I am a creative writing lover. I spend a lot of time writing songs, scenes, scripts, and anything you can imagine. I am a current member of Ascension’s Creative Writing Club, and even took a class under the Iowa Young Writers’ Studio last school year. Despite this experience, I still struggle a lot with writing short stories.
My preference in writing is to create a drawn out and elongated story, so writing any stories under about twenty pages proves quite a challenge. IYWS required my final project to be a short story, and in Ascension’s eighth grade English, I had to submit a completed short story, too, so I know that in some situations I have to change my approach. With Authored Ascension’s The Blueprint currently accepting submissions for a short fiction contest, I wanted to share my best method for telling stories with a shorter word count.
1. The Idea
The idea might be the hardest thing to develop for some. You need an idea in any aspect of writing, whether it be an essay, song, or story. This is where everything starts.
My favorite method for coming up with ideas is extracting bits and pieces from things I already like. The greatest ideas are often inspired by a similar television show, book, or movie. The stories you love are often reflective of the story you may want to tell, so feel free to put your own spin on a concept that already exists (avoiding plagiarism, of course). Is there a character that interests you, or a relationship? Is there a plot point you like, or an ending you wish the story had?
It’s possible to start smaller, too! Maybe there is a certain word you have been thinking about, a place you love, or a genre you have always liked to watch. The idea can come from anywhere.
2. The First Page
Though it may sound like I am asking you to write the first page of your final story, I’m actually asking for something much simpler: write anything!
For me, this typically looks like freewriting a story until I can’t anymore. My current project started as an 800 word story with no particular direction! For someone else, this might look like describing an object, person, or scenery, or writing a few experimental scenes. These don’t have to be based on a lot! The smallest idea will hopefully develop into more during this process.
This is the step where your idea becomes more fleshed out. Though you don’t have to know a plot structure just yet, you might be able to experiment with the emotions you want to evoke or the themes you want to incorporate. Maybe you want to figure out the perspective that works best for you, or the style that suits your idea best. You can get to know your prospective characters a bit better, figure out the world they might live in, and much more. The purpose of this is to figure out what you want— what works? What doesn’t work? What does your idea need?
The goal is to write, write, write!
3. The Game Plan
And that brings me to our third step: the game plan! By now, you should have an idea of what parameters you are writing within. The most effective way to execute this step for me personally is broken up into three steps: the goal, the events, and the characters.
I like to come up with a main goal first. What do I want my story to do or have? Maybe the goal is to make the readers feel a certain emotion, or to get a character from one state to another. This is the point the entire story will be centered around, so feel free to make it as complex or as simple as you want— whatever serves your idea best.
Next, I plan the events of the story. What needs to happen in order to achieve your goal? For me, this usually involves scene-by-scene planning, sometimes starting with only the first and last scenes.
The characters come last in this method. What characters do I need to achieve the events of the story? If one of my scenes involves characters interacting, this is where I decide who those characters will be and how their identities serve my main idea.
The game plan is all up to your personal preferences. I know a lot of people like to start with characters, for example, so maybe the main idea would come second. My recommendation is this: whatever you are the best at coming up with, come up with that first. Everything will fall into place afterwards.
You should finish this step with a clear idea of where your story starts, where it ends, and what needs to be done in between.
4. The First Draft
This is the scariest step. It’s difficult to turn what started as an outline into a full story. But the scariness is why we have this step! Get all of your nerves out as you write your story for the first time.
My advice, which may be hard to follow, is to avoid over editing during this process. Instead, open another document or take out a piece of paper to write the things you notice. Maybe you find a scene unsatisfying, or want to change something in your outline. Stop, make a note, and keep going. You may even want to write out of order, or skip certain parts. Do it! Whatever keeps you writing. Feel free to come back to things later, or write scenes over. Whatever you do, resist the urge to delete and keep everything you have written! This will help you when you get to the last step.
5. The Final Draft
I want to compare the final draft to Frankenstein’s monster— your story should be a combination of everything you like from the first draft, piecing together things possibly in a different order or in a new way, and fixing up anything you’d like along the way. You can repeat your reorganization and rewriting as many times as you’d like.
Once you’ve finished this, congratulations! You’ve written a short story. I know it’s more difficult than it seems, but it is a rewarding experience. You learn more about yourself, your writing, and hopefully can write even better stories now knowing your preferences and skills.
Before I end this article, here are a few reminders:
Everyone is different. You won’t find a story that feels authentic to you if you don’t tailor your writing to your personal desires, needs, strengths, and weaknesses.
Feel free to experiment! Not every story you write has to follow basic structure. Let go of the conventions you’ve learned, and you will unlock your creativity. You don’t really have to follow grammar rules or typical plot structure. Maybe your idea works better some other way.
Not everything you write has to be perfect. You might leave a story and dislike what you end up with. But the process was still so valuable!
I hope you can leave this article having learned something! Please submit your work to the competition, and I look forward to seeing the work all of you do!
