This week in my daughter’s short story class, they are to choose a story focus. In the case of her curriculum, I understand “story focus” to mean what the author focused on in order to make this a short story, and not a long one. But what does that really mean?

It’s a great question, because regardless of the length of the story, an author has to have a focus, which gives them guidelines (and boundaries) for making decisions about what is included and what it is not. This is important if one wants to write a good story. This is particularly necessary if one is writing a good short story.

In one sense, this is related to theme. If the theme of your (short) story is love, then you will choose to focus the attention of the reader onto those details and moments that illuminate that theme, and you will (sadly) have to let go of other ideas that would distract from it. Choosing a story focus requires that she decide how the author make a conscious choice to define what their story is about, and stick to it. It’s not easy.

As always, helping our child find their story focus will require helping them brainstorm and make decisions based on what they care about. Asking questions can help them think of different ways this can happen, without imposing our own thoughts onto their story. Our student needs to choose how she is going to express the story focus - what she will focus on in order to tell the story. Will it be a single character? Or group of friends? A family or a town? Will it be the setting? Will it be a single event? A moment in time? Or all the little events that led up to a single, important moment? Once we ask these questions, the next task is making the decisions - which of these will help the story stay in focus and not go down a rabbit hole?

As they make these choices, their story will become more focused and have more meaning and value.