How To Write A Short Story In Five Easy Steps

Stories can be difficult to write. But not impossible. If you follow the following five steps, you will be sure to have a complete story, and with practice, you are sure to generate new and exciting stories that your friends will love.

Step One: Brainstorm Short Story Ideas About Conflict

Stories are all based on conflict. The best use of conflict in a story is a battle that you have experienced yourself.

Examples:

1) fight with a boyfriend or parent or sister or brother,

2) decision over what school to go to,

3) what to do about that dress you bought but didn?t like,

4) how to stop your boss from annoying you

Provide your own list of ideas of traumas you?ve dealt with and learned from. Once you?ve listed them, decide how these conflicts can be unusual, worse, or more annoying.

Step Two: Play Halloween or Dressup to Build Your Character for Your Short Story

Characters are a matter of making someone cooler, nastier, odder than yourself. Decide who your character is and how they will tell the story. Stay with one character observing all the action and telling the tale, it will make the story easier to understand. Then make up the evil other person who is the problem behind the conflict.

Short Story Exercise:

Describe both characters with a timer, give yourself 1-5 minutes for brainstorming how each looks.

Step Three: Decide Where the Short Story Will Occur

Depending on the story you are writing, the setting, or where the story takes place will help pull the reader into the story. When you create short fiction, make the setting as specific as possible. Try to pick an unusual place since most people find stories that are different from others stories of greater interest than the usual run of the mill place.

Examples of places to skip in your short fiction:

1) home

2) restaurants

3) school

4) offices

Examples of place to include in your short fiction:

1) places you visited on vacation

2) places that have caught your eye i.e. odd buildings

3) places that smell good, make odd sounds, made of odd materials

Brainstorm your own list for your short story.

To write science fiction short stories: use planets, stars, spacecraft, asteroids, comets, black holes etc.

To write horror short stories: use any place that causes you terror ? remote, empty, old, forgotten

To write mystery short stories: use any place that looks odd or unusual

To write romance short stories: use any beautiful place or place that makes you feel some emotion

To write thriller short stories: use any place that is dangerous i.e. cliffs or high spots, machinery, hiding spots

Writing Short Fiction Exercise: Write for 1-5 minutes describing this odd place

Step Four: Write Your Short Story

Ignoring all your previous work, but having it in mind, do the following exercise:

1) Write one to three sentences describing your character entering into the setting, use all five senses

2) Write one to three sentences describing the evil character and what they say to start the conflict

3) Write several sentences describing how your character gets away

4) Repeat steps 1-3 in steps where the conflict gets worse each time and or go to a worse place or face a worse villian

5) Write an unexpected conclusion to the conflict?who wins, who loses, what both get as a result of the conflict

Step Five: Edit Your Short Story

To edit your story, make sure you tell how your character feels at every step of the way. The character must feel worse and worse, but at the end, better. The stakes of the conflict have to get worse. The setting must get wilder. Make sure all of your verbs are active. Move important words like dead, mean, etc. to the end of your sentence. Make sure the story fits within the definition of the story length requirements by removing any repeated thoughts or actions.

Source: http://www.streetarticles.com/writing/how-to-write-a-short-story-in-five-easy-steps

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