Writing Short Stories: Lessons from Pixar

Disney•Pixar is a master of storytelling. Each one of their films takes years to work on because they don't want to produce anything less than stellar. I love how much effort they use and could write a whole blog post just about that. But today we're looking at another aspect of their studios. Their short films.

Before Pixar ever made a feature length film, the first thing they produced was a short film called The Adventures of Andre and Wally B. It was to show the potential of the Pixar technology for film making. Thought it was only a few minutes long, it was the start of Pixar as we know it today.

Pixar uses short films to try new ideas and tell a story in way less time than a full movie. Most of the time they don't even use any words. They've made many by now including theatrical shorts, Cars shorts, and Toy Story shorts.  We can learn so much about writing short stories from their short films, which is exactly what we're going to do in today's post.

1. Give your character an obvious goal

The first rule of any short story is that you must give your character a goal they're trying to achieve. It could be as simple as getting breakfast or more complicated, like earning money to get their mom a gift. Give them a goal and you've got the start of a story.

Examples:

• The Blue Umbrella. The Blue Umbrella wants to get together with the Red Umbrella, who he falls in love with. (This short is also the most adorable love story.)

• Presto. The little rabbit just wants a carrot. But the magician refuses him, even though the rabbit is an important part of his act. Bingo- getting the carrot is the goal.

2. Introduce things quickly

In a short story, you've only got a few thousand words to tell a whole story. You don't have time to tell the characters backstory and introduce the plot slowly. Things have to move quickly. Pick the elements that need to be included for readers to understand, and leave the rest out. If you're writing a character centered story, it's okay to go into more detail about them. But if you're writing an action filled short story, you'll probably just want to give us enough to like them. Focus on what really matters to help people understand your story.

Examples:

• Riley's First Date? Because you've (most likely) already watched Inside Out, in this short, barely any time is given to explaining the stuff inside the heads of the characters. You already know this, so it's not use repeating it. A good thought to keep in mind when writing a short story accompanying your series.

• La Luna. This short is about the men who clear stars off the moon to change it's shape each night. Yet, despite that concept that could take a while to explain, they let you figure it out for yourself as the story goes. And you figure it out without a word from the characters.

3. Add the conflict

No story is complete without conflict. Especially a short story. No one wants to read a 5,000 word story where the character has a goal and gets it without any problems. Boring. Once you've decided the goal for your character, figure out how you can keep them from getting it. She want a new book from the store? Oh, they just sold their last one, and the only other copy is all the way across town. He want to go on a date with a girl he likes? The restaurant he wants is booked, it rains, and his car breaks down on the way over.

Examples:

• Burn•E. All Burn•E wants is to fix a light on the outside of the spaceship. That's his job. But first he loses the light, the second one gets broken, and when he finally does fix it, he gets stuck outside the spaceship. All that keeps him from accomplishing his goal of turning the light back on.

• Lava. The volcano wants a girl volcano to be with and love. He waits for years and years, not knowing one is right beneath him. But by the time she rises from the water, he's sunk beneath and almost extinct. The conflict here is how nature seems to be against him.

4. Follow basic plot structure

Even a short story needs the basic elements of plot structure. They might go by quickly, but they need to be included. You need to find the acts in your story and give it a inciting incident, mid-point, and climax.

Examples:

• Sanjay's Super Team. The inciting incident here is Sinjay's dad wanting him to come to prayer, when he just wants to play with his superhero toys. He's full thrown into the conflict when the Hindu gods suck him into their world to fight a bad god. There's even a dark night of the soul as the little boy is almost defeated by the bad guy.

• Toy Story of Terror! This one, as Mr. Pricklepants points out, follows horror movie structure. A spooky setting, characters disappear one by one, then the villain is revealed and stopped by the heroes.

5. Don't forget the lesson learned

As many people say, in a short story the character needs to learn something. It's kind of like giving them a mini character arc. To find the lesson, look at the goal they want and see what they can learn from trying to achieve it. Like in our dating example, maybe the boy learns that appearance isn't important.

Examples:

• For the Birds. In this short, there are ten or so little birds on a wire. A big bird comes to join them and they make fun of him, eventually pushing him off the wire. Except he was so heavy, it sends them all flying and they lose their feathers. The lesson they learn is that making fun of others doesn't pay.

• Day and Night. This clever short deals with the personifications of day and night. They meet and start to fight, thinking they are so different. But then they come to realize, they aren't. In fact, as the sun goes down, they switch roles. The lesson they learn is that even though they might be different, they can still be friends.

6. A little humor always helps

It never hurts to add some laughs to your short stories. Not every one will need it, but I always like something that made me laugh or smile. Think of jokes or humorous situations you can put your character in during the story. There's always room for a light spot.

Examples:

• Partly Cloudy. Cloud people making babies of all kinds for storks to carry away. Sounds adorable right? But this story deals with the cloud who makes babies of dangerous things, like crocodiles and porcupines, and his poor stork. Every time, the stork tries to prepare for the baby, only to be hurt another way. It's completely hilarious, and the ending is great.

• Lifted. If you need a laugh, watch Lifted. It's about a little alien trying to pass his abduction test. Only, he's horrible. The poor guy he's trying to abduct is banged all over the place. It's hilarious, and still relatable.

7. Put in a twist

Another good part of any story, but especially a short story, is adding a twist. Keep something hidden from the readers until the end, and then reveal it, changing everything that happened in the story. Or just put in an unexpected element to keep people on their toes.

Examples:

• Geri's Game. In this short, an old man is playing chess with himself. They show you that at the beginning, but the way the tell it, you forget it's one guy by the end. Especially when he fakes a heart attack to beat himself. Surprise! (Also, this guy makes an appearance in Toy Story 2. Do you know where?)

• Knick Knack. All the little snowman wants is to get out of his snow globe and join the pretty girl at her party. But no matter how hard he tries, he can't get out. Finally he does, falling into the fish bowl with a beautiful mermaid, only to have the snow globe trap him again, putting him right back where he started.


There are so many more Pixar shorts I could use as examples, but we don't time for that. Instead, I highly suggest you find the collections of shorts and watch them all. You won't regret it. And see what you can pick up about short story writing from them.

Let's talk! Have you ever written a short story? Which of these points do you agree with? Have you ever seen any Pixar shorts? Tell me in the comments.