alone at the computer working hard. It had been a while since he had lost his job, and the endless pleasure of creating quality content was beginning to pall. There was a limit, even with his talent, of just how many ways he could sell toasters.

Descriptive padding added.

The room was cold, square and bare save for a table, chair and Mark. It had walls, a ceiling and a floor. There was a power point with a computer plugged into it. The computer had a keyboard and some USB ports. The letter G was a bit faded, although it might just have been cigarette ash.

End of padding. You can do loads of this to fill the book out.

While he was pondering on a rhyme for Dualit he heard a knock at the doorbell, the batteries had gone long ago. “Coming” he shouted and put his dressing gown back on.

Upon opening the door he was surprised to see that a woman was stood there. She was attractive, clean shaven, and seemed to be offering him a mug with some coins in.

“Thanks very much” said Mark, taking the mug and shutting the door.

He counted the coins – fifty five cents. “No need to write anymore today” he thought to himself. That was more money than he had seen since he started this authoring game.

The doorbell shook again. It was her. “Where’s my mug you tosser” she swore in a delightful lilting way.

“Will you marry me?” said Mark.

The End

It’s a bit short obviously, but it’s an artistic flavour, about 29c worth. It should be easy to expand the thing with some of that descriptive crap writers fill up books with. The colour of the walls, the temperature or the type of coffee he likes to drink.

Leaving the last question unanswered increases the possibility, however slim, that they will buy the next instalment.

Readers are worth hanging onto if you can. Although, as the great Bard himself said – there’s one born every minute, if you Tweet enough you can sell anything. A message that’s still true today.

Happy marketing!