Collect
ideas for your story. Inspiration can strike at any time, so carry a
notepad with you wherever you go so that you can write down story ideas as they
come to you. Most of the time, you’ll just think of small snippets of
information (a catastrophic event around which you can build a plot, a
character’s name or appearance, etc.), but sometimes you’ll get lucky and a
whole story will reveal itself to you in a couple of minutes. If you have
trouble finding inspiration, or if you need to write a story in a hurry (for a
class, for example), learn how to brainstorm or if you can't come up with any ideas
you might have to look to family and friends for inspiration.
Begin with
basics of a short story. After you've chosen an idea,
you need to remember the basics of a short story before writing one. Steps to a
good short story are
o
Introduction (Introduces characters, setting, time,
weather, etc.)
o
Initiating Action (The point of a story that
starts the rising action)
o
Rising Action (Events leading up to the
climax/turning point)
o
Climax (The most intense point of the story/the
turning point of the story)
o
Falling Action (your story begins to conclude)
o
Resolution/Conclusion (a satisfying ending to
the story in which the central conflict is resolved - or not -) you don't have
to write your short story in order. If you have an idea for a great conclusion,
write it down. Move backward or forward from your starting idea (it may or may
not be the beginning of the story), and ask “What happens next?” or “What
happened before this?”
o
Find inspiration from real people. If you have
trouble understanding or finding attributes of a character, turn to your life.
You can easily borrow attributes of people you know or even strangers you
notice. For example, you might notice someone is always drinking coffee, they
talk in a loud, booming voice, they are always typing away at the computer,
etc. All of these observations would together make a very interesting
character, and they could easily be attributes of real people.
o
Know your characters. For a story to be
believable, the characters have to be believable and realistic. It can be a
difficult task to create real characters that are interesting and realistic.
But here are a few strategies to create characters.
o
Write a list, titled with the character's name,
and write all the attributes you can think of, from their position in the
orchestra to their favorite color. You should know as much as possible about
your characters, from what their central motivations are to what their favorite
foods are. You won’t include all this information in your story, but the more
you know, the more your characters will come to life, both for you and for the
reader.
o
Make sure your characters personalities are not
perfect. In real life, nobody is perfect. Everyone has their flaws. Of course,
that extends into the realm of storytelling, too. Every character needs to have
some flaws, some problems, some imperfections, some insecurities. You might
assume that people wouldn't like to read about a character with a lot of flaws,
but that couldn't be farther from the truth! People can relate to characters
with problems, as that's realistic. They definitely can't relate to perfect
characters. When trying to come up with flaws, you don't need to give your
character some huge, bizarre issue (although you definitely can). For most
characters, try to stick with things you know about. For example, the character
could have anger issues, be afraid of water, be lonely, dislike being around
other people, be sad, etc. All of these could be taken further in development.
