Anna will be writing the article on tropical fish, and Philip will be editing it.
Answers
Explanation:
Writing isn’t easy, and writing a good story is even harder.
I used to wonder how Pixar came out with such great movies, year after year. Then, I found out a normal Pixar film takes six years to develop, and most of that time is spent on the story.
In this article, you’ll learn ten secrets about how to write a story, and more importantly, how to write a story that’s good.
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Everything I Know About How to Write a Story
Since I started The Write Practice a few years ago, I’ve been trying to wrap my head around this question, how to write a good story. I’ve read books and blog posts on writing, taken classes, asked dozens of authors, and, of course, written stories myself.
The following ten steps are a distillation of everything I’ve learned about writing a good story. I hope it makes writing your story a little easier, but more than that, I hope it challenges you to step deeper into your own exploration of how to write a story.
Wait! Need a story idea? We’ve got you covered. Get our top 100 short story ideas here.
1. Write In One Sitting
Write the first draft of your story in as short a time as possible. If you’re writing a short story, try to write it in one sitting. If you’re writing a novel, try to write it in one season (three months).
Don’t worry too much about plotting or outlining beforehand. You can do that once you know you have a story to tell in the first place. Your first draft is a discovery process. You are like an archeologist digging an ancient city out of the clay. You might have a few clues about where your city is buried beforehand, but you don’t know what it will look like until it’s unearthed.
All that’s to say, get digging!
2. Develop Your Protagonist
Stories are about protagonists, and if you don’t have a good protagonist, you won’t have a good story. The essential ingredient for every protagonist is that they must make decisions. Victor Frankl said, “A human being is a deciding being.” Your protagonist must make a decision to get herself into whatever mess she gets into in your story, and likewise, she must come to a crisis point and decide to get herself out of the mess.
To further develop your protagonist, use other character archetypes like the villain, the protagonist’s opposite, or the fool, a sidekick character that reveals the protagonist’s softer side.
3. Create Suspense and Drama
To create suspense, set up a dramatic question. A dramatic question is something like, “Is he going to make it?” or, “Is she going to get the man of her dreams?” By putting your protagonist’s fate in doubt, you make the reader ask, What happens next?
Note: To do this well, you need to carefully restrict the flow of information to the reader. Nothing destroys drama like over-sharing.
4. Show, Don’t Tell
Honestly, the saying “show, don’t tell” is overused. However, when placed next to the step above, it becomes very effective.
When something interesting happens in your story that changes the fate of your character, don’t tell us about it. Show the scene! Your readers have a right to see the best parts of the story play out in front of them. Show the interesting parts of your story, and tell the rest.
5. Write Good Dialogue
Good dialogue comes from two things: intimate knowledge of your characters and lots of rewriting.
Each character must have a unique voice, and to make sure your characters all sound different, read each character’s dialogue and ask yourself, “Does this sound like my character?” If your answer is no, then you have some rewriting to do.
Also, with your speaker tags, try not to use anything but “he said” and “she said.” Speaker tags like “he exclaimed,” “she announced,” and “he spoke vehemently” are distracting and unnecessary. The occasional “he asked” is fine, though.
6. Write About Death
Think about the last five novels you read. In how many of them did a character die? Good stories often involve death. Harry Potter, The Hunger Games, Charlotte’s Web, The Lord of the Rings, and more all had main characters who died. Death is the universal theme because every person who lives will one day die. Tap the power of death in your storytelling.
7. Edit Like a Pro
Most professional writers write three drafts or more. The first draft is