Woman As Art
You can write a successful flash fiction story (or any length story) with only one character in it; but keep this in mind: something has to be at stake or need to be resolved.
I recently received a submission with one character in it. The submission described a young woman masturbating. The description was well done and ended in an orgasm.
But nothing was at stake. Nothing had to be resolved. There was no change in the woman or her situation. The submission was not a short story.
I’ve been reading “The Pit And The Pendulum” by Edgar Allan Poe. It is a long story with only one character in it until the last few sentences of the story. The story is about how a man struggles to stay alive. He’s been condemned to death and thrown into a dungeon where he suffers one torment after another.
Two things make “The Pit And The Pendulum” a short story. The character struggles inside the dungeon to stay alive and the fact that his struggle is resolved by his rescue in the last eight sentences of the story.
Something was at stake (his life) and something was resolved (his rescue). His situation at the end of the story changed. He started out a prisoner. He ended up a free man.
Your one-character story does not have to be about life and death. Just make sure something is at stake that needs to be resolved.
See what I mean?
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How To Write The One-Character Short Story
Many aspiring writers start out writing short stories with only one character in them; and usually that character is the author, sort of a self-portrait.
That’s okay. Writing a one-character short story can be a real learning experience for any writer. Just keep these things in mind if you are writing this kind of story.
Does that help? And I tell you something else you can do to give even more depth to your story. Have the character engaged in some activity that can be a metaphor for his or her situation.
One of my students at Pitt wrote a story about a woman with a problem and she was agonizing over a solution while working outside in her garden. A garden makes for a great metaphor for many of life’s problems and the solutions to those problems. The writing was so tight with few abstract words but lots of concrete words that had to do with gardening that the student got an A+ from the Old Soldier.
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