Why should you write a story? For how long would you depend on others to keep you entertained? we write stories not because we need to, but because we want to. It can keep you entertained for years, and entertained for something you have created on your own! what's more fun than that!
For real, there is no particular algorithm to write a story. We write when we want to when we have that urge to express. But still, here are a few steps that might be useful at beginning of the process.
1. Five Elements of a Story: Theme, Conflict, Plot, Characters, and Setting. Jot them down on a notebook in the same serial order as I have mentioned. Here our mission would be to figure out all of these elements one by one and give them some meaning.
2. Theme: Finding a theme isn't so difficult. Look around yourself, today we have a lot of themes available for us. Mental health, School drama, Love issues, family problems, Imposters, etc. It can be any word that stricks into your mind. Most things in story writing can be figured out by mere observations we make in daily life. So, if you are a good observer of people, things, and ideas, you are good to go, but if not, then start doing the exercise of making observations daily. This theme which you had chosen would be our central idea of our story and this should be pasted in your head in the whole duration of writing.
3. Conflict: Our theme brings home an idea of conflict. Every story has a good guy and a bad guy in it who keep on fighting till the end. The same should be the case of your story. It should have a type of person against your agenda, and a person fighting for it. It's not always necessary that conflict would be between two people only, it can be the whole society against a man, it can be a supernatural thing, it can be a ghost scaring a lonely kid in a house. Conflict means the opposites we have in our story as a whole. And the center of this conflict would be our theme or maybe something which in turn highlights our theme properly. So, you can use your own creativity to build up a conflict.
4. Plot: Now we begin with the boss. This is the actual thing we need to pen down. Now, our plot would have a particular timeline. Like the flow of rivers, we need to make our story flow with the events happening in it. For writing a plot, divide it into two, three, or four sections which would represent a particular portion of our story. For example in a three-parted story, can have- Building of characters and rise of conflict, the actual conflict taking place, and the end of the conflict or just an ending.
Weaving a plot can lead you to various other endings, plot lines, decisions, and directions. The best part is that it is your world and you can make or break the rules in it. So, if you think that a particular plot is not showing a satisfying ending or not representing your theme correctly you can backtrack from it to a point and go with some other solution. Like we use to play a game of maze in the newspaper so we used to find a correct path for winning when we couldn't win we used to go back to a certain point and find a new solution. You can do the same in your story. So, backtrack when you think a decision is wrong.
Keep it close to the real world and make it look practical. You are not writing a Bollywood script so no worries. Keep surprises in your story, and if you have surprises or sudden shocks for the reader, hide them properly leaving no clue for the reader to figure it out beforehand. That's called proper weaving, when your reader begins to read the plot for the second time after the big reveal, the reader learns that all the time plot was weaved properly. For reference, I suggest you reading House of the lost on my same blog website, it contains a good example of plot weaving and surprises.
5. Characters: Now many people would think that this element should be kept before the plot. That is true but when you create a plot, you automatically will create characters with some suitable behavior. Every character in your story would have a hierarchy based on their importance for the plot. And this importance would decide their timing in the story. A side character can remain till the time that character is needed and the main focus should be on the lead characters. Remember that all the characters, irrespective of their importance must be given a particular trait. You can take examples from real-life people, characters in movies, or even build something unique from your own side. This element will decide that does your reader likes it or not. Your characters should not be 'Boring' and they should fit in the storyline.
6. Setting: After all the work is done, now decide what tone will your story have. For example, if you write a psychological thriller in a beautiful garden in spring, it would be a blunder. But if you write the same story in an uncleaned house with dark clouds covering the sky, wind blowing, emptiness, and a broken window, it would make an impact on your reader to a great extent. So, choose your locations wisely and describe them as you imagine them. I highly recommend you reading Captain Freak on this blog website and observe the locations and scenes as described in it and how do they manipulate the situations in the plot accordingly. For example in the same story, our lead character begins his journey in a gloomy setting in a broken house filled with trauma, and in scenes where he is finding joy the setting is being slightly changed to him buying flowers from a flower shop. And later on, gets betrayed by his love, and the setting changes again by him falling off the stairs.
7. Ending of the story: Now this part is included in the plot itself. But I wanted to discuss it specially. Many authors will advise that end of your story should satisfy the reader. And in search of a satisfactory end, the whole story gets spoiled and the reader forgets it as soon as he finishes. But sometimes a satisfactory ending will be a good option or the only option. My opinion here is just that the ending of the story can be anything. There is no compulsion for it to have a satisfactory end. A hero can lose, or the story can be left on a cliffhanger, or the ending can be left on the creativity of the reader. So, keep a note that you give your reader exactly the same aura you carry for the story or somewhat, what you want to make them feel about the theme.
In conclusion, do write a story someday, it's not a big deal to write a story. As a beginner, you might follow these steps but when you grow in that, you won't be looking back here again, and that's my promise. I hope that this article was informative for you.
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