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| Story Inspiration -
some tips and ideas Sometimes it's hard to be a writer. You sit down and get ready to write a story, but see nothing but a blank page in front of you. Inspiration can be hard to find on these occasions, but there are things that can be done to help. It is worth mentioning before we begin that different approaches work with different people. The tips here may not work for you, but this just means that you have a different writing style and method to mine. If the tips here fail, then try to modify them to suit your needs. The first thing that you need to do is decide on the subject of the story. Who, or indeed what, is your story going to be about? If no ideas come to you, then think of caricaturing a friend you know who might be interesting enough to be used in a story. If your story is about an animal, then pick out your favourite animal or one that you find particularly interesting. You'll notice that the key word here is interest. You need to be able to capture the interest and imagination of the readers. Description can help readers visualise scenes and characters, but if the actual characters and scenes themselves are boring then the interest of the reader will quickly be lost. With the subject of the story out of the way, the next few steps can be done in any order. The order will change from person to person depending on their writing style and imagination. A plot is essential to a story. Without a doubt the most time should be spent working out the details of the plot itself. A story needs to have something actually happen. A short story writer is limited by space in comparison to that of a novel writer. A novel writer can have a plot with twists at every chapter, but a short story writer must fit a plot in the space of anything up to about three or four thousand words. Therefore, a plot with as many twists as a bramble bush is not going to be practical for the writer or the reader. In general, short stories tend to have a single, major plot twist somewhere in the story, although some stories have many more. Also essential to a story is a coherent setting. The importance of setting varies between stories. Some stories have plots that are integral to the setting, but for others the setting is irrelevant and the plot and characters take precedence. When a setting is introduced, it should be accompanied by lots of description and/or background information about the setting itself. This information can usually be used to allow the plot to have more impact by the setting having a greater relevance. Other characters need to be thought out carefully. They need to be believable and have a purpose in the story. Perhaps they are integral to the plot, are part of the setting, or are even the foil¹ of the main character(s). Whatever their purpose, they should be coherent to the setting and plot in some form. Don't try and add in unnecessary characters as it will spoil the overall effect of the story. This next stage may not apply to everyone. If you are confident about your story writing abilities, skip directly to the next step. If not, then read on. A paragraph plan should ensure that you stay on track and don't become sidetracked into over-describing or over-complicating the story. By planning what you will write and where, you can ensure that your story is well paced (not too fast, but not a snail's pace either) and coherent. At this point you should have a subject, a setting, a plot, and any other characters to be included. Now comes the stage of actually writing the story. Be aware that you may need to make several drafts before you are entirely happy with the story. Also, at this stage, technical inaccuracies are unimportant. When you have finished, give it a thorough read through a few times to ensure that there are no technical inaccuracies or loss of cohesion in your story. Now that you've written and checked your masterpiece, you're ready to let other people give you feedback. Try showing the story to some friends, and of course, posting it onto the Short Stories Central forum so that you can get good feedback and opinions that you will be able to keep in mind when writing your next story. Good luck, and happy scribbling! NOTES ¹ foil = A character that is
used in a story to highlight the weaknesses of the main character. |
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