The Katelyn Point System For Short Story Collections

Written By Katelyn Greller

  • Features complex characters whose likability, let’s just say, is unimportant… +2 points

  • Funny. +2 points (per laugh)

  • Has a good cover/spine. +10 points

  • Flawlessly describes wanting to “ace” something that’s not a test like a doctor’s appointment, car towing, etc. +5 points

  • Has a scene in a support group environment where the coach is turning the students against each other. +2 points

  • Is about phone. -2 points

  • Personifies a bad house and describes it as pulsating, hungering for paint/misery or having “guts.” -5 points (has actually happened enough to earn a bullet)

  • Talks too much about unsatisfying relationships with mid guys. -2 points

  • Uses food to indicate a “low point.” -10 points

Pink hardcover book, badly photoshopped to say Tiny Girl: stories by Prine Emily with three playing card unicode symbols

  • Protagonist is unnamed. +2 points

  • Describes what they’re wearing. +2 points

  • Without saying it you can tell everyone is thin. -2 points

  • I don’t know how to define this without doing it, but it’s like: “I felt the pill break open inside me. It was a warm, heavy feeling. My mouth was metallic.” -5 points

  • Protagonist is sleepy (I’m already tired a lot) -2 points

  • Holds a mirror to my bourgeois neurosis. -2 points

  • Paradoxical laughter. -2 points

Tweet from me, @MattBerryWife: Too many people think writing is: "Suddenly I laughed. I was laughing, and I didn't know why..."
Katelyn Greller
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