Short-story planning workbook

How to use

Save a copy, replace the worksheet with your project and keep the story draft separate. These fields support decisions and may be filled after drafting. No mandatory length or sequence is implied.

Worked example: Box 17

Reusable worksheet

• Person, situation and desire:
• Why the outcome matters:
• Competence, vulnerability and contradiction:
• Two options and each cost:
• Place and objects affecting action:
• Narrator and accessible thoughts:
• Initiating event:
• Attempt and response:
• Choice that changes the situation:
• Consequence and possible final image:
• Information needed before the solution:
• External fact to research and an appropriate source:

Scene card

Duplicate for scenes you need; do not force each field into a separate scene.

A small practice variation

Change the external desire: Joana wants to stop her mother seeing an error on the map. Finding it is no longer enough; she must decide whether to alter someone else’s memory. List the dialogue, consequences and ending that would change. Replacing only the premise sentence does not transform the whole story.

Turn a subject into a premise

“Memory” is a subject; “a volunteer must find a map she herself cataloged incorrectly” is a narrative situation. A premise puts someone in circumstances that call for a response. Recovering the paper would be easier if Joana asked for help; her wish to appear competent complicates it.

Try writing: someone wants something, encounters resistance and chooses how to act. This is a discovery tool, not a sentence that must appear in the story. “A cook wants to recreate a parent’s recipe, but nobody agrees on its main ingredient” permits several responses: concede, experiment, ask or leave the argument.

Keep the premise focused on a decision, not a full biography. A contemplative story may turn on perception rather than an external quest; identify the experience you want the reader to notice.

Give desire a concrete consequence

Joana wants a photograph before the move. The map holds a shared memory with her mother, not merely monetary value. The five o’clock deadline adds urgency without threatening a life. Intensity does not require artificially raising the danger.

Separate the stated wish from the difficulty you see as the writer: Joana asks for a photo but struggles to accept help without feeling less capable. She need not announce a lesson about trust. Her withheld description of the folder, and her later correction, make the difficulty visible.

Name what your character seeks and what failure would cost. Replace “wants happiness” with an observable action such as “wants her sister to accept a lunch invitation.” A desire may change; show the event that changes it.

Build a person beyond a profile

Joana’s favorite color would not resolve this scene. Her insistence on proving herself explains her solitary search. The long crossbar on her seven identifies her handwriting and makes her recognize her own entry: one detail does two jobs.

Sketch a competence, a vulnerability and a contradiction. Joana knows the map’s history, fears appearing careless and worsens the search by withholding what she knows. Rui can be helpful without being a perfect assistant: his practical reply denies her the immediate reassurance she wants.

Avoid making a profession, background or diagnosis someone’s entire personality. People within any group respond differently. Ask where each trait affects a choice, perception or relationship. Unused biographical details can stay in your notes.

Create resistance without inventing a villain

The misplaced folder is an obstacle. Asking for help versus protecting her image is Joana’s conflict. Rui need not sabotage anything: he requests useful information and she answers in a way that protects her pride.

Give two options different costs. Searching alone risks missing the deadline; admitting the mistake risks Rui’s judgment. The choice matters because neither option preserves everything unchanged.

If every obstacle is an unrelated accident, a story may resemble a queue of mishaps. Let at least one difficulty worsen or change because of a character’s action. This does not require every story to contain a villain, an argument or a victory.

Choose a workable short-story scope

The example follows one search in one room. Joana’s mother appears through messages; the neighborhood’s entire history need not be staged. This scope allows a small change to develop fully instead of compressing a whole life into a synopsis.

Begin with a central event, the people it needs and a consequence the text can show. This is an exercise option, not a universal definition of short fiction. A short narrative can span decades through careful selection.

If your idea contains a war, three families and four generations, try the moment someone decides to keep or burn a letter. The larger world can put pressure on that moment without an encyclopedia. Consider saving a subplot for another story if it neither changes the central decision nor creates a worthwhile effect of its own.

Connect events through consequences

Sequence tells us that one event followed another. Causality explains why the situation changed. Joana withholds the folder’s size, so Rui cannot guide the search. Her mother’s message recalls the wide sheet, prompting a corrected answer. With that information, Rui finds the relevant record.

Summarize turning points using “because,” “but” or “therefore.” The folder is missing, but Joana avoids admitting the mistake; therefore she searches nearby boxes; the memory weakens her excuse; she asks for help. These connectors test relationships; they need not appear throughout the prose.

Not everything must be causal: coincidence can start a story. Trouble arises when luck alone supplies the decisive solution and makes previous choices irrelevant. If Rui found the map by chance before the admission, the ending would produce a different effect.

Make a scene change something

A scene follows actions in a recognizable place and interval. It may change a relationship, information, a goal or an interpretation. In S05, Joana still tries to control the search; when Rui asks about size and she says “ordinary,” the reader sees help being refused under the guise of information.

Sketch four things: what matters now, what someone tries, how another person or the environment responds, and what changes. “Joana searches” is vague. “Joana tries to find the map without revealing her mistake; Rui offers help; she answers badly; the search remains stalled” gives you actions to write.

Quiet scenes can change a great deal. Not sending a message may transform a relationship if we understand its significance. Do not add a fight merely to satisfy a template.

Choose what to stage and what to summarize

Staging allows room for gestures, dialogue and responses. Summary crosses an interval in fewer words. In S05, boxes 16 and 18 get a short inventory; the folder’s description gets direct speech. Repetitive searching matters less here than withholding information.

Compare “She searched for half an hour” with “Another box. Minutes. The next: posters. The clock kept moving.” The second gives repetition a texture; it is not automatically better. Summary may serve the story better if we need to reach the conversation quickly.

“Show, don’t tell” does not forbid summary. Give detail to experiences the reader needs to inhabit. Compress transitions or repetition when doing so preserves important changes. A summarized life can also be powerful when that is the text’s intention.

Let the setting affect the action

Yellow tape, sealed boxes and a blocked cabinet make the move tangible. “The room was chaotic” is unnecessary. Objects create actions and obstacles: Rui holds the tape, its roll falls, two people cooperate to reach the folder.

Choose details the viewpoint character would notice now. Searching for paper, Joana studies numbers and labels; someone worried about a leak might first notice a damp wall. Description can reveal a goal without explaining it again.

Try relocating the scene to a beach while preserving everything else. If nothing changes, the setting may be generic. This does not mean every object must become a clue. Some establish orientation or atmosphere; avoid letting their accumulation bury the central action.

Write dialogue that does something

“Did you move any folders?” requests information while shifting suspicion toward Rui. “Only the ones that wouldn’t fit” replies with a practical criterion. Each speaker is trying to accomplish something, even without a dramatic speech.

During revision, label each line with an intention: probe, avoid, request, correct, reassure. These labels need not appear in the story. Combine consecutive lines that merely repeat information, or let the second change the relationship.

Voice does not require catchphrases. Joana skirts the issue; Rui asks for concrete details. Their response patterns distinguish them. Read the exchange aloud to catch difficult sentences without transcribing every hesitation of ordinary speech. Start a new paragraph when the speaker changes and use quotation punctuation consistently.

Make the unspoken understandable

In S07, Joana wants reassurance that the mistake does not matter. Rui asks where she left the folder. He declares neither forgiveness nor resentment. His reply stays practical while her wish exposes embarrassment. The mismatch between emotional request and actual response enriches the exchange.

Compare “Rui was deeply disappointed” with “Rui put down the tape without answering.” The second leaves interpretive room; it does not by itself prove disappointment. A gesture is not a universal emotional dictionary.

Subtext needs context. Remove the cataloging error and Joana’s resistance, and the question becomes ordinary logistics. Make important inferences possible from available information. If readers miss one, add a concrete supporting detail before explaining every emotion explicitly.

Separate event order from reading order

Chronologically, Joana helped her mother with the map, accepted its donation, entered it incorrectly and later searched for it. In reading order, we begin with absence, then discover the entry and the domestic memory. This creates questions before answers.

S04 signals the donation afternoon. S06 moves from a present message to the wide sheet. S07 returns to the conversation with Rui. These cues orient the shifts without requiring a date in every paragraph.

Make two lists: events as they occurred and passages as presented. If a memory interrupts an urgent scene, ask what changes when we return. Here it supplies the folder’s size and the search’s emotional significance. Shorten or relocate memories that only repeat information.

References

• Character and conflict
• Portraying a character
• Developing subtext
• Diagnosing a revision
• Building voices in dialogue
• Structuring narrative time
• Setting and tension

Sources checked 2026-09-26.