Though people typically make every effort to appear confident, accomplished, and cheerful to others, we all have flaws and shortcomings. Many people, in fact, are defined on some level by their imperfections. From a fear of flying and substance abuse problems to shopping addiction and weight issues, the inner lives of the people you write about are just as compelling as how they dress or what they say. Write five hundred words about one of your shortcomings, and describe in detail how it affects your life and changed you as a person. Being honest about your life will make you a more empathic writer when characterizing the flaws of others.

Effective listening is imperative to effective writing. Listening carefully while sitting on a crowded subway, drinking coffee in a lonely diner, or asking a stranger for directions can lead to new characters, settings, and story lines. It is also important to listen to your own characters. Make a list of ten questions to ask a character you are developing. Listen to your character’s answers, diction, and inflection, and write down what you hear and see in your imagination. Most people, including fictional characters, will tell you who they are. You just have to ask.

“Poetry is when an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found words.” This quote from Robert Frost reveals the raw origins of poetry, and emphasizes the complex cerebral and emotional forces that inspire poems. Think of how poetry accommodates both the expansiveness and simplicity of our emotions. Use this unique and paradoxical phenomenon to write about a profound and complicated experience in your life: perhaps the death of a long-suffering loved one, or the graduation of a child, or the private self-confession of having fallen out of love. Start with a single emotion, and begin your journey there.

The finalists were announced today for the tenth-annual Story Prize, an award given for a short story collection published in the previous year. The winner will receive $20,000.

The finalists are Archangel by Andrea Barrett (W. W. Norton), Bobcat by Rebecca Lee (Algonquin Books), and Tenth of December by George Saunders (Random House). The collections were chosen by Story Prize founder Julie Lindsey and director Larry Dark from among ninety-six submitted books, published by sixty-four different presses in 2013. The finalists will each receive $5,000.

Lindsey and Dark also announced the winner of the second annual Story Prize Spotlight Award, a $1,000 prize given for a “short story collection worthy of additional attention.” The 2014 winner is Byzantium (Graywolf Press) by Ben Stroud.

This year's final judges—author Antonya Nelson; Tin House editor Rob Spillman; and Stephen Ennis, director of the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas in Austin—will select the 2014 Story Prize winner, who will be announced at the annual awards ceremony and reading on March 5 in New York City.

More about this year’s finalists and Spotlight Award winner can be found on the Story Prize website and official blog. Claire Vaye Watkins won the 2013 award for her debut collection, Battleborn.

Below, listen to finalist Rebecca Lee read an excerpt from her collection, Bobcat, as part of the Poets & Writers Author Podcast series.