Creative Writing

Considerations When Writing a Short Story

Main characters

Gender, age, vocation, race, religion, living location(s), personality type, voice, dress, hair, habits

Secondary characters

Gender, age, vocation, race, religion, living location(s), personality type, voice, dress, hair, habits, relationship to main characters.

Point of View (POV)

Who is the narrator?  Does the point of view stay the same throughout?

Setting

Where does the story take place?

Are there multiple locations?

Features: rural, suburban, urban, seaside, architecture (house, apartment, etc.) flora/fauna, climate,

Plot

What happens:

How does the situation begin? Develop? End? Is there conflict?

Something historical (blast from the past), accidental, impending, etc.

Deus ex machina?

Surrounding events

What else is happening locally, nationally, globally; with other characters

Exposition

How do you relay necessary information? Through dialogue? Through memory? Dreams? Daydreams? Inner dialogue?

Tone

How can one set the mood through language.  How can one create a sense of joy? Dread? Tension? Relief? Anger? Frustration? Calm, surprising, traumatic

Word choice? Sentence length? Dialogue? Time? Space? Setting?

Resolution

How does it end? Do problems get solved? Are lessons learned? Does the ending remain unresolved/open?

Deus ex machina?

Remember:

You are full of stories

How can you use your own experiences, memories, dreams, conflicts in this story?

How can you relate information needed for the story, i.e. through characters, narrator, dreams, memories, etc.