A Story
How to write a short story?
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.
Begin with the basics of a short story. After you've chosen an idea, you need to remember the basics of a short story before writing one. The steps to a good short story are:
- Introduction: introduce characters, setting, time, weather, etc.
- Initiating action: the point of a story that starts the rising action.
- Rising action: events leading up to the climax or turning point.
- Climax: the most intense point or turning point of the story.
- Falling action: your story begins to conclude.
- 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?”
Know your characters. For a story to be believable, the characters have to feel genuine and realistic. It can be a difficult task to create interesting and realistic characters. But here are a few strategies to create "real people" to populate your story:
- 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, from their central motivations to their favorite foods. Do they talk with an accent? Do they have any quirky mannerisms? 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.
- Make sure your characters' personalities are not perfect. Every character needs to have some flaws, some problems, some imperfections and 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. 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 other people, smoke too much, etc. Any or all of these could be developed further.
Decide who will tell the story. There are three main points of view from which to tell a story: first-person (“I”), second-person (“you”), and third-person (“he” or “she”). In a first-person story, a character in the story tells the story; in the second-person the reader is made a character in the story; and in the third-person, an outside narrator tells the story. (Second-person narration is rarely used.)
Organize your thoughts. After you've prepared the basic elements of your story, it can be helpful to make some sort of time-line to help you decide what should happen when.
Start writing. Depending on how thoroughly you've sketched out your plot and characters, the actual writing process may simply be one of choosing the right words.
Come out swinging. The first page—some would say the first sentence—of any writing should grab the reader’s attention and leave him/her wanting more.
Keep writing. You’re almost 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, say, a page each day. Even if you end up throwing 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.
Let the story write itself. As you develop your story, you may want to turn your plot in a different direction than you had planned, or you may want to substantially change or remove a character. 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.
From: www.wikihow.com
HOMEWORK
Copy the full story of The Mona Liza \ SB p. 81, ex. 3-4\. Write you OWN edning of the story.
Copy the full story of The Mona Liza \ SB p. 81, ex. 3-4\. Write you OWN edning of the story.