How to write a short story

1- Write down ideas for your story

You dont know when inspiration strikes, so keep always a notepad with you and whenevr an idea comes to you, write it down.

• If it’s difficult to get inspiration or if you don’t have time to wait for it, start to brainstorm ( we will give you best tips to brainstorm soon). If it doesn’t help, just look to family and friends for inspiration.
•   Experience can help to build good plots. Many of Isaac Asimov's mysteries came from experience of certain incidents.

2- The basics of a short story

Now you have chosen an idea, but before you start up writing your story, make sure you respect the basics of a short story. Six steps you have to go through to write a good short story

        1- Introduction: introduce your characters, defind  time, weather, etc.

·                 2-  Initiating action: the point where the action rises.

·                 3-  Rising action: events that lead up to the climax or turning point.

·                 4- Climax: the most intense point or turning point of the story.

·                5- Falling action: when your story begins to conclude.

·                6-Resolution: 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 yourself questions. “What happened before this?” “What happens next?”

3- Get inspiration from people around you

If you find difficulties in setting attributes for a character, get help from your life. You can easily borrow attributes of people you know or even strangers you notice.

·         For example, you might notice that someone is always smiling without a real reason, talks a lot even with people he doesn’t know, or gets angry easily , etc..  these observations would together make an interesting character. Or you can even blend attributes of a number of people.

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4- Know your characters

To make your story looks real and the reader would believe it, the characters have to feel realistic and genuine. To create interesting and realistic characters is not that eaasy. But here are some strategies to follow to make your characters look like  "real people" to populate your story:

·         Make a list, write the character's name in the title,then set all the attributes you can think of,  their position in the story, their favorite pet,color and dressing style, their central motivations to their favorite foods. Do they have a special accent when they talk? Do they have any quirky mannerisms? You won’t need to include all this information in your story, however the more you know about your characters, the more they will come to life, both for you and for the reader.

·         Don’t make your characters' personalities perfect. Every character must have some flaws, some problems, some imperfections and some insecurities. You might think that people don’t like to read about a character with a lot of flaws, but that couldn't be farther from the truth. Batman wouldn't be The Dark Knight if he weren't a borderline sociopath!

·         People can relate to characters with problems, as that's realistic. 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 many people, smoke too much, etc.. Any or all of these could be developed further.

   5- Control and limit the breadth of your story.

Events of a short story should occur in a short period of time (days or even minutes) and usually you won’t be able to develop effectively more than one plot, two or three main characters. If your story has much more breadth, it probably needs to be a novel, which can occur over millions of years and include a mulititude of subplots,a variety of locations and many supporting characters ( we will talk about it soon,subscribe to the site to receive our newletters).

6- Who will tell the story

You can choose one of three points of view from which to tell a story:

• First-person (“I”) : a character in the story tells the story
• Second-person (“you”) : the reader is made a character in the story ( rarely used)
• Third-person (“he” or “she”) : an outside narrator tells the story

Whatever your choise is, you have to remember that first-person narrators can only tell what they know, so t will be limited to what they see firsthand or are told by others. While third-person narrators can either know everything and explore every character’s thoughts

·         You can also mix between them. For example, you could switch between a first-person narrative in one chapter, and third-person in another, or even have more than one first-person point of view. 

7- Organize your thoughts. 

After you've prepared the basic elements of your story, try to make a time-line to decide what should happen when.

·         As we said before about the basics of a short story. Your story should consist of an introduction, initiating incident, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution. You can draw or write a visual with very simple descriptions of what should happen in each of these stages. That can help you keep focused when writing the story, and you can always make changes to it, so that you are able to keep a steady flow as you write the full story.

     8- Start writing

When you've sketched out your plot and characters as described above, the writing process may simply be one of choosing the right words.

·         However, writing is arduous. You probably won’t know your characters and plot as well as you thought, but don’t worry, they will tell you what they need, even if you paint them into a corner.

     9- Come out swinging

The first page—sometimes the first sentence—of any writing should grab the reader’s attention and leave him wanting more.

·         In short stories you have to have a quick start because you don’t have much space to tell your story. Don’t make long introductions of the characters or uninteresting descriptions of the setting: get right into the plot, and reveal details about the characters and setting piece-by-piece as you go along.

    10- Keep writing

You’re certain to hit some bumps in the road to finishing your story. You've got to work through them, though. Set aside a time to write each and every day, and make it a goal to finish, for example, a page each day. Even if, at the end, you throw away what you wrote on that day, you've been writing and thinking about the story, and that will keep you going in the long run.

11- Let the story write itself

. As you develop your story, you may want to substantially change or remove a character, or you may want to turn your plot in a different direction than you had planned. Listen to your characters if they tell you to do something different, and don’t worry about scrapping your plans altogether if you can make a better story as you go.

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