The Only Guide You Need to Start Writing Your First Story.
Curious about how to start writing fiction? Read that.
Writing a fictional story it’s like a roller coaster, it’s cool but at the same time, your guts screaming and begging you to stop that torture! I think I overdo with that roller coaster and guts stuff…
Let’s try the other way.
Writing helps us to express our thoughts, ideas, and feelings. It helps us investigate different social themes, concepts, and behavior. It can bring joy, frustration, happiness, or tears of sadness ( if you make from your character the arrow pad ). It’s the whole spectrum of emotions on a paper. Yeah, it’s a roller coaster after all.
So, you wanna try to write your first story and want to know what expect from it? Hop in, buckle up, and hold on to something, it will be a hell of a ride!
Your first-ever story
Why write your first fiction story?
Do you have that idea that sticks around with you for some time? That idea like a freaking mosquito that flies around your ear at night?!
It can be vague, like a silhouette in the mist. It was something about a halfling that found a ring in a cave, and now he playing riddle game with a rather strange creature. Oh, no no no, it was about the boy with a scar living under the stairs, he has a gift, about which he doesn’t know…yet.
Do you need any other reasons besides the idea?! Go and write already!
Actually, wait a minute and read that blog till the end, to have a better idea about what to do with your idea.
What to write for your first try?
Do not write a novel. Just don’t!
Still wanna write a novel? Look, I understand your feeling about that. You probably want to write a story about epic events or something like that. I was there. Heck, I still have a desire to write the epic story! I will do it! You will do it! But later.
I will explain.
My first ever written fictional pieces were two small chapters of fan-fiction novel. Yes, I started my writing path with the idea of a fan-fiction novel.
I got through the proper character creation of two main protagonists and had a bunch of ideas for side characters. I get through setting development, and I planned many plot points. I start to write a story.
Now, my manuscript is somewhere on my hard drive. Many ideas that I have for that story, was salvaged, transformed, and used in another long-shot project ( Epic one, that I wanna write soon).
Did you notice? I never finish the story. I just decided that is to much work for that idea, for the first attempt.
“Okay, if not a novel, what should I write instead.” I suppose you think so?
It’s a short story.
Short stories are perfect for writers that only start their path. They are surprise surprise, short.
There are several types of short stories that mostly differ by a length of it.
Here a little guideline.
Under 1000 words, it’s usually flash fiction, those stories are compact, and each word drives the plot forward, like a lot. It is the most difficult type of short story to write ( by my opinion ), but they super fun to work on.
Somewhere between 1000 and 5000 words, is a generic length short story. This type of stories easier to write, and most of the short story competitions aim for that word count.
Long short stories are between 5000 and 10000 words count, they are handy if your idea not too big for becoming a novella or a novel, have 2–3 places to describe, and 2–3 characters. In a long short story, you can probably fit a small adventure or a little romance story, perhaps, or something like that.
If you interested more in the length of different types of stories, check that article.
But Short stories good not only because of their length.
It’s fewer things to consider. Fewer characters, sometimes you need only one or maybe two. It’s fewer scenes to write. It can be one scene in one location in a flash fiction story. The big scene in the usual short story, or two-three smaller ones in a few different places. The plot is less complex, and the story is more compact. You get the idea.
Write short stories is fun! You don’t need a lot of preparation to write a story. Have an idea? It’s enough. You can start to write it immediately.
It’s good because you can write a story as a discovery writer, a.k.a pansters ( it’s when you write a story without planning, do active problem solving, and watch where the story will lead you. ). I think you at least should try to write that way, cause I on my own experience find out, that planning short stories is counterproductive in my case. I just spend way to much time on preparation work and usually don’t even write manuscript after all.
Opportunity to write a smaller scale story with only just an idea aren’t all cool stuff about short stories.
They are small, but they use the same rules as 100k words long novels. Even flash fiction play the same rules. They all have the same structure only difference is a scale and how impactful it should be each word and sentence. That will make the experience of writing big stories much easier if you will stick with a hobby of writing fiction.
Write a short story as your first attempt in fiction gave not only that sweet taste of writing a story. You will have so important feeling on finishing something, believe me, it’s so much important ( I stepped on so many rakes of unfinished huge projects, that I can embarrassedly call myself expert at that…urgh ).
Also, you will start honing your craft from day one. And lastly, you can actually finish the story in like two days or two weeks with your pace and be sure that you will finish it and will enjoy the process.
My suggestion for you is to aim between 1000 and 5000 words, have two characters and one to three scenes, for the first experience is more than enough. Still, you can ignore it and can be perfectly fine. I just suggest a direction, for start.
Now you know what exactly you should write. Let’s find out how to do it.
How to start writing a story.
First, kick out any creature from your room, yes, even a poltergeist from a corner that your cat stares all the time ( if you have a dog instead of a cat, I disappointed with you!).
Distraction is a nasty creature!
Distraction kills your creativity, so you should smash a distraction first. Then take a cup of tea or other preferred drinks that not is coffee. After that, you are ready, mostly. Just a couple things to consider before you will pour out words on the blank page.
Be sure that your story can fit in word count mentioned above. If that story about nine people trying to get the ring to a volcano that happens to be on the other side of the continent, it probably a novel idea. So, you should find another one thing to write about, and that one little devil in your head can wait for later. Gladly, find ideas for fiction isn’t so hard. You either came up with them by brainstorming or go to the Reedsy prompts page and find one that suits for ya.
Next is a genre. It’s straight forward: mystery, fantasy, sci-fi, romance, etc. The idea of the story by itself gave a huge hint in which genre it will be written. If your story has a spaceship, it’s a gigantic hint for the sci-fi genre.
The next one is the story mood. You know, the mood is that quite bothering thing that jumps around all the time like a squirrel on caffeine! In short stories, this squirrel should drink sedatives instead.
Your mood shouldn’t jump around because short stories usually don’t have room to properly set up different emotions. So they have a single mood ( a.k.a key emotion ) across the entire story. By building up that single emotion, you will have a highly impactful culmination of the plot. You concentrate all your effort to build that emotion and don’t spread attention.
You know what? The mood of your story shouldn’t jump around even in the novel, at least on the scene level. The transition from one to another? Probably yeah, for example from sad to happy from, cheerful to grim one. All mood changes should be justified though.
Be aware that that key emotion advice is the only guideline, cause it’s still okay to change a mood slightly or change it completely when the story resolves. It’s all depends on your story. For the first time, just stick to one emotion if it is possible.
Next, you need to decide about whom you will write. It’s one person or a couple of them. Think about whom those characters can be, what they do at the start of the story, what goal they wanna achieve at the end of the story ( or forced to achieve ).
Do not bother with full-fledged psychology portraits, relationships with the entire family, or deep background before the story occurs. Instead, try to focus on writing and showing their personality. Do it while writing the story, explore them.
Their voice, appearance, quirks, personality traits. All these things will come up quite easily while you write a manuscript, or you will hit the wall by your head. Anyway, eventually, you will find your characters by playing around. For the first time, it is the most fun. Leave planning for the future.
The last thing to know before they start is a place or places that story will occur. But for the start of the story, you should know only when it begins. It can be a room of a character or magickal ship that flies at the sky because of magick. Whatever your soul is wanting. The entire story can occur in one single room.
When you will make all those small decisions, it would be much easier to begin to write your story.
You don’t overload yourself with info about how many keys hanged on the protagonist wall, or on which lover cheek she or he has a mole. Still, you have the idea who your character is, where your character, in which genre you write, and the emotion of the story.
Piece of advice when your start to write a story try in the first few sentences show what characters do, show where is your character by describing what they feel, and show a specific detail for your genre.
Now you have enough to write your first draft, but what after that?
You have written a story, what’s next?
“If you don’t get physically ill seeing your first rough cut, something is wrong.” — Martin Scorsese.
Let’s rephrase that magnificent piece of wisdom.
“If you don’t get physically ill reading your first rough draft, something is wrong.” — me (it’s not plagiarism. It’s refactoring of ideas…yeah.)
I will say it, it’s better now, then later.
Your first story will be horrible, probably, if not, then I’m jealous.
Your first-ever draft will force Lovecraft’s indescribable monsters to doubt their frightfulness.
It’s okay.
When Cthulhu saw my first story it just set alarm for a couple of thousand years further, just to be sure that I wouldn’t be around when it will wake up. Poor creature.
I do not know that you will show your story to someone or not, or even publish it somewhere. But let’s talk about making your story better when you finish it, for the first time.
It’s Editing time!
In the beginning, you probably need to read your story first. It would be good if you leave notes for yourself while reading. I do it right in the manuscript in square brackets that working well for me.
When you read your manuscript, especially in loud, you often will spot weak points from the get-go. It’s because we watch, listen, read, or write stories our entire lives. When you read someone’s story, I assume that you can spot the weak point and say that you like or dislike it. Same with your story.
When you finish read and making notes, editing starts.
For your first story, don’t bother with writing style rules and how to write proper dialogues or other styling stuff. Instead, look at your notes and change things that didn’t work out. Change the plot, play around with characters’ behavior, add more explosions! Everything better with explosions…and magick!
Sorry, I was carried away.
It’s kinda all about editing, you just change things that didn’t work out and you add more explosions and magick ( if your story doesn’t fantasy or mix genre with fantasy don’t add magick, but explosions appreciated all the time).
It’s your first story, so enjoy messing up with it a little bit longer. Butchering your own creation is a disgustingly fun activity! While doing it you will explore a different point of view on your plot and probably rewrite the entire manuscript paragraph by paragraph. But who cares if your story would become better!
If you will dive deeper into writing, you probably will spend a lot of time rewriting and editing your drafts. For now, do not overthink. It’s tempting to try to make your story perfect.
First, you can’t do that no one can, especially you cause it’s your first try. Second, perfect stories are boring. So, just relax, change things that make you feel ill about your story.
Feelings and expectations from your first story.
You have goosebumps, and you have goosebumps, everyone has goosebumps when they finish writing their first story. I definitely have them for the first time. I was so excited that I’m started to dance. Glad that no one captured that on video…oh gosh.
But if you don’t have them, well, I guess you really chill person.
Anyway, it’s time to reflect on the feelings that you experienced while you write a story. Did you feel joy while doing it, you were happy with that activity? At least curiosity about where it can lead you? If the answer is yes. Congratulations, you discover a cool hobby.
If you didn’t felt thrilled by creating a story after finishing it, don’t get upset. Maybe it does not type a hobby that you wanted after all. It’s okay, we all have our quirks and preferences and things that we enjoy.
But if you had those goosebumps when you finished your first fiction story and read it.
Well, re-read the last paragraph of the introduction, put your ass on a chair, open text editor, and write, write, write…and also learn a lot of stuff to become better at the craft.
Good luck to ya!
P.S.
Fun fact. That blog contains 2589 words.
So, can it be called a non-fictional short story about how to write fictional short stories? 🤔
