How to Write Short Stories for Spiritual Care
The term spiritual care describes the support given to persons in medical or religious settings who face illness, depression, death or recovery. When people experience issues that cause meaning-of-life themes to crop up, they begin to search for answers; short narratives offering hope provide an excellent starting point. Reading stories about characters with similar problems can facilitate healing. These tales, read in privacy, help nourish the spirit when family and friends are unavailable.
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Instructions
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Identify your audience before beginning your tale. Choose whether to write it for children, adolescents or adults. Picking the cohort of your reader beforehand determines the vocabulary, setting, style, point of view, plot, topics and format. Even though children address spiritual concerns similar to those that adults face, children approach problems differently. Therefore, the story must be written to the age level of your audience. Some topics are just not suitable for children -- for example, marriage problems.
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Brainstorm to generate inspirational short story themes. Freestyle writing and outlining are two examples on how to get story ideas. To use freestyle writing, make a list of any words and phrases that come to mind. Develop one of the words or phrases from the list to create a plot. If freestyle doesn't appeal to you, try outlining. Pick a subject and expand it until you have your tale. Give the story a beginning, middle and end. Add appropriate problems and a well-developed ending.
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Identify the spiritual message of the story. Short stories make a point just like novels, but in less time and with fewer characters. Find the message of your story. Keep it simple and subtle. Don't knock the reader over the head with the story's meaning. Write focused, tight, clear short stories that help people gain or recover their faith with a message that is meaningful without being heavy-handed. Some topics for consideration are positive thinking, social support, friendship, recovery or overcoming pain.
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Choose how to tell the story. Will it be realistic fiction, fantasy, a fairy tale or science fiction? Fantasy stories can incorporate elements like magic, miracles or angels to restore the mood or lift the soul. Not only do fairy tales make people feel that all things are possible, but they offer morals or give a sense of order. Stories based on reality are also good choices as they will more closely resemble true-to-life incidents.
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Plot your short story. This is not as complicated as it sounds. Merely create of a series of events that make a story worth reading. Develop a plot that makes your character question life, find faith or recover lost hope. Present the heroine with obstacles worthy of solving. Make the problem worse before it gets better. When plotting the ending, create a resolution that fits the story.
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