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Creative Writers Use 4 Easy Steps to Write Short Stories
- By Deborah Owen
- Published January 2, 2009
- Improving Your Writing Skills & Marketing
Deborah Owen
Ms. Deb, as her students affectionately call her, is the CEO & Founder of Creative Writing Institute, and the former A-1 Writing Academy (now defunct).
"The A-1 Academy was a pilot program built within the virtual walls of a large writer's group," said Deborah. "In the first year we drew 600 students, but I wanted to reach the public. In another year Creative Writing Institute was created. It is a high-quality, low cost writing school with full-time mentors and small classes. Even distressed students and seniors can afford our prices."
Creative Writing Institute now partners with http://bookpleasures.com to bring the best and most up-to-date information available to creative writers everywhere. Check out the new school by Clicking Here.
Learn the DeBowen short story system,
the newest writing rage.
Every story has one climactic
conflict, and this is where you are going to start your story. You
might be saying, huh? What about the setting and theme? What about
the plot and resolution? All in due time.
Think of action
scenes. The action is what makes the story. Without it, you don’t
have a story. Think of Stephen King’s stories. Someone has a knife
and they gain entrance through a window. The woman is in the shower,
and their intent is not only to murder her, but also to slaughter her
in the most gory way possible. He sneaks through each room making
little noises here and there. He stops. Does she hear him
approaching? The entire scene is prolonged, drawing out the suspense
as long as possible until he actually does the slaying.
The
entire story leads up to that point, and then it fades back a little
to let the viewer catch his breath. Then it builds again to a
resolution with fever pitch excitement, and it finishes with a huge
climax.
Writers have a hard time working up to a climax when
they don’t know what the climax is going to be, so you are going to
determine that right now. Things like train wrecks, a parent being
murdered, a bomb in a school, someone just inherited ten million
dollars, etc. Think of six good or bad action scenes before you read
on. The more action, the more drama, the better.
Let’s say
you think of a person who just inherited a large amount of money. The
conflict could be in receiving the money, how he spent all of it
foolishly, and went back into credit card debt.
Or think of a
boy who was brought to the United States for an education by a
charity group. The group houses and feeds him throughout his
formative years. Graduation day comes. He’s on his way to the
ceremony when his car stalls on a train track and he is killed.
1.
Now it's your turn. Think of an eye-popping conflict, or a
gut-wrenching scene. How would it change a character’s life? This
scene can be up to 700 words.
After you have written the
conflict scene, you will automatically know how many characters are
going to be in the story. You should have no more than three main
characters, (preferably two), and three secondary characters. All of
these characters will not be involved in the conflict scene you are
writing, but you will know they are coming at some point.
2.
Next, it's time to write the ending scene. How do you want to resolve
your conflict? (At this point, these two scenes will not be
connected. Keep in mind that you are writing rough drafts – the
bare skeleton.)
3. Thirdly, write the beginning of your story
to introduce your characters and set the scene.
4. Last,
connect the scenes, and edit your story. Yes, it's really that easy!