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This doesn’t have to be a story that’s revolutionary and wholly unique start with what you want to read in fiction. Think about a story you’ve always wanted to read. Toni Morrison said it best: “If there’s a book that you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.” The result is a story that traverses a slice of the early-20th-century African-American experience through Black culture and music, using style to guide and write the story itself. For example, Toni Morrison wrote her novel Jazz because she wanted to write a story that spontaneously rises and falls in energy and emotion, much like jazz music does. If you want your story to use certain language, style can act as a scaffolding to story. Then, think about the limitations of this world and how it both helps and hurts its people from there, you can craft your characters and plot. Create the world you want to write in, whether that world is realistic, magical, or somewhere off Earth entirely. From there, you can think about what’s getting in the way of this character’s success, and craft the plot and world around them. Think about different character details, from their physical traits to the things they most desire. You can read in-depth about each of these in our article on the six elements of fiction.įor example, you might benefit by just starting with a character. Style: how you use words to tell the story.Theme: the “deeper meaning” of the story, or what the story represents.Point of View: from whose eyes do we see the story unfold?.Setting: the world that the story is set in.Characters: whose lives are we watching?.If you’re the type of writer who gets overwhelmed by the whole process, try coming up with story ideas through a piecemeal approach, by considering the six elements of fiction: As you consider the infinite possibilities of language, it’s easy to get so lost in the details that you lose sight of a clear idea. When you ask yourself “ What should I write about?”, starting with one of these methods will go a long way to help you develop a great story idea.
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#Should iwrite short stories or novel how to#
How do writers tell stories with tension, action, and emotion? Learn how to write forward-moving tension in this 4 week fiction course.
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These two stories have many differences, but they have the same story premise: an orphan prince must avenge the death of his father, to the chagrin of a shady uncle and an unstable family.Ĭrafting a Story or Novel Chapter Using Forward-Moving Tension
#Should iwrite short stories or novel movie#
You might have heard someone say that every idea has already been written, and while this approach to creative writing is a bit cynical, it’s true that many stories can be reduced to similar narrative arcs.Ī striking example of this is the Shakespeare play Hamlet and the Disney movie The Lion King.
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There’s no strict definition of a “good story idea.” In fact, many good stories are good because of the way they’re written. Let’s answer a common question for fiction writers stuck on the blank page: What should I do if I want to write fiction but have no story ideas? Finding What to Write About: What Goes Into a Good Story Idea? Luckily, the best fiction prompts are already in your head. Writers are often taught how to write their stories, but not how to develop a great story idea. Figuring out what to write about can be frustrating, as the desire to create meets the uncertainty surrounding where to begin. Sometimes, coming up with a story idea is the hardest part about writing fiction.
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