How To Write A Short Story by Lester Dent

Who Was Lester Dent

Introduction by The Swell Owl

Many have heard the name, but they don't know the man.

Lester Dent was an American writer who lived from 1904 to 1959, but what a life he had and what a career he had as a writer. He wrote 159 novels in 16 years. The most popular character he created was Doc Savage.

His first story was published in 1929 by Top Notch Magazine and it was titled "Pirate Cay." The magazine he submitted it to paid him $450 for that story, which was a lot of money in those days and which is more than what most magazines pay for stories now.

He would write his stories while he worked the graveyard shift at his job as a telegraph operator. He did this until he was able to earn a living as a full-time writer.

During the later years of his life, Dent developed something called "The Master Fiction Plot." After his death, it would come to be known as "Lester Dent's Formula."

The "Formula" or "Plot" was something Dent developed to help writer's come up with a 6,000-word short story. Many published authors still use Dent's formula to this day.

Over the course of the next four chapters (and four weeks), I will be posting the formula Lester Dent used and I will be breaking it down a thousand words at a time. This formula was mostly used for action, adventure, and mystery stories, but it can be used for so much more. Heck, you can even use it for romance (if you are creative enough)

I have used this formula myself. The only times I don't use it at all are for the short stories I post here on Wattpad. Those stories are ones I just do for fun.

Even if you chose to ignore this formula when writing your own stories, still I thank you for at least being able to look at this with an open mind.

Keep reading and keep writing,

Andy