#184: How to Write Short Stories with Sarah Hall, Jonathan Escoffery & Niamh Mulvey — Building Worlds in Small Spaces, Research That Sparks Story, Writing Endings That Feel Inevitable (Compilation)
London Writers' Salon
Why short stories show a whole world
Sarah Hall explains the keyhole approach and how a short scene implies a larger hinterland.
Acclaimed short fiction writers Sarah Hall, Jonathan Escoffery, and Niamh Mulvey on building immersive worlds in compressed spaces, grounding stories in real human stakes, and writing openings and endings that transform both character and reader.
Timestamps:
(00:01:06) Sarah Hall, from Episode 161
(00:14:43) Jonathan Escoffery, from Episode 56
(00:26:40) Niamh Mulvey, previously unreleased conversation
You'll learn:
- Sarah Hall's "keyhole" approach to short stories — and how the unseen world beyond the scene gives a story its depth.
- Why trusting your preoccupations beats forcing a theme, and how over-awareness of your own subject can kill the fiction.
- A technique for thickening a thin first draft: telescope into your character's childhood, then out to their future.
- Why Jonathan Escoffery believes stories without real-world stakes will lose to equally crafted stories that engage with the world, every time.
- How Escoffery pairs imagination with lived emotional experience to make unfamiliar settings resonate — and why personal growth feeds artistic growth.
- What choosing a linked story collection over a novel taught Escoffery about pacing, pause, and propulsive energy.
- Why Niamh Mulvey thinks showing off your best writing in an opening is a mistake — and what to do instead (start specific, name a character, put two people in relation).
- A prompt for finding your story's urgency: ask "why this moment?" and aim for the energy of really good gossip.
- How character desire shapes place and plot at the same time, so setting becomes what your character wants rather than backdrop.
- Mulvey's "third element" — a character, object, or event seeded early that can emerge later to unlock your ending.
Resources & Links:
- Join our LWS community!
- Sarah's full episode and notes
- Jonathan's full episode and notes
- If I Survive You by Jonathan Escoffery
- Hearts and Bones: Love Songs for Late Youth by Niamh Mulvey
- The Amendments by Niamh Mulvey
- Sombrero Fallout by Richard Brautigan
About Sarah Hall:
Sarah Hall is one of the UK's most talented authors. Twice nominated for the Man Booker Prize, the first and only writer to win the BBC National Short Story Award twice, she has written ten highly acclaimed novels and short story collections.
About Jonathan Escoffery:
Jonathan Escoffery is the author of the linked story collection If I Survive You, a New York Times and Booklist Editor's Choice, an IndieNext Pick, and a National Bestseller. His stories have appeared in The Paris Review, Oprah Daily, Electric Literature, Zyzzyva, AGNI, Pleiades, American Short Fiction, Prairie Schooner, Passages North, and elsewhere.
About Niamh Mulvey:
Niamh Mulvey is from Kilkenny, Ireland. Her short fiction has been published in The Stinging Fly, Banshee and Southword and was shortlisted for the Seán O'Faoláin Prize for Short Fiction 2020. Her short story collection Hearts and Bones: Love Songs for Late Youth was published by Picador. The Amendments is her first novel.
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