How To Write a Great Story?
Writing is hard and writing a good story is even harder.
As a blog post writer, I know that writing a good story or a good article takes a lot of time. Quality writing needs time and hard work, but.. believe me that will always pays you off.
What makes a good writer? What qualities do greta writers have? What are the top secrets to write a great story? These are some of the questions that have just popped your head up as you read this post.
In this article, I will share with you eleven tips on how to write a captivating story.
Write your story in one sitting
Write your first draft as quickly as possible. If you are writing a short story, write it in one sitting. If you are writing a huge story or a novel, take as much time as you need. By writing your first draft, you will discover so many things about the story and the process of writing that story. You don’t have to worry about the plot, just do it. When you finish your first draft, you will have many clues about how and when the story will take place.
Build your hero or heroine (protagonist)
Each story has a hero or a heroine (protagonist), and if you don’t have a protagonist, there will be no great story. Your protagonist should be alive and able to make decisions throughout the story.
In the story, there will be a crisis, and your protagonist will have to decide on how to get themselves from that situation. You really need to take time to think about your protagonist, their character, their qualities, their skills….etc. Basically, you should be able to create an “animate” character throughout the story.
Create scenes of suspense, drama, and tragedy (if possible)
Creating suspense is an important part of the story. To do this, you have to set up a dramatic question, for instance: “will s/he be able to do it?”, “is he going to save her from evil?” or, is she going to marry her man eventually? By generating these questions, you will put your hero’s fate in doubt and you will make the reader more excited to know what will happen next. So, always be careful not to share everything about the story at once. Try to carefully manage the flow of information so that your reader could always be anticipating and waiting for what is coming ahead.
Don’t tell, try to show
When there is a turning point in your story, or when something happens that might change the fate of your main character, try to not to tell the reader. Just show them. Your readers have to figure out what is happening through the scene you develop.
Your dialogues should be well written and well articulated
Great and well articulated dialogues are the result of two things: 1)- knowing your protagonist very well. 2)- a lot of rewriting.
The most important part of a story is the characters. Each one must have a distinguished voice. Your characters must be different. So, when readers read your dialogues, they will sense that uniqueness.
To develop great dialogues, you will have to read your characters’ dialogues over and over and see if they match their personalities. Try to vary in the speaker tags, use something like: she exclaimed, he announced, they declared….etc.
If you are a writer, you are an editor
It is a common practice among writers to write several drafts before launching the final version. Great writing requires continuous editing. The first draft is often the worst version of a writer’s work. Never be satisfied with one draft. Take advantage of your first draft and examine the inadequacies of your work and fix them. Your second draft is structuring the work, organizing the ideas, and elaborating on the plot.
Add trajedy
If you want your story to be exciting and breath-taking, involve trajedy. Use the element of “death”. Just check how many stories involve trajedy these days. Death is a universal theme. Your story must say something about this, because every person wants to know about it. We are human beings and we are all going to die one day.
Defeat the blank the page
Unfortunately, many writers are defeated by a blank page. They look for perfection. As a writer, the best way to overcome the frustration of a white page is to write. Just write. White pages are the enemies of writers, but they always end up defeated by the unrelenting passion and burning desire writers possess. If there is a blank page, it is the enemy. Write, fill it up. Even if it’s just doodles, even if it’s just banging on the keyboard. Fill it up. Slay your demon, the demon of the white, empty space.
Don’t just know the rule, you have to break them
To make your story distinguished, break the rules. Sometimes, you will not have to follow the rules and writing traditions. If you unleash the power of your creativity and come up with something very original, you will have to come with your own rules. As a writer, you serve your story not the rules. You will have to bring that story to life no matter what.
Share your work eventually
Writers write for the sake of sharing their work. They already know there is a reader who is going to read the work. By sharing your writing, you experience either failure or success. But, you have to do it no matter what. By sharing, you will learn a lot of things about how to write great stories in the future, and at the end of each story, you are writing a story of a great writer. It is YOU. So, never be intimidated to share your voice.
Be open to criticism
As a writer, you will face so many critics criticizing your work. but, you have to be open to all criticism, be it, constructive or destructive. That is the path of a writer. Embrace everything for the sake of learning and welcome anything that will help defeat a blank page sometime in the future.
You are a great writer, aren’t you?
