Okay, I have the idea, how do I make it into a story?

Question

I always come up with great ideas for stories, but I have so much trouble coming up with an entire plot (from beginning to end) and starting the story. What are some steps I can take to make writing my story easier? I just always get stuck.

Answer 1

If you have a premise, then you're going in the right direction. Now you need to flesh it out. You're correct, that is the hard part. The middle of the story takes more than half of the writing.

All stories are a quest. The basic structure of a quest includes:

1) Inciting incident
2) Progressive complications
3) Climax

One method to learn how to put these together is to see how movies do it by analyzing a film. Here is an article I wrote about it:
http://www.storyentertainment.com/article.asp?idCategory=30&idsub=157&id=2527&t=How+to+watch+movies+to+learn+how+to+tell+a+story

Also on that site are a lot of tutorials to understand how to create acts and scenes and how the characters are related.

Additionally, I think it is extremely important that you understand your story's theme early before you complete it (or before you write it, preferably). That is what will give your story meaning.

To mention a little about the quest to help you write your story, I'll try to explain the three points that I said are important:

1) Inciting Incident
Our lives are full of ups and downs. That's a constant rythem. But every so often something major and dramatic happens to us. For stories, we dramatize this in the inciting incident, whether the character is conscious of it or not.

The inciting incident is what tears open the world of your character and forces him or her to want to correct it by creating an object of desire and the character will then want to pursue that desire. This is the universal form of stories.

For example, consider the inciting incident of the movie (or book) "Misery' by Stephen King. The car accident in the beginning is what forces the characters to react in a major way and seek out an object of desire. This object then drives all your characters and it should often conflict. For Misery, the protagonist's object was to get back to his family and publisher so that he can publish his new book and start a new life. But the antagonist's desire was to keep the protagonist in her house

2) Progressive Complications
In nature we never exert more energy to accomplish a task than it's worth. When you try to open a door you first don't begin by trying to knock it down. Instead you first try to turn then doorknob. Then if that doesn't work, you jiggle it. Then you might push it hard. Then maybe a little harder with your shoulder. Then you might do this for a few times. If it still doesn't work and you absolutely need in you're going to kick it in. It would have been odd if you started doing that in the first place. Each time you tried something and it didn't work, this opened up a gap between your expectation and result. It then forces you to make a choice on how to close the gap and achieve your goal. In the choices he makes, man reveals his humanity. These gaps and choices make up the bulk of your story and each gap should make everything more difficult. This is where you get into scene formation but without writing an entire book, I'll point you to the tutorials on http://www.storyentertainment.com

3) Climax
Eventually, as the gaps open, there comes to a point where the story should not be able to go any further as the character is seeking the object of desire and must make a major choice to obtain the desire. This will affect change in the character as he or she obtains or does not obtain the desire. Although it was an explicit quest, consider the change that took place in Frodo as he sought to destroy the ring and finally did so.

Then at the end of the story the reader is able to sit back and reflect and think "yeah, life is like that!" because stories are a metaphor for life. Understanding your controlling idea will help you to see it.

This is really the first step in understanding how to write a story. Next is to understand the structure: 1) beat, 2) scene, 3) sequence, and 4) acts. In those you will be able to write your middle more efficiently but without the information above simply trying to do that would have sent you in circles. Again, I point you to the tutorials on http://www.storyentertainment.com to learn how to make those

Good luck!

Answer 2

Start with writing a short story. Try different methods, like plotting an outline of the story. You might consider taking a creative writing class.

I started writing short stories and after writing many many stories over the years, they come very naturally. Now I'm working on longer and longer stories and have finished one novel. Best of luck!

Answer 3

Give your characters personality.Also build them a background,not necessarily to add to the written story,but so that you can see these people in your head interacting like real people.Pick up on small things that you see everyday and always,always keep a pen and small pad on you.Write down every twist and turn that may even seem silly at the moment,
but may prove crucial later on.Besides,if you do not like it ,you can always erase.

Answer 4

Since that's a very basic plot it is okay. I mean, if that was all the story was about it woudn't be too good.