Get Your Shorts in a Bunch discussion

I know we have several members who've published individual short stories or collections of their short stories. I'd bet we also have quite a few members who've written stories, but for whatever reason, have never had any published. This folder is the place to talk about writing short stories: the process, techniques, sources of story ideas, or whatever part of the craft interests you or currently has you stumped. Feel free to start new discussion threads on your topics of interest, so we can keep the conversations from overlapping in a single thread.

Just discovered something interesting while rummaging around the internet.

Yikes! that planning document looks scary! Shorts usually come to me fully-formed, I'm not sure I could diagram them out like that! I'm one of those people that likes to do, or at least have notes on, the ending first, so I know where I'm going, whether novel or short; then I do the beginning, then I fill in the middle.

Yours sounds a good way of doing it, Kathy, a way I wish I could employ. I have a nasty habit of coming up with a beginning then letting the characters lead me on. I did, though, finish my last novel by writing the end when I got stuck in the middle and then worked back to the point I'd left them.