Things You'll Need:
- White paper
- Space
- Pens
- Computer
- Notepad
- Dictaphone
- Time
- Dictionary
- Thesaurus
- Internet
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Step 1
Use your white paper and write your idea in the centre of the page. Create a spider map by writing more words that come to mind but are related to it. Let your map take you on a journey. Your initial idea may be good, but something great may come from this plotting.
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Step 2
When you have exhausted all your avenues, start typing up your story. You need a beginning, middle and end just as you do in any writing. Your story might be fifty words or a thousand, but there is a sequence that the reader demands. Micro fiction is beautiful to read and hard to write. You will have to economise on your words and choose the exact ones that are needed.
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Step 3
Where does your story start? What conflict is there? Give the reader a hook. You have a page or two in a novel, but in micro fiction you have to grab in that opening sentence. Conflict comes in may forms. You can use dialogue, or an internal struggle. Whatever you choose this is the most important sentence you have to write.
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Step 4
Once your hook has been written, you have to keep the reader going through the middle and onto the climax.
The climax is where you reward your readers and give them a pay-off. This part of the story has to satisfy and be memorable so that they read it again and again. -
Step 5
Be prepared to spend longer - much longer - on editing your story. It may take five minutes to execute your idea. Editing is a long exhausting process where you dissect your work and change or alter anything that does not flow. It may come down to a single word. This is hard work for you but rewarding for your readers. And when they are rewarded and give you praise, it has all been worth it.
