How to Write a Short Story in One Hour

Are you interested in writing fiction? Especially short stories? Or novels? Maybe humor? Mysteries? Sci-fi?

Visit http://www.geniuswriter.info to learn how to do it.

This page will show you a list of courses you can study. Regardless of what your writing interests are, you might find something at this page that will help you. For what it's worth, I would recommend it. These are excellent courses.

This video you're watching here, however, I created myself. It will show you how to write a short story in one hour. If you watch it, it will help you with your creative writing and get the juices flowing for idea generation. It might even show you how to write a book if you pay close attention.

Authors would do well to pay attention to this video, as it goes through the planning phases of short story writing. Most writers don't realize that there is a planning phase to all writing, and that this planning process is critical to the creative writing process and composing excellent fiction. If you're trying to write a short story, or any work of fiction for that matter, this video is for you.

Be aware that writing a short story is simple, but it's not always easy. If you follow a proven process, however, you will find it is much easier to write a short story or book than if you simply sit down at a computer without any kind of plan in place. This video outlines the way to make a plan to write a good short story, and it will show you how to plan it in one hour. With practice, you'll be able to write a good short story in an hour or even less, depending on the length of your story.




If you're interested in writing fiction or you're an aspiring author, this video will help you achieve your best writing, generate ideas, and lead you through the planning phases of writing. It will show you the four phase process of writing -- namely: Planning, writing, editing, and publishing. It will also show you the important aspects of how to write a short story, which involve developing the character, creating a problem the character can live with, creating motivation for that character to solve the problem, creating an action for that character to take to solve the problem or conflict, the resolution of the conflict, and finally the change the character goes through as a result of having to solve the problem and go through the actions of the short story.




This video on how to write a short story in one hour is especially good for those that want to be writers but struggle with the short story writing process -- or those that stare at the page and have no idea where to even begin. If you're one of the many writers that struggles with the problem of writers' block or simply not knowing how to begin (or end) a short story, then you'll probably get a lot out of this video.

This video also talks about some fundamental aspects of writing, the importance of balancing "appropriate" topics with "inappropriate" topics and why such a differentiation is important. It finally talks about other fundamentals, such as the importance of only letting your main character take action when he or she has a good reason to do so, setting up the events in your story, and wrapping up all the loose ends in your work of creative fiction.

Don't struggle with your writing anymore. Watch this video in its entirety to get the full benefit. I don't talk at all about grammar or spelling (there are other videos that do that); I just tell you how to tell a good story and get it out on paper so you can be successful with it.

If you like the video, or if you don't, you can feel free to leave a comment. You can also find my book on how to painlessly write a novel on Amazon Kindle at http://tinyurl.com/kevqd62. You can click it to download the book without any trouble.

I've been writing for years, so I know what I'm talking about. I've had a lot of my creative work published, and I have no trouble whatsoever coming up with ideas for fiction. If you care about what I have to say (and I hope you do) then you can watch this video and see that you no longer have any problems writing short stories. I hope you enjoy!

See a list of writing courses at http://www.geniuswriter.info .

Thank you.

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Closed Caption:

hello and welcome to this web
presentation on how to effortlessly
write the perfect short story in one
hour
my name is Andy that i'm going to be
guiding you through this presentation I
hope you enjoy it
I'm very passionate about writing
I want to teach people how to do it I've
done a lot of it and I think I've got a
lot to offer people in terms of good
practices and processes
I've heard a lot of people say that they
have problems developing their ideas
problems coming up with ideas problems
getting those stories from their head
onto the page and the purpose of this
presentation student work on that and
show you some practices and processes
that you can use to come up with ideas
and develop those ideas into something
that is actually something to be proud
of something that's more than just a
short story at work or something like a
novel swirling around in your head but
actually something really that people
can read on paper so i'm going to go
ahead and tell you a little bit about
myself and why I came up with this
particular presentation and while I feel
like I'm qualified to tell you how to do
it and how to write short stories of the
author of two novels i've written dozens
of short stories and I've written a lot
of things hundreds of blog posts
I've been journaling for about 10 years
so I've written several thousand journal
entries
I've written tens of thousands of emails
and other correspondence and actually
published a number of short stories and
I've got one novel available on Amazon
Kindle i really enjoy reading and enjoy
writing and I want to share that with
you and I had a lot of people of the
opinion that there's too much literature
out there
in my opinion is that there's not enough
good literature out there and that
people like you are actually capable of
creating that good literature and may
not have the processes in place to do it
just yet so what I want to do is show
you exactly how to do that so I'm going
to go to the next slide and talk about
what the purpose of this video is and
basically what I hope to accomplish is I
want to show you why you need to plan a
short story before you write it and a
lot of this video is going to be
teaching you how to plan the short story
in addition to how to write it and i'm
also going to teach you how to generate
a lot of short story ideas on your own
I know a lot of people have problems
developing and coming up with their own
short stories ideas
so i'm going to show you how to do that
and i'm also going to show you how to
turn those ideas in your head into real
short stories on paper so
I've done a lot of training in my life
I've done a lot of training in my career
and every time i do training
I always like to start with an agenda
and tell you exactly we're going to
cover so I'm gonna start with the next
slide with them this video agenda in
this training i'm going to do is set not
quite a few things so we're gonna go put
it as quickly as we can get right into
it but i'm going to describe the three
kinds of people that need to take this
video course and i'm also going to tell
you what's not included in this course
so it's kind of like a scope of work i
want you to understand what you're going
to be what you're going to be taken away
and sports and what you're not and I'm
all of it and in that regard i'm going
to be covering the course goals
there are there are a couple of things
that I want you to specifically take
away from this course and once we go
over that we're going to go into part 1
of this course there are two parts to
this course and the first part is a
theory part of the theory part is very
important and I'll explain why we're
going to talk about the nature of an
appropriate short story idea versus
inappropriate short story idea which is
better which is worse
what the advantages and disadvantages
are we're going to talk about the role
of inspiration and writing is and I've
got some very strong opinions about that
they may differ from a lot of my
colleagues but i want to share that with
you and hopes that you can take some of
that away from this presentation and i'm
also going to talk about something which
is a little more mundane but it's what I
call the three essential aspects of any
short story you'll find these three
essential aspects probably any creative
writing class and that may be the only
part of this presentation that you can
actually here somewhere else
the majority of this material is my own
meandering experience in spending a lot
of time and from the page either reading
or writing so but I wouldn't be doing
you any justice if I didn't go over the
three essential aspects of any short
story
short stories like anything else have
rules and we're going to the next slide
and talk about to finish out the video
agenda which is part two of this course
and that's the practical application
we're going to talk about what an idea
is exactly and how to generate ideas how
to generate the the beginning of an idea
and i'm going to explain to you that
ideas do have beginnings and that there
are stages they go through whether
there's an idea process
so we're going to go over the four stage
to the idea process
i'm also going to tell you how to move
an idea through each stage of that idea
process that's very important when it
comes to writing short stories you
actually have to be able to move the
idea through that process and finally
once you actually process the idea and
moved it through to its completion
i'm going to talk about how to write a
short story and there are five essential
elements to a short story from what i
gather over my experience and i'm going
to go over those with you in depth one
thing that you don't see on here is that
I'm actually going to do a practical
exercise with you and show you how i use
this idea process to design my own short
story which i'll tell you where you can
read it later but i want to show you
that practice what I preach that this is
a process that i actually use and so
it's not something that i just created
to waste your time
it's a process that use it's a process
that works i averaged a short story
every week so I've been doing that for a
while
this process works actually create quite
a bit of material and quite a bit of
good material and finally at the end
I'm going to recap everything that we
covered so that you have a clear
understanding of what it is
give you my contact information if you
have any questions and and then we also
give you my website information in case
you want to visit that
so let's move on to the next slide we're
top of the three kinds of people that
need this course
now you may not fall into any of these
categories and that doesn't necessarily
mean you wouldn't take anything away
from this force but this course has
three specific audiences and and so I .
this force toward those three specific
finances
the first one is the force people that
have trouble coming up with ideas at all
I get people come to me all the time and
they say i'd love to be a writer I've
left to write short stories i love to
write novels and looked right blogs and
love to write more poetry whatever but I
just don't have any ideas I can't come
up with them and this course is really
like that
the second group is I get people come to
me all the time and they say I have
ideas have lots of ideas but i don't
exactly know how to turn them into
stories I don't have a process in place
to do that and I know that's frustrating
for them and the third group is kind of
a subset of the second group which is
people that have ideas and they can't
process them but they think they can
they've actually convinced themselves
that they're going to write the story
someday and these the procrastinators
I'm not judging anyone I used to be like
this -
but this this course is for
procrastinators to teach you a good
process to take that good intention of
writing a story and turn it into action
the action of actually writing a story
so let's go to the next slide which is
what this course is not
I don't want you to think that I'm going
to spend a lot of time talking about the
stent the standard English rules grammar
spelling
exceptions are exceptions to exceptions
rules writing styles word choices or
anything like that
that's not what this course is I'm not
saying that that's not important
I think you should consult books I think
you should consult people that know
about these things but this is not what
this course covers
um if you have if you struggle with any
kind of grammar spelling or standard
English rules
what I would suggest is have someone
read your story and edit for you
you may even have to pay them a little
bit or you may find someone that will do
it for free and i even have people do
that sometimes just to give it a second
set of eyes on my stories
I don't always do it but this course is
not going to cover anything like that so
I would encourage you if this is what
you're looking forward to continue on
doing searches
there's a lot of good information out
there about this with that said let's go
on to the course goals which is the next
slide and i have two goals in developing
this course to things that like you to
be able to take away from the course of
the courses is called how to
effortlessly write the perfect short
story in an hour or hopefully less and I
want you to be able to develop a short
story idea and less than one hour which
will take some practice
but in time you should be able to do it
and i also want you to be able to write
a short story in less than one hour and
so I want to make sure that you
distinguish between those two processes
you don't sit down and write a short
story and let that be get you actually
have to plan the short story and then
write short stories so those two goals
keep those in mind as we move through
this course material and let's go right
into the theory of writing and why it's
important which is the next slide and
perfectly honest you can't write good
fiction
if you don't understand the theory
behind short stories there are rules to
short stories like there are rules to
anything else and you know a lot of
people say you should break the rules i
agree with them agree with them but
there are some rules that you just
shouldn't write because they bring order
to a story they give you they give the
reader what the reader expects and we
want the reader to be satisfied when he
or she finishes reading your story and
not disappointed
the rules can help with that also I
believe you can't really be a successful
writer if you don't understand that
theory either
there are very few people that make a
lot of money writing anything if they
don't understand the theory that goes
into it whether their newspaper
journalists or fiction writers or
technical writers or anything else
so I want to make sure that you
understand why we're going over some of
this theory information when I know
you're probably going to get right into
the meat of how to write the story and I
want to make sure that we go over some
very important things and that one
important thing we're going to go over
in the next slide is the concept of
story ideas being appropriate or
inappropriate
now you're probably going to think that
I'm going to argue those stories should
be a story idea should be appropriate
but that's not the case
a story idea should not be to
appropriate and a story idea should not
be too inappropriate either when you
talk about really awesome short story of
balances between appropriate and
inappropriate and going to the next
slide we're gonna i'm going to give you
some examples of why that is I want to I
want to make sure we know very slowly
through this and hit this home
so think about this question we read it
to you
is it appropriate for a motorist to stop
at a stop sign and look to see if there
is traffic coming now you may be
scratching your head and say why would
you ask such a question it's obvious of
course it's appropriate there's no
question about it and you might think
that the questions even ridiculous
ask because no reasonable person would
think it was inappropriate to do this
hold that thought and let's go to the
next slide and consider this question
if another customer cuts in front of you
in line at Starbucks is it appropriate
to kill him
and of course on your probably chuckling
at that question right now I think we'll
of course it's not appropriate to kill
someone just because the 10 front of
starbucks yes that's an obnoxious thing
to do but no reasonable person would
kill them
so these two questions very different
very different answers ones yes ones no
one's appropriate ones inappropriate
they don't have a lot in common but they
do have one very important thing and
comment that is most people agree on
them
there's not a lot of debate about
whether or not these things are
appropriate or inappropriate and that's
important
I'm gonna tell you why moving to the
next slide
I'm going to ask you another question
well actually we can move to the next
slide and I tell you that we know the
answer this question so we don't we
debate them the biggest ridiculous to
even talk about them so that's what the
next slide is but if we go to the next
slide we're actually going to ask the
question that's have a slightly
different nature and I want you to bear
with me because it's a very potent and
and hot topic but just bear with me
because I'm not trying to get into this
topic
I'm just trying to make a point which
was very shortly
is it appropriate for a woman to have an
abortion as a means of birth control now
when we talk about this question
the world is is really divided on this
and nobody really agrees on it
some people say yes some say no if I
asked a million people they're probably
be a division and it might be 5050 or it
might be 64 here might be 70 30
I actually don't know what the public
opinion is on this at this point except
that it's constantly changing and it's
constantly being debated and so here we
have a great area we have topic that
kind of resides in the gray area of
appropriate and inappropriate
it's it's something that people don't
agree on something that the hotly debate
and that actually makes not necessarily
this subject but subjects like its
subjects that are hotly debated are
actually very good short story ideas
because people talk about them and when
the writer is successful it tends to be
because they talk about it because
people talk about the things that
they're writing if we go to the next
slide
I just want to emphasize that you want
to push the reader a little bit
one hit their hot buttons but you don't
want to push them too far
so you want to make sure that you're
staying in that gray area that
appropriate inappropriate you want to
provoke them a little bit but not so
much that they won't take you seriously
but you also don't want to be to
appropriate because the readers are
going to find you boring and so I you
may feel like this particular part of
the presentation is unnecessary it's
actually quite necessary when you're
thinking about story ideas you may
actually want to reject some of the ones
that you've come up with
if they fall into either of these two
extremes
so I want you to think of that very
carefully going to the next slide
I want to talk about some successful
writers
for those of you that are familiar with
the hunger games series by Suzanne
Collins or harry potter by JK Rowling
these authors are very famous their
presence and very popular literature and
then written literature that that has
been hotly debated the hunger games of
course is about a bunch of kids that get
together and fight to the death
harry potter is about a wizard young
wizard and these are issues that people
don't don't necessarily agree on some
people believe that magic is okay some
people think you should talk about it
most people don't think that children
should kill each other but we recognize
something of ourselves and that we know
that we we've been cruel to each other
in the past and so it
both of these concepts while very
different kind of linger around the
appropriate inappropriate gray area and
they sparked debate people took them
seriously and that's what contributed to
their success so that and just summing
up appropriate vs inappropriate keep in
mind that when you have short story
ideas you want to push your readers a
little bit but you don't want to push
them too far you want to strike that
balance
now i'm going to the next slide and
we're going to change gears a little bit
and this is more of a rant than anything
else but i think it's very important for
you to understand what I feel the role
of inspiration is a lot of my colleagues
will argue that inspiration is very
important
and i would argue that it's not so I ask
you another question that you'll
probably feels ridiculous
do you think your writing is better when
you're high on a drug or if you're
intoxicated with alcohol would you think
that sober people write better than any
braided people and the answer you
probably come up with is a mood-altering
drugs mind-altering drugs are probably
not a good idea for writing and neither
is inspiration inspiration is one of
those things that changes our state of
consciousness and actually impedes are
writing ability
so if we go to the next slide we're
going to talk about problems with
inspiration
a lot of people rely on it but it's
unreliable
you never know when it's going to come
to you you may wake up the lights and
I've got a great idea for a short story
and a lot of times it's not a great idea
for a short story
you're just really excited about it and
no one else would be if you rely on
short inspiration
you'll probably find it just doesn't
happen enough if you want to write a lot
you're going to have to do it sometimes
when you're not inspired and my personal
opinion you should never write when
you're inspired it actually hurts your
writing
so we're going to go to the next slide I
want to talk about how to overcome
problems with inspiration
you certainly don't need inspiration to
write and I hit this home because most
the time you're not inspired most the
time just feel normally but you still
have to write if you want to be a
successful writer become successful
writers write a lot you can generally
pretty easily write short stories and
get ideas without any kind of
inspiration and I would take this even a
step further
probably my colleagues would and say
that if you are inspired to write
it's better if you wait till that
inspiration passes before you write just
like you would wait until you were sober
to drive
it's that important inspiration is is a
killer to writing you need to write when
you're not in this manic mode and you're
right when you're actually thinking
clearly
inspiration is a form of mania and you
need to wait until you're thinking
clearly
so that's all I'm going to say by
inspiration obviously I can't tell you
what to do but this is my recommendation
keep your ideas on the gray area
appropriate and inappropriate and keep
your mind level and clear away from
inspiration
moving to the next slide i'm going to
talk about the three essential aspects
of a short story and these are just
things that these are going to come up a
lot during our presentation and I wanted
to go over them now
whenever you're writing or reading a
short story
you can start noticing these things one
is that character in a short story
whenever that character takes any action
or does anything they always have a
reason for doing it
that might seem obvious but a lot of
riders don't realize that if a woman
decides to get a divorce from her
husband after 20 years there has to be a
reason for that she can't just wake up
one day and say I want a divorce
there has to be a reason and it's your
job as a writer to show what that is
the second thing is you need to set up
whatever happens in a short story
nothing ever just happens so if if
there's a storm
you might want to mention someone slide
the weather if if your main character
when's a tennis match you might want to
make sure that your readers know that
she played tennis
things like that are very important and
a lot of amateur riders don't keep up
with that these are extreme examples but
you always need to keep in mind that
whenever something happens that that
event for that action needs to be set up
by something that we'll talk a lot more
about that we go further into the
presentation
the third of the third aspect of a short
story it's very important that the most
good short stories have this in common
is that the main character in the short
story goes through some major change
because of what happens in the short
story
it might be changing behavior it might
be a change in personality
it might be a change in opinion but
there's some sort of change something
that happens to the main character as a
result of the short story and and that's
actually what we consider the point of
the short story something happens to the
main character in the main character
changes so those are three elements the
three aspects of a short story
and with that said we're going to get
into ideas and this is where we're going
to spend a lot of our time
we're talking about what exactly is an
idea
now the first bullet point on this
screen that I just changed you
is that an idea is not a simple concept
and that's a little bit misleading
because there are actually ideas that
are very simple concepts in fact most
ideas start out as simple concepts as we
move through the idea process that i'm
going to go over in a few minutes you'll
find that ideas become much less simple
as they move through that process but
finished idea is certainly not a simple
concept
they finished idea is actually a highly
developed blueprint for writing a short
story just like an architect would not
build a building without a blueprint and
authors should not write a short story
without having fully developed an idea
and planned out the short story an idea
covers all the bases in a short story
answer is all the unanswered questions
and even has the ending of the story and
a lot of riders believe that's they're
not supposed to know the ending of the
story into the start writing it
that's not the case you need to know the
ending up your story exactly how it's
going to end before you ever start
writing and finally I'm gonna tell you
that idea has a lifespan just like a
human being ever going to go to the next
slide i'm going to go over that life
span with you
the four stages of the idea process or
just like four stages in the human life
cycle an idea starts out in its infancy
stage moves through childhood
after that it goes into adolescence and
then it moves into adulthood so we can
quickly go to the next slide and start
talking about each stage of these each
stage for these ideas
Stage one is infancy and an idea in its
infancy is basically is pretty much
those basic concept of a story
it can involve a person work involved
with the an event and sometimes it
involves both person an event but not
very often so i can give you some very
simple examples of some very simple
ideas and their infancy
you might say you i would like to write
a story about a u.s. senator I'd like to
write a story about some event that
happened the 911 attacks or whatever
I run into a lot of people who are at
this stage in their their idea process
for example a lot of people i meet might
have gone through a very stressful
traumatic or emotional event they might
have got a divorce or they might have
have them remember that had cancer some
some very terrible event like that and
what I find is that when they say i'd
like to write a story about a woman
getting a divorce
I'd like to write a story about a man
who got cancer that's an idea in its
infancy
there's nothing wrong with those ideas
the fact is they need to be developed
through the entire idea process and not
just let in their infancy
if left in their infancy the short story
will probably never materialized
if we move on to the next slide I'm
going to tell you how to move an idea of
infancy into its childhood and you do
this by introducing a problem and you
might say well if a woman is being a
divorce or man has cancer that is the
problem
well it could be but we might want to do
something more than that so let's let's
explore the childhood aspect of ideas
and whether the next slide to do that
an idea and its childhood it's just like
once it ends in its infancy
except we've already added a problem so
I already said that
and the question you always ask is
what's wrong
what exactly is wrong now you don't have
to solve the problem this point you
don't even have to want to solve the
problem this point and the main
character doesn't even necessarily have
to need to solve the problem at this
point the main character may be
perfectly happy with this problem but it
stage two in the idea process we have
simply taken an idea and its infancy and
added a problem and that's how it works
now if we move to the next slide i can
give you an example of an idea and its
childhood and we said in in the idea and
its infancy that a u.s. senator could be
we can say well I'm a rise to worry
about a u.s. senator and that could be
idea in its infancy but if we've had a
problem inside well this US senator has
a drug addiction that he's trying to
hide
that's a simple example of an idea in
stage 2 an idea and its childhood
and like I said an idea its childhood
usually involves a problem that the main
character is not particularly motivated
to solve at this particular time of the
idea process the u.s. senator that has
the drug addiction is not necessarily
trying to stop using drugs
he may not even feel it as a problem and
that leads us to how exactly doing
movements and idea out of the childhood
stage and into the adolescent stage and
the way you do that is you introduce a
reason to take action on the problem
so let's go to the next slide and will
you can see in the first bullet that
idea in its adolescence is is basically
an idea in its infancy with a problem
and in addition to the to the person or
event and the problem
there's a reason to take action on that
problem
the question becomes why does the main
character care about the problem
what exactly happened that the main
character all of a sudden cured about
the problem we go on to the next slide
we see an example of an idea and it's
adolescence we're going to use the u.s.
senator example we're going to say the
u.s. senator has a drug problem has been
hiding it for years but all of a sudden
he gets caught by one of his colleagues
and his colleague decides to blackmail
him
now the u.s. senator sees his problem
and he has motivation to try to stop it
or solve it
take action on it or do something with
it we go to the next slide and we're
still in stage three
but our problem now is that we have to
move the idea from adolescence into
adulthood and in order to do that you
have to introduce two factors
first we have to decide what action the
main character is going to take based on
his reason for addressing the problem
so we see that the u.s. senator has been
confronted on his drug addiction and is
being blackmailed
we have to decide what exactly is this
what you're going to do about it
the second thing you have to do to move
an idea from its adolescent stage into
adulthood is you have to fill in gaps
and answer any unanswered questions and
this involves we talked about earlier
which is setting up the events of the
story in this case you may have to think
backwards a little bit and we'll we'll
get into that further as I am as i show
you how i went through this very process
with a short story that I wrote myself
but for now we're going to go to the
next slide and we're going to say
of course we define an idea and it's
adulthood as a person or event with a
problem that a reason to confront it and
also has the action that the main
character going to take to try to deal
with the problem in some way
sometimes that action is nothing at all
sometimes the actions of changing
thought processes or change the opinion
better
there has to be something that happens
and like we said it also answers the
questions that we don't have the answers
to get bills and gaps we might have to
go back for example and set up but one
question you might have for example is
if the u.s. senator has been using drugs
for years why is he just now being
caught
well it's your job as the author to
answer that question and you may have to
answer that
before the center actually gets hot and
maybe he got locked in the bathroom one
day and just couldn't wait to store his
cocaine or whatever and so he sneaked
into the closet and then another set of
her walk in
I'm just kind of making that up on the
fly but I'm this is going to be your
responsibility to answer that question
as so that your readers aren't lost
going to the next slide
I've gotten you got you a simple example
of idea and it's adulthood and we set
the u.s. senator has a drug problem is
being blackmailed by a colleague
so the action the senator can take just
as a theoretical here and this is not a
story I've written by the way that's not
what i plan to write this is just for
this training session but also the
senator desires to hire an assassin to
kill his colleague I guess to prevent
them from being blackmailed
then we're going to say the assassin
gets caught and turns in the senator and
as an interesting twist of irony which i
think is very important and and short
stories and works of fiction of any kind
is that the senator then goes to jail
and has a job training dogs to detect
drugs since I i I've heard that in
prisons
sometimes the prisoners trained dogs to
do various things
I don't know if they train them to to
detect drugs sense but it's possible for
the sake of this training this is what
I'm saying
just to show you kind of how ironic
ending could occur we move to the next
slide in sight
you know this is a very simple example
it should be more complex than this
and as you get more experience with
writing you'll find that it will be more
complex than this but I'm actually going
to go through a real exercise together
with you
let's demonstrate how to move through
this process and we're going to do that
right now
and as we do that right now we're going
to go to the
next slide which talks about a real
example of the idea process so i want to
set this up for you first want to say
that life cycle write the story I was
not inspired to write it
I just decided I need to write a story
and so I said it's time to write a story
and i'm going to write one and I didn't
know it was going to be about
I had no idea what is going to be about
when I sat down to write the story and
that's kind of the part of the purpose
of this training is to teach you how to
do just that to write fiction when you
don't have an idea and we got inspired
to be able to come up with an idea and
develop it fully
so let's go to the next slide and we're
going to take this real example and it's
going to be idea stage 1 infancy and
just randomly
I pretty much decided that I was going
to write about a man was visiting a
therapist and so I don't know why I
thought of that or what I was thinking
over what had gone to my head but that's
when I decided to write about
so I need the main character was and so
I had an idea and stage one moving to
the next slide when I went to stage two
I had to give the man a problem because
that's my job as an author is to give
them a problem assign him that that
problem not even something that
necessarily has to deal with immediately
but just a sign of a problem
so I said
he didn't know why he was there and he
was nervous about another man who was
also in the waiting room with him and
the man with him wasn't saying that move
the next slide I'll show you that i
added another problem
the main character was actually dealing
with the death of his family and that
was hard for them but i want to point
out that the man wasn't necessarily
taking any action on that because for
our purposes in the story he had not yet
been provoked
nothing it happened to provoke them so
there was no interest there was no
action to be taken and that's why we're
still in stage two of the idea when we
go to the next slide and we're in stage
three
my job was the author was to provoke the
character to action
and so what i did was i I had the
characters
strike up a conversation and the midst
of that conversation my main character
might which we call a protagonist my
main character was offended by the man
because the other man had murdered his
own family
the way my main characters family have
been murdered
so you see as I was working through this
idea process i was trying to come up
with all this stuff to add to it and and
that's part of how I move through stage
three
we go to the next slide and we're still
on stage three and i want to tell you
that once this other man in the waiting
room talked about this issue that he
killed his family in the same way that
the main characters family was killed my
main character was provoked
he was provoked to action
he hasn't taken action yet we're not
even necessarily sure what that's going
to be but he was provoked to action
so that's why we're in stage three so I
want to move the stage for I want to
move the stage for which is the
adulthood of the the idea
I decided that a change in thought was
going to be the characters the main
characters action
so the man starting the main characters
started thinking about his family and
how hard they've been to deal with and
it kind of feeling remorse for a bad
relationship with them and the fact that
this other man had talked about killing
his own family costume to think about it
cause this main character to think about
his relationship with his family
we move to the next slide and we find
that the end of the story
this make here to find the realizes that
he was the murderer and he was actually
the to give you a little information
that's not in slides he was actually at
the at this therapist office
by order of the court although I didn't
say that it becomes clear the infamous
story that you get a psychiatric
evaluation
he actually blocked out the murder block
the murderer out of his mind and didn't
realize you done it but once he started
putting the pieces together his family
have been so mean to him he realized the
identity of this revelation that wasn't
added irony in the story and that an IRA
is a good riding technique I know I've
said that before and then I didn't
actually make that a direct part of this
presentation but i want to i want to hit
that home
whatever you can write with some irony
it's good to do that
now let's uh let's go to the next slide
and the name of the story that I wrote
is called the moment I first realized if
you go to my website which is the
fiction sci . com you can actually read
that story you just click on stories and
you can find the moment I first realized
and you can read the story that i just
described to you and based on the
process but i just described to you a
real process
that I went through and you might read
it you may like it you may hate it you
might say well this isn't a perfect
story you may have all kinds of opinions
about it but my point is i want to show
you how I went through this very same
idea process as a proven technique to
come with a short story pretty quickly
without having any idea what it's going
to be about when you sit down to write
it so that's the important thing that I
want you to one of the things that I
want you to pull away from this from
this training session when we go to the
next slide
I want you to think about think about
this you know think about idea
generation realize you don't have to
have an idea when you sit down at the
table but when you actually do sit down
you're probably going to have written or
maybe typed in a word processor several
pages
once you go through this idea process
you're working backwards you're putting
things in that you left out accidentally
your your your crafting the story before
it's written
I 24 sighs more time that it's very
important as a major part of the idea
development process to always plan to
end of your story even before you sit
down to write an actual story so I want
to make sure you understand you have a
written story story is not written you
just developed the idea you've planned
the whole story out
it's a very common myth their riders
don't plan their stories endings make
sense but that is not the case
they almost always do I've heard of some
even very famous writers that say they
don't and I'm not sure that's true or
not
and you never know when people are are
telling an accurate version of what's
going on
work for even aware of it but my
understanding is that authors generally
plant endings their stories
I've even heard rumors that JK Rowling
when she started the Harry Potter series
consisting of seven books that she kind
of had some idea of how all seven and
we're going to go before she started
writing the first one and I hope I'm not
speaking but i I've heard that as a
rumor i think it's very possible of a
possible
I think it's a very plausible
possibility when we go to the next slide
we're going to talk about how to
actually write the story now you've
taken your notes
you're going to constantly consult your
notes and as you can sort your notes I
want you to keep in mind that there are
theories
there are five very important elements
to a short story with almost without
exception as you start developing and
growing as a writer words you continue
growing as a writer and start playing
these elements you may find that they
mesh with each other a little more
they're not so clearly divided but for
now we'll talk about five theoretical
elements for story at which you can use
for practical use
and actually writing the story so let's
go to the next slide to talk about the
elements of the story it
it's actually a very good habit to
include all this information and you see
the five habits on this slide
you've got the introduction the initial
development what I call the provocation
the action and the resolution
so these are the five elements of short
story when you actually sit down to
write it
I'm gonna go over each of these so that
you'll know exactly what to do when it
comes to after you finish line through
the idea process when it's cum time when
it comes time actually for me to write
the story
let's go to the next slide we're going
to talk about the first elements of a
short story which are the introduction
of course us start with the introduction
and the introduction should introduce
the main character and a lot of times
you can get physical attributes for the
main character and a lot of a reader
will generally be interested in what the
main character looks like i don't think
i actually even did that in the story
that i described for you above i can't
remember but it is a good practice if
you can if you can tell what this will
characteristics of the person that are
that can be helpful
we go to the next slide will give you
some suggestions on a powerful
introduction
I would never just sit down and say
there was once a man sitting in a
therapist office
I'm gonna find some of the way to do
that i'm going to talk about the main
character as sitting edge here
maybe describe the office a little bit
how he wants to have a cigarette
how the woman that he's waiting for the
woman to call him back
he's worried about ways that talk to the
guy . and as I start describing all this
the reader will figure out that he's in
a therapist office and so I don't
actually have to say it
you want to remember that the reader
gets a lot of satisfaction out of
figuring some of this stuff out on his
own so i want to point that out to you
that you want to trust your reader it's
like a writer that really respect a lot
told me one time
always trust the reader don't assume the
readers stupid
and so you want to make sure that you're
giving the reader that experience of
being able to figure some things out on
his own
these are her on when we go into the
next slide were talking about the
initial development and there are two
goals in the initial development and one
of them is to describe the problem
you remember that when we were in the
childhood aspect of the idea we had to
assign a problem to the main character
the initial development element of the
story is where we actually start to
describe that problem and it's also in
the initial development that we set up
the future events in the story which is
actually something we did in the what we
call the adulthood stage of the idea
process where we started filling in the
gaps inside well since this event
occurring to make sure that such as such
occurs before hand so we go back and
scribble things in the margins I don't
forget to add this or something like
that
you wanna make sure that all of that
goes in the initial development moving
to the next slide continued with initial
of development
I'll tell you how I kind of went about
it in the story i wrote i made sure the
reader was aware of the pain
the main character felt at that the loss
of his family and how annoyed he was
that his family mystery team because
this actually helped it may make sense
to begin been killed him so you see how
I was setting things up in advance so
the reader would say haha that makes
sense but he wouldn't say what the hell
was that
because we don't want him to say what
the hell was that we want to haha that
makes sense
i'm surprised i'm i'm i'm delighted by
right surprised but not what the hell
and finally I wanted to convey a sense
of nervousness confusion in the the main
character so that was something that I
really wanted to do so in this case the
reader the main character has a problem
in moving to the next slide we find that
there's a provocation the provocation is
basically what causes the the main
character to take action on his problem
you remember in the adolescent stage of
the idea process we decided that the
reader need two reasons the main
character mediator reason to take action
on his problem and the adult stage
actually took that action but this is
the adolescent stage of the idea process
as we see it and the elements of a short
story the provocation
so I had to get the main character a
reason to act or at least think
differently about his situation and the
way I did that
like I said earlier was the main
character and this man and the way with
him had a conversation and the main
character was upset by that conversation
that conversation cause the main
character to think differently and react
differently and look at things
differently and once you see that
conversation of the story
you can start to see the read the main
character change a little bit in the
next slide we continue with a
provocation and i want to tell you that
again the purpose the provocation
section is to give the main character a
reason to deal with this problem or take
some action on it without that without
that element
there's no point the story things would
just continue as they as they would
and there will be no point even writing
a story so we always want to have some
sort of provocation convocation is the
reason the main character develops the
reason he or she takes action
it's very important to have some
something that provokes the main
character action which is what America
are aspects of a short story characters
never do anything without a reason
remember that so we want to make sure
that this provocation
we move to the next slide we go to the
action element of short stories the
fourth element in the short story as I
say the first bullet the action is just
act that the main character decides to
do something even if the make your size
- nothing
that's something in this case you have
not read the story obviously but the
main character yelled at the man who was
with him and actually
I started thinking about his life
differently we see a real change in the
main character as as we read the
provocation set
I'm sorry the what the provocation
section certainly and the action section
of the story
so we see what's going on
we see what he does we don't necessarily
know what the consequences of that are
or what the result is we even how
changes because that comes later
right now we just know that he's taking
some action and the action is to yell at
them and sit down and think about what's
going on a little bit more when we go to
the next slide we talk about the
resolution of the short story the
resolution shows the results of what the
main character did it shows what
happened based on the action in the case
of the story the image above the main
character finally realized finally
clicked in his mind that he was the one
that killed his family he was the one
that did it and it took all these events
the short story to bring him to that
conclusion and we see that he changed
he changed because he didn't realize who
he was
all of a sudden after the events the
short story realize to be wise and
that's another three aspects of the
short story we talked about earlier the
character had the main character has to
change and that is what occurred in this
story now and going to the next slide
we're going to talk about the importance
of these elements
obviously she never ignore any of them
but there is one specific element that
frequently gets ignored by amateur
riders and that's the initial
development and just to remind you the
initial development is where we describe
the problem in detail and set up future
events
storing a lot of times novice riders
will ignore that particular section of
the story so
make sure that you always set things up
that you describe the problem in detail
and that you don't ignore the initial
development section as an element of the
short story and again
just get me give you some some way to
see kind of how this is put in action
you can go to the fiction sci . com and
read that story it's called the moment I
first realized and you can see how this
how this came about how this came
together
now let's recap
we're coming toward the end of our
training session
I want to just let you know that you can
write a short story you can do it
quickly
I i know a lot of riders that spend a
lot of time writing short stories and
that's not necessary that you can
actually turned out pretty quickly
successful writers do that successful
writers write a lot and I want to make
sure that you are aware that that's
that's how you have to work if you're
going to be a successful writer
it's entirely possible to complete a
rough draft your story in an hour
there may be some exceptions to that if
you don't type very well i know not have
one types very well
also if you choose to write
exceptionally long short story maybe a
ten thousand word choice story which i
would consider long it may take you a
little longer than an hour to write it
but if you go through this process of
developing idea
the the manuscript largely writes itself
you take these five elements you go
through each of them and at the end you
can spend some time revising editing
whatever you need to do to polish the
short story but there's no reason
there's no frequent reason you shouldn't
be able to write the manuscript short
story in an hour
there's not much reason that you should
be able to plan a short story from the
idea process in an hour
now let's recap on the goals
you know I we talked about the three
types of people the horses for courses
that was helpful don't forget the
courses main goals are to develop a
short story to its completion an hour
and to write a short story in an hour
going to the next slide we talked about
appropriate is an inspiration i won't
get into that too much
obviously want to make sure your story
is slightly provocative but not too much
you know you should rely on inspiration
I hit that home quite well I hope you I
hope you understand that very clearly
and inspiration actually harms you more
than helps you
that's a common misconception that don't
let that happen to you if you are
inspired to ride you feel this whimsical
lust for writing
wait till that passes before you
continue
also in like the next I would talk about
the three-story apps aspects i put a
very abbreviated version of those here
characters need a reason to do
everything that they do you want to set
everything up before it happens we
talked about this a lot even after I
finish talking about the aspects of the
short story we they came up quite a bit
as you see they're important and also
the main character should change quite
profoundly because the events of the
story whether its opinion a behavior
that something like that there needs to
be an obvious change going to a recap on
the next slide about ideas
anything can be initial idea for a short
story let's start with a person or event
and work from that I went to the idea
process I won't do that again
but
it's very very important that you
develop the short story idea prior to
moving forward
actually writing the story I if you
don't get anything else out of this
training session i hope you get that
and on to the next slide we want to i
want to just emphasize that you when
you're doing when you're working with
idea and put it through the entire
process of idea development and make
sure your ideas fully developed and when
you're writing your story obviously you
want to consult your notes anything
you've written in the margins
anything you need to satisfy all the
requirements of the five elements
especially the initial development you
want to make sure you don't forget that
where you don't under estimate the
importance of that not just to give you
a quick recap on the five elements for
short story because this can be
confusing i know a lot of people
probably would memorize it on the first
time you start with introduction where
you put in the main character and we
believe some things the reader's
imagination finished developments where
you describe the problem and forest set
at any future events that you need to do
that you need to set up a provocation is
where the main character has a reason to
do something about the problem
it's nothing the action is what the main
character does about that problem
the resolution is how the character
changes and what the consequences of
that action were and we move further
into the conclusion which is actually
the wrap-up of this training
presentation which i'm very glad you
about through and i hope you about
something
great out of I just want to say follow
this process to write short stories you
can do that often
you don't need inspiration and it's it's
very easy to write short stories once
you put some practice into it
obviously you will improve with practice
you need to put some time into it
especially if you're new rider if you're
an advanced Rider a lot of this
information will come naturally to you
now that you've heard it
if you're a new rider don't give up and
just to let you know when you start
sending your short stories off they're
going to be rejected right and left it's
not because you're a bad writer
it's because people reject short stories
right and left
don't let that stop you just to keep
trying
you will get published eventually if you
keep trying
of course you can visit my website
fiction sitecom read my work I'd be
honored
when it's in love male hate mail
criticism compliments
please no death threats but I'm if you
want to read fiction site.com now you're
welcome to do so
I'd be happy to do that you're always
welcome to write me Andy at the fiction
site com
I'll get your email I i will respond as
soon as i can at this point I'm able to
respond to all my emails so I'm not like
world famous yet but I can be delighted
to hear from you i'll be happy to
respond and that concludes this training
session for so many questions feel free
to email me visit my website and that i
hope you got something right out of this
training presentation and eat signing
off
very nice dang