How to Write a Good Story

How to Write a Good Story

1. Where is your story taking place?

   • The details may be just for atmosphere (a bookstore where two people meet and begin a whirlwind romance), or they can play a major role (a mountaintop from which a volcanologist is trying to escape because the volcano he’s been studying has suddenly roared to life).

2. Your character can’t be perfect.

   • Perfect people don’t exist, and if they did, they’d be interminably dull. Give your character flaws that will both help us relate to her as a human being and increase the story’s tension as the conflict builds.

3. Your character has to feel some discomfort.

   • His struggles are what make him relatable. Whatever he’s competent at, throw the opposite at him. If he’s a cocky rock guitarist with a skyrocketing career trajectory, make his arrogance the cause of an accident that injures his hand, causing permanent damage. How will he react? How will he change? The answer is your story.

4. The Fundamentals of Plot

   • The story must have a beginning, middle, and end. It begins with an event that sets the wheels in motion. That’s followed by rising action, then the story reach to the climax, that is the most intense, exciting, or important point of the story. the end, or denouement, which wraps the story up in a satisfying way and solidifies both its outcome and its theme.

5. Creating a Story Framework

   • Stories are not just sequences of events—they have to go somewhere. Any good story begins with a character who wants something. The story describes the character’s journey toward getting what he or she wants . . . or not. (Stories don’t have to have happy endings, only satisfying ones.)