Good Short Story Writing with Easy Steps | A Complete Guide

Short story writing is believed to ensure an excellency of an author. Short story writing with some easy steps include thinking about your setting, creating some memorable characters, identifying external and internal conflicts, making a twist in your story plot, developing some natural dialogues, and expressing your voice through your own point of view.

Do not be afraid to experiment with different voices and styles when writing a story, short novel, or flash fiction. Explore various story writing techniques, story ideas, and story structures. It is essential to keep what works for you and to discard everything else. You will determine your rules based on the materials and processes you use. Here is a complete guide for good short story writing.

Each writer works differently. The process of writing may be followed straight through by some writers. It is common for some authors to work in pieces they will arrange later, while others will work from sentence to sentence.

There are certainly many options that you can explore in a story, and it is exciting to think about all of them. The question is, where should we begin?

 Learn how to improve your creative writing and content writing skills by following this step-by-step guide.  

Ideas for Story Writing: Where to Find Them

Almost every writer has been asked: “Where do you get your ideas?” It’s always the same answer: everywhere. Many writers think they need a sudden flash of inspiration to generate ideas, but it is more of a process than a revelation.

Read: Message Writing 

Let’s start with a step-by-step guide to refine your inspiration to generate an idea.

Step 1: Think about Your Setting:

 In writing a novel, a location is a handy tool. Consider it as you would a character, allowing it to convey mood and reveal more about itself as the story progresses. You can create compelling scenes by selecting locations that excite you. It will be evident in your writing that you are enthusiastic about your subject matter, and your characters will view and interact with your locations with a greater sense of engagement.

Your location can be a source of inspiration for your scenes and may even influence the course of your narrative. You can use all the research you conducted in the first writing phase when describing a particular street, park, or other scene set elsewhere that you were unfamiliar with during your first draft.

Answer these questions in your prose to weave the setting into your story.

1. When does your novel take place? At that time, how is the weather in your area?
2. During this period, what are the characteristics of your setting? Has that business been closed for fifteen years, for example? What was the name of that street at that time? Do your characters remember when that statue was erected?
3. Does your story revolve around significant events such as wars or natural disasters? What impact does this have on your time frame or setting?
4. Are any cultural details characteristic of this period and location? Observe music, literature, entertainment, clothing styles, food trends, lifestyle trends, and critical national events.

Step 2: Create some Memorable Characters

It is impossible to separate character from the event, for a person is what happens to them. It is a significant distinction compared to films, where actors are cast into pre-existing roles. A novel, however, is a story that follows the development of a character over time.

Writers should observe how their characters interact with the world to understand their feelings better. Like real people, fictional characters have passions, pets, histories, ruminations, and obsessions. Understanding aspects of your character is essential to writing a novel and understanding how to react under the pressures of their experiences.

Consult this guide on character development if you are stuck or wish to find a direction for your characters.

Step 3: Identify two types of Conflicts

In every story, there is both an event and a character. Levels occur when patterns are disrupted. You are most likely writing a routine, not an account if you are writing about a routine day. Something must happen for a story to exist. In a novel, what happens is referred to as the plot.

Conflict can be classified into two types:

1. Conflict within (a threat from within)
2. Conflicts that originate from outside (an external threat)

The presence of both types of conflict creates tension in a narrative and helps to advance the plot. The development of characters and actions is influenced by conflict. Your story will also be richer with conflict. The main character may face an external conflict, like the destruction of an enemy, and an internal conflict, such as her commitment to pacifism. Your plot will naturally develop when you give your character a motive and then throw obstacles in her path.

Before selecting a conflict type, you may wish to try both types. Consider writing a short story that uses both types of conflict and then deciding which is most effective.

For your reader to become absorbed into your story, every event must be compelling and significant enough for them to wonder what will happen next.

Step 4: Make a twist in your Story Plot

Any good story will always have a few plot twists and red herrings. Continue reading to learn more.

1. Your story should contain at least two or three twists. Using these techniques helps keep readers engaged, especially during the middle of your book when your plot may otherwise begin to drag. Readers must be kept interested during the middle of a story, and there must be enough excitement to keep them reading to the end. The reader will be surprised by a good twist, turning their entire understanding upside down. Here is a comprehensive guide to plotting a story for more information (https://www.masterclass.com/articles/everything-you-need-to-know-about-writing-plot).
2. Plant false leads or red herrings to mislead your readers. These are details added to purposefully confuse your readers and prevent them from predicting the outcome of your story. There is an essential difference between adult mysteries and children’s horror novels. Adult mysteries often feature carefully hidden clues, while children’s horror novels should include tricks to lead kids astray, surprising them even more when something is revealed (like the true identity of a monster). You can learn more about red herrings and false leads by clicking here (https://www.masterclass.com/articles/what-is-a-red-herring-in-writing-definition-of-red-herring-with-examples).
3. Cliffhangers are devices that compel readers to keep reading a story to discover what happens next. Making your writing more suspenseful by writing great cliffhangers is crucial to making your book a page-turner. Although some writers may find it a “cheap trick” or an easy gimmick, it is a proven method for attracting and retaining readers. Find out how to write cliffhangers in this guide 

Step 5: Develop Some Natural Dialogues

It is common for speech to contain a large amount of padding, or “stuffing,” such as umms and years. There is, however, a need to be more intelligent and selective regarding dialogue in fiction. The dialogue is shorn down to reveal what people want from each other, to show character, and to emphasize power struggles.

• It would help if you had your characters make a power play or try to get something from one another whenever they speak. In drafting each scene, consider what your feelings are trying to accomplish. Is there anything they are trying to avoid? How do these wants influence their speech and decide what they say or do not?
• Usually, there is a massive gap between what people say and what they are thinking, between what they understand and what they do not want to hear. Subtext refers to these gaps and is an essential resource for fiction writers. Consider your characters’ thoughts as you write, and allow them to create drama in your scenes.
• Understanding how your characters speak is crucial to getting the dialogue right. Many factors may contribute to this, including where they come from, their social class, and their upbringing. The character’s speech and tone are always influenced by what he has been through and is going through.
• It is essential that your dialogue accurately reflects the idioms and speech patterns of a specific period if your story is set in the past. Like clothing, words come and go. It would help if you tailored your conversations to the period in which you are writing without making them sound forced.

Writers face several challenges when it comes to dialogue. Click here for more information on how to write effective dialogue. 

Step 6: Express your Voice through your Point of View

Consider the following question when choosing a point of view strategy for your novel: whose voice is telling the story? Who is the story being told to, and why is it being suggested? There are several common strategies for expressing a point of view:

• An account from the first person perspective. The “I” is here.
• The point of view is limited to the third person. “He” or “she” is the subject.
• Using third-person omniscient discourse, a narrator who is not a character and has a greater level of knowledge than the characters relays events to the reader.
• In short stories, the second person point of view can work well since it is based on the pronoun “you.”

Some bestselling novels move from first to third or first to the second point of view throughout their short stories or novels. Make your decision based on your material.

Trying different points of view strategies is the only way to determine which is best for your novel. As the writing moves more quickly, you will likely feel the momentum and know which one is right for your story.

It will guide you on how your story unfolds through your point-of-view strategy. Therefore, regardless of where you are in the drafting process, devote some time to thinking through the risks and rewards of different POV strategies and consider who would be best suited to handle the narrative. You can get more about the point-of-view strategy here .

You can write a story in any way that you choose. The art of Story writing requires a lot of imagination, time, and practice on your part as a writer. In the same way, athletes are constantly training at the gym; even the best writers practice writing different stories. When you practice for the first time, it becomes easier.

Read: 500-word Story

Stay focused and keep developing your STORY WRITING skills if you intend to be published. Success would be yours.