Jerz > Writing > General Creative Writing Tips [ Poetry | Fiction ]
Writing short stories means beginning as close to the climax as possible — everything else is a distraction. A novel can take a more meandering path, but should still start with a scene that sets the tone for the whole book.
A short story conserves characters and scenes, typically by focusing on just one conflict, and drives towards a sudden, unexpected revelation. Go easy on the exposition and talky backstory — your reader doesn’t need to know everything that you know about your characters.
Contents
- Get Started: Emergency Tips
- Write a Catchy First Paragraph
- Develop Your Characters
- Choose a Point of View
- Write Meaningful Dialogue
- Use Setting and Context
- Set up the Plot
- Create Conflict and Tension
- Build to a Crisis or a Climax
- Deliver a Resolution
1. Get Started: Emergency Tips
Do you have a short story assignment due tomorrow morning? The rest of this document covers longer-term strategies, but if you are in a pinch, these emergency tips should help. Good luck!
- What does your protagonist want?
(The athlete who wants her team to win the big game and the car crash victim who wants to survive are not unique or interesting enough.) - When the story begins, what morally significant action has your protagonist taken towards that goal?
(Your protagonist should already have made a conscious choice, good or bad, that drives the rest of the story.) - What obstacles must the protagonist overcome in order to reach the goal?
(Simply having a rival is not that interesting. Yes, Harry Potter defeats Voldemort, but first he has to mature into a leader with the moral clarity and teamwork skills necessary to defeat Voldemort. A short story can’t possibly tackle that kind of character development, but a character who faces internal obstacles and must negotiate messy moral trade-offs is more dramatically interesting than the hero in the white hat who has to use the right weapon to defeat the villain in the black hat.) - What unexpected consequences — directly related to the protagonist’s goal-oriented actions — ramp up the emotional energy of the story?
(Will the unexpected consequences force your protagonist to make yet another choice, leading to still more consequences? How does your protagonist change over the course of the story?) 
What details from the setting, dialog, and tone help you tell the story? Keep them! But…- Omit travel scenes. (Save words. “Later, at the office…”)
- Omit scenes where character A tells character B exactly what we just saw happening to character A. (Omit redundancy. Focus on advancing your story. “As I filled Slim in on what I had just seen in the saloon, he dropped his show of apathy and his fingers clutched at his revolver.”)
- Facial expressions of a first-person narrator. (Narrators in stories aren’t looking at video being live-streamed from a floating drone that follows them around everywhere, so they can’t report “A smile lit my face” or “My eyes darkened.” See Writing Dialogue.)
- At the climax, what morally significant choice does your protagonist make?
(Your reader should care about the protagonist’s decision, and ideally shouldn’t see it coming.)
An effective short story (or poem) does not simply record or express the author’s feelings; rather, it generates feelings in the reader. (See “Show, Don’t (Just) Tell.”)
Drawing on your own real-life experiences, such as winning the big game, bouncing back after an illness or injury, or dealing with the death of a loved one, are attractive choices for students who are looking for a “personal essay” topic. But simply listing the emotions you experienced (“It was exciting,” “I’ll never forget how heart-broken I felt,” “I miss her so much I’ll never the same without her”) is not the same thing as generating emotions for your readers to experience.
For those of you who are looking for more long-term writing strategies, here are some additional ideas.
- Keep a notebook. To R. V. Cassill, notebooks are “incubators,” a place to begin with overheard conversation, expressive phrases, images, ideas, and interpretations on the world around you.
- Write on a regular, daily basis. Sit down and compose sentences for a couple of hours every day — even if you don’t feel like it.
- Collect stories from everyone you meet. Keep the amazing, the unusual, the strange, the irrational stories you hear and use them for your own purposes. Study them for the underlying meaning and apply them to your understanding of the human condition.
Read, Read, Read
Read a LOT of Chekhov. Then re-read it. Read Raymond Carver, Earnest Hemingway, Alice Munro, and Tobias Wolff. If you don’t have time to read all of these authors, stick to Chekhov. He will teach you more than any writing teacher or workshop ever could.
-Allyson Goldin, UWEC Asst. Professor of Creative Writing
2. Write a Catchy First Paragraph
In today’s fast-moving world, the first sentence of your narrative should catch your reader’s attention with the unusual, the unexpected, an action, or a conflict. Begin with tension and immediacy. Remember that short stories need to start close to their end.
 | I heard my neighbor through the wall. |
| Dry. Nothing sparks the reader’s imagination. | |
 | The neighbor behind us practiced scream therapy in his shower almost every day. |
| Catches the reader’s attention. Who is this guy who goes in his shower every day and screams? Why does he do that? What, exactly, is“scream therapy”? Let’s keep reading… | |
| The first time I heard him, I stood in the bathroom listening at our shared wall for ten minutes, debating the wisdom of calling the police. It was very different from living in the duplex over middle-aged Mr. and Mrs. Brown and their two young sons in Duluth. |
| The rest of the paragraph introduces I and an internal conflict as the protagonist debates a course of action and introduces an intriguing contrast of past and present setting. | |
“It is important to understand the basic elements of fiction writing before you consider how to put everything together. This process is comparable to producing something delectable in the kitchen–any ingredient that you put into your bowl of dough impacts your finished loaf of bread. To create a perfect loaf, you must balance ingredients baked for the correct amount of time and enhanced with the right polishing glaze.” -Laurel Yourke
3. Developing Characters
Your job, as a writer of short fiction–whatever your beliefs–is to put complex personalities on stage and let them strut and fret their brief hour. Perhaps the sound and fury they make will signify something that has more than passing value–that will, in Chekhov’s words, “make [man] see what he is like.” –Rick Demarnus
In order to develop a living, breathing, multi-faceted character, it is important to know way more about the character than you will ever use in the story. Here is a partial list of character details to help you get started.
- Name
- Age
- Job
- Ethnicity
- Appearance
- Residence
- Pets
- Religion
- Hobbies
- Single or married?
- Children?
- Temperament
- Favorite color
- Friends
- Favorite foods
- Drinking patterns
- Phobias
- Faults
- Something hated?
- Secrets?
- Strong memories?
- Any illnesses?
- Nervous gestures?
- Sleep patterns
Imagining all these details will help you get to know your character, but your reader probably won’t need to know much more than the most important things in four areas:
- Appearance. Gives your reader a visual understanding of the character.
- Action. Show the reader what kind of person your character is, by describing actions rather than simply listing adjectives.
- Speech. Develop the character as a person — don’t merely have your character announce important plot details.
- Thought. Bring the reader into your character’s mind, to show them your character’s unexpressed memories, fears, and hopes.
For example, let’s say I want to develop a college student persona for a short story that I am writing. What do I know about her?
Her name is Jen, short for Jennifer Mary Johnson. She is 21 years old. She is a fair-skinned Norwegian with blue eyes, long, curly red hair, and is 5 feet 6 inches tall. Contrary to the stereotype about redheads, she is actually easygoing and rather shy. She loves cats and has two of them named Bailey and Allie. She is a technical writing major with a minor in biology. Jen plays the piano and is an amateur photographer. She lives in the dorms at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire. She eats pizza every day for lunch and loves Red Rose tea. She cracks her knuckles when she is nervous. Her mother just committed suicide.
4. Choose a Point of View
Point of view is the narration of the story from the perspective of first, second, or third person. As a writer, you need to determine who is going to tell the story and how much information is available for the narrator to reveal in the short story. The narrator can be directly involved in the action subjectively, or the narrator might only report the action objectively.
- First Person. The story is told from the view of “I.” The narrator is either the protagonist (main character) and directly affected by unfolding events, or the narrator is a secondary character telling the story revolving around the protagonist.
I saw a tear roll down his cheek. I had never seen my father cry before. I looked away while he brushed the offending cheek with his hand. This is a good choice for beginning writers because it is the easiest to write. (But if your viewpoint character is too much like you, a first-person story might end up being a too-transparent exercise in wish-fulfillment, or score-settling.)
- Second Person. The story is told directly to “you”, with the reader as a participant in the action.
You laughed loudly at the antics of the clown. You clapped your hands with joy. (See also Jerz on interactive fiction.) - Third Person. The story tells what “he”, “she,” or “it” does. The third-person narrator’s perspective can be limited (telling the story from one character’s viewpoint) or omniscient (where the narrator knows everything about all of the characters).
He ran to the big yellow loader sitting on the other side of the gravel pit shack. Your narrator might take sides in the conflict you present, might be as transparent as possible, or might advocate a position that you want your reader to challenge (this is the “unreliable narrator” strategy).
Yourke on point of view:
- First Person. “Unites narrator and reader through a series of secrets” when they enter one character’s perceptions. However, it can “lead to telling” and limits readers connections to other characters in the short story.
- Second Person. “Puts readers within the actual scene so that readers confront possibilities directly.” However, it is important to place your characters “in a tangible environment” so you don’t “omit the details readers need for clarity.”
- Third Person Omniscient. Allows you to explore all of the characters’ thoughts and motivations. Transitions are extremely important as you move from character to character.
- Third Person Limited. “Offers the intimacy of one character’s perceptions.” However, the writer must “deal with character absence from particular scenes.”
5. Write Meaningful Dialogue
Make your readers hear the pauses between the sentences. Let them see characters lean forward, fidget with their cuticles, avert their eyes, uncross their legs. –Jerome Stern
Dialogue is what your characters say to each other (or to themselves).
Each speaker gets his/her own paragraph, and the paragraph includes whatever you wish to say about what the character is doing when speaking. (See: “Quotation Marks: Using Them in Dialogue“.)
| Where are you going?” John cracked his knuckles while he looked at the floor. “To the racetrack.” Mary edged toward the door, keeping her eyes on John’s bent head. “Not again,” John stood up, flexing his fingers. “We are already maxed out on our credit cards.” |
| The above paragraph is confusing, because it is not clear when one speech stops and the other starts. | |
 | “Where are you going?” John asked nervously. “To the racetrack,” Mary said, trying to figure out whether John was too upset to let her get away with it this time. “Not again,” said John, wondering how they would make that month’s rent. “We are already maxed out on our credit cards.” |
| The second example is mechanically correct, since it uses a separate paragraph to present each speaker’s turn advancing the conversation. But the narrative material between the direct quotes is mostly useless. | |
Write Meaningful Dialogue Labels
“John asked nervously” is an example of “telling.” The author could write “John asked very nervously” or “John asked so nervously that his voice was shaking,” and it still wouldn’t make the story any more effective.
How can the author convey John’s state of mind, without coming right out and telling the reader about it? By inference. That is, mention a detail that conjures up in the reader’s mind the image of a nervous person.
|
|
| Any of the above would work. | |
| John sat up and took a deep breath, knowing that his confrontation with Mary had to come now, or it would never come at all. “Wh– where are you going?” he stammered haltingly, staring vulnerably at the tattered Thomas the Tank Engine slippers Mary had given him so many years ago, in happier times. |
| Beware — a little detail goes a long way. Why would your reader bother to engage with the story, if the author carefully explains what each and every line means? | |
6. Use Setting and Context
Setting moves readers most when it contributes to an organic whole. So close your eyes and picture your characters within desert, jungle, or suburb–whichever setting shaped them. Imagining this helps balance location and characterization. Right from the start, view your characters inhabiting a distinct place. –– Laurel Yourke
Setting includes the time, location, context, and atmosphere where the plot takes place.
- Remember to combine setting with characterization and plot.
- Include enough detail to let your readers picture the scene but only details that actually add something to the story. (For example, do not describe Mary locking the front door, walking across the yard, opening the garage door, putting air in her bicycle tires, getting on her bicycle–none of these details matter except that she rode out of the driveway without looking down the street.)
- Use two or more senses in your descriptions of setting.
- Rather than feed your readers information about the weather, population statistics, or how far it is to the grocery store, substitute descriptive details so your reader can experience the location the way your characters do.
Our sojourn in the desert was an educational contrast with its parched heat, dust storms, and cloudless blue sky filled with the blinding hot sun. The rare thunderstorm was a cause for celebration as the dry cement tunnels of the aqueducts filled rapidly with rushing water. Great rivers of sand flowed around and through the metropolitan inroads of man’s progress in the greater Phoenix area, forcefully moved aside for concrete and steel structures. Palm trees hovered over our heads and saguaro cactuses saluted us with their thorny arms.
7. Set Up the Plot
Plot is what happens, the storyline, the action. Jerome Stern says it is how you set up the situation, where the turning points of the story are, and what the characters do at the end of the story.
A plot is a series of events deliberately arranged so as to reveal their dramatic, thematic, and emotional significance. –Janet Burroway
Understanding these story elements for developing actions and their end results will help you plot your next short story.
- Explosion or “Hook.” A thrilling, gripping, stirring event or problem that grabs the reader’s attention right away.
- Conflict. A character versus the internal self or an external something or someone.
- Exposition. Background information required for seeing the characters in context.
- Complication. One or more problems that keep a character from their intended goal.
- Transition. Image, symbol, dialogue, that joins paragraphs and scenes together.
- Flashback. Remembering something that happened before the short story takes place.
- Climax. When the rising action of the story reaches the peak.
- Falling Action. Releasing the action of the story after the climax.
- Resolution. When the internal or external conflict is resolved.
Brainstorming. If you are having trouble deciding on a plot, try brainstorming. Suppose you have a protagonist whose husband comes home one day and says he doesn’t love her any more and he is leaving. What are actions that can result from this situation?
- She becomes a workaholic.
- Their children are unhappy.
- Their children want to live with their dad.
- She moves to another city.
- She gets a new job.
- They sell the house.
- She meets a psychiatrist and falls in love.
- He comes back and she accepts him.
- He comes back and she doesn’t accept him.
- She commits suicide.
- He commits suicide.
- She moves in with her parents.
The next step is to select one action from the list and brainstorm another list from that particular action.
8. Create Conflict and Tension
Conflict is the fundamental element of fiction, fundamental because in literature only trouble is interesting. It takes trouble to turn the great themes of life into a story: birth, love, sex, work, and death. –Janet Burroway
Conflict produces tension that makes the story begin. Tension is created by opposition between the character or characters and internal or external forces or conditions. By balancing the opposing forces of the conflict, you keep readers glued to the pages wondering how the story will end.
Possible Conflicts Include:
- The protagonist against another individual
- The protagonist against nature (or technology)
- The protagonist against society
- The protagonist against God
- The protagonist against himself or herself.
Yourke’s Conflict Checklist
- Mystery. Explain just enough to tease readers. Never give everything away.
- Empowerment. Give both sides options.
- Progression. Keep intensifying the number and type of obstacles the protagonist faces.
- Causality. Hold fictional characters more accountable than real people. Characters who make mistakes frequently pay, and, at least in fiction, commendable folks often reap rewards.
- Surprise. Provide sufficient complexity to prevent readers predicting events too far in advance.
- Empathy. Encourage reader identification with characters and scenarios that pleasantly or (unpleasantly) resonate with their own sweet dreams (or night sweats).
- Insight. Reveal something about human nature.
- Universality. Present a struggle that most readers find meaningful, even if the details of that struggle reflect a unique place and time.
- High Stakes. Convince readers that the outcome matters because someone they care about could lose something precious. Trivial clashes often produce trivial fiction.
9. Build to a Crisis or Climax
This is the turning point of the story–the most exciting or dramatic moment.
The crisis may be a recognition, a decision, or a resolution. The character understands what hasn’t been seen before, or realizes what must be done, or finally decides to do it. It’s when the worm turns. Timing is crucial. If the crisis occurs too early, readers will expect still another turning point. If it occurs too late, readers will get impatient–the character will seem rather thick.-Jerome Stern
Jane Burroway says that the crisis “must always be presented as a scene. It is “the moment” the reader has been waiting for. In Cinderella’s case, “the payoff is when the slipper fits.”
While a good story needs a crisis, a random event such as a car crash or a sudden illness is simply an emergency –unless it somehow involves a conflict that makes the reader care about the characters (see: “Crisis vs. Conflict“).
10. Find a Resolution
The solution to the conflict. In short fiction, it is difficult to provide a complete resolution and you often need to just show that characters are beginning to change in some way or starting to see things differently.
Yourke examines some of the options for ending a story.
- Open. Readers determine the meaning.
Brendan’s eyes looked away from the priest and up to the mountains. - Resolved. Clear-cut outcome.
While John watched in despair, Helen loaded up the car with her belongings and drove away. - Parallel to Beginning. Similar to beginning situation or image.
- They were driving their 1964 Chevrolet Impala down the highway while the wind blew through their hair.
- Her father drove up in a new 1964 Chevrolet Impala, a replacement for the one that burned up.
- Monologue. Character comments.
I wish Tom could have known Sister Dalbec’s prickly guidance before the dust devils of Sin City battered his soul. - Dialogue. Characters converse.
- Literal Image. Setting or aspect of setting resolves the plot.
The aqueducts were empty now and the sun was shining once more. - Symbolic Image. Details represent a meaning beyond the literal one.
Looking up at the sky, I saw a cloud cross the shimmering blue sky above us as we stood in the morning heat of Sin City.
Got Writer’s Block?
The Writer’s Block
Comprehensive Web site that offers solutions to beating writer’s block such as various exercises (not necessarily physical), advice from prolific writers, and how to know if you really have writer’s block.
Overcoming Writer’s Block
Precise, short list of ways to start writing again.
Learn through Schooling
Some online colleges and universities offer creative writing courses. Look for ones that offer creative writing courses that cover the plot and structure of short stories.
- Regular access to an instructor who is a published author, and a peer group that is motivated to read your drafts, might just be the extra motivation you need to develop your own skills.
- If you are counting on the credits transferring to help you complete an academic program, check with your university registrar.
Dec. 2002 — submitted by Kathy Kennedy, UWEC Senior
(for Jerz’s Advanced Technical Writing class)
Jan 2003 — edited by Jamie Dalbesio, UWEC Senior
(for an independent study project with Jerz)
May 2003 — edited by Jerz and posted at Seton Hill University
Jan 2007 — ongoing edits by Jerz
May 2008 — reformatted
Sep 2010 — tweaked Writer’s Block section
Mar 2011 — reformatted and further tweaked
Jun 2017 — minor editing. Are “Keds” still a recognizable brand of kids shoes?
Feb 2019 — Removed “Keds” reference, beefed up the “bad” shoes example; tweaked formatting.
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Archived discussion of “Short Stories: 10 Tips for Creative Writers”
thankyou so much, it really is helping improve my thinking and writing
Pingback: ending | The Ink Pond
Thanks the tips Mr Dennis.I’m a green horn,but very passionate about creative writing.I really want to start with short story.Any book on it.Thanks.My email address:highdeal@gmail.com
This helped me when i wanted to rewrite a story but when i wanted to check off a finish story to make sure i had all the stuff i was lost. it’s helpful for people with no sense of writing but for true writers it’s confusing. i have read hundreds of college level writing books and this is like the best but worse possible. maybe it’s just because i cant write in this order?
thanks I love writing in my spare time but never have any ideas!
PS im in year six!
looked it up for homework. i am inspired to write now :)thanks for the tips. very good
for homework, this is your best tool.
….average journaling? nope!
thanks u so much
Does this apply to novels too?
Novels have room for subplots, so not every scene or line has to build directly towards the single resolution of the immediate crisis that starts the story. If you hone your craft on short stories, and read novels constantly, you’ll be able to transfer these skills to your novel-writing.
I posted a story on Storiesonline and was surprised to received mostly positive feedback but one comment in particular confused me. Someone sugested in an email that I “…some of your paragraphs are too large to read
without getting lost in the texts. i would suggest
shorten your each paragraph to something like at
least 5 to 7 lines.”
I’m not sure how to take that…. really.
Is this a plausible option for writing or is this someone who wants me to dumb down the manuscript?
I just don’t quite understand.
I can imagine historical romances, or high fantasy epics, or maybe detailed descriptions in detective stories that have very long paragraphs. Or if a chapter is written from the point of view of an academic, your paragraphs could take on the form of academic writing (with long paragraphs). Conversations, action sequences, and anything intended for YA audiences would probably have much shorter paragraphs. If you often hear from readers that your paragraphs are too long, they probably have a point; if this one commenter is the only person who ever says your paragraphs are too long, well, just keep that in mind the next time you ask yourself whether to start a new paragraph.
i think i am fairly well at writing story’s for my age i am only 16 but there is a project coming up in English and i want to blow my teacher away any ideas for a story i should wirte about?
Try asking Wikipedia for three random articles, and make up a story that works in each topic?
hey i am the best writer youl see neee yust kiding well i dont no im serriese lol so funny
i love all the stuff you put in it looks so helpful and it is
i love to write i want to be the best
i want to write buttyful
I love all the stuff you put in. Sooo helpful! I’ve never learnt so much in so little time :)
Hey,
I just went through your site and loved it. The information given is very helpful. I had started writing 2 years back and I did finish 4 stories but then I got married and now I don’t have time to write. I want to start so the things u’ve written here really helped me.
Thanks a lot…….
Thank you very much! Both for your answer and your blog.
Ah, yeah, I’ve completely forgot to ask. Dennis, what do you think about adverbs? Stephen King, for example, hates them (On Writing: A Memoir of Craft) – that’s him who first made me think of it, but Joanne Rowling uses a lot of them. What’s your opinion?
Generally, I’d say that using a boring verb (like “said”) and an adverb (“angrily”) is lazy, when you could accomplish the same thing with a single, more powerful verb (“snapped” or “growled” or “seethed”). But variety is more important than following any rule blindly.
I can imagine that, if your goal was to introduce a character, you might write, “She said hello, in a voice that suddenly reminded Daphne of the bubbles that gathered lazily around her toes as she waded in her Aunt’s pond on a drowsy summer afternoon.” In an action sequence, that level of description would probably be distracting — unless the point you want to make is that this detail is so important that your protagonist notices it even during an action sequence.
King’s goals as an adult horror novelist and Rowling’s goals as a young adult fantasy writer are different. King might expect his readers to understand what “he pontificated” means, while Rowling might feel the need to write “he said, sounding a little too sure of himself.”
Thank you so much for this amazing article! I, personally, don’t write SHORT stories but many of these tips are extremely helpful for any genre. Thank you!
thanks, this was really helpful. thank you!
Can a town be used as a ‘character’? I want to write about something that happened in a town, and all the different people’s reactions.
thanks
There is a Ray Bradbury short story about a robotic house that goes on playing cheerful music and making food for a family that is not around any longer. I found it effective. It’s more common to think of interactions with your location as a way to reveal character, but for example in Spider Man, when the New Yorkers come to the aid of the unconscious Spider Man, the crowd is playing the role of New York City. Giving a town feelings and motivations pushes the story into fantasy — which may work for you.
Wow. This was so helpful. Thanks a lottttt!
This was extremely helpful :D
i may be young but im still a good writer but by reading this it just makes me a better one. thx
Thanks so much for your reply. So what will you call these days kind of stories that don’t fit the classical structures? Like what if the story just goes as a story? evryone likes to know about unusual things. Then, do I have to know how my story goes and ends before I write a plot or I just let it develop naturally based on my thoughts in each moment? Thanks for your advice and suggestion. Í think I’d rather be mentored than to mentor younger writers now as I am still a shaky writer.
I will look around for a writer’s group online.. a non profit one. thanks
Hi Dennis. I came across this article in the year 2009 and bookmarked it on all my phones, so I referred to it religiously till date.
I read Chekhov’s stories everyday and re-read them and I amazed at the the difference between my perceptions after each reading.
Thanks so much for this.
My ambition is to be a writer but I struggle a lot when I write. so i read everyday and write incomplete stuff hoping to get better.
I have one idea for a story which I have developed into a dummy plot.. but it seems like i can only really point out a theme for this story and not a very big goal .
So i went and re-read Anton Chekhov’s “Bethroted” and figured from the begining Nadya(whom i think is the main character) didn’t have a goal in the beginning.
I also figured that the story didnt quite fit the Act 1, 2 and 3 rule of writing stories… the story is very interesting and yet i didnt look at it as the goal, conflict, climax, resolution kind of story. Are my conclusions right?
And please do you know what I can do to help me outline my plot and organise the wjole structure before I write the story. ? One minute I am worried of the setting, the next, i am concerned about my use of words in prose and dialogues.. i need your help. thanks
Thanks for your comment. Your strategy of writing every day and studying great storytellers is already the advice I would give. Today’s stories don’t need to fit into classical structures, but if you are thinking about your writing along those lines, that’s half the battle. I try to have multiple creative efforts going on at once, so when I get stuck on one, I turn to another. Maybe you need some distance from this particular story.
You might also look for an online writer’s group, or start one at your local library. You could learn a lot by mentoring younger writers, and finding people who are willing to critique your work in return for giving them their opinion on yours.
I would stay away from any site that charges money, though.
Cheers for the tips, really helped me get fired up guyz
well tnx a loooooooooot….im really impressed!!! it helped me a lot….refreshed my mind nd filled it wid ideas,,,,,,worth reading,,,,ill b glad if u keep providing such blogs
can someone help with a simple example of a mla format please
fernando, this might help: http://jerz.setonhill.edu/writing/academic1/mla-style-papers/
it is a brief and comprehensive description of the key concepts involved in short story writing.
a breif and comprehensive description of the key concepts of short story writing
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Thank you for your hints and tips Dennis, this will be a great help to my kids and myself, i am, or should i say a writer of short stories but haven’t practised in a while, i have been through the wars a little and not just as fit as i used to be a year or so ago. I am hoping to write a few short story books aiming at primary reading and education, for fun of course, any help you can give me would be most welcome, thank you again, very best regards Aaron
It is impressive but may i fruitfull by getting this vocabulary through me e-mail address ……… due to some restriction on site by my firm
Hey! thanks for all these tips you gave they have helped me a lot. I have been writing a story but there is a problem and i think may be you could help. I am not that perfect in english, but love to write stories in english. Can you give me a little help or tell about a site from where i could know that which words to use like “chortled instead of said happily”. Hope you Would HELP.
I’m not sure I know exactly what sites to recommend, but there are lots of online resources for English as a Second Language (ESL). The resources at Purdue’s Online Writing Center are not geared towards creative writing, but they are a solid resource that will help you increase your vocabulary and sound more like an native English speaker. http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/section/5/25/
Thank you very much for your help…..I hope i could get some help with site….
Thank you som much I just have one question. When some one is thinking something do you put it in quotations (“when will I get out” He thought) or something else. Everyone I’ve asked doesn’t know.
I have seen some authors who use italics instead of quotation marks, but my tendency would be to put quotation marks around whatever a person thinks. I would use paraphrase, too, for thoughts that are not worth quoting (like “I’m hungry” or “That person is physically attractive to me”) to avoid telling when there might be some way to show without quoting the character’s thoughts.
Thank you very much for these tips! They’re coming in very useful for my current project :D
thanx, thanx a lot sir it will prove really helpful to me…..
Thanks for the tips. I am going to sit back and study awhile, as I have been working on stories for sometime now. I’ve had poetry published in the past, and hopefully now I will have a chance to publish stories!!
Shekels,Denari,Green,Folding paper,Coin,Eagles,Pesos It doesn’t matter what you call it, it all comes down to this basic item. This is what we all use for the necessities of life and all of its perceived joys, and in some cases heartache that it brings us!
This is a story of cheating, lying and stealing and the results of a long life of a thief that succeded in a career of some outrageous and some petty crimes!
This is the start of my story, it’s a true life story! Am I starting in on the correct way of writing it, or am I screwing up from the start?
I’m 66 now and starting the story from age 8.
Thanks in advance for any input,
Woody.
I would cut “It doesn’t matter what you call it, it all comes down to this basic item.” The opening list and the following sentence already make your point. The list “cheating, lying, and stealing” is a bit drab — stealing is after all a form if cheating, so there is no surprise. if you wrote instead, “cheating, lying, and oatmeal,” or “sex, drugs, and opera” or “love, forgiveness, and other stupid lies” then I would be intrigued.
My iPad autocorrect changed “cheating” to “charting,” which makes me want to write about “charting, lining, and sealing,” a story of a cartographer who falsified maps to protect a colony of seals. Or something.
There is no “correct” way, unlike math where 2+2 has a single right answer. See also my page, “Show, Don’t (Just) Tell” for hints on how to engage the reader.
this site helps me alot ! thanks to the creator/s ! more power ! :D
Thanks man.It's been my life's dream of being a writer,and this helps.I want to be a writer that touches people's hearts and well,this helps.Thanks,and i'm flabbergasted that this site exists.
Thanks boss for this site. A “small” Novelist and a Story writer.
Thanks so much for this site!! It is leaps and bounds better than many books I have purchased in the past. I really love this site and plan on using it for everything I write.
hey what do you guys think of my story starter???
I just stood there like an idiot and watched as she quikly slipped through my fingers for the second time, I've tried to keep her safe but they always find her, never to forget what I did to them, always to use her to hurt me.
that’s a good attention getter, but it’s really vague and will probably have the reader going “huh?”
Very clear site, thankyou for this post.
This post will be very useful. I’ve only just decided that I’d like to write stories, as for the past few years many ideas have been floating around my skull.
One item that I don’t think was touched on here was story length. How long (or short) should a story be to be considered a short story?
Thanks.
Anywhere from 1000 to 10,000 words. Much less than that, and you have flash fiction. Much more than that, and you have a novella. Publishers will tell you what word count they want.
If you are just getting started, just write your story, without worrying about length — and then cut half the words.
This was extremely helpful, as I'm working on a story that currently presents itself to me as a short story. The thing I have the hardest time with is dialogue, especially revealing feelings through actions and having the readers infer, as said above. Any tips on improving this skill?
thanks. I love to write, but I don't write a proper story. This helps alot!
Thank you SO much! This is very helpful! Keep up the good work!
hi im gina and i just want to talk about my father he died when i was 16 months and i miss him alot everyday i wake up sad but then i say it alright i have a great family now that loves me see me and my mom lived in my grandfathers house (my dads dad) when i was very little and then my mom went to go buy a new car and thats when she feel in love with my step dad and when they got married i was happy for them but now as the years go by i think that ill just never forgive her for ruining the rest of my life and she didn’t even ask me if i was ok with her marryinng him so she didn’t only charge her life she also changed mine without my own permission and i can never forgive her for that and 2 years after they were married he told my mom that he has a daughter in louisianna and i HATE her she acts all prissy because her moms rich and stuff also she acts like shes the boss of my little half brother and sister she maybe older than them but not me one time i was so mad at her i pushed into the wall it felt so good another time was when i made her sleep in a chair sweet but i got in trouble for it but it was worth it totally but anyway i really wish i had my real dad oh and sorry there is no punction in here bye
Why did you post that here??
so sad Gina
Sorry, but the suggestion that “it’s much better to say “bubbled” or “smirked” or “chortled” is a poor one. Maybe these words will pass muster in certain genres (horror, perhaps). But why write down to your audience, in any case?
Thanks for your comment. My overall point is that something bland like “said happily” is a waste of words, when it’s possible to choose a single, more precise word. I’m not sure that “chortled” is a step down from “said happily,” but if any of the words I suggested don’t fit the tone of your story, I’m sure you can come up with something better.
This was super helpful, and i am i game art and design student and am try to build my own game on the side, i have wonderful ideas, a setting and such, ust kinda need help starting the story off and building characters any help??
In creative writing, the general advice is that showing is more engaging than telling (but of course you have to focus on the most important stuff). In gaming, the general advice would be to make the player DO something (choose a weapon rather than a shield, sell a quest item rather than turn it in) rather than SHOW the player a cut scene or TELL a player through dialogue or text.
There’s lots of scholarship on the role of story in video games. You might look up what Emily Short has to say on the topic.
omg this really helped me to write a short storie. i finally was able to write an interesting storie
HAHAHAHAHA irony much?
Seriously! I am so astonished at how many people can be so..dumb. I mean, if you want to write a story you have to learn basic grammar and English first.
Writing stories is a great way to stretch your skills. Serious writers will find out for themselves soon enough just how much grammar and spelling matter.
and others
thanks alot for making this website i think its really going to benifit me in the future
Thaxs so much Im 11 and this helped so much Im thiking of being a author!!!!Wish me luck!
kayla are u studying in P.Z.E.S
this really helped meh a lot with my assignment i am only 12 years old and i got a a+ on my history assignment thanks to this website thanks!
Thanx for ur help.
i have a school project to write a part of the play ‘The Dear Departed’ by Stanley Houghton in third person. I am a bit confused as I am not being able to innovate. The stuf s mostly like she said, he said etc. Please help.
Can you write the story from the point of view of a minor character, or describe in detail something the author only mentions briefly? See Matt Madden’s Exercises in Style, a collection of comic pages that take a perfectly ordinary conversation between two people, and explores dozens of different ways to depict the same words. As you can see, it’s possible to innovate a great deal even when some parts of the story are fixed. http://www.artbabe.com/exercises/exercises/
I couldn’t write from the point of view of a minor as I had to write in third person. Yeah, but I mentioned in detail the small things, expanding situations and also introducing thoughts of the speakers a few times. Thnx a tonne for ypur help!!
This totally help alot ,,my mind is so blocked still but once of have a quiet thinking place ,i think my short story will be gre8…thanxs to the person who wrote this page!!! :D
i find this so interesting wnt to write a book so here goes will let u no if it works out thanks so much x
Great article! I’m attempting a short story right now, and these tips have given me great insight on how to continue. Thanks! :)
This was indeed very helpful. I was good in writing during school but marriage, kids and household duties tend to erase that creative lustre. I want to get back to writing now that the kids are grown up. Your tips will help me get started. Thanx a ton.
Im only 15 and i have come up with a number of stories, i can get really into them, writing for hours but then i will stop and start again. Then i cannot get back into it. I will then come up with another story and then the same cycle happens again. Please help me :)
What you are doing is an important part of learning a craft. I don’t really see a problem to fix, so long as you keep writing!
i still dont know how to do this writing is my hardest subject
u should try to read some books i get a lot of my ideas based on reading books and sometimes i have the samee prob as u just try reading books and articles! maybe a zombie book! i would like to hear one of ur stories!
if i should leave without saying tnx, then i wouldn’t be fair.this site just helped me out of a mess…. thanks a lot
Thank you for a really fantastic starting point for good writing habits.
awww it was awesome…..thnks!!
This site was extremely helpful in writing a short story for English- thank you!
good!…
Thank you! this helps a lot! I still need help in thinking of a story though…as an english assignment we have to write a short story and i have no idea what I should write about…
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Thank you! I’ve been having trouble refining my own short story, so this has helped a lot. I might just work up the courage to show it to people now. (Yay!)
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this site is great! But I have one question. I currently have a story i've been working on, but it wasnt planned so im stuck with half a story, and no idea where its going. How do you decide where its going?
It’s always a good idea to be open to inspiration. When I get stuck on one project, I pick up another. As long as I am being productive, it’s all good. If inspiration strikes, go back to the stalled project. If not, maybe it was time to try something else.
Stepping back from the task at hand and doing something else is a good way of taking your mind off the story. Another idea might occur to you while focused on something other than writing. Then again, take Raymond Chandler’s advice: If you are stuck have a man step out of a closet with a gun in his hand.
”If you are stuck, have a man step out of a closet with a gun in his hand.” Haha, I love that.
Pure golddust! Thanks
Hi,
thank you so much for these golden advice. I thought writing a short story does not need such steps. But now I thank god for not starting writing for my competion.
This has been a tremendous help, Thank you !
Hey this was really helpful,I’m a gcse student and my exam in in about a month, I’ve been told I need to plan my short story ruffly before the exam, so I have an idea of what to write when given the titles, but I’m struggling on picking plots that are quite broad
any help?
thanks
I have no specific knowledge of the GCSE, but you might try going to Wikipedia, and clicking the “random article” link a few times. You might have a specific character in mind, and flesh that character out, and practice writing what happens when the character you know well faces an unusual situation.
This is fantastic help. Thank you so much for publishing this site. I haven't written anything at this point, but it has been a long lost dream to write something someday. Mostly, I think I was just more afraid to try and not do well for not really knowing where or how to start.
You and your site are actually a good inspirational for beginners, being that I wasn't ever accused of being the brightest student in class, when I bothered to show up all those years ago, that after reading your page, I feel like I actually learned something.
Wish me luck and maybe after I write something, you'll enjoy the read.
oh………great ….actually iam contesting 4 a story compitetion……..great…..it works..thanx alot……..i want 2 become a writer and a poet
great site, music to my writing fingers. This is definitely the start of my writing career!!!
Wow…very helpful and useful, thank you very much indeed. I am planning to take a course to write short story. But now I have brief idea and concept. I wanna to have some preparation before my course begins. Anew many thanks….ganbatte
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Your ten tips site is a keeper. I’m passing it on. Would you answer a POV question which was debated in our writing group? How does the narrator, in 3rd person limited POV, refer to his parents. Some believed the child should always use Mom, Dad, etc. Others felt, once the family relationship was established, it was ok to use the parents’ first names.
Thank you,
I would probably use Mom and Dad, unless the narration is supposed to be sort of factual and formal, in which case I might say Mr. Smith and Mrs. Smith. I think using first names for the parents might be distracting.
Thank you so much,for this site i just found’ im writing a mystery story’ and im at the ending’ it took me a whole year to make my Murder mystery a top seller’ im praying on it”looking for a good publisher now.
thank you so much for this article. it helped me a lot to write and emergency story.
hey this helped so good, i hav a way better undestanding of this all, but iim so stuck with this assignment and i need help with ideas..we hav to finish off these expositions into a short story and im completley blank..
It goes like this: Bullfrog and rain saw their father coming out of the trees carrying something over his shoulder.They wern’t suprised. their father had carried out a dead roo once before and they’d eaten it in a sunspoiled stew. The night before, a hammering storm had come and that would have cause some carnage. Even far off, though they knew that something was different, It looked dead but it wasn’t anything they recognisd. Closer up it looked human. They could see a pair of legs that were being flopped about by their fathers upswinging strides. But there was surely something weird about it.
Any ideas of what the characters may be, or what might happen, or the name of the story..anything that could start me off or give me something to write about on this please could u please help me..thanx :)
What’s the central conflict? Is this a comic misunderstanding, an end-of-innocence betrayal, a horror story? The “carried out a dead roo” detail is nice, as is the statement that the fact of their father carrying something dead is not the problem. What is the choice that the protagonist will have to make, and what are the stakes?
ok thank you so much, im 14 and lost, and writing short stories isnt really my strong point. I hope i can use this,but my mind is just completley blank… I don’ know how to start off the next paragraph and have no idea what the characters bullfrog and rain would be a animal or human> and what the dad is carryingz/ but im sure il figure this out by monday..haha thanx again >:)
*much, not good
*have
*I’m
*have (again)
The next sentence doesn’t even make sense.
*weren’t
*Their (note the capital T)
Roo? No. Stop being lazy and spell it out.
*it
^The sentence that “it” was incorrectly capitalized in is a run-on sentence.
*recognized
*Closer up,
Re-write that next sentence. It’s too unclear.
*father’s
“Upswinging” is not a word.
*you
*thanks
And as for your comment:
*isn’t
*I
*this, but
*completely
*don’t
Remove “off” after start.
*an
*human
*carrying
*I’m
*I’ll
*thanks
You need to learn how to spell before you can become a serious writer.
But the story was good, just needs a little work. And your grammar could be worse.
@+ l3@$+ u d0^+ +@!k !yk3 d!$
^That’s just terrible.
Seriously, you should get paid for this…
u r so cool because u correct peole
You are amazing in every possible way. You’re just blunt about all of it.
Just saying, we all read the mistakes but we are nice enough NOT to point them out. Oh, and for you people out there, this is a translation of what he said “At least you don’t talk like this”.
kool web
*cool
Thank God for Law Enforcement!
“God”??? Why are you thanking god for that.
I’m really bad at writing, but this helps ALOT!!!!! Thanks! :)
Omg this was such a helpful article! I felt like writing a story just for fun for once, and I realized I had no idea how to start it out. This was a great article! Thank you!
xo Kenzie
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Thank you so very much. This helped me a lot as I am going to write a story, but a long one, not short. Once again, many many thanks.
same! writing a long story like a novel, but this really helped me with characters,etc. Thank!
thanks for the help. but iam still in confusion about the fiction how to start and end with 'interesting and wow' saying stories
Thank you, readers, for the encouragement. I’m glad to know what I’ve posted is helpful.
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thank you for all the help ,great to have someone who cares how others strugles in writing ,but wont give up thank you , thank you
I might only be in 6th , but it is my dream to be a writer . i love the person who ever made this site . it has helped me a looooooot . Thanks a million !!!
More power to you, Naju! Follow that dream!
me too! I’m going on to seventh grade now, and my number one dream is to be a writer. Maybe I should publish more of my work online. And yes, your tips really helped. Thanks! ^_^
I started writing when I was in sixth grade, and I’m in eighth grade now! The first story I thought of is still my favorite today, and I still write in my free time!
Thank you. I am also trying to write, and it’s help, and open my mind.
thankyou very much, to the creator of the site, this helped an incredible amount with a piece of courcework, much Appreciated!
probably didn't help you with SPELLING! :D:D
^This person knows what’s up.
Even writers have slip ups now and then. Cut them some slack.
@Police – Yet you didn’t capitilize the “P” in probably. The irony.
@L2Spell – And you spelled “capitalize” incorrectly. The irony.
You meant ‘spelt’. Irony.
The person named Dan commented with a fragment, oh the irony!
Very Helpful …i have lots of interest in writing……….it helped me a lot..thnx……