Writing a short story is a pursuit from which many accomplished writers shy away. Why is that, you ask? Well, consider the difficulties: a short story is usually anywhere from 10-25 pages. A good short story consists of all the complex elements you find in a full length novel, but relegated to nearly one twentieth of the space. It is, in many respects, a weighty task.

So what are the constituent elements that must come together in order to create a short story that would be considered "of publishable merit" by your favorite literary journal? Follow along as we catalogue the six most important things to keep in mind when you set out to create a masterpiece of short fiction.

One thing that can kill a potentially great short story from the outset is every writer's worst enemy: the cliché. For those not initiated into the cult of creative writing, a cliché is any image, idea, or phrase that is overused to the point of being meaningless. Example: what images come to mind when you hear the word "love"? A red rose? A big pink heart? A long walk on a beach at sunset? A candlelit dinner for two? These images are all cliché. They have been burned into society's collective consciousness so deeply that they are boring. To write a good short story, you need to be able to both avoid clichés, and at the same time deliver a fresh perspective. Your plot, characters, and your descriptions should be unique, interesting, and should be delivered in original language.

Fyodor Dostoevsky once said that he didn't write his novels, he simply created his characters, and they proceeded to lead him through the story on their own. This sort of character centered narrative can be fruitful, but it can also fall flat on its face if your characters are one dimensional or underdeveloped. The problem is, in a short story, how exactly can you make your characters fully developed or multi-dimensional and still keep your narrative brief?

One easy way to make sure your characters are well rounded is to use the story itself to describe them. Rather than spend the first few pages introducing your main character(s), it can be much more productive to use the things your character does and says to demonstrate his personality rather than describing it. As the age old adage goes: show, don't tell.

Another important thing to remember about characters in a short story is not to have too many of them. If you only have ten pages, don't try to fit in a crowd.

While in longer works of fiction, authors often spend time telling the narrative from several different perspectives, in a short story, you won't often have that luxury. While creating a third-person omniscient narrator might seem boring to you, it is often the easiest way to write a short story. No need to explain why a character knows something or doesn't know it. No need to explain why a character feels what he does. No, with a third-person narrator, you can tell your readers what you want, when you want. This saves space while maximizing your ability to move the plot forward.

The driving force of any piece of fiction is its conflict. Without a fearsome dragon, adventurous knights would have no way to prove themselves and win the heart of the fair maiden. In other words, if your story has no obstacle, if your main character has no inner (or outer) conflict to overcome then your short story will fall flat on its face.

When you are writing, work on finding an original idea for the crux of your story. Think about your own favorite novels and short stories and try not to just co-opt their plots. Another easy way to come up with a good, believable, yet interesting conflict is to simply take a difficulty in your own life and then exaggerate it so it becomes much more drastic or severe.

What often marks the difference between a piece of short fiction of "publishable merit" and a useless Word document on your hard drive is the underlying themes and symbols. They form the icing on the cake, or the cherry on top of the sundae. Essentially, they give the reader something to think about, while at the same time tying all the disparate parts of your story together into a single entity.

Here's an example of how to use themes and symbols: if your character must go on a long journey in order to accomplish his goal, make sure you choose both his destination and his method of travel carefully. If your story is about love, or about coming of age, don't have your character hop an intercontinental flight to Norway. Instead, have him sail to Portugal, or drive a beat-up car through South America. Make sure that all the little pieces of your story add up to form something more than just fiction.

While some accomplished authors choose to break this "rule", most short stories work best if the incorporate either only one place or only one time. If a short story is constantly skipping from location to location or from one day to the next, the reader loses the continuity he/she needs. This does not mean that you must spend the entire story in the frozen foods isle of the local grocery store, or the entire story on a Tuesday in March. However, preserving the continuity of either space or time is essential to writing a good short story that engages the reader.

These six things are by no means the only six parts that are needed to write a good short story, but they are a few of the most important ones, and the ones that are most easily accessible to the non-academic writer. There are many ways to avoid cliché, many ways to create a fabulous character, and a hundred million ways to create conflict, but only the right combination of those things will result in the great short story you are looking to write. So what are you waiting for! Get out there and get writing!