How to Write a Creative Writing Story

We all love stories. They thrill us, entertain us, make us laugh and take us places we could never go otherwise. Great story-tellers bring us new experiences. Writing a story is a matter of putting your own experiences or dreams onto paper so others can enjoy them, too.

Things You'll Need

• Time
• Paper/pen or word processor
• Story ideas

Instructions

1. Decide what kind of story you want to write. If you have one story to tell, and it is not extremely complicated (one main plot, one or two main characters), then a short story is best. If you want to tell a story about your own life, your childhood or your experiences, then you want to write a memoir. If you want to tell a story about someone you know or have heard about, you may want biography or historical fiction.

2. Write a basic outline of the plot: what happens, when it happens and who does it. Don't worry about filling in the details at this point.

3. Write a basic list of your characters: who they are and what you know about them. If you are writing something purely fictional, it's up to you. Knowing your characters well--fictional or real--will give deeper flavor to your story and will help your dialogue sound genuine.

4. Decide how you want to tell the story. Do you want to write in first person, in the "I" voice, telling everything from that particular point of view? Or do you want to write in third person, in the "he/she" voice, telling about a particular character and what his experience is? Or do you want to write in universal person, using the "he/she" voice but telling about all the characters, their thoughts and their experiences?

5. Using your plot outline and your character list as guides, start writing out the events and details as a story. Try not to "fix your mistakes" as you go; take time after you write the story down to go back and edit. Get the story on paper (or computer) first. You'll remember new details as you write, and possible even need to add new characters or big events. That's fine. The outline and character list are just to get you started; once you get to writing, you'll find that your story has a life of its own and you can just ride along with it.

Tips & Warnings

• Getting started is usually the most difficult part for writers, so don't worry about whether your first few sentences or paragraphs sound good or not. Just write without judging yourself and you'll make more progress. Later, if you decide to go back and edit, you can fix any mistakes.

• If you get stuck on the plot, call a friend and tell him the story verbally. You can either take notes as he tells it back to you, or you can talk it through together. An outside voice can be objective enough to see what might not be obvious to the writer.

• Writing can be addictive.

Resources

• About.com's Fiction Writing Resource
• Writing Forums--Join for free and you can post your story.
• Creative Writing Prompts
• Writinghood's Article on Kinds of Creative Writing