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I believe Kim's note about setup -- above -- is an excellent observation.

Every novel or story has to have some mystery and suspense to it. There has to be a reason to get to the end of it, whether the "end" is the solution of the mystery or whether there may be no solution, but a mystery built upon a mystery.

A question has to be raised fairly early in the story that may be "who are they looking for?" "who did this?" "what's going to happen to him or her or them?" "Will he or she make it in time?" "what's the worst that will happen?", etc.

There are stories that break the rules and still work. But it's not really good to depend on those. When it happens, it happens, and I believe you know it when you read it.

I wrote a story a long time ago called "The Skin of the World." The story has one mystery: what is inside that abandoned rundown old gas station at a crossroads in Virginia and what happens to people who go there? In the first part of the story, the narrator's brother goes missing in that area. In the second part, the narrator -- now an adult -- takes his son there. I won't tell you the rest, but let me just add that the ending is probably not what the reader expects at all -- yet it's not some 180 degree surprise, either. The seeds of it have been in the story itself.

One editor, years ago, hated it for its ending -- but I felt it was where it needed to be, so I withdrew it from publication rather than rewrite the ending because someone else felt it needed something different. Years later, when it was published, Ellen Datlow picked it up for her wonderful Year's Best annual. Not a lot physically goes on in the story -- most of it is psychological -- and I believe the first mystery seems to be "What is this place?" and the final one, answered is, "Who goes there?" The answer to this last question makes the quiet horror of the tale, because it's not the expected answer.

My point is simply that there are ways to play with mystery and suspense and revelation in various ways in short fiction that can move between the physical and the psychological -- and still maintain suspense and surprise.

I really believe Kim is correct about working on the set up. It is in the beginning and middle that the end is made stronger, so look at those aspects of the story when you revise. Every element has to work together to create the effect of the story. Even a surprise ending works (when it works) mainly because it's within the logic of the story itself (see any O. Henry story for this in action.)

Matt is right, too: various possibilities have to exist for the reader him- or herself to want to finish that story.

I believe a good short story is harder to create than a reasonably good novel, in terms of plot, structure, and delivery. A good short story has to be fairly focused and relatively brief. The reader has got to either say, "I have no idea how this is going to end but I've got to find out," or "I see where this is going, but it's so fascinating I'm going to follow it because I may be wrong." (And in this case, the reader needs to be wrong, and I suspect this is where surprise endings can work -- but only if they work by the misdirection of the story itself.)

For me, personally, a short story has to be a challenge to myself. I have to have learned something about storytelling by the end of the tale's completion (all the various drafts and edits) for me to feel as if it's a good one. I have some that aren't, and coincidentally, those have never seen the light of day (well, two of them have: in The Machinery of Night, the stories Mrs. Feely and The Virgin of the Rocks aren't -- I believe -- really stories at all, but essentially fictional exercises that just never came together. I only included them for readers who wanted to see what I consider failed experiments.)

I hope this rather long note helps, Scott.