This week: Pivot! Edited by: Jayne  
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Everyone loves a good character-driven story arc.
Word counts are also a thing.
With some notable exceptions, stories have a beginning, middle, and end. But with short stories, and especially with flash fiction, you can’t always raze a character’s past and tie the future in a neat bow.
But what if you don’t need the arc at all?
The Pivot Story
In real life, most people don’t become someone new. They become a slightly different version of themselves in response to a shift. There is some external pressure, some internal response, and some kind of insight for the reader. It isn’t the same as a transformation. Sometimes it’s adaptation. Often, it’s the kernel of a seed of the potential for transformation.
That’s where your most interesting characters live in your reader’s brains. The character isn’t changed, but different. They have new information, but they may not have risen to their full potential yet.
But they might. Or might not.
Maybe it doesn’t matter, if the pivot is compelling enough.
What Makes a Good Pivot?
A good pivot doesn’t rewrite the character. It reveals something new about that character that doesn’t require an expansive future story. There’s no massive redemption or grand moral realization.
Here’s what makes a pivot work:
 It’s specific. A character reacts to a specific moment, a specific pressure.
It’s earned. The pivot makes emotional or logical sense based on what we’ve seen. That doesn’t mean it’s clean. Real emotions and internal logic can be messy as all get-out. Internal consistency is the key.
It opens something. The story doesn’t need to resolve everything, but the change leaves a question or possibility behind.
Here are a few examples to get you thinking:
A rigid rule-follower who bends one rule—just this once—because something matters more. We’re never told the consequences.
A woman discovers her partner cheated. She doesn’t confront them. Instead, she silently deletes her wedding Pinterest board and accepts a job in a new city. We never find out if she ever tells anyone why she left.
A teenage boy steals snacks from a convenience store every day. The clerk, a vampire, finally asks him why he’s so hungry all the time. We never discover if the boy tells the truth. More importantly, we never find out what the vampire does next.
A man is obsessed with keeping his late son’s room exactly as he left it. After a specific inciting moment, he straightens the pillows. We never see if he comes back the next day to do more.
None of these characters become someone else. They don’t turn their lives around. But in that moment, something in them edges toward change. Done right, the little nudge will have your readers carrying the story forward in ways you wouldn’t have imagined.
If you’re still thinking it’d be obvious what the next steps in your reader’s brains are, you might be right. You might be wrong. Your reader might be me.
The rule-follower who bent a rule?
They meet someone who knows their secret, so they go on the run with an off-brand Cirque troupe. They confess ten years later in a letter to the authorities. But then they fall, hit their head, and can’t remember anything. They go on trial for the rule they broke anyway.
The cheated-on fiancée who moves to a new city?
She starts a walking tour business and it’s doing well. She keeps a rock in her pocket named “Stephanie.” She seems well-adjusted to her new place, but still mails her ex laminated pictures of tapirs every spring with “glad you aren’t here” scrawled across them.
The snack-stealing teen and the vampire clerk?
Well, yeah, obviously the kid becomes a vampire. That’s the way these things go. But the boy turns out to be immune to garlic, so they open a fresh foods section. The older vampire reads old copies of Animorphs to take his mind off the garlic situation. They find new recruits by opening a late-night food pantry. They plan on taking over Toronto once there are enough of them, even though they’re from New Jersey.
The grieving father who adjusts the pillows?
He turns the room into a cat sanctuary. He meets a nice cat-loving lady. They fall in love. She develops terrible allergies to cats. They work it out and foster dogs instead, then live happily ever after. Yeah, that one’s not unique, but it makes me warm and fuzzy and it’s not a bad thing when your readers feel that way.
So next time your character needs momentum in a tight word count, ask:
What’s the smallest believable change they could make?
What truth are they starting to accept?
What lie are they finally letting go of?
What small change could be forced on them to make the other options believable?
No magic formulas, no truncated hero’s journeys, no sweeping redemptions. All that’s needed is a slight turn.
As always, happy writing.
P.S. Don’t go telling people I’m warm and fuzzy.
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Short Stories: November 12, 2025 Issue [#13447]
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