What makes a great short story?

The Young Writers Award has opened once again for entries, and many young writers are finding themselves asking what makes a great short story? What ingredients do diverse, creative, and winning, short stories have? And how can I make my short stories better?

Luckily, State Library has an impressive archive of previous winning entries dating back to 1998, the inception of the Young Writers’ Award. I have analysed these incredible short stories by young writers in Queensland and here are a few things I noticed that these fabulous writings have in common. Let these short story elements inspire you, fellow young writer, to write your own submission to the Young Writers Award. Submit a short story here up to 2,500 words by 5pm AEST Monday 12 May 2025 for your chance to get $2,000, your short story published in leading literary journal Kill Your Darlings and free membership to Queensland Writers Centre. Entry is FREE, so why wait? Get writing with the following short story elements in mind.

Unique perspective

I get it. You really wanna say 'I do not have a unique perspective, I’m Joe average!' But I am the party pooper who is here to tell you, you do. Regardless of your age or background or education, you have a unique and compelling voice. Every person experiences the world in a way unique to them, and this can deeply inform their writing.  Perhaps you or the characters you have created have a unique perspective, worldview or experience.

2024 Young Writers Award runner-up AJ Pope uses a unique perspective in her short story Goodie. Pope tells the story of a father falling into serious substance abuse from the perspective of a young boy. The simple language and narrator's repetition of 'my daddy is a goodie' contrasts powerfully with the sobering story of a child dealing with his father's overdose.

Vivid detail

Ground your characters in their senses to situate your reader in your characters' world. What can they smell? Is it pungent? Sweet? Reeking of rotting seaweed? What about the air? Is it cold? Sterile? Warm and inviting? Hot and burning? Biting and salty?

Zoom in on minor details, details others might overlook. Birdbone by 2024 Young Writers Award winner Ash Shirvington focuses the reader's lens in on the scaly skin of a birds feet, detail often overlooked in favour of a birds feathers.

Myra had stuck her head […] staring at a pair of scaly feet. […] she couldn’t even see its beak for the roundness of the bird’s tiny abdomen. The roundness wasn’t even the worst part—the worst part was the skin. It peeked through where it shouldn’t, in the spaces between feathers, stretched tight and pink and dotted with follicles.

The filter through which the character perceives and experiences the world can show us a lot about them, which brings me to my next point –

Show don’t tell

This one seems obvious, but some writers forget! Readers don’t like being told what is happening. They prefer to feel it for themselves by having it shown. It's one thing to tell me these lovers are doomed because of their differences, but I will not believe it until you tell me:

‘When I looked at photos, I remembered how I felt when the shutter went off, when he looked at photos, he was probably thinking about the rule of thirds.’

This is what Quinn Stennett, a Young Writers Award runner up in 2024 did in the short story, Worth It. These two simple statements about the characters tell us a lot about their differences, and in the larger narrative, foreshadow that their relationship will not last.

Sometimes it can be tricky to identify where you are telling and not showing, but sifting through your draft for words like wondered, thought, smelt, and saw can help you identify and edit out examples of telling.

Tight structure

A great short story can take a reader on a journey of epic proportions in the span of just 2,500 words. That’s roughly 5 pages of text or the amount you can read in 20 minutes! The most successful writers keep their short story's structure tight by having a narrow scope. For instance, focusing on a character's emotional journey via a few key scenes.

Shastra Deo kept the scope narrow in her 2012 runner-up entry, The Minutes Turn to Ours, by using a few sharp and short scenes to show the development of a deep, young love between protagonists Seth and Jack. Flashback vignettes are bookended by two 'epilogues', giving readers delicious will-they, won’t-they snippets (and detail about Seth eating an absurd number of pickles, which fits perfectly in the story).

Play makes perfect

You don’t need to continuously force yourself to write to get better at writing. Yes, practice does make perfect, but creative writing is also about play. Writing is a strange practice that is actually a lot of just sitting around with your ideas until something sticks. We call this process ideation. One excellent way you can ideate is by reading things you enjoy and focusing in on what about the writing or storytelling tickles your brain in just the right way.

In this blog post, the 2023 Young Writers Award winners shared some of their favourite authors and writing influences. Other ways to ideate and play is by writing fanfiction, keeping a diary, writing zines for your friends, going for a walk, listening to a podcast, going to art exhibits and libraries, reading something old that you love – anything to keep your brain active and thinking. The writing will come if your brain is happy, I promise.

This list of great short story elements is not exhaustive and absolutely coloured by my own biases. I think the most important thing for a writer is to keep at your craft and to remember what it is you love about the written word. Take what you will (or won’t!) from this blog and write your own excellent short story of up to 2,500 words. Let these short story elements inspire you, fellow young writer, to write your own submission to the Young Writers Award. Be sure to submit your short story here by 5pm AEST Monday 12 May 2025. Remember, entry is FREE, and you have the chance to win $2,000, have your short story published in Kill Your Darlings and free membership to Queensland Writers Centre. We are very excited to read your writing!

About the author

Lilian Martin is a writer and a zine maker studying a Master of Writing, Editing, and Publishing at the University of Queensland. Lilian’s writing has appeared in #EnbyLife Journal, Glass, ScratchThat, and in the short fiction anthology Is This Working?.  In autumn 2025, they interned with the Stories and Ideas team at the State Library of Queensland. You can find their work online here.