How to Write a Story: Four Valuable Tips

Now that you understand the framework for writing a story, these tips will help you make it great.

1.   Where is your story taking place?

The details may be just for atmosphere (a bookstore where two people meet and begin a whirlwind romance), or they can play a major role (a mountaintop from which a volcanologist is trying to escape because the volcano he’s been studying has suddenly roared to life).

2. Your character can’t be perfect.

Perfect people don’t exist, and if they did, they’d be interminably dull. Give your character flaws that will both help us relate to her as a human being and increase the story’s tension as the conflict builds.

3. Your character has to feel some discomfort.

His struggles are what make him relatable. Whatever he’s competent at, throw the opposite at him. If he’s a cocky rock guitarist with a skyrocketing career trajectory, make his arrogance the cause of an accident that injures his hand, causing permanent damage. How will he react? How will he change? The answer is your story.

4. Whatever you’re working on, finish it.Get a first draft on paper. Only when you’ve written from beginning to end can you begin the work of rewriting and editing.