Everyone is different and that means that everyone is going to need to write a story in a different way. You have to discover how you need to do it. There is no easy way. You can only discover how to by doing it. These hints are to help you find your own way.
Planning it?
Most teachers will tell you that you need to make a careful plan of your story before you start. This is because most teachers do not write stories. Professional writers divide into four different ways:
- Those who do make a careful plan. These are the rarest. Even writers who write detective stories often only have jotted notes about what order the clues come out in. You do a careful plan if it makes you feel safe. Otherwise try one of the other ways.
- Careful realistic writers. These writers have little cards written out with descriptions and past histories of all the people they might want in the story, and the same for all the places. This is quite a good way to work, because the story often falls into place in your head while you are discovering the things on the cards. But it takes a long time, though it can be fun. You will often find you have far more information on the cards than you will ever get into the story, and if this is so DON’T try to get it all in. You will drown your story.
- Back to front and inside out writers. These writers start by writing Chapter Eleven and then Chapter Twenty. Sometimes they have no idea what the story is and have to put the chapters away until they see what the story is that they fit into. A writer called Joyce Carey had a whole chest of drawers filled with chapters out of books that he never got round to finishing. When he did write a book, it always started this way. with a chapter from the middle. I sometimes work this way, but I warn you, it takes a very clear head to sort it out in the end. It is a good way to get started, however.
- My way. If you’re the kind of person who gets stuck writing a story, try this. When I start writing a book, I know the beginning and what probably happens in the end, plus a tiny but extremely bright picture of something going on in the middle. Often this tiny picture is so different from the beginning that I get really excited trying to think how they got from the start to there. This is the way to get a story moving, because I can’t wait to find out. And by not planning it any more than that I leave space for the story to go in unexpected ways. Sometimes things happen that I never would have thought of, just because the story wants them to happen.
The IMPORTANT THING is that you should ENJOY making up your story.
If it bores you, stop and try something else. Read the rest of the article here.
