10 Ways to Write a Good Story

1) Plan, draft and re-draft the plot. Before you start any story, big or small, take a piece of paper and plan the sequence of events. Look over it and make a first draft of the plan by making a few changes you think are necessary. Then, really break down the sequence of events and go for the details of each sequence in the final draft. This way, you can cover any important parts to your story and you have a prompt to keep you on track in your story.

2) Give the characters a personality. It’s not enough to talk about how Jane loved Robert, give the characters some depth. This can be achieved by giving them a history, or some sort of tactility. For example you can say, ‘Jane had never loved any one like Robert before. Of all the loves she’d had in the past, this one was different.’ This way you are building up Jane’s character and giving her only a particular set of characteristics like she could be shy or lonely. Giving the characters a personality will soften your story and make it more interesting as the reader can relate to the character and want to be involved in their life. This disturbing story gives a small child a distinct personality and is a good example of what I’ve stated: http://www.authspot.com/Short-Stories/Her-Security-Blanket.821865

3) Make every word beautiful. A good vocabulary is crucial. It is easy to write a story mindlessly but by careful word choice and interesting vocabulary, the reader will be a lot more interested. For example, if you have to talk about a big building, don’t say ‘The building was large when I looked up at it’, instead you can say ‘The mammoth building towered over me.’ The word ‘mammoth’ makes the building sound big but by using ‘towered’ it sounds even bigger. Architecture every word in your story carefully and it should have some relation to what you want to talk about. This story doesn’t make use of this rule every single time but some use of vocabulary makes the story sound magical: http://www.authspot.com/Short-Stories/That-One-Minute.831141

4) Avoid clichéd descriptions. Moving on from what I said above, try to avoid descriptions that every one has seen before. For example, instead of saying, ‘Her eyes were blue like the sky and her hair was as blonde as the sun’, say something like ‘Her blue eyes were puddles of clear water and her shimmering yellow hair glistened in the sun’ By using unconventional description for people or places, you put a different perspective to the story and the reader is encouraged to think about how you look at the story, thus making it interesting. This story gives slightly different descriptions to the man: http://www.authspot.com/Short-Stories/Hes-Insane.839155

5) Appeal to the senses. Whenever you describe a place or a person or anything for that matter, make sure that you are describing at least 3 of the 5 senses. Try to make your description related to touch, taste, smell, sound or sight. Normally, we only use the sight sense and sometimes the sound sense. Try adding touch and smell to it as well so that your description is more varied and interesting. Taste isn’t a very popular one but if you feel it fits in somewhere, then use it. Try to picture your story as a film. Imagine you are watching your story as a film and describe it as you see it in your mind. Here is a story that appeals a lot to the senses: http://www.authspot.com/Short-Stories/The-Scientist.860817

6) Vary the genre. If you like writing many stories, don’t just stick to one kind. Try your hand at many other types of genres so that you can locate your best style and build on that. Also, if you don’t like the idea of writing stories of only one genre, try writing one story with various genres in it. For example, you could have a mystery story that has an element of drama and romance to it. This mixes the story up and makes it a bit more interesting.

7) Avoid too many dialogues. Unless dialogues, conversations and quotations are crucial to the story, try to avoid using too many of them. Constant use of dialogues will make the story very monotonous because to the reader, it is like watching two people speak and the reader has nothing to say. If there is a very important scene where dialogue is a must, try to use dialogue in such a way that you vary sentence structure. Make some sentences long and some sentences short. Dialogue is a good place where you can bring out the personality of a character. This story here makes use of only a few dialogues where it is most needed: http://www.authspot.com/Short-Stories/The-Boy-and-the-Small-Song.828635

Try different narrative perspectives. A narrative perspective is sometimes crucial to a story. If you have ever read a story that goes ‘I’ for most of the story, it is first person narrative. This makes the story interesting because you can put yourself in the shoes of the narrator. Most of the times, you read stories about ‘he’ or ‘she’ and this is still good, but it can make the story a bit monotonous. Very few stories use ‘you’ like the one you might have read earlier in the link I gave you that described how senses were appealed. Mix and match these narrative perspectives to give a different but enthralling story. Here is a story that cites the use of first person narrative: http://www.authspot.com/Thoughts/The-Pictures-on-my-Wall.842859

9) Keep it a short length. It is possible to write stories that are extremely short but still manage to convey the story. Remember, you don’t have to make the story long if it is very elaborate. No one likes to read a story that goes on forever. Also, long stories means that your chances of deviating from the plot are extremely high so you want to keep it at a slightly shorter length. This way, the attention of the reader is unshaken and you don’t waffle on forever. This story is made up of only 5 sentences but still makes the story end well: http://www.authspot.com/Short-Stories/The-Meaning-of-Life-is-a-Lie.846489

10) Try a different ending. Vary the ending constantly. You don’t have to make it a happy ending where everything is alright after a series of catastrophic events. Keep the story edgy. A reader always remembers the ending of a story so if you make it a bit different, the reader will remember your story. A good ending is a brilliant way to keep the reader wondering. End the story probably in a cliff-hanger, where you don’t know what will happen next. For example, you could end a story like “She opened the creaking door and what she saw in the room shocked her.” This keeps the reader wondering what she saw and what happened next and is a brilliant way to end the reader’s attention. This story gives a very different ending to what you’d normally expect: http://www.authspot.com/Short-Stories/Her-Prom-Night.809153