what is a creative writing plot

• Literary Terms
• Definition & Examples
• When & How to Write a Plot

I. What is Plot?

In a narrative or creative writing, a plot is the sequence of events that make up a story, whether it’s told, written, filmed, or sung. The plot is the story, and more specifically, how the story develops, unfolds, and moves in time. Plots are typically made up of five main elements:

1. Exposition: At the beginning of the story, characters , setting, and the main conflict are typically introduced.

2. Rising Action: The main character is in crisis and events leading up to facing the conflict begin to unfold. The story becomes complicated.

3. Climax: At the peak of the story, a major event occurs in which the main character faces a major enemy, fear, challenge, or other source of conflict. The most action, drama, change, and excitement occurs here.

4. Falling Action: The story begins to slow down and work towards its end, tying up loose ends.

5. Resolution/ Denoument: Also known as the denouement, the resolution is like a concluding paragraph that resolves any remaining issues and ends the story.

Plots, also known as storylines, include the most significant events of the story and how the characters and their problems change over time.

II. Examples of Plot

Here are a few very short stories with sample plots:

Kaitlin wants to buy a puppy. She goes to the pound and begins looking through the cages for her future pet. At the end of the hallway, she sees a small, sweet brown dog with a white spot on its nose. At that instant, she knows she wants to adopt him. After he receives shots and a medical check, she and the dog, Berkley, go home together.

In this example, the exposition introduces us to Kaitlin and her conflict. She wants a puppy but does not have one. The rising action occurs as she enters the pound and begins looking. The climax is when she sees the dog of her dreams and decides to adopt him. The falling action consists of a quick medical check before the resolution, or ending, when Kaitlin and Berkley happily head home.

Scott wants to be on the football team, but he’s worried he won’t make the team. He spends weeks working out as hard as possible, preparing for try outs. At try outs, he amazes coaches with his skill as a quarterback. They ask him to be their starting quarterback that year and give him a jersey. Scott leaves the field, ecstatic!

The exposition introduces Scott and his conflict: he wants to be on the team but he doubts his ability to make it. The rising action consists of his training and tryout; the climax occurs when the coaches tell him he’s been chosen to be quarterback. The falling action is when Scott takes a jersey and the resolution is him leaving the try-outs as a new, happy quarterback.

Each of these stories has

• an exposition as characters and conflicts are introduced
• a rising action which brings the character to the climax as conflicts are developed and faced, and
• a falling action and resolution as the story concludes.

III. Types of Plot

There are many types of plots in the world! But, realistically, most of them fit some pattern that we can see in more than one story. Here are some classic plots that can be seen in numerous stories all over the world and throughout history.

a. Overcoming the Monster

The protagonist must defeat a monster or force in order to save some people—usually everybody! Most often, the protagonist is forced into this conflict, and comes out of it as a hero, or even a king. This is one version of the world’s most universal and compelling plot—the ‘monomyth’ described by the great thinker Joseph Campbell.

  Examples:

Beowulf, Harry Potter, and Star Wars.

b. Rags to Riches:

This story can begin with the protagonist being poor or rich, but at some point, the protagonist will have everything, lose everything, and then gain it all back by the end of the story, after experiencing great personal growth.

The Count of Monte Cristo, Cinderella, and Jane Eyre.

c. The Quest:

The protagonist embarks on a quest involving travel and dangerous adventures in order to find treasure or solve a huge problem. Usually, the protagonist is forced to begin the quest but makes friends that help face the many tests and obstacles along the way. This is also a version of Campbell’s monomyth.

The Iliad, The Lord of the Rings, and Eragon

d. Voyage and Return:

The protagonist goes on a journey to a strange or unknown place, facing danger and adventures along the way, returning home with experience and understanding. This is also a version of the monomyth.

Alice in Wonderland, The Chronicles of Narnia, and The Wizard of Oz

A happy and fun character finds a happy ending after triumphing over difficulties and adversities.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Fantastic Mr. Fox, Home Alone

f. Tragedy:

The protagonist experiences a conflict which leads to very bad ending, typically death.

Romeo and Juliet, The Picture of Dorian Gray, and Macbeth

g. Rebirth:

The protagonist is a villain who becomes a good person through the experience of the story’s conflict.

The Secret Garden, A Christmas Carol, The Grinch

As these seven examples show, many stories follow a common pattern. In fact, according to many thinkers, such as the great novelist Kurt Vonnegut, and Joseph Campbell, there are only a few basic patterns, which are mixed and combined to form all stories.

IV. The Importance of Using Plot

The plot is what makes a story a  story. It gives the story character development, suspense, energy, and emotional release (also known as ‘catharsis’). It allows an author to develop themes and most importantly, conflict that makes a story emotionally engaging; everybody knows how hard it is to stop watching a movie before the conflict is resolved.

V. Examples of Plot in Literature

Plots can be found in all kinds of fiction. Here are a few examples.

The Razor’s Edge by Somerset Maugham

In The Razor’s Edge, Larry Darrell returns from World War I disillusioned. His fiancée, friends, and family urge him to find work, but he does not want to. He embarks on a voyage through Europe and Asia seeking higher truth. Finally, in Asia, he finds a more meaningful way of life.

In this novel, the plot follows the protagonist Larry as he seeks meaningful experiences. The story begins with the exposition of a disillusioned young man who does not want to work. The rising action occurs as he travels seeking an education. The story climaxes when he becomes a man perfectly at peace in meditation.

The Road not Taken’ by Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel both And be one traveler, long I stood And looked down one as far as I could … Then took the other, as just as fair, And having perhaps the better claim … And both that morning equally lay In leaves no step had trodden black. … I shall be telling this with a sigh Somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I, I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.

Robert Frost’s famous poem “The Road Not Taken,” has a very clear plot: The exposition occurs when a man stands at the fork of two roads, his conflict being which road to take. The climax occurs when he chooses the unique path. The resolution announces that “that has made all the difference,” meaning the man has made a significant and meaningful decision.

VI. Examples of Plot in Pop Culture

Plots can also be found in television shows, movies, thoughtful storytelling advertisements, and song lyrics. Below are a few examples of plot in pop culture.

“Love Story” (excerpts) by Taylor Swift:

I’m standing there on a balcony in summer air. See the lights, see the party, the ball gowns. See you make your way through the crowd And say, “Hello, ” Little did I know… That you were Romeo, you were throwing pebbles, And my daddy said, “Stay away from Juliet” And I was crying on the staircase Begging you, “Please don’t go”   So I sneak out to the garden to see you. We keep quiet ’cause we’re dead if they knew So close your eyes… escape this town for a little while. . . . He knelts to the ground and pulled out a ring and said…   “Marry me, Juliet, you’ll never have to be alone. I love you, and that’s all I really know. I talked to your dad – go pick out a white dress It’s a love story, baby, just say, ‘Yes.'”

These excerpts reveal the plot of this song: the exposition occurs when we see two characters: a young woman and young man falling in love. The rising action occurs as the father forbids her from seeing the man and they continue see one another in secret. Finally, the climax occurs when the young man asks her to marry him and the two agree to make their love story come true.

Minions have a goal to serve the most despicable master. Their rising action is their search for the best leader, the conflict being that they cannot keep one. Movie trailers encourage viewers to see the movie by showing the conflict but not the climax or resolution.

VII. Related Terms

Many people use outlines which to create complex plots, or arguments in formal essays . In a story, an outline is a list of the scenes in the plot with brief descriptions. Like the skeleton is to the body, an outline is the framework upon which the rest of the story is built when it is written. In essays, outlines are used to help organize ideas into strong arguments and paragraphs that connect to each other in sensible ways.

The climax is considered the most important element of the plot. It contains the highest point of tension, drama, and change. The climax is when the conflict is finally faced and overcome. Without a climax, a plot does not exist.

For example, consider this simple plot:

The good army is about to face the evil army in a terrible battle. During this battle, the good army prevails and wins the war at last. After the war has ended, the two sides make piece and begin rebuilding the countryside which was ruined by the years-long war.

The climax occurred when the good army defeated the bad army. Without this climax, the story would simply be a never-ending war between a good army and bad army, with no happy or sad ending in sight. Here, the climax is absolutely necessary for a meaningful story with a clear ending.

List of Terms

• Alliteration
• Amplification
• Anachronism
• Anthropomorphism
• Antonomasia
• APA Citation
• Aposiopesis
• Autobiography
• Bildungsroman
• Characterization
• Circumlocution
• Cliffhanger
• Comic Relief
• Connotation
• Deus ex machina
• Deuteragonist
• Doppelganger
• Double Entendre
• Dramatic irony
• Equivocation
• Extended Metaphor
• Figures of Speech
• Flash-forward
• Foreshadowing
• Intertextuality
• Juxtaposition
• Literary Device
• Malapropism
• Onomatopoeia
• Parallelism
• Pathetic Fallacy
• Personification
• Point of View
• Polysyndeton
• Protagonist
• Red Herring
• Rhetorical Device
• Rhetorical Question
• Science Fiction
• Self-Fulfilling Prophecy
• Synesthesia
• Turning Point
• Understatement
• Urban Legend
• Verisimilitude
• Essay Guide
• Cite This Website

What Is Creative Writing? (Ultimate Guide + 20 Examples)

Creative writing begins with a blank page and the courage to fill it with the stories only you can tell.

I face this intimidating blank page daily–and I have for the better part of 20+ years.

In this guide, you’ll learn all the ins and outs of creative writing with tons of examples.

What Is Creative Writing (Long Description)?

Creative Writing is the art of using words to express ideas and emotions in imaginative ways. It encompasses various forms including novels, poetry, and plays, focusing on narrative craft, character development, and the use of literary tropes.

Table of Contents

Let’s expand on that definition a bit.

Creative writing is an art form that transcends traditional literature boundaries.

It includes professional, journalistic, academic, and technical writing. This type of writing emphasizes narrative craft, character development, and literary tropes. It also explores poetry and poetics traditions.

In essence, creative writing lets you express ideas and emotions uniquely and imaginatively.

It’s about the freedom to invent worlds, characters, and stories. These creations evoke a spectrum of emotions in readers.

Creative writing covers fiction, poetry, and everything in between.

It allows writers to express inner thoughts and feelings. Often, it reflects human experiences through a fabricated lens.

Types of Creative Writing

There are many types of creative writing that we need to explain.

Some of the most common types:

• Short stories
• Screenplays
• Flash fiction
• Creative Nonfiction

Short Stories (The Brief Escape)

Short stories are like narrative treasures.

They are compact but impactful, telling a full story within a limited word count. These tales often focus on a single character or a crucial moment.

Short stories are known for their brevity.

They deliver emotion and insight in a concise yet powerful package. This format is ideal for exploring diverse genres, themes, and characters. It leaves a lasting impression on readers.

Example: Emma discovers an old photo of her smiling grandmother. It’s a rarity. Through flashbacks, Emma learns about her grandmother’s wartime love story. She comes to understand her grandmother’s resilience and the value of joy.

Novels (The Long Journey)

Novels are extensive explorations of character, plot, and setting.

They span thousands of words, giving writers the space to create entire worlds. Novels can weave complex stories across various themes and timelines.

The length of a novel allows for deep narrative and character development.

Readers get an immersive experience.

Example: Across the Divide tells of two siblings separated in childhood. They grow up in different cultures. Their reunion highlights the strength of family bonds, despite distance and differences.

Poetry (The Soul’s Language)

Poetry expresses ideas and emotions through rhythm, sound, and word beauty.

It distills emotions and thoughts into verses. Poetry often uses metaphors, similes, and figurative language to reach the reader’s heart and mind.

Poetry ranges from structured forms, like sonnets, to free verse.

The latter breaks away from traditional formats for more expressive thought.

Example: Whispers of Dawn is a poem collection capturing morning’s quiet moments. “First Light” personifies dawn as a painter. It brings colors of hope and renewal to the world.

Plays (The Dramatic Dialogue)

Plays are meant for performance. They bring characters and conflicts to life through dialogue and action.

This format uniquely explores human relationships and societal issues.

Playwrights face the challenge of conveying setting, emotion, and plot through dialogue and directions.

Example: Echoes of Tomorrow is set in a dystopian future. Memories can be bought and sold. It follows siblings on a quest to retrieve their stolen memories. They learn the cost of living in a world where the past has a price.

Screenplays (Cinema’s Blueprint)

Screenplays outline narratives for films and TV shows.

They require an understanding of visual storytelling, pacing, and dialogue. Screenplays must fit film production constraints.

Example: The Last Light is a screenplay for a sci-fi film. Humanity’s survivors on a dying Earth seek a new planet. The story focuses on spacecraft Argo’s crew as they face mission challenges and internal dynamics.

Memoirs (The Personal Journey)

Memoirs provide insight into an author’s life, focusing on personal experiences and emotional journeys.

They differ from autobiographies by concentrating on specific themes or events.

Memoirs invite readers into the author’s world.

They share lessons learned and hardships overcome.

Example: Under the Mango Tree is a memoir by Maria Gomez. It shares her childhood memories in rural Colombia. The mango tree in their yard symbolizes home, growth, and nostalgia. Maria reflects on her journey to a new life in America.

Flash Fiction (The Quick Twist)

Flash fiction tells stories in under 1,000 words.

It’s about crafting compelling narratives concisely. Each word in flash fiction must count, often leading to a twist.

This format captures life’s vivid moments, delivering quick, impactful insights.

Example: The Last Message features an astronaut’s final Earth message as her spacecraft drifts away. In 500 words, it explores isolation, hope, and the desire to connect against all odds.

Creative Nonfiction (The Factual Tale)

Creative nonfiction combines factual accuracy with creative storytelling.

This genre covers real events, people, and places with a twist. It uses descriptive language and narrative arcs to make true stories engaging.

Creative nonfiction includes biographies, essays, and travelogues.

Example: Echoes of Everest follows the author’s Mount Everest climb. It mixes factual details with personal reflections and the history of past climbers. The narrative captures the climb’s beauty and challenges, offering an immersive experience.

Fantasy (The World Beyond)

Fantasy transports readers to magical and mythical worlds.

It explores themes like good vs. evil and heroism in unreal settings. Fantasy requires careful world-building to create believable yet fantastic realms.

Example: The Crystal of Azmar tells of a young girl destined to save her world from darkness. She learns she’s the last sorceress in a forgotten lineage. Her journey involves mastering powers, forming alliances, and uncovering ancient kingdom myths.

Science Fiction (The Future Imagined)

Science fiction delves into futuristic and scientific themes.

It questions the impact of advancements on society and individuals.

Science fiction ranges from speculative to hard sci-fi, focusing on plausible futures.

Example: When the Stars Whisper is set in a future where humanity communicates with distant galaxies. It centers on a scientist who finds an alien message. This discovery prompts a deep look at humanity’s universe role and interstellar communication.

Watch this great video that explores the question, “What is creative writing?” and “How to get started?”:

What Are the 5 Cs of Creative Writing?

The 5 Cs of creative writing are fundamental pillars.

They guide writers to produce compelling and impactful work. These principles—Clarity, Coherence, Conciseness, Creativity, and Consistency—help craft stories that engage and entertain.

They also resonate deeply with readers. Let’s explore each of these critical components.

Clarity makes your writing understandable and accessible.

It involves choosing the right words and constructing clear sentences. Your narrative should be easy to follow.

In creative writing, clarity means conveying complex ideas in a digestible and enjoyable way.

Coherence ensures your writing flows logically.

It’s crucial for maintaining the reader’s interest. Characters should develop believably, and plots should progress logically. This makes the narrative feel cohesive.

Conciseness

Conciseness is about expressing ideas succinctly.

It’s being economical with words and avoiding redundancy. This principle helps maintain pace and tension, engaging readers throughout the story.

Creativity is the heart of creative writing.

It allows writers to invent new worlds and create memorable characters. Creativity involves originality and imagination. It’s seeing the world in unique ways and sharing that vision.

Consistency

Consistency maintains a uniform tone, style, and voice.

It means being faithful to the world you’ve created. Characters should act true to their development. This builds trust with readers, making your story immersive and believable.

Is Creative Writing Easy?

Creative writing is both rewarding and challenging.

Crafting stories from your imagination involves more than just words on a page. It requires discipline and a deep understanding of language and narrative structure.

Exploring complex characters and themes is also key.

Refining and revising your work is crucial for developing your voice.

The ease of creative writing varies. Some find the freedom of expression liberating.

Others struggle with writer’s block or plot development challenges. However, practice and feedback make creative writing more fulfilling.

What Does a Creative Writer Do?

A creative writer weaves narratives that entertain, enlighten, and inspire.

Writers explore both the world they create and the emotions they wish to evoke. Their tasks are diverse, involving more than just writing.

Creative writers develop ideas, research, and plan their stories.

They create characters and outline plots with attention to detail. Drafting and revising their work is a significant part of their process. They strive for the 5 Cs of compelling writing.

Writers engage with the literary community, seeking feedback and participating in workshops.

They may navigate the publishing world with agents and editors.

Creative writers are storytellers, craftsmen, and artists. They bring narratives to life, enriching our lives and expanding our imaginations.

How to Get Started With Creative Writing?

Embarking on a creative writing journey can feel like standing at the edge of a vast and mysterious forest.

The path is not always clear, but the adventure is calling.

Here’s how to take your first steps into the world of creative writing:

• Find a time of day when your mind is most alert and creative.
• Create a comfortable writing space free from distractions.
• Use prompts to spark your imagination. They can be as simple as a word, a phrase, or an image.
• Try writing for 15-20 minutes on a prompt without editing yourself. Let the ideas flow freely.
• Reading is fuel for your writing. Explore various genres and styles.
• Pay attention to how your favorite authors construct their sentences, develop characters, and build their worlds.
• Don’t pressure yourself to write a novel right away. Begin with short stories or poems.
• Small projects can help you hone your skills and boost your confidence.
• Look for writing groups in your area or online. These communities offer support, feedback, and motivation.
• Participating in workshops or classes can also provide valuable insights into your writing.
• Understand that your first draft is just the beginning. Revising your work is where the real magic happens.
• Be open to feedback and willing to rework your pieces.
• Carry a notebook or digital recorder to jot down ideas, observations, and snippets of conversations.
• These notes can be gold mines for future writing projects.

Final Thoughts: What Is Creative Writing?

Creative writing is an invitation to explore the unknown, to give voice to the silenced, and to celebrate the human spirit in all its forms.

Check out these creative writing tools (that I highly recommend):

Read This Next:

• What Is a Prompt in Writing? (Ultimate Guide + 200 Examples)
• What Is A Personal Account In Writing? (47 Examples)
• How To Write A Fantasy Short Story (Ultimate Guide + Examples)
• How To Write A Fantasy Romance Novel [21 Tips + Examples)

• How to write a story
• How to write a novel
• How to write poetry
• Dramatic writing
• How to write a memoir
• How to write a mystery
• Creative journaling
• Publishing advice
• Story starters
• Poetry prompts
• For teachers

Story Plot Structure

Here, you'll learn how to design the plot of a story. You'll also find templates to plan a story plot for a literary novel, a thriller, detective fiction, horror, romance, and more.

Skip to Topic What is a story plot? Story conflict Getting ideas for your story conflict Three-act plot structure Plot versus theme Modelling story plots Mythic Story Structure Plot templates

What is a story plot?

Plot is what happens in a story and the order it happens in.

For there to be story, something has to move, to change. Something goes from point A to point B.

This change could be:

• A physical event (Point A = Serial killer is picking off prominent citizens of the town. Point B = Police arrest the killer).
• A decision (Point A = Character wants to practice law like his father. Point B = Character decides to be a ballet dancer).
• A change in a relationship (Point A = They hate each other. Point B = They fall in love.)
• A change in a person (Point A = Character is a selfish jerk. Point B = Character has learned to be less of a selfish jerk.)
• A change in the reader's understanding of a situation. (Point A = character appears to be a murderer. Point B = The reader realizes that character is actually innocent and made a false confession.)

This change could even be the realization that nothing will ever change. (Point A = Your character dreams of escaping her small town. Point B = Her dream of escape is shown to be an hopeless.)

What is plot? It's the roadmap that takes your story from point A to point B.

Conflict in a story plot

There's a reason why "Happily ever after" comes at the story's end. It means nothing else is happening. Cinderella and her Prince Charming wake up late, eat a nice breakfast, and take a walk. A slow news day. Forever.

It would be different if it were:

• "Happily ever after, except for one extramarital affair and its violent ending..."
• "Happily ever after until Cinderella discovered Prince Charming's secret dungeon..."

Please don't imagine I'm some kind of evil fairy-tale witch, wishing ill on the fortunate couple. I don't think there's anything wrong with happiness. There's just no story in it.

For there to be a story, something has to happen. Narrative conflict is what makes it happen, propelling your character from Point A to Point B.

This can be:

• Conflict between characters (Prince Charming's ex-girlfriend decides to break up the marriage.)
• A character's internal conflict (Cinderella develops a drinking problem.)
• Conflict between characters and an impersonal force (floods, disease, dragon attack).

Einstein once said, "Nothing happens until something moves." If your characters are getting comfortable too early in the story, it's time to stir things up.

Getting ideas for your story conflict

How do you come up with an interesting conflict for your story? It's often a good idea to start with your main character...

• Think of something this character desperately wants. Then think of some difficulties that might get in the way. There's your conflict.
• What would force your character to do something they are really uncomfortable with? Something they don't feel capable of doing? Set up this situation, and you've got a conflict.

Or maybe there's a specific type of conflict you feel inspired to write about, and you're building your story from there. Perhaps you already know that you want to write about divorce or a battle with cancer or child abuse. That's great, but be careful not to skimp on character development.

Remember that the more real you can make your character for readers, the more deeply readers will care what happens to them. We lose sleep worrying over the divorces and illnesses of our friends, not those of strangers.

Click here to get a free e-book that will help you develop three-dimensional characters.

Three-Act Plot Structure

Okay, so you've invented characters, and you've planned a conflict that will get them off their sofa and doing something interesting. How to organize your story?

Classic plot structure looks like this...

1. Beginning (Act 1): Readers get to know your characters as you set up the story conflict. Often the beginning of a story will show an event, known as the "inciting incident" that disrupts the main character's ordinary world and forces the character to take action. For example, maybe the story opens with your main character, Betty, squabbling with her husband the way she does every night. Their squabble is interrupted by a phone call from an ex-boyfriend Betty still has feelings for. This phone call is an inciting incident that causes Betty to question her marriage.

2. Middle (Act 2): You build up the conflict to a crisis point, where things just can't continue the way they are. A decision has to be made or something has to change. This point is called the story climax. If the story is a roadmap, this is the major fork in the road. The character can turn left and wind up in Alabama with her ex-boyfriend or turn right and end up back in Illinois with her husband and kids.

3. Ending (Act 3): You show, or hint at, the result of the story conflict.

Short stories often begin right before the story climax and end right afterward. Instead of showing the result of the character's journey (e.g., the character returns to Illinois, has a joyful reunion with her husband and kids, and then resumes her old routine), a short story might just hint at where things are headed (e.g., you show the character buying a bus ticket to Illinois and end the story there).

In novels, there's more room for the build-up and resolution.

Story structure is often compared to the shape of an arc because of the way the action builds to a peak.

Not all stories fit this shape exactly, but, generally, there's a sense of a clear line or path that traces the character's journey from Point A to Point B. And what gives the line its shape, what propels the character's journey, is the story conflict.

Learn how to shape the beginning, middle, and ending of your story in our free three-day course.

Plot versus theme

The story's plot is the sequence of events that take place: what happens.

Its theme is the general ideas that the story explores.

For example, the plot of the Harry Potter novels involves Harry's struggle to save the world from the evil wizard Voldemort (story conflict: Harry versus Voldy).

An important theme of these novels is the power of love.

The plot of PRIDE AND PREJUDICE shows how the relationship between Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy evolves from mutual dislike to love.

Themes of PRIDE AND PREJUDICE : well, pride and, um, prejudice.

You don't necessarily have to decide your story's theme ahead of time. As you're writing, certain ideas will start to come up again and again, and these will become your theme.

Borrowing ideas for the plot of a story

If you want to write novels, you probably also love to READ novels, so you already have an idea of how they're put together. But here's a good exercise. Take several novels similar in genre to the one you want to write, and analyze their structure. For each of the novels, make a list of all of the scenes in that novel.

What you're doing is working backwards, turning those novels into outlines that you can use as examples.

Looking at each outline, pay attention to...

• how the story’s action is divided into scenes
• why the scenes are in the order that they are
• the speed and rhythm of the storytelling
• how the author builds tension and keeps things interesting.

Of course, your novel will be different from anyone else's. But even very different works of literature tend to follow certain common patterns.

You may even find that you can use another story's structure as the basis for your own.

Helen Fielding did this when she wrote her popular novel, THE DIARY OF BRIDGET JONES. As she explains:

"When I first started writing the Bridget Jones novel, I just had a collection of columns, and no plot, really. And simultaneously PRIDE AND PREJUDICE was going out on the BBC, and I was infatuated with it, and so I just stole the plot, and hung my columns on it, and then the book increasingly began to mimic and nick stuff from PRIDE AND PREJUDICE. But it’s a very good plot."

Although Fielding used Jane Austen's plot, the main character she imagined and her writing style result in a very different book.

In Henry James's novel THE AMBASSADORS, the main character is sent to Europe to bring back an American expatriate, but his mission is complicated when he falls in love with the lifestyle of the young man he's supposed to bring back.

This exact same plot description also applies to Patricia Highsmith's crime novel, THE TALENTED MR. RIPLEY. But the characters and the styles of the novels couldn't be more different.

Not long ago, I was watching Hitchcock's movie REAR WINDOW when I realized that Woody Allen's movie MANHATTAN MURDER MYSTERY has a very similar plot. Both movies are about couples living in New York City who begin to suspect that a neighbor has committed a murder. In both movies, one partner in the couple is fascinated by this, while the other partner is not... until halfway through the movie, where the second partner becomes interested too, and the shared interest ends up strengthening the relationship.

The styles and specific details of the movies are completely different, but the basic plot is the same.

Mythic Structure a.k.a. the Hero's Journey

Many adventure and fantasy novels use a story structure that is sometimes called "Mythic Story Structure" or "The Hero's Journey". J.K. Rowling's HARRY POTTER AND THE SORCERER'S STONE is an example of a book that follows this structure.

Important: This is just one model of plot structure. You can use it to get ideas, but don't feel like you have to hit all of the plot points.

Typical stages in a Mythic Story Plot

1) The ordinary world. Here, we see the hero i n their everyday life before the adventure begins (e.g., Harry is a miserable orphan living with his dreadful relatives).

2) The call to adventure (a.k.a. inciting incident). Something happens that requires the hero to leave his ordinary world (e.g., Harry receives letters from Hogwart's wizarding school).

3) Refusal of the call. Initially, the hero may resist the call to adventure. (In HARRY POTTER, it is not Harry but his uncle who tries to keep Harry from accepting the call to adventure).

4) Meet the mentor. The hero encounters a mentor who provides guidance, wisdom, or a special object or talisman to help on their journey. (e.g., Harry Potter receives a visit from Hagrid, who tells Harry that he's a wizard).

5) Crossing the threshold. The hero commits to the adventure and enters a new, unknown world. (e.g., Harry passes through a magical portal into Diagon Alley, which is part of the wizarding world.)

6) Tests, allies, and enemies. The hero meets allies and enemies and encounters various challenges and tests. (Harry begins adapting to life at the magic school, forming friendships with Ron and Hermione, who become his closest allies. He also encounters school adverseries, including Draco Malfoy and Professor Snape. His courage is tested when he sees Malfoy bullying another student, and later when Hagrid needs help with a dragon. These experiences reveal Harry's talents and strengths, but also get him in trouble for breaking school rules.)

7) Approaching the innermost cave. The hero prepares for their greatest challenge in a hostile location. (Armed with an invisibility cloak and a flute, Harry sneaks into the forbidden third-floor corridor and passes through a trap door to a secret chamber.)

8) The ordeal. This is the story climax, where the hero faces their greatest challenge and experiences death and rebirth in some form. (In the secret chamber, Harry battles Professor Quirrell, who is possessed by Voldemort, then loses consciousness.)

9) The reward. After surviving the ordeal, the hero achieves a great victory and often obtains a significant reward. (Harry wakes up in the hospital to learn that he has successfully stopped the villain from obtaining the philosopher's stone. He is also rewarded with a championship cup for Gryffindor in the school competition.)

10) Return with the elixir. The hero returns home transformed with newfound wisdom. (Harry returns to his horrible relatives, but the situation feels much more tolerable now that he knows he's a wizard and can return to Hogwarts in the fall.)

You can use this structure and still have a very original novel. Your characters, your imagination, your writing and perspective will make your novel unique.

Story plot templates

You can use the templates below as a starting point to develop your own story plots. Click here for printable versions.

Plot Worksheet for General/Literary Fiction

Who is the main character?

Describe something that intrudes on the character's daily world and sets off the story conflict ("inciting incident"):

How will the character deal with the conflict?

What will be result of the character's actions?

How will the character change or reveal a new side of themselves as a result of the conflict?

Plot Worksheet for Thrillers

The villain:

Villain's plan to commit murder:

How will your hero be drawn into a struggle against the villain?

How will your hero try to stop the villain? What could go wrong with the hero's plan?

In what ways is the hero in physical and psychological danger?

How can you raise the stakes or make things more exciting partway through the story (ideas: imprison or incapacitate the hero, create a "ticking clock" where the hero has a limited time to stop the villain):

What is a discovery the hero can make about the villain or their plan during the second half of the story?

How might the hero's strategy or approach change partway through the story?

Describe the story climax, when the hero and the villain go head-to-head. What will be the result?

Plot Worksheet for Horror Novels

Describe your hero:

Describe the monster/villain:

Describe an environment where the hero will come in contact with the monster/villain:

Think about some ways to create an atmosphere of dread and fear:

Describe some different ways the monster will attack and how the hero will try to escape from or defeat the monster/villain?

Think about how you can escalate the attacks or make them more and more horrifying.

How will the hero's strategy change as the attacks escalate?

What are some ways you can increase pressure on the hero as the story progresses (e.g., weaken the hero in some way, trap the hero in a small space with the monster/villain).

Describe the story's climax: the most important confrontation between hero and monster/villain.

How will you end the story? (At the end of many horror stories, the monster/villain appears to be defeated, then rises again.)

Plot Worksheet for Romance Novels

Who are the two main characters who will fall in love?

What major obstacle will stand in the way of their being together? Describe the couple's first meeting.

Describe the moment when they first feel attracted to each other.

Key moments that deepen the couple's connection:

Factors/events/moments that throw the couple's future into doubt:

Story climax (this is a major crisis in the relationship, which might involve a big fight or a stunning revelation):

What the characters discover about themselves and each other:

How will the couple survive the crisis to achieve a happy or hopeful ending?

Plot Worksheet for Detective Novels

Who is your sleuth?

What is the crime they will investigate?

How/why will your sleuth get involved in the investigation?

Who are some possible suspects?

What steps will the sleuth take to investigate? What clues will they uncover?

How might you raise the stakes during the second half of the novel? For example, will the sleuth come to be in danger?

What is the decisive clue that will reveal the solution to the mystery? How will the sleuth discover it or come to understand its meaning?

What is your story climax? (In many detective novels, this involves a confrontation between the sleuth and the criminal.)

How will your story end?

Plot Worksheet for Fantasy/Adventure Novels

Your main character:

A special talent, ability, or strength your character has (though they might not be aware of it when the story opens):

Call to adventure -- something that requires the hero to leave their ordinary world:

How the hero will react to the call to adventure:

The new world (or version of the world) the hero will enter:

Mentor, allies, enemies:

Tests, challenges, battles:

Story climax: the hero's greatest challenge, and how the hero will deal with it:

Result of the climax / hero's reward:

Return from the adventure:

Plot of a Story - More Resources

Be sure to join our free email group to get story ideas and tips sent to your inbox. You also might enjoy:

Our 8-week course on character development

Our guide to mystery writing

How to outline a story plot

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What is Plot? A Writer’s Guide to Creating Amazing Plots

What’s plot? Discover the definition of plot, different types of plots, the various elements of a great plot including Vonnegut’s story shapes!

People are always stopping me on the street and asking, “What is plot? You look like a part-time writer, you should know!” I’m kidding. That never happens. But, if you came here for the basic definition for the plot, we’ve got that for you plus a lot more!

The Definition of Plot 

In fiction, a plot is the cause and effect sequence of significant events that make up the story’s narrative. These events can include things like an inciting incident, mid-plot point, climax, and resolution. 

But there is so much more to plot than this boring definition. So, today we are going to talk about what plot is all about. Let’s take a deep drive on plot and figure out how to use it for our own stories! We’ll start with types of plot.

Different types of plot 

If you google “different types of plot” one of the first hits you’ll get is something like, “the 1,500 basic types of plot!” Needles to say, the subject of plot types can be confusing, and the truth is your plot is what you make it. You don’t have to conform to anyone’s pattern. But, if you help getting started there are plenty of plots diagrams you can use. For this post, we’ll cover the most beneficial ones. 

Kurt Vonnegut’s Shape of Stories

A terrific source for outlining different plot types is the Shapes of Stories by famed writer Kurt Vonnegut. In case you’re not familiar, Vonnegut is the author of titles like Slaughterhouse-Five, and Breakfast of Champions. He also wrote a thesis, Shapes of Stories, arguing there were eight basic plot shapes that you could draw on a graph. He describes these story shapes as eight common character arcs.

Below is a short lecture Vonnegut gave on the concept:

The Eight Shapes of Stories

Man in a Hole:

With this plot your main character will get into some serious trouble. This trouble will upend your protagonist’s life and send them spiraling towards rock bottom. Through the plot of your story, the character will make their way out of trouble. By the conclusion the protagonist will be left off better than where they started, having crawled out of the hole. 

The hole is usually metaphorical, but by all means, stick your character in a real hole if you want. 

Boy Meets Girl :

Or girl meets boy. Like the hole from the example above, the person your character meets can be symbolic. Your character doesn’t have to meet a person; they can find something wonderful or life-changing. The character will experience the awesome benefits of this thing or person they found. Then, as it often does, tragedy strikes. 

At some point in the story, your character will lose the wonderful thing they found, and they will become deeply depressed. We’re back in the hole. However, by the story’s conclusion the character will regain the thing they lost. What’s more, they will get it back permanently, and, like with Man in a Hole, they will end better than they started.  

From Bad to Worse :

Are you a sadist? Well, do I have the plot for you! From Bad to Worse character arcs are exactly what they sound like. You start your character off in a terrible situation. Then things get gradually worse for them as the story progresses. By the end, your protagonist has lost all hope of things ever getting better. Because they won’t.

This kind of arc makes great horror stories. They also put your readers through the wringer. 

Which Way is Up?

Life imitates art in the Which Way is Up story arc. Things are confusing; events are ambiguous. It’s difficult to tell whether a turn of fate will benefit or harm your protagonist. These stories hit close to home, as with a reader’s life, we’re not guaranteed a happy ending. 

Great for thrillers and mysteries, this kind of story will keep readers on the edge of their seat. 

Creation Story :

In the beginning, there was light! Creation stories follow the pattern of a deity creating all of existence. God or some other deity will create humankind and then bestow gifts on them gradually, one at a time. 

One day you get a garden, then the next you get some animal friends. Later, you might get a spouse. These are pretty common stories to all cultures as they helped people describe the mystery of life. They’re not quite as popular in modern culture, but maybe you’ll be the one to revive them. 

Old Testament :

If you were to say you were going “old testament” on someone, that person is probably in for a bad time. Because let’s face it, the Old Testament isn’t the most cheery tome. Whether it’s Lot’s wife, or Abel, or the “OGs,” Adam and Eve, there’s a lot of fire and brimstone raining down on people. 

Old Testament stories build on the Creation story arc. A deity gradually rewards humankind. However, at some point humans suffer a sudden and drastic fall from grace. So, how would you update this story for a modern audience? Shrink it a little. 

You don’t have to write about all of humankind. Focus your story on one character- your protagonist. They are blessed by the gods, or society, or just parents with a fat bank account, but they lose it all. Slowly, your hero will have to earn their way back into the garden. 

New Testament :

New Testament stories follow the same track as their Old Testament counterparts, but humankind, or your hero, will overcome their fall from grace. Your hero is bestowed gradual gifts from some higher power, they experience a sudden loss of all those gifts, but regain them and achieve heavenly transcendence. This transformation is usually the result of your character’s internal growth. 

Cinderella 

Now to everyone’s favorite, a true Cinderella story. In this arc, your character begins at rock bottom, as low as they can be. They are probably born to a low station or suffered a devastating tragedy early in life. As bad things are for your hero, the one thing that can’t be taken from her is her resilience. She has hope that things can get better, but she at least knows they can’t possibly be worse. 

And things do get better. Your character experiences pure ecstasy for a short while. They discover what it means to be truly happy, but nothing lasts forever. Eventually, the clock strikes midnight, and that carriage turns back into a pumpkin. 

However, the experience of happiness has a lasting effect on your hero. She will never again be as low as she started at the beginning of the story because she now has the memory of being happy. At your story’s climax, your hero will regain what she lost and experience an everlasting happiness! 

Most stories you read or watch probably fit into one of these eight types of plots, or character arcs. So, if you’re struggling with the direction you’d like to take your story, use one of these basic plot arcs as your guide. 

Plot Structure

What is plot structure .

Plot structure refers to the story beats, or series of events, that make up your story.

Above, with the shape of stories, we discussed character arcs. Now, with plot structure, we’re talking about story arcs. Like the shape of stories or character arcs, there are many different ways to approach how you structure your plot. Let’s start with the most common plot structure you’ll find. 

Different types of plot structure

Freytag’s Story Pyramid 

You probably know this plot structure, also called the story pyramid. It’s the plot structure you learned way back in grade school. Freytag’s Pyramid breaks down to five plot segments. They are as follows:

Exposition:

In a story’s exposition you establish the ordinary world. Introduce all of the main characters, and show them in their everyday life. Introduce the setting of the story as well as the mood, and maybe hint at the conflict. You’ll end this section with an inciting incident that shatters the ordinary world and begins the conflict. 

Read more about inciting incidents here.  

Rising Action:

This is where the plot starts to move. The inciting event has caused some significant problems for your hero. During the rising action, your character is trying, and failing, to solve their problem. The character’s action will get increasingly drastic. Rising action will take up the majority of your story. 

This is the most thrilling part of your story; it’s the primary turning point. The climax is when the story’s main antagonist is finally confronted. The stakes are at their highest point. If your character loses, then they will die either literally or metaphorically. They will often have to overcome a character flaw to win.   

Falling Action:

This is a moment of final suspense when the hero seems to have lost. Freytag suggests as few characters as possible are involved at this point of the story and that there are fewer scenes than there were during the rising action. 

Catastrophe or Denouement:

The logical endpoint of your story. There should be some catharsis for your reader and a tying up of loose ends. Your hero may die in sacrifice at this point, or they may be triumphant. All conflicts should be resolved. A denouement sees your story ending on a high note. However, if you’re writing a tragedy, you’ll end with a catastrophe. 

Three Act Structure 

Popular for its simplicity, this is another plot structure commonly used in Western storytelling. As the name suggests, the design is subdivided into three acts with five plot points interspersed between them. Here they are: 

Act I – Setup:

The setup in this structure is very similar to the story pyramid’s exposition phase. The author will establish characters, setting, and tone. You want to show the characters in their everyday life. The setup will contain, or be concluded by, the inciting incident, which will disrupt your character’s life. 

• Plot Point 1: this plot point ends your setup. It is a dramatic event that represents the point of no return for your hero. Once this happens, they cannot return to their ordinary life. Think of it like a cave-in that seals your hero within the story. 

Act II- Confrontation:

Your character struggles to overcome their conflict set off by the inciting event. They will try one thing after the other, each time not achieving their goal and becoming more extreme in their measures. 

• Mid Point: happens in the middle of your story. It is the most dramatic turn up to that point. It raises the stakes for the hero exponentially. 
• Plot Point 2: This ends the second act of your story. The second plot point is when the hero prepares to confront their antagonist. This point will set up the final confrontation. 

Act III- Resolution:

The final battle or obstacle. The point where your character is truly tested. This act will change a fundamental part of your character’s life or personality as they overcome internal demons or external threats. 

• Climax: The most intense part of your characters struggle. They may have a sudden realization of how to end the conflict, or they may have to overcome a deep-seated flaw. 

Read more about Three Act structure here.

 Developed in Japan, Jo-ha-kyū is more of a concept than a structure. Still, it is used to structure stories, especially in theatre. In Jo-ha-kyū, things begin slowly, speed up gradually, and end fast. Jo-ha-kyū has three stages: 

Beginning :

Just like the other two structures, this is an exposition phase that moves at a leisurely pace. 

The story begins to intensify here. Things start to speed up at a gradual pace. The plot intensifies. 

The story moves at break-neck speed to its conclusion. All the conflict and loose ends are resolved. 

Kishōtenketsu

Kishōtenketsu is a Korean story structure that prioritizes a significant plot twist over a pattern of conflict and resolution. We’ll go over the four parts of this structure today. 

If you’d like to know more about Kishōtenketsu, you can read an entire post on the form here. 

The four components of Kishōtenketsu are: 

This is an introduction to characters, setting, mood, and any other important information. 

This is a development stage. The author expands on the characters and setting established in the introduction. 

TWIST! The twist is the most crucial part of the story. The dramatic twist takes the place of any conflict a typical story would have. 

The conclusion of your story. Everything is wrapped up, and things return to normal.  

Story vs. Plot 

So, what is the difference between story and plot? The two can be hard to define, but most people have decided that causality differentiates the two.

A story is a retelling of events in chronological order with no definable through-line. A plot is a series of events organized by cause and effect.

With a plot, on the other hand, there is a clear depiction of cause and effect. A story can be reported in a newspaper as- there was a five-alarm fire in an apartment building last night. One person died. Investigators believe faulty wiring was the cause of the fire. 

A plot would show us how these events are connected. A slumlord, building owner fires his hardworking superintendent to cut costs. Therefore, the faulty wiring in Mrs. Jones’ apartment is never fixed. On a cold night, Mrs. Jones plugs in a space heater to stay warm. With no one to repair it, the building’s furnace has been broken for months. A spark from the outlet catches the drapes on fire. The flames spread filling the bedroom with smoke. Mrs. Jones suffocates, and the slumlord cashes in on his insurance policy. 

Here we see the cause and effect pattern, and even a theme developing. 

Elements of a Plot 

The plot elements depend on the type of story you’re telling, and we’ve covered many of them already. Plot points, climaxes, raising, and falling action are all elements of different plots. Let’s cover a few essential factors that are common to most plot structures. 

Setup & exposition :

Most stories will start by introducing characters, settings, and a mood. Authors may also hint at a coming conflict or theme in this section. 

Action & confrontation :

A majority of the time spent in any story will show a character trying to overcome some conflict in their life. Usually, they try small actions at first; then, as they continue to fail, action will gradually become more drastic. These actions lead to an escalation of the stakes of the story. 

Climax & conclusion :

There is a high point of every story. A moment where the stakes are highest and failure means dire consequences for your hero. The character either overcomes their conflict or is consumed by it depending on the story you want to tell. 

Dramatic Contrast :

Stories, like any work of art, need contrast. Contrast is what makes a story interesting. Ordinary characters can contrast with extraordinary events. The setup of your story will contrast with the conflict. You don’t always need conflict to create this contrast. In Kishōtenketsu arcs there is no conflict, but a jarring and dramatic twist is what creates contrast. Your character’s personality can create contrast. They may start the story as a coward and end as a hero. 

Wrapping Up  

Ok, there are about twenty-five hundred words on plot. We’ve discussed what plot is, the different types of plot, what makes a story different from a plot, and plot elements. I’d love to continue, but I, literally, have nothing left to say. So, if you have any questions about plot, please drop them in the comments. I’ll answer them. Promise.

If you want to read more about plot, here is an outstanding book, Story Genius , that taught me plenty! 

Continued reading on plot 

“ In  Story Genius  Cron takes you, step-by-step, through the creation of a novel from the first glimmer of an idea, to a complete multilayered blueprint —including fully realized scenes—that evolves into a first draft with the authority, richness, and command of a riveting sixth or seventh draft.”

Resources :

Author’s Guide to Storytelling- Reedsy Blog

Five Elements of Plot- The Write Practice

1,462 Basic Plot Types- Daily Writing Tips

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2. How To Create A Plot

If you have just landed on this page you are actually at stage two of a creative writing exercise designed to help you create an original story from scratch so I recommend before doing the exercise on this page you read this post first –   how to create a story .

After reading this I suggest you then read this post –  how to create a character .  This has easy to follow instructions that will guide you through an easy process and help you create ten characters you can use when you return here to learn how to create a plot.

START THE PLOT – INCITING INCIDENTS 

Now let’s get on with learning how to create a plot. One by one, take each of the ten characters you already created when you did this exercise here and think again about what they really want from life. Now write down an incident that you think would take what they want away from them.

Incidents like these are called inciting incidents. They must be incidents which will change your characters life, divert from their normal path and provide the starting point for their story. In other words, inciting incidents are incidents that begin to change your character’s life – for the worse!

Read your notes on character and incidents. Begin to imagine placing these characters into a conflict situation.  You are drawing on the incidents and characters you have already written.

So, if you have a character who takes great pride in their job and gets on great with their boss.  You could, for example, kill off the boss with a heart attack, and replace them with a very nasty boss. One who doesn’t appreciate your character and who will probably drive them to the edge of reason before either firing them or provoking your character to walk out. Here are some more examples:

• If your character is afraid of being alone, then you will place them in a situation where an incident occurs which places them alone for a long time.
• If they are afraid of being without a partner, then their partner will leave them for their best friend.
• If they are afraid of being physically and totally alone you will have them survive a plane crash only to find themselves alone on in a dense jungle.

I hope this has given you an insight into the creative process. Once you have even the smallest germ of an idea you will find that a simple process of asking the question ‘what if’ can open up a world of possibilities. Stories, conflict and plot are everywhere you look so keep your eyes open for new ideas and keep your notebook handy.

All the best

Share this:

6 responses to 2. how to create a plot.

Thank you. You are AWESOME!!!

Thanks, Penny – good luck with your writing. All the best Grace

Oh this is great and awesome stuff, it has help me a great deal with my writing

Thank you so much!!!

Hi Shirley, Glad to hear it and the best of luck with your writing.

Thank you so much for putting it in simple terms for a beginning writer. It really helped me to understand it better. I’m working on creating my ten characters now.

So glad to hear it helped Candice – will look forward to hearing how you get on with your characters – have fun. Best wishes Grace

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What is Creative Writing? A Key Piece of the Writer’s Toolbox

Not all writing is the same and there’s a type of writing that has the ability to transport, teach, and inspire others like no other.

Creative writing stands out due to its unique approach and focus on imagination. Here’s how to get started and grow as you explore the broad and beautiful world of creative writing!

What is Creative Writing?

Creative writing is a form of writing that extends beyond the bounds of regular professional, journalistic, academic, or technical forms of literature. It is characterized by its emphasis on narrative craft, character development, and the use of literary tropes or poetic techniques to express ideas in an original and imaginative way.

Creative writing can take on various forms such as:

• short stories
• screenplays

It’s a way for writers to express their thoughts, feelings, and ideas in a creative, often symbolic, way . It’s about using the power of words to transport readers into a world created by the writer.

5 Key Characteristics of Creative Writing

Creative writing is marked by several defining characteristics, each working to create a distinct form of expression:

1. Imagination and Creativity: Creative writing is all about harnessing your creativity and imagination to create an engaging and compelling piece of work. It allows writers to explore different scenarios, characters, and worlds that may not exist in reality.

2. Emotional Engagement: Creative writing often evokes strong emotions in the reader. It aims to make the reader feel something — whether it’s happiness, sorrow, excitement, or fear.

3. Originality: Creative writing values originality. It’s about presenting familiar things in new ways or exploring ideas that are less conventional.

4. Use of Literary Devices: Creative writing frequently employs literary devices such as metaphors, similes, personification, and others to enrich the text and convey meanings in a more subtle, layered manner.

5. Focus on Aesthetics: The beauty of language and the way words flow together is important in creative writing. The aim is to create a piece that’s not just interesting to read, but also beautiful to hear when read aloud.

Remember, creative writing is not just about producing a work of art. It’s also a means of self-expression and a way to share your perspective with the world. Whether you’re considering it as a hobby or contemplating a career in it, understanding the nature and characteristics of creative writing can help you hone your skills and create more engaging pieces .

For more insights into creative writing, check out our articles on creative writing jobs and what you can do with a creative writing degree and is a degree in creative writing worth it .

Styles of Creative Writing

To fully understand creative writing , you must be aware of the various styles involved. Creative writing explores a multitude of genres, each with its own unique characteristics and techniques.

Poetry is a form of creative writing that uses expressive language to evoke emotions and ideas. Poets often employ rhythm, rhyme, and other poetic devices to create pieces that are deeply personal and impactful. Poems can vary greatly in length, style, and subject matter, making this a versatile and dynamic form of creative writing.

Short Stories

Short stories are another common style of creative writing. These are brief narratives that typically revolve around a single event or idea. Despite their length, short stories can provide a powerful punch, using precise language and tight narrative structures to convey a complete story in a limited space.

Novels represent a longer form of narrative creative writing. They usually involve complex plots, multiple characters, and various themes. Writing a novel requires a significant investment of time and effort; however, the result can be a rich and immersive reading experience.

Screenplays

Screenplays are written works intended for the screen, be it television, film, or online platforms. They require a specific format, incorporating dialogue and visual descriptions to guide the production process. Screenwriters must also consider the practical aspects of filmmaking, making this an intricate and specialized form of creative writing.

If you’re interested in this style, understanding creative writing jobs and what you can do with a creative writing degree can provide useful insights.

Writing for the theater is another specialized form of creative writing. Plays, like screenplays, combine dialogue and action, but they also require an understanding of the unique dynamics of the theatrical stage. Playwrights must think about the live audience and the physical space of the theater when crafting their works.

Each of these styles offers unique opportunities for creativity and expression. Whether you’re drawn to the concise power of poetry, the detailed storytelling of novels, or the visual language of screenplays and plays, there’s a form of creative writing that will suit your artistic voice. The key is to explore, experiment, and find the style that resonates with you.

For those looking to spark their creativity, our article on creative writing prompts offers a wealth of ideas to get you started.

Importance of Creative Writing

Understanding what is creative writing involves recognizing its value and significance. Engaging in creative writing can provide numerous benefits – let’s take a closer look.

Developing Creativity and Imagination

Creative writing serves as a fertile ground for nurturing creativity and imagination. It encourages you to think outside the box, explore different perspectives, and create unique and original content. This leads to improved problem-solving skills and a broader worldview , both of which can be beneficial in various aspects of life.

Through creative writing, one can build entire worlds, create characters, and weave complex narratives, all of which are products of a creative mind and vivid imagination. This can be especially beneficial for those seeking creative writing jobs and what you can do with a creative writing degree .

Enhancing Communication Skills

Creative writing can also play a crucial role in honing communication skills. It demands clarity, precision, and a strong command of language. This helps to improve your vocabulary, grammar, and syntax, making it easier to express thoughts and ideas effectively .

Moreover, creative writing encourages empathy as you often need to portray a variety of characters from different backgrounds and perspectives. This leads to a better understanding of people and improved interpersonal communication skills.

Exploring Emotions and Ideas

One of the most profound aspects of creative writing is its ability to provide a safe space for exploring emotions and ideas. It serves as an outlet for thoughts and feelings , allowing you to express yourself in ways that might not be possible in everyday conversation.

Writing can be therapeutic, helping you process complex emotions, navigate difficult life events, and gain insight into your own experiences and perceptions. It can also be a means of self-discovery , helping you to understand yourself and the world around you better.

So, whether you’re a seasoned writer or just starting out, the benefits of creative writing are vast and varied. For those interested in developing their creative writing skills, check out our articles on creative writing prompts and how to teach creative writing . If you’re considering a career in this field, you might find our article on is a degree in creative writing worth it helpful.

4 Steps to Start Creative Writing

Creative writing can seem daunting to beginners, but with the right approach, anyone can start their journey into this creative field. Here are some steps to help you start creative writing .

1. Finding Inspiration

The first step in creative writing is finding inspiration . Inspiration can come from anywhere and anything. Observe the world around you, listen to conversations, explore different cultures, and delve into various topics of interest.

Reading widely can also be a significant source of inspiration. Read different types of books, articles, and blogs. Discover what resonates with you and sparks your imagination.

For structured creative prompts, visit our list of creative writing prompts to get your creative juices flowing.

Editor’s Note : When something excites or interests you, stop and take note – it could be the inspiration for your next creative writing piece.

2. Planning Your Piece

Once you have an idea, the next step is to plan your piece . Start by outlining:

• the main points

Remember, this can serve as a roadmap to guide your writing process. A plan doesn’t have to be rigid. It’s a flexible guideline that can be adjusted as you delve deeper into your writing. The primary purpose is to provide direction and prevent writer’s block.

3. Writing Your First Draft

After planning your piece, you can start writing your first draft . This is where you give life to your ideas and breathe life into your characters.

Don’t worry about making it perfect in the first go. The first draft is about getting your ideas down on paper . You can always refine and polish your work later. And if you don’t have a great place to write that first draft, consider a journal for writing .

4. Editing and Revising Your Work

The final step in the creative writing process is editing and revising your work . This is where you fine-tune your piece, correct grammatical errors, and improve sentence structure and flow.

Editing is also an opportunity to enhance your storytelling . You can add more descriptive details, develop your characters further, and make sure your plot is engaging and coherent.

Remember, writing is a craft that improves with practice . Don’t be discouraged if your first few pieces don’t meet your expectations. Keep writing, keep learning, and most importantly, enjoy the creative process.

For more insights on creative writing, check out our articles on how to teach creative writing or creative writing activities for kids.

Tips to Improve Creative Writing Skills

Understanding what is creative writing is the first step. But how can one improve their creative writing skills? Here are some tips that can help.

Read Widely

Reading is a vital part of becoming a better writer. By immersing oneself in a variety of genres, styles, and authors, one can gain a richer understanding of language and storytelling techniques . Different authors have unique voices and methods of telling stories, which can serve as inspiration for your own work. So, read widely and frequently!

Practice Regularly

Like any skill, creative writing improves with practice. Consistently writing — whether it be daily, weekly, or monthly — helps develop your writing style and voice . Using creative writing prompts can be a fun way to stimulate your imagination and get the words flowing.

Attend Writing Workshops and Courses

Formal education such as workshops and courses can offer structured learning and expert guidance. These can provide invaluable insights into the world of creative writing, from understanding plot development to character creation. If you’re wondering is a degree in creative writing worth it, these classes can also give you a taste of what studying creative writing at a higher level might look like .

Joining Writing Groups and Communities

Being part of a writing community can provide motivation, constructive feedback, and a sense of camaraderie. These groups often hold regular meetings where members share their work and give each other feedback. Plus, it’s a great way to connect with others who share your passion for writing.

Seeking Feedback on Your Work

Feedback is a crucial part of improving as a writer. It offers a fresh perspective on your work, highlighting areas of strength and opportunities for improvement. Whether it’s from a writing group, a mentor, or even friends and family, constructive criticism can help refine your writing .

Start Creative Writing Today!

Remember, becoming a proficient writer takes time and patience. So, don’t be discouraged by initial challenges. Keep writing, keep learning, and most importantly, keep enjoying the process. Who knows, your passion for creative writing might even lead to creative writing jobs and what you can do with a creative writing degree .

Happy writing!

Brooks Manley

Creative Primer  is a resource on all things journaling, creativity, and productivity. We’ll help you produce better ideas, get more done, and live a more effective life.

My name is Brooks. I do a ton of journaling, like to think I’m a creative (jury’s out), and spend a lot of time thinking about productivity. I hope these resources and product recommendations serve you well. Reach out if you ever want to chat or let me know about a journal I need to check out!

Here’s my favorite journal for 2024: 

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Inspiring Ink: Expert Tips on How to Teach Creative Writing

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100 Creative Plot Ideas Organized by Genre

by GetPublished | Sep 17, 2019 | Blog , Writing

Table of Contents

Here are one-hundred plot ideas for when your mind is feeling frazzled and the noggin empty. Some of the plot ideas here are completely out of this world while others are down to earth. From dystopia to romance, to the cliché and outlandish, this list is sure to kickstart your imagination!

Overcome Writer’s Block With Some Fresh New Plot Ideas for Your Genre

Fantasy plot ideas.

First off, we have some fantasy plot ideas for all your magical needs!

• A mortal has been accidentally placed onto Olympus.
• Everyone is born with three wishes in life that they are not allowed to use until (input age here).
• A contest for the queen after the sudden death of said queen from a magical realm.
• The bridge between the realm of the fae and mortal shrinks with each day while tensions run high.
• You are the first and last person to discover the fountain of youth.
• You have lived for (insert time) but have run into the option to finally be set to rest, but (blank) makes you question what you truly want.
• You have lived many lifetimes, always in an endless cycle of birth and death, you finally find someone the same though.
• Each night you are woken by the shouts of sailors and deckhands, the ringing of bells, and the light. But no one else has seen or heard such things.
• Luck has become a hereditary trait.
• Imaginary friends have gone too far, now that friend is real… but something is totally off.
• “Familiars” play pivotal roles in society, the strength of said creature determines your fate.

Live your fantasy writing dream, or find a genre that you should write for !

Romance Plot Ideas

Maybe love will always find a way with these romance plot ideas. Or will everything go down in flames?

• She’s a world-class thief, he’s the lead investigator. At each crime scene, there’s a note left just for him.
• He’s rich beyond anyone’s wildest dreams and no one has ever been able to get close to him. All he cares about in life is perfection which he always is looking for in artwork and whatnot. But then an unruly, perfectly imperfect girl bumps into him, ruining the vase he’s bought while at a show.
• She has no care for love, all she cares about is ruling with an iron fist, making her the fearsome but prosperous boss nationwide. Her newest hire has all the skills needed and perfect in every aspect, but then she’s discovered to be sent by her rival… what will she do?
• She’s motivated by blood and money and will take nearly any contract if there’s enough cash involved; he is to be the victim. But when one contract killer is trying to kill the other, what will occur?
• In his kingdom, it is to be a queen that always rules. However, when both his parents are murdered, to keep some unpleasant relatives off the throne he must change his entire identity to be the new queen. This includes marrying the prince of another kingdom…
• He ensures that everyone finds their soulmate, sometimes through much trial and error. All he’s ever done is watch idly by, but when he falls in love with a mortal meant for someone else, what is he to do?
• She’s a writer, one that writes about love and death. One night she gets a call from someone who says and acts exactly as one of her characters did… alarmed she continues to contact this person. Soon enough she finds herself in love with the character…
• She expects and wants everything to go exactly like all the fairytale stories she heard when she was younger, always with expectations high whilst being often the laughingstock. But then, she meets him…
• Everyone knows their fate, hers is quite bleak. She has no motivation and low expectations because of it, but then she is mistaken for someone else. And when she is mistaken to be who she’s not, he comes into her life and finds herself with everything she was never supposed to have.
• His father is quite literally (some well-known character that would cause problems, ex: the devil, Frankenstein/ doctor Frankenstein, Vampire/Werewolf, etc.), making him a total outcast. When a new girl who heeds no warnings approaches him, what will he do?
• Their relationship was fake or at least supposed to be anyhow.
• She began getting strange letters in her mail, they were yellowed and very old looking, but somehow well preserved all the same even though appearing to be from centuries ago. She eventually decides to write one back, and he receives it. They’re centuries apart but sure they’re soul mates.

Mystery Plot Ideas

What’s been stolen, who’s dead, what’s the motive? So much to ask for these mystery plot ideas.

• You can’t figure out whether you’re awake or asleep.
• You have woken up after a terrible accident, at least that’s what everyone has told you. No one seems to be willing to give any details and you can’t remember the last year of your life…
• You could’ve sworn that someone tapped you on the shoulder, but no one was there. As well you feel watched, and then you receive a letter.
• A few months ago, you began to sleepwalk, but it’s not only you, but it also seems the entire town is as well.
• As you’re restoring a painting you notice something strange, an engraving and the details seem to be changing.
• A crime has occurred, more specifically a murder. The victim was found poisoned at the scene and as if they were sleeping, next to a bitten apple… and they were dressed as snow white. Will more follow?
• A picture is worth a thousand words, or at least that’s what they say. This one was certainly worth more than that.
• A box of pictures fell onto you as you bumped a shelf, it showed a person in each and seemed to go back quite a long time… but in each, the same cat sat.
• People believed to be dead or lost for years have started to show up as if they never left with no recollection of where they went either.

Pro Tip: Instagram, Twitter, Facebook—don’t let distractions keep you from writing your first novel! Use different online writing tools to get the most out of your writing sessions.

Dystopian Plot Ideas

Suffering and injustice, the bread and butter of dystopian society, plenty of that in these dystopian plot ideas!

• People are now able to quite literally bet their lives when gambling now.
• In a desperate hope to cut down on crime and population, those convicted are now entered into a lottery of sorts, the prize? Death. Those with more convictions or worse crimes have a higher likelihood of being chosen.
• No one remembers why the walls were built, no one wishes to leave either though.
• Black Friday has turned into a “game” for the rich. They throw trinkets and cash to the crowds of those poorer to watch the bloodbath that ensues.
• Due to the high-cost and overcrowding of prisons, the government has sent prisoners to man-made islands of which there is no escape. Each island is for a certain level of prisoner, they are left to create their own society or kill each other, whichever works, I guess.
• It is now rare for twins to be born, and when they are born it most often is due to one that is meant to stop the other.
• A very rare few are born without emotions; it is possible though for others to donate emotions for a time.
• Physical traits are achieved through personality. Over time good deeds will create beauty.
• Reincarnation is a real thing, and there are bounty hunters to track down these people. They may have been lovers, criminals, etc.
• The ability to see color is a privilege of the aristocratic.
• Only the smart, strong, and stunningly gorgeous survive. Everyone else is put to death to control the population.
• Sometimes news stations find themselves lacking, that’s why you were born. You’re what they call a Joker, your entire purpose is to do all that will make for a great story.
• It is now possible to entirely swap bodies with someone else. Of course, this always results in the death of who you’re swapping with.
• It is illegal to look outside from the time 11:07 pm to 6:07 am. Each person is required to enter a windowless room for those times in which the government has the ability to lock and unlock the door.
• The earth turns out to be a sanctuary for an endangered species, humans. Today is the first day they are to be introduced back into the wild.

Hunger Games, Divergent, The Maze Runner—what do all of these books have in common? They are dystopian novels turned blockbuster movies! Read more about the best—and worst— movie adaptations of all time .

Horror Story Plot Ideas

Clowns with red balloons and masked killers, don’t go into the haunted house! Here are some horror story plot ideas!

• As an assassin with a sixth sense, you seek vengeance for the restless souls.
• You’re a sleepwalking murderer, but when you wake up, you’re a well-known and renowned detective. You’re hunting yourself and others.
• In the future virtual reality is more prevalent and even realistic than it’s ever been, an entirely new world and life. It’s often used on high profile criminals to make them live what they did from the victim’s view or their worst nightmare.
• You’re finally meeting your “soulmate’s” parents, thrilled and full of glee. But as they close the door behind you, they lean in to whisper, “I’m sorry” / “Forgive me”.
• You’ve been noticing strange things when you awake, new marks or stains, objects moved, new, or even missing. So, you set up a camera. After a few weeks of going over the footage, there’s something strange and unnerving.

~Idea to further this: You wake up, get out of bed, and look into the camera… and then you die. (You kill yourself, duplicate comes in, etc.), Then someone who looks like they could be an exact clone comes in and drags out the body, cleans up, and slips back into bed.

• She never seems to be able to get it right. She can’t seem to find “the one”, or someone even close to that. Little does she know it’s been the same… creature, a shapeshifter who at all costs will have her.
• Each night you heard a tapping on the glass or shrill noise. One night it was too loud to ignore and persisted… soon you realized it was coming from the…
• It’s 3:33 am, a blaring siren comes from your phone with an official notification: Do not look at the moon, do not even glance at it. As well there’s an unbelievable amount of texts and posts on social media saying in some way that it’s a must-see, stunningly beautiful, once in a lifetime view.
• “The human mind is truly the most horrifying and gruesome thing of all.”
• The crow counting rhyme: One for sorrow / Two for mirth / Three for a wedding / and Four for a birth / Five for silver / Six for gold / and Seven for a secret not to be told. There are also many variations of this rhyme that you could use instead, sets up for an interesting and creepy story though.
• The last thing I saw was the glow of my alarm clock, 3:00 am, and then (something scary, death, creature, etc.) ex: its long and sharp rotting nails slowly tore through my neck, its other “hand” muffling my screams. I then woke up in a cold sweat and glanced at the clock, 2:59 am… and that’s when I heard a creaking and smelled of rot.
• It is now possible to know some details of your past lives, how many, how long you lived, etc. As well it’s been linked that some of your phobias are how you died…
• You’re on edge, a few weeks ago you there would be some weird occurrence. Then it was a note with messy and illegible writing. Now you can hear shrill noises, screams, shouting, indistinct. Now at seemingly the source of a scratching noise etched is a clear warning.
• An anonymous admirer letter was slipped under your door at your college. It would seem cute and sweet if it hadn’t been from your closet.
• I found a dead body in my trunk today… I could’ve sworn that I had more than that in there just yesterday.
• Every night you visit me, sometimes in a dream, sometimes in my nightmares.
• I kissed my wife and darling daughter goodnight… and then I awoke in a white padded room with a straight jacket on. They told me it was all just a dream.

Plot Twist Ideas

There are some real turnarounds in this list of plot twist ideas!

• The princess saves the prince.
• Write a story where one of your characters either from the start or at some point in the book are dead or presumed dead. Then have it be that they never were to shake up the story.
• A character that keeps telling outlandish things, but it turns out they’re right.
• A main character or “essential” character killed out of nowhere.
• Have a very guilty and easy to hate a character in your story, have it be a double-cross or frame job.
• A character who is mistaken for someone else but goes along with it.
• A character is revealed to not be what they or the audience had thought.
• An important character throughout the plot is revealed to never have truly existed.
• Some devastating occurrence is caused by those whose entire goal was to fix it or keep it from occurring.
• A character believed to be unimportant to quite bland turns out to be essential and far from.
• Something the character has been searching for or desperately needed was right in front of their eyes the entire time.
• Have it turn out to be that the entire time some blackmail has been the cause for nearly all of a character’s actions.
• A character who is absolutely in love/ obsessed/ or infatuated with another learns it’s for the wrong reasons/ that they’re not at all what they seemed/ etc.
• It turns out the character or group of characters have been led to helping the enemy.

Other Creative Plot Ideas

Here are the last fifteen plot ideas, hopefully you’ll find some other creative plot ideas as well here!

• Make a hero or protagonist that most will hate, vice versa for an antagonist or villain.
• Truth or Dare, your character has a secret, or a truth. What are they willing to say or do to keep said truth secret.
• “I love you.”, “Lying isn’t a good look for you.”
• A bunch of short stories that end on major cliffhangers, but a final one. Once you’re done writing those maybe have them somehow all connect or give the ending to each.
• Everyone ages up until a certain age (ex: 18, 21, etc.) and will remain that age until they meet their soulmate. (Could be used as someone avoiding finding theirs to reign forever, or accidentally aging, or finding you aren’t aging even when with someone.)
• A high school group can’t agree on the meaning and interpretation of Romeo and Juliet , so of course they split into two groups. But then, one person from one group falls in love with the other. Even though it seems nearly every Shakespeare is going on in the group at the same time.
• The retelling of Snow White, if she truly had lips red as a rose, hair black as ebony, and skin white as snow.
• A world where everyone is born with a unique tattoo that gives a hint to fate, personality, each person they love their tattoos will begin to form somewhere on them. These tattoos cannot be removed and will not go away, though they can be hidden and covered. They will receive a tattoo or mark for each love they have, it does not matter if they no longer do or what happens.
• A customer-service worker (retail, support, etc.) who quits their day job to deal with demons, ghosts, and whatnot.
• A story on vampires, but not all are the usual sophisticated, well mannered, well spoken, and so on. Instead, they do their best to not seem outdated, may mercilessly mix multiple slang from way to many different eras, or talking in laughable applications of slang and references, etc.
• Vampires, but for once there are those who’ve been turned other than around nineteen or twenty. With some being turned as a child or while elderly.
• A world where all the mythical creatures or monsters, etc., exist and try to coexist. Each with their own job, talent, and so on. Trying to live “normally”.
• Cinderella went to the ball to murder the prince. Retellings of well-known fairy tales.
• A “superhero” and “villain” who are roommates and nemesis. (Could be they don’t know about the other so both are lying, they both know but don’t want to give away themselves, so on)
• A twist on the changeling stories. A mother caught a fair attempting to switch the child with a changeling soon after the arrival of her child. So she is unable to tell them apart, raises both. Both twins are exactly identical in voice and appearance.

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The short story is a fiction writer’s laboratory: here is where you can experiment with characters, plots, and ideas without the heavy lifting of writing a novel. Learning how to write a short story is essential to mastering the art of storytelling . With far fewer words to worry about, storytellers can make many more mistakes—and strokes of genius!—through experimentation and the fun of fiction writing.

Nonetheless, the art of writing short stories is not easy to master. How do you tell a complete story in so few words? What does a story need to have in order to be successful? Whether you’re struggling with how to write a short story outline, or how to fully develop a character in so few words, this guide is your starting point.

Famous authors like Virginia Woolf, Haruki Murakami, and Agatha Christie have used the short story form to play with ideas before turning those stories into novels. Whether you want to master the elements of fiction, experiment with novel ideas, or simply have fun with storytelling, here’s everything you need on how to write a short story step by step.

How to Write a Short Story: Contents

The Core Elements of a Short Story

How to write a short story outline, how to write a short story step by step, how to write a short story: length and setting, how to write a short story: point of view, how to write a short story: protagonist, antagonist, motivation, how to write a short story: characters, how to write a short story: prose, how to write a short story: story structure, how to write a short story: capturing reader interest, where to read and submit short stories.

There’s no secret formula to writing a short story. However, a good short story will have most or all of the following elements:

• A protagonist with a certain desire or need. It is essential for the protagonist to want something they don’t have, otherwise they will not drive the story forward.
• A clear dilemma. We don’t need much backstory to see how the dilemma started; we’re primarily concerned with how the protagonist resolves it.
• A decision. What does the protagonist do to resolve their dilemma?
• A climax. In Freytag’s Pyramid , the climax of a story is when the tension reaches its peak, and the reader discovers the outcome of the protagonist’s decision(s).
• An outcome. How does the climax change the protagonist? Are they a different person? Do they have a different philosophy or outlook on life?

Of course, short stories also utilize the elements of fiction , such as a setting , plot , and point of view . It helps to study these elements and to understand their intricacies. But, when it comes to laying down the skeleton of a short story, the above elements are what you need to get started.

Note: a short story rarely, if ever, has subplots. The focus should be entirely on a single, central storyline. Subplots will either pull focus away from the main story, or else push the story into the territory of novellas and novels.

The shorter the story is, the fewer of these elements are essentials. If you’re interested in writing short-short stories, check out our guide on how to write flash fiction .

Some writers are “pantsers”—they “write by the seat of their pants,” making things up on the go with little more than an idea for a story. Other writers are “plotters,” meaning they decide the story’s structure in advance of writing it.

You don’t need a short story outline to write a good short story. But, if you’d like to give yourself some scaffolding before putting words on the page, this article answers the question of how to write a short story outline:

https://writers.com/how-to-write-a-story-outline

There are many ways to approach the short story craft, but this method is tried-and-tested for writers of all levels. Here’s how to write a short story step-by-step.

1. Start With an Idea

Often, generating an idea is the hardest part. You want to write, but what will you write about?

What’s more, it’s easy to start coming up with ideas and then dismissing them. You want to tell an authentic, original story, but everything you come up with has already been written, it seems.

Here are a few tips:

• Originality presents itself in your storytelling, not in your ideas. For example, the premise of both Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Ostrovsky’s The Snow Maiden are very similar: two men and two women, in intertwining love triangles, sort out their feelings for each other amidst mischievous forest spirits, love potions, and friendship drama. The way each story is written makes them very distinct from one another, to the point where, unless it’s pointed out to you, you might not even notice the similarities.
• An idea is not a final draft. You will find that exploring the possibilities of your story will generate something far different than the idea you started out with. This is a good thing—it means you made the story your own!
• Experiment with genres and tropes. Even if you want to write literary fiction , pay attention to the narrative structures that drive genre stories, and practice your storytelling using those structures. Again, you will naturally make the story your own simply by playing with ideas.

If you’re struggling simply to find ideas, try out this prompt generator , or pull prompts from this Twitter .

2. Outline, OR Conceive Your Characters

If you plan to outline, do so once you’ve generated an idea. You can learn about how to write a short story outline earlier in this article.

If you don’t plan to outline, you should at least start with a character or characters. Certainly, you need a protagonist, but you should also think about any characters that aid or inhibit your protagonist’s journey.

When thinking about character development, ask the following questions:

• What is my character’s background? Where do they come from, how did they get here, where do they want to be?
• What does your character desire the most? This can be both material or conceptual, like “fitting in” or “being loved.”
• What is your character’s fatal flaw? In other words, what limitation prevents the protagonist from achieving their desire? Often, this flaw is a blind spot that directly counters their desire. For example, self hatred stands in the way of a protagonist searching for love.
• How does your character think and speak? Think of examples, both fictional and in the real world, who might resemble your character.

In short stories, there are rarely more characters than a protagonist, an antagonist (if relevant), and a small group of supporting characters. The more characters you include, the longer your story will be. Focus on making only one or two characters complex: it is absolutely okay to have the rest of the cast be flat characters that move the story along.

Learn more about character development here:

https://writers.com/character-development-definition

3. Write Scenes Around Conflict

Once you have an outline or some characters, start building scenes around conflict. Every part of your story, including the opening sentence, should in some way relate to the protagonist’s conflict.

Conflict is the lifeblood of storytelling: without it, the reader doesn’t have a clear reason to keep reading. Loveable characters are not enough, as the story has to give the reader something to root for.

Take, for example, Edgar Allan Poe’s classic short story The Cask of Amontillado . We start at the conflict: the narrator has been slighted by Fortunato, and plans to exact revenge. Every scene in the story builds tension and follows the protagonist as he exacts this revenge.

In your story, start writing scenes around conflict, and make sure each paragraph and piece of dialogue relates, in some way, to your protagonist’s unmet desires.

Read more about writing effective conflict here:

What is Conflict in a Story? Definition and Examples

4. Write Your First Draft

The scenes you build around conflict will eventually be stitched into a complete story. Make sure as the story progresses that each scene heightens the story’s tension, and that this tension remains unbroken until the climax resolves whether or not your protagonist meets their desires.

Don’t stress too hard on writing a perfect story. Rather, take Anne Lamott’s advice, and “write a shitty first draft.” The goal is not to pen a complete story at first draft; rather, it’s to set ideas down on paper. You are simply, as Shannon Hale suggests, “shoveling sand into a box so that later [you] can build castles.”

5. Step Away, Breathe, Revise

Whenever Stephen King finishes a novel, he puts it in a drawer and doesn’t think about it for 6 weeks. With short stories, you probably don’t need to take as long of a break. But, the idea itself is true: when you’ve finished your first draft, set it aside for a while. Let yourself come back to the story with fresh eyes, so that you can confidently revise, revise, revise .

In revision, you want to make sure each word has an essential place in the story, that each scene ramps up tension, and that each character is clearly defined. The culmination of these elements allows a story to explore complex themes and ideas, giving the reader something to think about after the story has ended.

6. Compare Against Our Short Story Checklist

Does your story have everything it needs to succeed? Compare it against this short story checklist, as written by our instructor Rosemary Tantra Bensko.

Below is a collection of practical short story writing tips by Writers.com instructor Rosemary Tantra Bensko . Each paragraph is its own checklist item: a core element of short story writing advice to follow unless you have clear reasons to the contrary. We hope it’s a helpful resource in your own writing.

Update 9/1/2020: We’ve now made a summary of Rosemary’s short story checklist available as a PDF download . Enjoy!

Click to download

Your short story is 1000 to 7500 words in length.

The story takes place in one time period, not spread out or with gaps other than to drive someplace, sleep, etc. If there are those gaps, there is a space between the paragraphs, the new paragraph beginning flush left, to indicate a new scene.

Each scene takes place in one location, or in continual transit, such as driving a truck or flying in a plane.

Unless it’s a very lengthy Romance story, in which there may be two Point of View (POV) characters, there is one POV character. If we are told what any character secretly thinks, it will only be the POV character. The degree to which we are privy to the unexpressed thoughts, memories and hopes of the POV character remains consistent throughout the story.

You avoid head-hopping by only having one POV character per scene, even in a Romance. You avoid straying into even brief moments of telling us what other characters think other than the POV character. You use words like “apparently,” “obviously,” or “supposedly” to suggest how non-POV-characters think rather than stating it.

Your short story has one clear protagonist who is usually the character changing most.

Your story has a clear antagonist, who generally makes the protagonist change by thwarting his goals.

(Possible exception to the two short story writing tips above: In some types of Mystery and Action stories, particularly in a series, etc., the protagonist doesn’t necessarily grow personally, but instead his change relates to understanding the antagonist enough to arrest or kill him.)

The protagonist changes with an Arc arising out of how he is stuck in his Flaw at the beginning of the story, which makes the reader bond with him as a human, and feel the pain of his problems he causes himself. (Or if it’s the non-personal growth type plot: he’s presented at the beginning of the story with a high-stakes problem that requires him to prevent or punish a crime.)

The protagonist usually is shown to Want something, because that’s what people normally do, defining their personalities and behavior patterns, pushing them onward from day to day. This may be obvious from the beginning of the story, though it may not become heightened until the Inciting Incident , which happens near the beginning of Act 1. The Want is usually something the reader sort of wants the character to succeed in, while at the same time, knows the Want is not in his authentic best interests. This mixed feeling in the reader creates tension.

The protagonist is usually shown to Need something valid and beneficial, but at first, he doesn’t recognize it, admit it, honor it, integrate it with his Want, or let the Want go so he can achieve the Need instead. Ideally, the Want and Need can be combined in a satisfying way toward the end for the sake of continuity of forward momentum of victoriously achieving the goals set out from the beginning. It’s the encounters with the antagonist that forcibly teach the protagonist to prioritize his Needs correctly and overcome his Flaw so he can defeat the obstacles put in his path.

The protagonist in a personal growth plot needs to change his Flaw/Want but like most people, doesn’t automatically do that when faced with the problem. He tries the easy way, which doesn’t work. Only when the Crisis takes him to a low point does he boldly change enough to become victorious over himself and the external situation. What he learns becomes the Theme.

Each scene shows its main character’s goal at its beginning, which aligns in a significant way with the protagonist’s overall goal for the story. The scene has a “charge,” showing either progress toward the goal or regression away from the goal by the ending. Most scenes end with a negative charge, because a story is about not obtaining one’s goals easily, until the end, in which the scene/s end with a positive charge.

The protagonist’s goal of the story becomes triggered until the Inciting Incident near the beginning, when something happens to shake up his life. This is the only major thing in the story that is allowed to be a random event that occurs to him.

Your characters speak differently from one another, and their dialogue suggests subtext, what they are really thinking but not saying: subtle passive-aggressive jibes, their underlying emotions, etc.

Your characters are not illustrative of ideas and beliefs you are pushing for, but come across as real people.

Your language is succinct, fresh and exciting, specific, colorful, avoiding clichés and platitudes. Sentence structures vary. In Genre stories, the language is simple, the symbolism is direct, and words are well-known, and sentences are relatively short. In Literary stories , you are freer to use more sophisticated ideas, words, sentence structures, styles , and underlying metaphors and implied motifs.

Your plot elements occur in the proper places according to classical Three Act Structure (or Freytag’s Pyramid ) so the reader feels he has vicariously gone through a harrowing trial with the protagonist and won, raising his sense of hope and possibility. Literary short stories may be more subtle, with lower stakes, experimenting beyond classical structures like the Hero’s Journey. They can be more like vignettes sometimes, or even slice-of-life, though these types are hard to place in publications.

In Genre stories, all the questions are answered, threads are tied up, problems are solved, though the results of carnage may be spread over the landscape. In Literary short stories, you are free to explore uncertainty, ambiguity, and inchoate, realistic endings that suggest multiple interpretations, and unresolved issues.

Some Literary stories may be nonrealistic, such as with Surrealism, Absurdism, New Wave Fabulism, Weird and Magical Realism . If this is what you write, they still need their own internal logic and they should not be bewildering as to the what the reader is meant to experience, whether it’s a nuanced, unnameable mood or a trip into the subconscious.

Literary stories may also go beyond any label other than Experimental. For example, a story could be a list of To Do items on a paper held by a magnet to a refrigerator for the housemate to read. The person writing the list may grow more passive-aggressive and manipulative as the list grows, and we learn about the relationship between the housemates through the implied threats and cajoling.

Your short story is suspenseful, meaning readers hope the protagonist will achieve his best goal, his Need, by the Climax battle against the antagonist.

Your story entertains. This is especially necessary for Genre short stories.

The story captivates readers at the very beginning with a Hook, which can be a puzzling mystery to solve, an amazing character’s or narrator’s Voice, an astounding location, humor, a startling image, or a world the reader wants to become immersed in.

Expository prose (telling, like an essay) takes up very, very little space in your short story, and it does not appear near the beginning. The story is in Narrative format instead, in which one action follows the next. You’ve removed every unnecessary instance of Expository prose and replaced it with showing Narrative. Distancing words like “used to,” “he would often,” “over the years, he,” “each morning, he” indicate that you are reporting on a lengthy time period, summing it up, rather than sticking to Narrative format, in which immediacy makes the story engaging.

You’ve earned the right to include Expository Backstory by making the reader yearn for knowing what happened in the past to solve a mystery. This can’t possibly happen at the beginning, obviously. Expository Backstory does not take place in the first pages of your story.

Your reader cares what happens and there are high stakes (especially important in Genre stories). Your reader worries until the end, when the protagonist survives, succeeds in his quest to help the community, gets the girl, solves or prevents the crime, achieves new scientific developments, takes over rule of his realm, etc.

Every sentence is compelling enough to urge the reader to read the next one—because he really, really wants to—instead of doing something else he could be doing. Your story is not going to be assigned to people to analyze in school like the ones you studied, so you have found a way from the beginning to intrigue strangers to want to spend their time with your words.

Whether you’re looking for inspiration or want to publish your own stories, you’ll find great literary journals for writers of all backgrounds at this article:

https://writers.com/short-story-submissions

Learn How to Write a Short Story at Writers.com

The short story takes an hour to learn and a lifetime to master. Learn how to write a short story with Writers.com. Our upcoming fiction courses will give you the ropes to tell authentic, original short stories that captivate and entrance your readers.

Rosemary – Is there any chance you could add a little something to your checklist? I’d love to know the best places to submit our short stories for publication. Thanks so much.

Hi, Kim Hanson,

Some good places to find publications specific to your story are NewPages, Poets and Writers, Duotrope, and The Submission Grinder.

“ In Genre stories, all the questions are answered, threads are tied up, problems are solved, though the results of carnage may be spread over the landscape.”

Not just no but NO.

See for example the work of MacArthur Fellow Kelly Link.

[…] How to Write a Short Story: The Short Story Checklist […]

Thank you for these directions and tips. It’s very encouraging to someone like me, just NOW taking up writing.

[…] Writers.com. A great intro to writing. https://writers.com/how-to-write-a-short-story […]

Hello: I started to write seriously in the late 70’s. I loved to write in High School in the early 60’s but life got in the way. Around the 00’s many of the obstacles disappeared. Since then I have been writing more, and some of my work was vanilla transgender stories. Here in 2024 transgender stories have become tiresome because I really don’t have much in common with that mind set.

The glare of an editor that could potentially pay me is quite daunting, so I would like to start out unpaid to see where that goes. I am not sure if a writer’s agent would be a good fit for me. My work life was in the Trades, not as some sort of Academic. That alone causes timidity, but I did read about a fiction writer who had been a house painter.

This is my first effort to publish since the late 70’s. My pseudonym would perhaps include Ahabidah.

Gwen Boucher.

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Top 150 Short Story Ideas

by Joe Bunting | 131 comments

Do you want to write but just need a great story idea? Or perhaps you have too many ideas and can’t choose the best one? Well, good news. We’ve got you covered.

Below are 150 short story ideas for all your favorite genres. You can use them as a book idea, as writing prompts for writing contests , for stories to publish in literary magazines , or just for fun!

Editor’s note: This is a recurring guide, regularly updated with ideas, new story prompts, and information.

If you're in a hurry, here's my 10 best story ideas in brief, or scroll down for the full version.

Top 10 Story Ideas

• Tell the story of a scar.
• A group of children discover a dead body.
• A young prodigy becomes orphaned.
• A middle-aged woman discovers a ghost.
• A woman who is deeply in love is crushed when her fiancé breaks up with her.
• A talented young man's deepest fear is holding his life back. 
• A poor person comes into an unexpected fortune.
• A shy, young woman unexpectedly bumps into her soulmate.
• A long journey is interrupted by a disaster.
• A young couple stumble into the path of a psychopath.

Get The Write Structure here »

Table of Contents

Why Creative Writing Prompts Are Helpful How to Write a Story General Story Ideas Thriller Story Ideas Mystery Story Ideas Romance Story Prompts Sci-fi Story Ideas Fantasy Story Ideas Horror Story Prompts

Why Creative Writing Prompts Are Helpful

Below, you'll find our best creative writing prompts and plot ideas for every genre, but first, why do we use prompts? Is it just a waste of time, or can they actually help you? Here are three reasons we  love writing prompts at The Write Practice:

1. Practice the language!

Even for those of us who are native English speakers, we're all working to improve how we use our language. To make progress, you have to practice, and at The Write Practice, believe it or not, we're really into practice! Creative writing prompts are easy, fun ways to practice.

2. When you have no ideas and are stuck.

Sometimes, you want to write, but you can't think up any ideas. You could either just sit there, staring at a blank page, or you could find a few ideas to help you get started. Even better if the list of ideas is curated from our best plot ideas over the last decade that we've been publishing lessons, writing exercises, and prompts.

Use the story ideas below to get your writing started. Then when your creativity is warmed up, you'll start to come up with your own ideas!

3. To develop your own ideas.

Maybe you do have an idea already, but you're not sure it's good. Or maybe you feel like it's just missing some small piece to make it better. By reading other ideas, and incorporating your favorites into your   story, you can fill your plot holes and generate creative ideas of your own.

Use the story ideas below to develop your own ideas.

4. They're fun!

Thousands of writers use the prompts below every month, some at home, some in classrooms, and even a few pros at their writing “office.” Why? Because writing prompts can be fun. They get your creativity started, help you come up with new ideas of your own, and often take your writing in new, unexpected directions.

Use the plot ideas to have more fun with writing!

How to Write a Story

One last thing before we get to the 100 story ideas, let’s talk about how to write a great short story . (Already know how to write a great story? No problem. Just skip down to the ideas below.)

• First, read stories. If you’ve never read a story, you’re going to have a hard time writing one. Where do you find great stories? There are a lot of places, but check out our list of  46 Literary Magazines  we’ve curated over here .
• Write your story in a single sitting. Write the first draft of your story in as short a time as possible, and if you’re writing a short story , try to write it in one sitting. Trust me, this works. Everyone hates being interrupted when they’re telling compelling stories. Use that to your advantage and don’t stop writing until you’ve finished telling yours.
• Read your draft. Read your story through once, without changing anything. This will give you a sense of what work it needs going forward.
• Write a premise. After reading your first draft, get your head around the main idea behind your story by summarizing your story in a one sentence premise. Your premise should contain four things: a character, a goal, a situation, and a special sauce. Not sure what that means or how to actually do that? Here’s a full premise writing guide .
• Write, edit, write, and edit. Good writing is rewriting. Use your second draft to fill in the plot holes and cut out the extraneous scenes and characters you discovered when you read the first draft in step #2. Then, polish up your final draft on the next round of edits.
• Submit! Real writers don’t keep their writing all to themselves. They share it. Submit your story to a literary magazine , an anthology series , enter it into a writing contest , or even share it with a small group of friends. And if it gets rejected, don’t feel bad. You’ll be in good company.

Want to know more? Learn more about how to write a great short story here .

Our 150 Best Short Story Ideas, Plot Ideas, and Creative Writing Prompts

Ready to get writing? Here are our 100 best short story ideas to kickstart your writing. Enjoy!

10 Best General Short Story Ideas

Our first batch of plot ideas are for any kind of story, whether a spy thriller or a memoir of your personal life story. Here are the best story ideas:

• Tell the story of a scar, whether a physical scar or emotional one. To be a writer, said Stephen King, “The only requirement is the ability to  remember every scar .”
• A group of children discover a dead body. Good writers don’t turn away from death, which is, after all, the  universal human experience. Instead, they look it directly into its dark face and describe what they see on the page.
• A young prodigy becomes orphaned. Orphans are uniquely vulnerable, and as such, they have the most potential for growth.
• A middle-aged woman discovers a ghost. What do Edgar Allen Poe, Ron Weasley, King Saul from the Bible, Odysseus, and Ebenezer Scrooge have in common? They all encountered ghosts!
• A woman who is deeply in love is crushed when her fiancé breaks up with her. “In life every ending is just a new beginning,” says Dakota Fanning’s character in Uptown Girls.
• A talented young man’s deepest fear is holding his life back. Your character’s biggest fear is your story’s secret weapon. Don’t run from it, write about it.
• A poor young boy or girl comes into an unexpected fortune. Not all fortunes are good. Sometimes discovering a fortune will destroy your life.
• A shy, young woman unexpectedly bumps into her soulmate (literally bumps into him). In film, this is called the “meet cute,” when the hero bumps into the heroine in the coffee shop or the department store or the hallway, knocking her books to the floor, and forcing them into conversation.
• A long journey is interrupted by a disaster. Who hasn’t been longing to get to a destination only to be delayed by something unexpected? This is the plot of  Gravity ,  The Odyssey , and even  Lord of the Rings .
• A young couple run into the path of a psychopath. Monsters, whether people who do monstrous things like serial killers or scaly beasts or a monster of a natural disaster, reveal what’s really inside a person. Let your character fall into the path of a monster and see how they handle themselves.

Now that you have an idea, learn exactly what to do with it.  Check out my new book The Write Structure which helps writers take their ideas and write books readers love. Click to check out  The Write Structure  here.

More Short Story Ideas Based on Genre

Need more ideas? Here are ideas based on whichever literary genre you write. Use them as character inspiration, to start your own story, or borrow pieces to generate your own ideas. The only rule is, have fun writing!

By the way,  for more story writing tips for each these plot types, check out our full guide to the 9 types of stories here .

20 Thriller Story Ideas

A thriller is any story that “thrills” the reader—i.e., gets adrenaline pumping, the heart racing, and the emotions piqued.

Thrillers come in all shapes and forms, dipping freely into other genres. In other words, expect the unexpected!

Here are ten of my favorite thriller story ideas :

• She just started a new job when a cryptic message comes across her desk that she can't ignore.
• An undercover agent is in a race against time to find out who is behind a pate of disappearances.
• A stuntman realizes the star is a target of a conspiracy theorist on set and their life is in danger.
• A government agent arrests the wrong man and he begs his wife to find evidence before he becomes the scapegoat for a coverup.
• Murder victims keep appearing at a popular tourist destination. She must find out who's behind it in this action thriller.
• A new neighbor seems friendly enough until a series of unsettling events rattles the neighborhood.
• A thriller writer's compelling characters begin showing up in real life crime scenes, and they become the prime suspect.
• Mysterious circumstances always surrounded the sudden retirement of a megastar, until a nosy investigative journalist uncovers a clue that would unravel everything.
• Artificial intelligence took his job after he created the very code that launched the company into eye-popping profitability. And now he's out for revenge.
• A criminal mastermind has shut down essential services in the city, and only a retired recluse of a hacker can stop him. If they can convince him to take the case.

Click for ten more thriller short story ideas

25 Mystery Story Ideas

Enjoy a good whodunit? Then you’ll love these mystery story ideas .

Here are a few of my favorites, but find the rest here :

• A librarian happens across a crime scene when they clean the basement archives.
• A murder mystery party goes wrong and potential suspects point at each other to avoid arrest. (Especially effective if set in an enclosed location.
• A secret society of mystery readers realizes that there is a real killer still on the loose and the clues are hidden in a dead author's books.
• A murder scene on a movie set becomes reality when the star is found dead, and the prime suspect discovered missing.
• A new restaurant owner in a small town uncovers a long-forgotten mystery from the town's past but the mysterious circumstances unearth a real killer.

Click for the mystery story ideas

30 Romance Story Ideas

Ready to write a love story? Or perhaps you want to create a subplot with a secondary character? We've got ideas for you!

Hint: When it comes to romance, a sense of humor is always a good idea. Have fun! Here are a few of my favorite, but find twenty more love story ideas here :

• A character's high school sweetheart shows up and it turns out the school crush feelings haven't gone away.
• Two characters find an unexpected connection during a key scene that confuses one of them.
• He gets a letter from a secret admirer and goes on a quest to uncover the identity of the sender.
• They work together and a secret romance would be a terrible idea, putting both their jobs at risk, but the pull to each other is hard to resist.
• She returns home when her family's had a tough time after the death of a parent. He's been helping them sort through the mess, and while she disagrees with how he's helping, she can't stop thinking about him.
• At their large ten year high school reunion, he asks her to dance and she slowly realizes he's the brother of someone she doesn't want to ever see again, but there's an instant connection.
• A romance writer can't find her own happily ever after until she meets…
• It's conference season and he has to present all over the country. It's usually a boring string of business trips, but when he's put on a panel with a fiesty and brilliant woman who the night before had kissed him in a bar, he knows this conference season is going to be very different.
•  It's her first road trip after a bad breakup and she's determined not to depend on anyone else until…
• A pop star and an astronaut in training meet at a benefit dinner and can't avoid each other's orbits.

Click for romance story ideas

20 Sci-Fi Story Ideas

From the minimum-wage-earning, ancient-artifact-hunting time traveller to the space-exploring, sentient dinosaurs, these sci-fi writing prompts will get you set loose your inner nerd.

Here are a few of my favorite sci-fi ideas :

• In a future society, neural implants translate music into physical pleasure, and earphones (“jacking in”) are now the drug of choice. Write either from the perspective of a music addict, OR the Sonforce agent (sonance + enforcer) who has the job of cracking down.
• It’s the year 5000. Our planet was wrecked in the great Crisis of 3500, and remaining human civilization survives only in a half dozen giant domed cities. There are two unbreakable rules: strict adherence to Life Quality (recycling doesn’t even begin to cover these laws), and a complete ban on reproduction (only the “worthy” are permitted to create new humans). Write from the perspective of a young woman who just discovered she’s been chosen to reproduce—but she has no interest in being a mother.
• So yeah, ancient Egypt really was “all that” after all, and the pyramids turn out to be fully functional spaceships (the limestone was to preserve the electronics hidden inside). Write from the perspective of the tourist exploring the ancient society who accidentally turns one on.

Click for the other seventeen sci-fi story ideas

20 Fantasy Story Ideas

Need a dose of sword-in-the-stone, hero and/or heroine packed coming-of-age glory?  We love fantasy stories!

Just try to not have fun writing (or even just reading!) these fantasy writing prompts. Here are a few of my favorite fantasy story ideas:

• Bored high school wizards decide to throw a party to celebrate tomorrow's graduation. Nothing could possibly go wrong.
• Weddings are stressful. They're especially tricky when one family is magical and the other hates spells, and both mothers want to control the celebration.
• A bored housewife wakes one day to find all her dishes are singing Hey, Jude . (Alternatively, if you want to make this a darker story, have them sing  The Sound of Silence. )
• A witch living secretly in suburbia casts a spell to speed up the laundry, but it backfires—just in time for trick-or-treaters to deal with dancing underwear.
• Capitol Hill wakes one day to find thousands of fairies protesting for better media representation. Unfortunately, no one can understand what they're saying.
• A fed-up genie, sick of being over-sexualized and paid in wishes, throws a magical tantrum which turns everyone in the world into the opposite gender.
• One bright morning in May, all domestic pets start talking.
• Eating food turns one's skin the same color as one's last ingested item, which makes cheating on diets a challenge of strategy as well as taste.
• Giants are REALLY into reality TV, and one day stomp down from their hidden mountain homes to convince Hollywood to create a show about them.
• Mythological creatures, tired of being portrayed as gym rats, confront their creators on a popular combative talk show.

Click for the fantasy story ideas

20 Horror Story Prompts

• Three college students take a final road trip during spring break of their senior year, not knowing that each of them harbors a dark secret about one of their college professors who was murdered in the fall. As revelations begin to stack up, they each begin to suspect the other.
• A quiet golf community is upended after a series of grisly murders begin happening on the greens, and a golf pro's seemingly perfect life begins to unravel with each body they find. She isn't the killer, but she has a terrifying idea of who might be.
• A police officer on terminal leave before retirement finds himself in a bar where he suddenly realizes the art on the walls shifts and reveals pictures of serial killers from the last twenty years. And his best friend and former partner, who is still on active duty, is there on the wall too.
• A grieving daughter revisits the libraries and locations where her famous horror writer mother penned her most famous works. And finds out her mother's stories weren't quite the fiction everyone believes.
• A teacher returns to teach at the school where they attended to find that their entire class is made up of the children of every bully and enemy from their life. But no one claims to remember them.
• A cursed siren hunts a fishing village looking for the boat and man that killed her true love.
• A hoarder dies and the mother-daughter team hired to clean up the mess discover a dead body and the horror of how it all began might connect to a shape-shifting monster from their own family.
• A yacht party veers off course during a summer squall and lands on an island. Their relief gives way to terror as they realize they aren’t alone and worse, they’re prey.
• Radioactive scorpions escape from a lab and begin to attack a small desert town.
• An experimental romance rehab resort goes into lockdown after a therapist and a participant are found dismembered and clawed to shreds on the beach. But the threat is inside the compound.

Ten more spine-tingling horror story prompts here . 

The Secret to Choosing the Best Story Idea

Stories, more than any other artistic expression, have the power to make people care. Stories have the ability to change people’s lives.

But to write a great story, a life-changing story, don’t just write about what your characters did, said, and saw. Ask yourself, “Where do I fit in to this story? What is my personal connection to this story?”

Robert Frost said this:

If you can connect your personal story to the story you’re writing, you will not only be more motivated to finish your story, you might just be able to change the lives of your readers.

Next Step: Write Your Best Story

No matter how good your idea, writing a story or a book can be a long difficult process. How do you create an outline, come up with a great plot, and then actually  finish  it?

My new book  The Write Structure  will help. You'll learn how to take your idea and structure a strong plot around it. Then you'll be guided through the exact process I've used to write dozens of short stories and over fifteen books.

You can learn more about   The Write Structure  and get your copy here.

Have a great short story idea?  We'd love to hear it. Share it in the comments !

Choose one of these ideas and write a short story in one sitting (aim for 1,000 words or less!). When you're finished, share your story in the Pro Practice Workshop (or our latest writing contest ) for feedback from the community. And if you share, please be sure to comment on a few stories by other writers.

Joe Bunting

Joe Bunting is an author and the leader of The Write Practice community. He is also the author of the new book Crowdsourcing Paris , a real life adventure story set in France. It was a #1 New Release on Amazon. Follow him on Instagram (@jhbunting).

Want best-seller coaching? Book Joe here.

Work with Joe Bunting?

WSJ Bestselling author, founder of The Write Practice, and book coach with 14+ years experience. Joe Bunting specializes in working with Action, Adventure, Fantasy, Historical Fiction, How To, Literary Fiction, Memoir, Mystery, Nonfiction, Science Fiction, and Self Help books. Sound like a good fit for you?

131 Comments

“No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader. No surprise for the writer, no surprise for the reader.” —Robert Frost

Great quote, right?

Your site is just awesome!

asome i rily like that

My latest project has been working on a TV-format screenplay. In TV writing, there are B storylines, which are plot lines that span the course of a season (or several seasons). Each episode, however, has an A storyline, which is the plot of the events in that particular episode. Each A storyline is essentially a short story, and churning them out is surprisingly difficult! Lately I’ve been outlining episodes for my own story. I’ve just completed one that I particularly like, and would love to hear what you all think!

The Vampire Cat

The episode opens with Leiko telling the rest of the crew The Dream of Akinosuke. She finishes the story and they all head off to bed. Leiko walks Shannon to her room. On the way, Shannon asks Leiko if the events of the story were the main character’s dreams or if they were real. Leiko replies that for the Japanese the line between dreams and reality is very thin. They say goodnight and part ways.

The next day, the crew touches down on planet Lorraine. Their mission is to rob an auction house of a valuable piece of art if their client is not able to purchase it. They attend the auction. The client is outbid, so that night they return to the auction house to steal the sculpture. While looking for it, Leiko uncovers a dimension hopping machine, which she assumes to be a piece of junk. The crew is surprised by the auction house’s guards. Shannon is shot in the fight. Leiko tries to help her, but is intercepted by a guard. They fight, and Leiko falls inside the dimension hopping machine. She falls against a lever. The doors to the machine close and it begins spinning very fast. Leiko is thrown to the floor and the impact knocks her unconscious.

When she awakes, Leiko is no longer in the machine or the auction house. She is in a 16th century Japanese barracks, surrounded by soldiers. Furthermore, she is dressed like them and they address her as Soda. When she catches a glimpse of her reflection, she realizes to everyone else she looks like a Japanese man. Unsure if she is dreaming or not, Leiko decides to play along. She hears from the other soldiers that the prince of the region is seriously ill, and thinks maybe with her advanced medical knowledge she can help. She sneaks into the castle to see him. On the way, she passes a group of court ladies. The most beautiful of them smiles at Leiko and her eyes flash yellow. Leiko shakes it off, assuming she must be seeing things. She reaches the prince’s room and is shocked to find Shannon lying close to death, surrounded by attendants. She is discovered and thrown out, but she begs to be told what’s happened to the prince, and is informed he has a mystery sickness no doctor can diagnose. It is feared he will die. The prince’s attendants suggest that if she is so worried about her sovereign, she should pray for his health. Before she leaves, she uses to her dagger to look at Shannon’s reflection, and sees that her reflection is in fact that of the prince. Leiko feels the whole situation is somehow strangely familiar, but unable to put her finger on why, she decides there is nothing for it but to follow the attendants’ advice.

That night she goes to the holy quarter and bathes at the well before praying to the statue of Buddha for the prince’s/Shannon’s recovery. A voice calls to her, and she looks up to see a figure in a window above her. The figure asks her to come up. Leiko goes into the building and finds a priest who introduces himself as Ruiten and tells her he has been brought to the castle to find the source of the prince’s illness and asks for her help. Leiko finally realizes why this all seems familiar to her – she is in the story of The Vampire Cat of Nabeshima, playing the part of the young soldier Ito Soda. She makes a conjecture: the dimension hopping machine really worked and has brought her to the spirit world. Shannon, after being shot, is dying, and her spirit has taken the place of the prince in the story. If Leiko saves the prince, she saves Shannon. Ruiten agrees that this may be possible. Leiko agrees to help him. Knowing how the story goes, she now has a hunch as to what is causing the prince’s sickness.

Leiko goes back to the castle, and straight to the house of the court ladies. She digs under the verandah and finds exactly what she thought she would – the body of the beautiful lady, with puncture wounds in her throat.

The next day, Ruiten obtains permission for Leiko to keep watch over the prince with his attendants. That night, all the attendants fall asleep. Leiko keeps herself awake by stabbing herself in the leg. Later in the night, the beautiful lady comes to the room. She says her name is O Toyo, and she is the prince’s favorite companion. Under Leiko’s watchful eye, she cannot harm the prince, so she leaves.

The next morning, Leiko goes to confront the false O Toyo. They fight. Before Leiko can kill her, the false O Toyo shifts to her true form – a demonic black cat – and escapes the castle. Ruiten sends soldiers after her. Just then, there’s a scream from the prince’s room. Leiko and Ruiten rush from to the room and are told the prince is dead. Leiko pushes her way to the bed and, taking Shannon in her arms, pleads with her to wake up. In course of this, Leiko realizes she’s in love with her friend. Suddenly Shannon opens her eyes and says Leiko’s name.

Leiko wakes up in the med bay of the Perseus, surrounded by the crew. Shannon is in the bed next to her, weak but alive. Leiko gets up to tend to her. Shannon asks if one of the crew was holding her, because she could have sworn she felt like she was lying in someone’s arms. Kaya jokes that she must have been having a good dream. Leiko remarks that maybe it was something more.

This is great! Seriously, I really enjoyed it. Now you have to write it! 🙂

Hey Sunny! Loving this website

Opps that was my grandma 🙂 But she right

Do you know of any Romance magazines that offer short story romances or literary magazines dedicated to just romance? Just curious.

I’m not familiar with any, but try googling “romance literary magazines” or “romance short stories” and I’m sure you’ll find some. Reply back if you find any that are particularly promising.

I just want to say, there are so many good stories on this website. This show the amount that you have helped all these people, maybe one day I will add myself to those people, thank you.

http://www.writersdigest.com/writing-articles/by-writing-genre/romance-by-writing-genre/romance_markets

بدأت تمطر ورأيت الناس يسرعون للإختباء من قطراته فابتسمت لذكرى جميلة عبرت خاطرى ..تذكرت امى عندما كانت ترقص تحت المطر بفستانها الوردى..الهى كم كنت أعشق هذا الفستان عليها..كان يناسب بشرتها الفاتحة ونحولة جسدها .جذبتنى من يدى يومها واخذنا ندور فى حلقات لا تبدء ولا تنتهى. شعرت ببرودة يديها تصعق يداى وبرودة المطر تبلل وجهى أحسست وبالسعادة تغمرنى لانك اخيرا بجانبى واخيرا تبتسمين اشتقتك يا اماه ..أشتقت لتفاصيلك وابتسامتك. أشتقت لمعنى وجودك جانبى ..المطر يهطل، أعلم أنك لو كنت الأن معى لجذبتينى ورسمنا بأقدامنا دوائر حتى تبتل عظامنا ..سأرقص لك فقط وسأبتسم لك فقط. بدأت عيون الناس تتجه نحوى ..تستنكر فعلتى ولكنى لا أفعل شئ.انا فقط أخبر أمى إنى بخير وأنى أشتاقها..ولكن للمطر طعم غريب يا أمى. له طعم ألم فراقك ،طعم الحياة بدونك ؛هو المطر وهى الحياة ولكن طعمهما مؤلمين يا أمى

I’m writing a “Thriller.” I’m very excited. A short story. Thank you. Right on time as usual!

Fun! Good luck LaCresha.

I’m wondering about “the sagging middle” in story structure right now. I’m happy with my beginning and ending, but the middle isn’t as dynamic as I want it to be. Does anyone have any experiences or advice about this? (It’s a 25 000 word story that’s due for a competition in about four months.)

Hey Rosie. We have a few resources on that. First check out our structure and plot cheatsheet: https://thewritepractice.com/plot-structure . Then, a great guest post on story structure with a hole in it: https://thewritepractice.com/story-hole . And I always recommend Save the Cat, which is a book for screenwriters, but is also very helpful for story structure in general: http://amzn.to/1TNpv2F . Highly recommend it.

The story grid is a good site and podcast for story structure. 🙂

I would say have an extremely unexpected twist, with a character the audience trusts.

But longer than 15 min but here it is.

I rub my fingers into the soft fuzz on the big brown chair. I can make designs if I move my fingers up or down. A dot makes one eye. Then another. A line for a smile finishes my chair picture. ‘Why would Daddy take money and blow it into the wind?’ I wonder as I draw.

A wet spot lands by the mouth, making the brown turn dark. I try to wipe it away, but the face disappears instead. I lay back in the chair, bumping my twin brother and making the dim room spin. My pink and orange stripe shirt is soft as I wipe my eyes. James’s tears fall to the chair like rain, his mouth open like one of the squishy balls we play with. His cry is loud. I join the noise.

Mommy’s hair, as dark as the wet spot on our chair, poofs around her face. Her green eyes seem small with her eyebrows close together. Teeth and gums show as Mommy screams like a roaring lion. Daddy points a finger at her nose. He looks so big. He yells, trying to be louder than her. James and I try to cry louder than them. Maybe they will hear us. Maybe they will stop.

Mommy lets out one last angry scream and tries to push Daddy away. A long red line comes on his arm. Red water comes out of it. Daddy’s eyes widen. His face turns red. He grabs Mommy by her arms, lifts her, and pushes her to the door like a rhinoceros. The wood breaks as they go through.

The noise has stopped, except for sirens in the distance. I curl into a ball in the chair, James’s knee sticking into my back, and close my eyes.

James and I get to sleep in the same bed tonight. It’s strange having Daddy read and tuck us in by himself, but he tells us Mommy will be home soon. I still don’t understand why she went to jail. I thought jail was for bad guys, but Daddy says everything will be ok.

The lights go out bringing shadow monsters. I hug my brother.

Bit longer than 15 minutes, but here it is

‘Scars’

The noise has stopped, except for sirens in the distance. I curl into a ball in the chair, James’ knee sticking into my back, and close my eyes.

This was so good! You have a really good writing style!

“The wall, he decided, will always be there”

He awoke, or at least it seemed he did, for he could not tell if he had been dreaming or if he were dreaming now. He pushed the woollen, scratchy blanket away from his body. There were no sheets, and his skin stuck to the plastic mattress that smelled of others sweat and urine. After prying his flesh from the tenacious bedding, he managed to sit up. He was more tired than he had remembered. He was still dirty and thirsty and his eyes hurt as they squinted in the dim hazy light. He drew his legs up to his chest and wrapped his arms around them. For long moments, he sat that way fearing punishment for doing anything that might be wrong.

Eventually, however, his eyes grew accustomed to the shadowy light and he began to see things. Across from him he could see a wall. He wondered how long the wall had been there. The question struck him as absurd. The wall he decided would always be there. In this confusion, he meditated on the hardness before him until a thought of beauty entered his mind and the nakedness upset him. “There are no pictures…it has no pictures hanging from it.” Lacking the courage, or cowardice, to look away he continued staring blankly until his sight improved still further and he found something within the wall that excited him. “I forgot…about…colour…I can see the colour now!” He tried to give the colour a name. “Dirty…” he thought. “Filth.” he said out loud. “It is a filthy colour.” he whispered silently to himself.

Quickly, the excitement left him and he began to grow tired of looking at the wall, even the colour began to bore him. The boredom gave him a sense of courage and he became bold. He decided to explore. Cautiously he moved his eyes to the right where he saw…a corner, Then the head began to turn to follow the lead of the eyes. They continued past the corner until they gazed upon something he recognized.

He hated what he saw, the familiar object that hid in the shadows…the thing that kept him here. He glared at it, but the closed and bolted door remained unmoved. It was then that he turned back to the wall he had grown to know and the boredom…he had grown to love.

incredible first sentence!

Incredible first sentence and incredible last sentence. Shivers up my spine. Thank you.

3 words…. copy and paste

Omg how why are people so good at writing stuff?!?!?

idek!?!?!!! i’m a freshman in high school and i can’t even write a simple short story.

Give it time…

This was a wonderful read ^_^ Short and enticingly written. Drew me in right away with that first bit, and especially the way it was all tied together by that first sentence. Lovely!

I know it’s been two years but it’s still very good and still deserves praise. I like this trippy atmosphere, you managed to convey it very nicely.

Some great story ideas here. You could even combine some of them in interesting, tenuous ways for a multi-location epic.

Thanks Bridget! Absolutely. And there’s nothing I love more than a good epic.

These are great ideas. I like the idea of prompts. Though sometimes, I get stuck when I write from a prompt. And sometimes, I’m not able to write a story in one sitting. I have to think about how I want the story to play out. I might have done it once, and they were pretty short. But most of the time, it takes a couple of sessions. That’s how I’m wired, I suppose.

Ten years of therapy, about a million different types of pills and three psychiatrists have helped me enough to write this. I was eleven when it happened, my older sister, Quinn, was almost sixteen, and my best friend was ten. I’ll never forget it… I doubt anyone ever will.

It was a warm summer day, early June, my best friend, Harper was over and we were playing in the backyard. We were laughing and singing along to a song that I couldn’t tell you the name of now. It was the middle of a normal day, but that’s what they always think just before everything goes wrong. Well, anyways,Harper and I amused ourselves doing everything and nothing for a while before we decided that we wanted to go to upstairs and bug Quinn, who we thought was doing her online drivers ed. courses. We raced up to her room, giggling like the little girls we were. When we got to her room, Harper grabbed the doorknob and tried to fling the door open, but it was locked. That should have been my first sign that something was wrong, Quinn never locked her door, we weren’t allowed to. We yelled, laughing, “Let us in! Let us in!” We giggled and knocking on her door again and again. There was no response, so I remember grabbing the key my parents always had, it opened all of the doors to me and my sibling’s bedrooms… I wish I would’ve known what I know now. I wish I wouldn’t have opened that door.

That day was the last happy day for a long time. I remember everything clearly, the breeze ruffling my short hair, the sound of Harper screaming the lyrics to our favorite song at the top of her lungs. I especially remember the thing that has haunted me for the past ten years. I remember my sister’s lifeless body lying in a pool of her own blood on her bed. I remember the look on her face being more peaceful than I’ve ever seen it. I remember screaming as I stared at the image of Quinn, her wrists bleeding and her skin pale. I remember the sound of Harper frantically dialing 911 and I remember the ambulance arriving. I remember the paramedics calling my parents and hearing my mom’s piercing scream from the phone. I remember the paramedics forcing me out of Quinn’s room, while I kicked and screamed at them, begging them to let me stay with my sister. It was the last time I saw her face. I remember collapsing in my dad’s arms. That was the first time I heard him cry, it wouldn’t be the last.

She was already dead when the ambulance got there. Suicide, they said, she killed herself. It took a long time to convince myself that it wasn’t my fault. If I had only went to see her sooner I could’ve saved her. The funeral was closed casket and everyone cried. I didn’t. I couldn’t. I was too numb. I don’t remember much of the funeral, it was just a blur of black and navy blue, with the occasional apology thrown in there. I never got why everyone apologized, it wouldn’t bring her back.

I was just a little girl and there I was with my childhood torn away from me. I was a younger sister and then I was an only child. A piece of me has been missing from me ever since that die and I doubt I’ll ever get it back again.

This was based on the boy or gets an unexpected fortune. I flushed out the typos, but its okay. Check it out! 😀 Caleb Pratt

Mistaken Divinity

My bar drinks of the wooded timberland were one of the most profound expeditions in my walk into becoming a god. I cupped the glass of cool bud light, and sipped it up at the mini bar table. I rested my hand on the wooden counter top, my fans and companions gambling each other on some high level daredevil match.

“Hey, Lexan, where you at,” I turned to see my friend Rodriguez. Fun man to have around with. He was had long grey hair, even for a guy. I pushed off the table and stood straight. I kept my hand in my pocket.

“You have a lot of realty in the new diversion your causing. Sherman hasn’t even sighted any more Divine Partakers, let alone, any Christian circumspect.”

“I know I know, but… we are, what they are… except the for the grace,” Rodriguez said.

“Right,” I narrow my eyes down towards the ground. I didn’t want to hear what he had to say about us Mormons being what the Christian Community isn’t. I mean, there almost all extinct, if not a hundred percent. We are the erected believers… who are in sure denial of the forthcoming of any later day saints.

“So where is your ceremonial magic been taking you,” Rodriguez said. “Anyhow I could help in the cemetery on Route 430?”

“Uhh… I mean… yeah unless you have a cloak and a specialized dagger. I’d have to get you one of those. You’ll be all dressed like a Celtic.”

We laughed.

Rodriguez was a good friend of mine. Much older though. I was in my teen years and he was in his fifties.

“Man, Lexan, you need to grow a beard. Your seventeen years old… yet you look like you’ve graduated college. What happened to your power to manipulate appearance? Funny… its a shame Christians don’t have this kind of power… even heathens can’t do anything we can.”

“Yeah I can tell Rodge. Tell me, why haven’t you been practicing your divinity? You seem a little out of shape to be wrestling with angles and demons….”

“Well I… yeah I mean, sure. Lets say I’m kind of in a predicament.”

“What…?”

I lay my back against the counter.

“Well, down on Armenia Rd. there was a cross fight between me and some other foe. Not sure what to suspect of him, but the “man-woman” was between two others working for her, or he… I don’t know.”

I rest my chin on my thumb and index finger. I realize and hear there are other phenomena of some other cultist group here in Sherman. Our cult is wacky on its own. Though I don’t know what to think of this “he-she man” thing….”

BZZZZZ! BZZZZZ!

‘I heard you! Shut up!’

‘Enough, you asshole!’

WHACK! Pieces of metal and plastic shattered on the wall.

“I can’t do this anymore,” she muttered softly as she fights her every being not to shed a tear. Alas, she lost once again.

It’s been days since she last saw light. The shadows on the walls seemed permanently etched. Her sanctuary once filled with love, lust, and happiness, now wreaks with despair, anguish, and palpable desperation.

‘How did I get here?’ she thought. The same desperate thought she’s been clutching onto for days. Or maybe weeks? Months? Years?

It doesn’t matter. To Emma, time no longer exists with this unrelenting pain.

Once in a while, the light would sneak through the thick, heavy curtains. And Emma would almost succumb to a hint of a smile until it haunts her again.

His resilient hands on her supple breasts. His soft lips caressing her neck and slender sternum. His sturdy chest against her trembling body. His whole palpitating manhood devouring her salacious being. Every ridges of Paul haunt her. Now, it all has to be distant memories. Unshakeable, soul crushing memories.

After what seemed like a lifetime of horizontal desolation, she finally mustered some strength to sit at the edge of her bed. She slowly opened her bulging eyes, and finally saw the mess she was in. Rotting pieces of food in cardboard boxes, sea of crumpled tissue strewn with nauseating piles of laundry, and dismantled pieces of her once chirpy alarm clock scattered all over her dingy floor.

As she moved her gazed from the floor, she noticed the dent on her pristine white wall. She couldn’t help but stare. ‘That dent will be there for a long time,’ she thought.

With a throbbing grunt, Emma slowly stood up and shuffled towards her once chirpy alarm clock. She picked up the pieces and followed the faint light peeking through her bathroom door. As she turned the door knob, more tears rolled down her cheeks. It was excruciating, but this time it was different. The door closed and the room was dark once again.

“His resilient hands on her supple breasts. His soft lips caressing her neck and slender sternum. His sturdy chest against her trembling body. His whole palpitating manhood devouring her salacious being. Every ridges of Paul haunt her. Now, it all has to be distant memories. Unshakeable, soul crushing memories.”

He had left his Gameboy behind. There was nothing to do without it, nothing to do but kick his feet and stare at the dull blank walls. Even annoying Di-Di had lost its colour. He didn’t care what Ma or Papa said. He had to get his Gameboy back.

He pushed into the room. Ah Boy, wait outside ah. Don’t come in! Papa had seemed firm, but he was old enough now to know how to get out of trouble. He would run to Ma, hide behind her legs, maybe tearfully declare that he would run away from home because Papa was so mean. Anyway, Papa seemed so busy with Ah Gong nowadays. He wouldn’t bother to cane a little boy like him.

Where had everyone gone? He couldn’t have been in the corridor for so long. The room that was once packed full of relatives was empty. It was only Ah Gong left in the hospital bed.

Immediately he noticed that the mask over Ah Gong’s nose and mouth was gone. Who had removed it? Without the strange alien-octopus-thing perched on his face, Ah Gong looked like the grandfather he remembered. He moved closer to get a better look.

As he approached the bed he realized the mask was lying on the chair. The inside was stained with a rustlike substance he did not recognize. He held up the mask to the light, and rubbed the stain with a cautious index finger. A powder came off in his hand. With a shiver of disgust he realized it was dried blood.

“Di-Di!” He didn’t know if he was terrified or excited. Where was his brother? Ma had always rushed to daub up any blood in their house – whether from Di-Di falling when learning to ride his bicycle, Di-Di scratching him during one of their many fights, Papa tripping over a wire and later needing stitches in his forehead. He couldn’t pass up this golden opportunity to share with his brother: the chance to investigate blood without an adult present.

The Gameboy lay in the room, forgotten.

Wrote on ‘a group of children discover a dead body’. In case it wasn’t obvious.

“I do like llamas very much,” said Charleston, “In fact, they even have names.” “You are one freaky man, Charleston.” stated Larry

Very well said!!

Jeremy Reynolds had a party one day. He decided it would be a special theme. Deez Nutz, he decided would be a fitting title for a beach party.

*I am only 14 so please, don’t mind me if there are any mistakes. I am still in the process of learning, but I tried really hard*

He could write. He could write and he knew it. No one else knew. He’d never show them his pieces; his collection of fantasies and mysteries. He wanted his friends to know. No, he wanted the world to know. But he was fearful. He was fearful of his stories failing, of him failing.

Abram had written many short stories and novels, all of them printed in manuscript and hidden in a black lock-box under his bed. He was unmarried, for he didn’t need any other love than that of his trusty typewriter and parchment. Writing was frowned upon, in his country. Books were burned. Even the classics. They were all burned in a pile on the streets.

He wouldn’t risk it. He didn’t want that fate for his books. He worked to hard. He spent too much time revising and perfecting the novel; there was no way he would let them die.

Sighing, Abram cracked his knuckles and stood. He yawned and walked over to his bed, where he bent down and grabbed the lock-box from beneath the bed. Abram had kept the key underneath the mattress, in case anyone were to find this box that contained all of his treasured secrets.

He opened the box he hadn’t opened in many years. Removing the pieces of parchment, he sat on floor, listening for the sounds of Nazi vehicles who somehow sensed the unpublished books. But none came. There was only silence, which, to Abram’s surprise, seemed to grow stronger as each second passed.

Before he knew it, Abram had been sitting on his hard floor for hours, thinking. Thinking about what he knew not. He just knew he was thinking.

Abram stood slowly; carefully as if he was trying not to disrupt the dust that covered the dark floor. Walking over to his desk, he left his lock-box open; something he’d never done in the years past. He sat and placed some more parchment into the typewriter and began writing, or typing, you could say. But this time, something was different. Abram wasn’t writing just for fun, he was writing for purpose. This time, he thought, this time, I will be published and my work may fuel the world. And with that, he revealed his talent to the world.

Thank you so much!!

much thanks <3

I’m sorry I’m late but I just wanted to say this story is fantastic! Soon enough this will become a book! I’m from Hawaii and all I do is write and draw all day… Keep up the work and never give up! God bless and aloha!

Yours was the best story that I read on this page…

thank you!!!

Very empowering!!! I was also around your age when I started writing on this site.

Anyways, that short story was so full of meaning. We just happened to be doing an essay on the value of literature in English class so this really fit in nicely for me with that. Lovely! 🙂

oh thank you sooo much!! I greatly appreciate it!!

I enjoyed your story. Thank you for sharing. I especially liked how Abram developed his talent, and despite the fear of having his manuscripts destroyed, he decided to publish his work. Well done and well told.

I have noticed some tiny grammatical mistakes in your Story and correct it for you as I know that this short Story has potential to go very far. Here is the corrected version: He could write. He could write, and he knew it. No one else knew. He’d never show them his pieces; his collection of fantasies and mysteries. He wanted his friends to know. No, he wanted the world to know. But he was fearful. He was fearful of his stories failing, of him failing.

Abram had written many short stories and novels, all of them printed in manuscript and hidden in a black lock-box under his bed. He was unmarried, for he didn’t need any other love than that of his trusty typewriter and parchment. Writing was frowned upon, in his country. Books were burnt. Even the classics. They were all burned in a pile on the streets.

He wouldn’t risk it. He didn’t want that fate for his books. He worked too hard. He spent too much time revising and perfecting the novel; there was no way he would let them die.

He opened the box he hadn’t opened in many years. Removing the pieces of parchment, he sat on the floor, listening for the sounds of Nazi vehicles who somehow sensed the unpublished books. But none came. There was only silence, which, to Abram’s surprise, seemed to grow stronger as each second passed.

Abram stood slowly; carefully as if he was trying not to disrupt the dust that covered the dark floor. Walking over to his desk, he left his lock-box open; something he’d never done in the years past. He sat and placed some more parchment into the typewriter and began writing, or typing, you could say. But this time, something was different. Abram wasn’t writing just for fun, he was writing for a purpose. This time, he thought, this time, I will be published, and my work may fuel the world. And with that, he revealed his talent to the world.

I hope my effort has helped!

Is it OK if I put this on a website I’m making. It will get me money I need to have. You said your only 14, 9 months ago, so you could be 15, well I’m only 12. I need to learn to save up and this will help me. Everything I said here is true, please help me. Also, this is a great story and that is why I chose your to be on my website.

dude thats like literally directly stealing someone’s work for money that only goes to you. Just write your own story instead of stealing someone else’s.

Admit it. I am probably some dude who can’t even make a website, well I am, so don’t worry.

This is the story I am working on now. I wrote it a long time ago, but I am upgrading it now. Changing all the errors, making the vocabulary more sophisticated:

In a valley close to a river where melt-water splashed and where rhododendrons and roses bloomed, where linnets flew with doves above the clustered trees, lay a cave, mostly hidden by the immense pines and the crag. In the cave, out of reach from the sunlight, was a portal. The portal’s frame was the darkest shade of gold, with glowing orange lines carved into it. Glowing flecks of bright blue glow in the darkness of the cave. The portal lay un opened, but the frame still glowed in the shadows of the sombre cave.

In a desert of torturing, immense heat, where scorching light, too blistering to be called sunlight, burns the dehydrated ground, was a tunnel, buried under the sand. In the tunnel there was an ever-growing fortress of burnt leaves and sand with over-boiled water dripping the top. This is all that remained of the desert, nothing could survive in the world above, nothing except from the portal. The fortress was built around the portal; the portal was the darkest shade of black, with red around the rims of the frame.

The sound of water hitting the cold tiles that topped the floor brought a sense of entertainment to the girl sat in the small room covered in a mixture of scars and bruises, awaiting the next blow of the hammer upon her fragile body which shivered in the night air and soft breeze which entered via the half barricaded window. Again and again, almost as if it was a cruel rhythm the metal tool came down, never missing a hit, always landing upon her chest. The storm brewing outside was bad enough without the maniac and his hammer. These are soft blows for a man of his build, she thought, she was certain he intended to make this last all night long. She wanted to struggle, to scream! But the leather bindings made it impossible, who cares anyway, she thought, no one near this basement would care.

The sticky taste of iron filled her mouth, blood. Her body started to shudder, shock. By this point the inmate hitting had dropped the hammer and injected another load of hydrocodone, such a waste of such an effective pain killer. At last she tried to struggle, but even with the drugs numbing the sharp pain shooting trough her body she still couldn’t gain the strength to fuel her ineffective hope of escaping the inmate, after all, even if she did escape, in a mass breakout like this? She could die in a more demanding way.

With my free hand I felt the imperfections, holes, scratches, patches of long since dry blood that covered thee wooden operation table I lay on. How old was it? Thirty years? Forty? Who cares, it had to be old to be in the basement of Twin Rivers Asylum. This psychiatric institution had housed many atrocities, after all, Nazis built this asylum, catered the inmates…put them to work. We are only barely off the English channel; here in Channel Island’s Twin rivers asylum we have many an inmates. Young and old, French and British, they are all welcome here, hell, we have a Swedish inmate, talks to himself all day and night, his names Toby Buchman, we call him Toby-Talkative, how very fitting being his nurse I should die by his hand…

Ouch, be gentler Toby. Even through my drugged up husk of a body I felt that one. I and the staff thought you were joking when you said you were very strong, looks like you weren’t joking…

For such a shrivelled blotch of bones you have surprisingly good and when it comes to instrument of torture, your quite strong, why wouldn’t you be? Killing young women is why your here, Toby, you are one hell of a sociopath, brilliant mind, you’re like a more sadistic Hannibal Lecter minus eating his victims after all, I’m so helpless you could take a couple of bites out of me as I lie here, in the dark basement…

Fun fact, a goldfish’s attention span is three seconds, the average lunar eclipse takes 11 minutes to pass, and a wooden hospital bed from 19th century takes an average of 63 hits to break trough, 54 if you incorporate a body which weighs approximately 130lbs, and guess how much I weigh.

Suddenly I heard the wood buckle under the next hit a glorious hit as well as my straps loosening. Come on Toby, you brilliant old sociopath, you can do it, one more well made hit could send me free. What could go wrong? Toby stood motionless on the spot for a moment later Toby took another blow. I couldn’t breathe. The pain was so intense I felt every cell in my body explode in a chain reaction. The pain was so intense that it felt like a piece of heated iron had been pressed onto my skin. Despite that, a strange sort of calm fell over me: I was dying. I wasn’t coming back from this. Part of me thought, All right. Make it count. I wobbled on one foot about to run to the door, but unfortunately Toby kicked me at the wall. He was so strong, I thought All froze the leaves on the trees didn’t clatter, Toby didn’t stink anymore, Then it was gone all the memories of life returning to me. Then it all went away, my life was It was the end, nothing could stop that now…

I awoke in a bed, in a white room with a marble floor and a silver carpet at the foot of the bed; the wall behind her was a fancy, white wallpaper, decorated to look like a real wall. The wall on the left of the bed and in front of the bed were normal and white, on the right of the bed was a window, now covered, with a beige curtain. In the bed- where the girl lay were multiple cushions, all lay side by side at the top of the bed; the blanket covering her was soft and light. On the sides of the bed were two bed-side cabinets, one with a lamp and the other one with a vase, holding tulips and rhododendrons, on books by her favourite author, many she didn’t recognise. Promptly, she got up noticing there was a small, white table- shaped as a cylinder, with a transparent glass top; also noticing the chair behind it too. The chair was a traditional, leather armchair with four small metal legs holding it up. Then she turned to the door. It was white made, smooth and made out of oak, with a metal handle, a small, square keyhole under it.

As soon as I placed my hand on the door handle, it flew open with a tall, handsome man in the way with bright blue hair shaped as a fire and red eyes. “Welcome, Kayla to Valhalla. Where are you off so fast” he shouted with glee. “I was going out,” Kyla said trembling on the spot. “I didn’t think this is where I should be.” “In this hotel we are all dedicated to make you feel like home, for you will be staying here for the rest of your life. Sorry for my wrong vocabulary, you are already dead. For the rest of the time you need to practice.” “What !?” she yelled. “Are you saying I’m dead” “Yes I am,” the man asked confused.”May I introduce you to your new home”

So the two walked through what seemed to be a endless tour, but eventually came to an end. “And this is the dining room where you have dinner… Here is your breakfast room you can freely come here and invite friends if you are feeling lonely…” “So you are saying this is the place where all people go if they are an extremex and if they died they come here and become an extraextremex” “Yes,” said he.”And also that you are our leader because you can see what specie people are also take away their powers if needed.” “Can I take away the powers of sociopaths or weaken them with my mind beams whatever things.”

“Yes, you can but if you do that you will be weakened too. Also that is a high level trick, you are not high level- no offense” “Offense taken,” said Kayla, with her head down. So they continued on their tour and went walking through all the different floors and introducing Kyla to all the different people and members of staff. On they went about the limits of people and a lot of different stuff. After time, they started her training.

“Focus on me, ” Blaze was explaining to her how to see what specie he was.”Do not think of anything else. Not the colour of my nose, not what room we are in just on me the thoughts and memories of me. Now listen to the sound of my voice. You should be in a universe of darkness; are you?” “Yes I see black in the background and there are flying things in it.” “Yes those are my thoughts.” “I can also see images swirling around” “Those are memories” “I can also feel heat and cold environment when I move around. Are those your emotions” “Yes, the heat is happiness and the cold is anxiety or sadness. Now let’s focus on the specie part. To determine if I’m an Extraextremex, a normal Extremex or even an Oigreog. If I am an Extraextremex then you will not feel motion. If I was an Extremex then you would sense tingling and if I am an Oigreog then you’ll sense shaking. Which one do you sense?” “I sense tingling and shaking so you are one of the Oigreog in the times when Extremex where starting to populate the world. This that means you are an Exremog or an Exoiig” “I am an Exoiig. I have not died yet.” “But how are you here?” “Because I was the first Exoiig alive. I made this place” “But how?” “I used my powers to do it. That is why all the walls are shades of red, orange and yellow.” “Why didn’t you make mine a different colour.” “Because I need to keep track of what specie everyone is. I used Conjuration and Mysticism to make sure that every specie got the same shade of red or whatever.” They blabbered on about what it was like when Oigreog ruled the world, what Black Magic could do and how to control Extraextremex powers…

Kayla went to bed with the thoughts of how the world was made and how it transformed into this planet, when at the start it was billions of monsters – the Oigreog – fought and then somehow transformed into normal people who never fought in their lives. She also didn’t understand how there was only one person who had the power to see what specie one was… She woke with her hair curled up covering her face.

Once she tossed the hair off her face she noticed there was a book on her bed-side cabinet beside the lamp. When she picked it up, she noticed it was a book called “The Arts of Necromancy and Enchantments”. She soon noticed it was the book Blaze used to learn Black Magic. She was filled with a mixture of joy and shock. Then the door flew open. A small brown-haired boy was standing in the way. “Hi,” he said, holding a hand out to shake, “I am Logan, someone from you floor” “Hi,” Kayla said, shaking his hand, “I’m Kayla, an Extraextremex” “Do you want to go and have breakfast” “I guess so” said Kayla.

In the hallway, my neighbours were starting to emerge. Thomas Jefferson Jr looked about my age. He had short curly hair, a lanky frame and a rifle slung over one shoulder. His blue wool coat had brass buttons and chevrons on the sleeve – a U.S. Army Civil War uniform, I guessed. He nodded and smiled. ‘How you doing?’

‘Um, dead, apparently,’ I said. He laughed. ‘Yeah. You’ll get used to it. Call me T.J.’ ‘Kayla,’ I said. ‘Come on.’ Logan pulled me along.

We passed a girl who must’ve been Mallory Keen. She had frizzy red hair, green eyes and a serrated knife, which she was shaking in the face of a six-foot-seven guy outside the door marked X.

‘Again with the pig’s head?’ Mallory Keen spoke in a faint Irish brogue. ‘X, do you think I want to see a severed pig’s head every time I step out of my front door?’

‘I could not eat any more,’ X rumbled. ‘The pig head does not fit in my refrigerator.’ Personally, I would not have antagonized the guy. He was built like a bomb-containment chamber. If you happened to have a live grenade, I was pretty sure you could safely dispose of it simply by asking X to swallow it. His skin was the colour of a shark’s belly, rippling with muscles and stippled with warts. There were so many welts on his face it was hard to tell which one was his nose. We walked past, X and Mallory too busy arguing to pay us any attention.

We entered a small elevator and the doors closed, making the elevator sound. “One question: How does everyone get here.” “People called Collectors fly around the world collecting souls of dead Extremex. I am a Collectors.”

‘And you?’ I asked. ‘How did you become a Collector? Did you die a noble death?’ She laughed. ‘Not yet. I’m still among the living.’ ‘How does that work exactly?’ ‘Well, I live a double life. Tonight, I’ll escort you to dinner. Then I have to rush home and finish my calculus homework.’ ‘You’re not joking, are you?’ ‘I never joke about calculus homework.’ The elevator doors opened. We stepped into a room the size of a concert arena. My mouth dropped. ‘Holy –’ ‘Welcome,’ Logan said, ‘to the Feast Hall of the Slain.’

Rows of long tables, like a stadium, curved downward from the nosebleed section. In the center of the room, instead of a basketball court, a tree rose taller than the Statue of Liberty. Its lowest branches were maybe a hundred feet up. Its canopy spread over the entire hall, scraping against the domed ceiling and sprouting through a massive opening at the top. Above, stars glittered in the night sky.

What’s supposed to be your point? If you are receiving money from something YOU DO NOT OWN then it is obviously theft. YOU DO NOT PUT SOMEONE ELSES WORK ON YOUR OWN WEBSITE AND USE THAT MONEY FOR YOURSELF. That is just pathetic, really. I hope you honestly realise what your doing here, because its seriously stupid.

kys nigga my bitch loves the cocaine nigga gucci gang nigga iwill fuck your bith tongiht nigga, drose out nigga fag nigga

I am very disappointed that there is not 100 of the story idea selection

I’m glad to see Joe’s book, Let’s Write a Short Story! is still availalbe and going strong! I purchased it as soon as it was published, still refer to it quite regularly to remind myself of some important but often over-looked elements of short story. Although my work has been published a number of times, we’re never too experienced to learn and to be reminded of what makes for a great story.

A short story idea: When I was very young, one of my best friends learned she had been adopted. We all know that people really can and do say some incredibly stupid things to children. Because my mother had very blond hair and blue eyes and both my hair and eyes are dark brown, strangers often said to me,”And just whose little girl are you?” I began to wonder whether I, too, was adopted and my parents simply weren’t telling me. What if, as an adult who never questioned your origins, you learned you had been adopted. Conversely, because I myself DO have an adopted child, what if you were told you were adopted but in fact, learned you were not. Write a short story!

here’s my story

Uncle joe was talking to his 5 year old nephew jane about how he’s getting old and how she’s going to have to start doing all the chores in the house joe is a little challenged in his life because he was bullied and doesn’t know how to control his anger. he gets in an argument with jane and Joe felt anger go through his mind his temper over flows and he got so mad he started hitting her. 2 years later she was still helping around as Jane’s face would turn red and she would start throwing tempers and joe would hit her. Over the years her fachel expiration started to change form because of all the hitting. Joe heard a scream of dying devastating noise outside and went to go see what it was he lifted up a bucket and under it was the phone book. Since he had anger issues he decided to call the evil scientist and ask him to fix bullying once and for all after he went to the evil scientist house something went wrong he came back as the demon he unlocked his nephew’s room there she was. she was crying.Jane slowly turned around she was mad crazy. He ordered her to clean the dishes. Since she was so mad crazy she didn’t listen to him and she smacked him across the face the Demons face turned red he felt like someone pierced him with a needle he got so mad that he trapped her in the mirror. She was screaming for help but it just circulated around in the mirror as she was she was trapped there another duplicate appeared it was a boy. He said his name was michael. He was 7 years old the evil demon erased the kids memories and put them in a microchip. Then he put him on the streets. Someone had found him and brought him home and He had been with his new parents for years.He was great at figuring anything out a after a while he found out about his uncle Joe. Since he was so good at researching things he even found directions to his uncle’s house so he decided to go on an adventure to find his uncle joe/the Demon once he found uncle Joe he wasn’t at all happy.

Joe hit Michael and he fell to the ground and fainted .when he was just slightly awake he found a microchip it said Michael’s memories michael picked it up Joe was coming towards him with a knife

Michael woke up right away and put the microchip to his chest if he dies Jane will vanish for ever Joe stabbed Michael in the chest.luckily the microchip blocked the knife from stabbing him and the microchip went into his chest it felt like a rainbow bursting through his skin the light went into his eyes and he got his memories back. He knew everything he knew that his clone was abused and everything he was ready to sacrifice himself for his clone so he ran inside the house and did bloody jane spinning around in circles and said bloody jane bloody jane bloody jane.

He trapped himself in the mirror and Bloody Jane was back Jane through her self out of the house and went to Joe in and punched him on the floor and they had a sword fight and Joe died and bloody Jane turned into the evil bloody demon.

(I like to write with comic characters (Peter Parker, ect.) so here we go… Based on the scars short story idea)

“Where did these come from?” I flinched and hurried to cover my back and arms up. “They’re old… They don’t hurt anymore…” I frowned, remembering the pain from each one of the marks that stained my skin forever. “That’s not what I asked…” I flinched as he slid the thin jacket off my shoulders to get a better look at them. I didn’t meet his eyes as he traced over them. Long and thin lines from knives. Round ones from cigars or cigarettes. Jagged ones from glass. The giant one that curled from just below my neck, all the way around my body before stopping at my right hip. I remembered the pain from each one, the cause of each one, the people who caused each and every one of them… “Pete, It’s a really long story…” We had been dating for about a month and I didn’t want to scare him away with my sob story. “I want to know.” His voice was soft as he had me sit on the bed facing him. I looked at him for a while, trying to sort my thoughts out. We had been friends since we were six, but I had hidden everything from him. He had no clue, and I wish he still wouldn’t… I took a deep breath and began to tell the story. “I’ve kept this from everyone… Please let me tell the whole story before you ask questions or leave me. I wouldn’t blame you if you did…” “Go ahead, I’ll let you finish. But I promise, I won’t leave you.” He grabbed my hand and gave it a reassuring squeeze. “We’ll see… It began when I was six. My parents weren’t the best as you know… They weren’t home much. Mom went out drinking until she was hammered, Dad went out on “business” calls. He would leave almost every night, coming home with perfume on him. Mom didn’t want to believe it. She was in denial, believed that he still loved her as he did in the past… She would come home smashed and would start sobbing. I tried to help as much as I could, but I didn’t know much. I would let her hug me, and would do my best to comfort her. I learned fast that I needed to take care of her. She would wake up with a hangover and the best I could do was give her one of my favorite juice pouches and a cookie. She would start crying again and tell me that I was such a good girl. Remember when I missed school for a week?” “Yeah, the teacher said you were really sick.” “Dad and mom got into a fight. They were screaming at each other, I didn’t know what to do… I ran away from home, I went to my cousin’s house. I got to stay there the week even though he called mom. When I got home, Dad was gone and mom was passed out on the couch surrounded by empty cans of alcohol. Dad never came back after that, and mom got increasingly depressed. I didn’t know what was happening, Dad wouldn’t come home, mom was sad, I learned how to do things for myself quick because I had to support myself and mom. When I turned seven the nice elderly woman from next door began to teach me how to cook, and clean. I would make her little crafts to sell in her shop as a “payment” for the lessons. Mom barely noticed I was gone for an hour afterschool. She tried to be there for me, she would ask me how my day was, and would constantly give me hugs. I thought life was going good, that everything would be okay. Then when I was eight, everything went downhill…” He squeezed my hand slightly. “Dad came back to the house. He… He said nasty things to mom. I didn’t understand that well back then but as I grew older I understood what he said to her. He.. broke her… She wouldn’t talk anymore, refused to eat, refused to drink… After I came home from the sleepover at your house, I saw her… She, She was hanging from the ceiling, tears running down her face.” Pete looked horrified, pulling me into a hug as I continued. “The elderly woman heard my scream, and rushed over to see me staring at my mother screaming and sobbing. She called the cops, quickly getting her to the ground, checking her pulse. I was taken to the woman’s home, the police announced her dead and found a letter…” “I knew she passed but didn’t know what happened exactly…” Pete’s voice was quiet. “Dad got custody over me. He didn’t like the fact that I looked like mom. He… He did things. He let his ‘friends’ do things. I was nine at the time, and he sold me to his ‘friend’ for the night. Gave him 10 bucks to have his way with me. I tried to fight back but…” Pete looked livid. “I felt sick, the bad thing is that I couldn’t feel anything. I was numb, emotionally and physically. You and the others were the only ones that made me feel something… It continued until I was twelve, I had tried to fight but it was pointless. One day, Dad had enough of it. He slapped me, kicked me, cut me, burned me… He let his ‘friends’ have their way with me. The reason I began to miss more and more school was because of him. I got lucky sometimes and was able to sneak out and see you. He would add a new mark to the collection each time. Then when I was fifteen, he got drunk. He.. Had his way with me, then threatened to kill me if I said anything. Aunt May was the one to notice, the one day I came over she saw a glimpse of them… I confided in her, I didn’t want you to know because you would look at me differently. Or give up on me and that would have killed me… Dad found out when May called the cops on him. He was not happy, the longest scar was his attempt to kill me. The police did a search, and the court plead him guilty. I was in the hospital that month I missed school… My cousin got custody of me, then the accident happened, and I got my abilities. That’s pretty much it… I guess you’ll be leaving then?” I lowered my head, waiting for the rejection. “I told you. I’ll never leave you. I love you too much to do that. I’m glad you told me…” He pulled me into a tight hug, kissing the top of my head. “Really?” I teared up a bit. “Really.” He held me as I cried. I really felt loved for once in my life… All I know is that it felt good to get that off my chest. “I don’t care about the marks. Because these scars make you look even more beautiful to me.”

( I have no idea if I did this right and I’m quite sure I might have made few mistakes but it’s worth a try)

Sometimes there are instances when you can see your own life flashing before your eyes and it gets you thinking ” Is this where I want to be? Is this the place I still want to be in another 5 years?”

I had a minor problem, a fault perhaps. I was surely and indefinitely addicted to Alcohol. Don’t get me wrong it was not that type of addiction where one would kill for a bottle of beer or something far more stronger that leaves that burning sensation down your throat and a sting behind your eyelids. It was a addiction where when I didn’t know what to do-how to react- specifically, I turned to my new found companion. It didn’t shout back at me, didn’t call me names, didn’t say that I was a worthless mistake.

Infact it welcomed me with open arms and I embraced the feeling of not caring. Sure it was a great weight off my shoulders just to forget everything for a moment and just…… be. But then I’d wake up regretting every single thing I did the night before. Trust me that plus having a blasting headache ? not the best hangover tonic.

Now here I am in front of my car trying to think yet failing since I can’t even think straight to even start thinking about thinking.

That’s when I feel it. something poking at the back of my head. A shadow looming behind me.

”Leave the keys on the ground and turn away without a second glance and you won’t get hurt.” His vice was rough and he reeked of old garbage and dried up voldka.

There I see it again. All The time I’ve spent wasting away drinking without actually doing what my 21 year old self was supposed to be doing.

I took my parents money for granted and had the time of my life. A Audi sports car, expensive designer clothes, latest IPhone, all the girls I could ever imagine. And yet I felt hollow. An empty nutshell disguised as a perfect fruit.

This is the moment I change that. This is the moment the fight back. I’m not going to whole away anymore. I won’t be that worthless mistake any more. I am Rane Alexander after all and I won’t let a label define me. I’m going to get past this hazy fog and I’ll see the horizon again.

So I turned back and grabbed the man by his arm and sling him over hard sending the gun skidding across the dim lit parking lot.

” Not today” I breathed.

Nice…well done. I thought the ending was empowering…

Standing Still

I would like to tell you a story about a girl. There was nothing special about her at all-she was simply a girl. Every day she lived in pain. She lived in her shared room feeling so alone. Everything was white: the walls, the beds, the furniture. There was no creativity in the room, no evidence of the girl’s individuality-no posters, no color, nothing. Although, she did have one orange throw pillow that she didn’t want nor like. She hated the bland, bland room. Until she was forced to live in this room she saw white as a symbol of purity, harmony, and peace. Now she saw white as a toxic color, something that wasn’t even really a color at all, something that was devoid of emotion. Every day the girl took a shower in an attempt to wash away her skin that had been tainted by the room, but that simple act of cleansing soon became tiresome and it eventually stopped working. The girl felt dirty, impure, and alone. She was afraid-so afraid. She was afraid of being alone in her shared room in a shared house of seven people. She was afraid of not being heard, of not being able to speak. She didn’t know how she felt and she didn’t know how to express it. One day, the girl stepped into her shower, and stared at the white walls and the white floors and the white curtain and the whiteness of it all and she felt numb. She felt as if the blandness of her room and of her life had finally driven her emotionless. She stood there, feeling every singular drop of water sting her skin as if she was on fire and she felt nothing. Nothing-the absence of anything-shouldn’t feel as if the world was being torn apart around her, it shouldn’t feel as though everyone and everything were pitted against her, and yet this is the way the girl felt. She forgot that she was in the shower, where she was supposed to feel refreshed and cleansed, and she forgot herself. She leaned her head against the shower wall she wondered why the walls looked as if they were in so much pain. It was as if the very walls around her were feeling just as she felt. She stood and she thought. She wondered how long she would be able to stand there, with her head resting on a cold, hard surface. She stood in the shower too long, she stood there until the hot water turned cold and even past that. She stood there until she felt as though the pain building up inside her couldn’t take it any longer. And then, she moved. She placed one hand against the tile wall and she pushed, testing her strength-the wall remained still. She thought about how meaningless her life was and how she couldn’t possibly do anything important or memorable and she felt selfish. She felt selfish for wanting to be important. She felt as though all of her thoughts were not her own and that society had simply conditioned her to think them and she felt nothing. She felt trapped. She had nowhere to go, nowhere to be, no friends to run to, nothing. She felt alone. Her worst fear was unfolding as she began to panic. She thrashed in the shower as she desperately gasped for air, feeling nothing. Maybe she should stop gasping for air, maybe she should just give up. But no, she had to keep fighting. She turned and she turned the dreaded water off and it stopped. Just like that, it stopped, and she felt nothing yet again. She stood there, water dripping down her body, and she thought. She thought about how many mistakes she made and how many lies she’d told. She regretted everything. She wanted to stop feeling. She wanted to undo all of her wrongdoings and she wished she could fix the people she’d broken. She wished so desperately to fix herself. She stopped, she told herself to snap out of it and she felt nothing. She turned and she pulled back the bland, white curtain. She slowly took a step and then another. She stood right outside the shower and let herself feel the cold, rigid air on her skin because feeling something was better than nothing, right? She grabbed a towel and wrapped it around herself to shield her small, fragile body from the cold. She stood there outside of the shower, and she felt vulnerable. She felt neglected. She felt as if nobody cared at all. She truly thought that she had no one. She sat down on the cold tile bathroom floor and she felt defeated. She felt as if she could no longer go one. She stared at the water dripping from the faucet and she thought about how easy it would be to corrupt these white walls with her own blood just as they had tainted her with pain and sorrow and misery. She sat for what felt like hours and she thought. She realized that she couldn’t do what she so desperately wanted to do because she was just too afraid. She thought about spilling her own blood, just to leave at least a little bit of herself in that lonely room that would never truly be hers. She came so close-oh so close-to giving up, but then she remembered. She remembered a person and how that person made her feel. She remembered a smile like no other. She remembered arms that held her so tight and close that she actually felt safe. She remembered a face, a gorgeous face, that lit up the moment its eyes layed on her. She remembered feeling loved, so she stood up, turned to the door, walked into the white room, and the girl lived on to see another day, another sunrise, and another beautiful moment.

And I have a secret-that girl, that terrible terrible girl, is me.

I have a blog and have uploaded 190 articles and short stories averaging 1000-1400 words. 70% were political. My writing is purely a hobby although I did send one story to a publisher and they wrote that they liked it but being an unknown author I would be required to contribute £2,500 towards the cost of publishing this children’s picture book which was 800 words long. Is this normal?.

So far I have had 43,000 hits worldwide on my blog I am now writing fiction for girls aged between 12-17 and children’s picture books..

I have a blog and have uploaded 190 articles and short stories averaging 1000-1400 words. 70% were political. My writing is purely a hobby although I did send one story to a publisher and they wrote that they liked it but being an unknown author I would be required to contribute £2,500 towards the cost of publishing this children’s picture book which was 800 words long.

IS THIS NORMAL?.

Is this normal ?

I will get up off the chair and head for the PC, I will type two lines. At this stage they are nothing but the release of vague reflections triggered by my imagination. I may not use them but they have to escape the clutter and disarray of my thoughts and be planted like a seedling. Those two lines on a blank screen when germinated can blossom into an article, a story or a book; the blank computer screen is not unlike the painter’s blank palette waiting for the first glimmer of his/her artistry. A line of text can do the same, although it need not even be a line of text, one word can suffice.

The first line read “It was the evening of the annual Concert and Dance at……….. ” I turned the Pee Cee off and I went to bed. The next day the story took root and blossomed… ….

I will get up off the chair and head for the PC, I will type two lines. At this stage they are nothing but the release of vague reflections triggered by my imagination. I may not use them but they have to escape the clutter and disarray of my thoughts and be planted like a seedling.

Those two lines on a blank screen when germinated can blossom into an article, a story or a book; the blank computer screen is not unlike the painter’s blank palette waiting for the first glimmer of his/her artistry. A line of text can do the same, although it need not even be a line of text, one word can suffice.

The first line read “It was the evening of the annual Concert and Dance at the Denham College” I turned the Pee Cee off and I went to bed. The next day the story took root and blossomed… ….

Those two lines on a blank screen when germinated can blossom into an article, a story or a book; the blank computer screen is not unlike the painter’s blank palette waiting for the first glimmer of his/her artistry. A line of text can do the same, although it need not even be a line of text, one word can suffice. The first line read “It was the evening of the annual Concert and Dance at the Denham College.

I turned the Pee Cee off and I went to bed. The next day the story took root and blossomed… ….

Here a poem…

Roses are red Violets are blue I love you Do you love me?

Times I sit and think of you In hope as you think of me Your smile just makes me melt As I know my makes you melt.

I know you think I’m silly But you love me for it.

I hope this puts a smile on your face As it does my as I wrote it.

The sky is blue, the grass is green and the sun is warm just like my heart that beats for you. You make me smile more then the beautiful flowers that bloom under the warmth of spring and you put a sparkle in my eyes more then the stars shine in the night sky. You light my path better then a full moon in a clear night sky.

You are beautiful and I love you too.

It lights up my heart to see the words I write to you. I never thought I would ever meet someone like you. I have told you things happen for a reason and so they do. I want spend every waking moment to show you how I feel. My heart belongs to the moat amazing woman I know. Baby, that is you. I know here lately I’ve been hard to love but I promise things will get better. You are my rock and sanitary you keep me going when I think I can’t. I love u with all my heart, mind, body and soul. You’re my FOREVER. Just one more thing to say.

Don’t give up on me because I will make all your dreams come true in one way or another. I will love you until I take my last breath. Just keep on loving me for I know I am you’re Forever Love…..

That is the biggest poem I’ve ever seen

Merp, I like this

Beware: Bad language. These are two dispicible people being told honestly.

————-

Stew bent down and grabbed the dead man’s feet. “Because they’re faggots, that’s why. Why you care?”

Phil bent over and grabbed the dead man’s shoulders. “I just don’t think we should generalize people like that. That’s all.”

“One. Two. Three. Up.” They lifted the dead man off the pavement and shuffled over to the trunk of their Volkswagen. “I don’t give a fuck what you don’t think, they’re still dick-suckers. On three again. One. Two. Three.” They tossed the man into the trunk. Stew grabbed the dead man’s legs and contorted them in such a way that his fat ass fit inside, then he tossed a sheet over the body and slammed the trunk shut. “Queers, Phil. God ain’t got no love for a man sucking off another man.”

Phil was wiping his hands with a kerchief. When he was done he stuffed it back in his back pocket. The left one. “Maybe God doesn’t care, neither? Maybe we’re the ones, as a society, making a bigger deal out of it than it really is.”

Stew licked his thumb and rubbed it on his left tail light, smearing a dot of blood and making it worse. “Gimme’ a rag, would ya’?” Phil fetched a rag out of the backseat of the VW and tossed it to Stew. He spit on the rag and then wiped the taillight raw. “It’s in the fuckin’ bible, man. God said a man and a woman, not a man and a man. Now, don’t get me wrong, I got no problem with women dating women. I mean, come on, it’s sexy as hell. But two guys wagging their weiner’s in each other’s faces? Fucking gross.”

Phil stuck a cigarette between his lips and lit it, closing his eyes and inhaling. He opened his eyes and exhaled. A kid on a bike rode by, tossing a newspaper wrapped in a blue bag on the edge of the driveway. Phil watched the boy as he pedaled away, dumping papers on every driveway down the street. “Maybe the bible does say that,” he said, turning back to Stew. “Why’s it our business, though? Long as they keep it between them, how’s it hurting you?”

“It’s the principle of the motherfuckin’ thing,” Stew said, tossing the rag to Phil.

Phil sidestepped out of the way and let the rag fall to the ground. “Fuck off, dude. I don’t want his fucking blood on my new suit.”

“Well at least put it in the trash.” Stew wiped his hands down his pants, at which Phil cringed, then walked over and opened the driver side door. “We gotta meet Don in half an hour and we’re runnin’ late. Let’s go.”

“Stop for a taco?” Phil asked, bending over and grabbing the rag between two fingers.

“Sure. I’m starving.”

I Tried This is what i have so far…:

Isra Sonnet liked the quiet. Which was why she wished she were back home with her parents back in California, her cousin Eric was snoring very loud on the top bunk of the beds. She tried to block out the noise, but he seemed to be getting louder, and louder with each snort. Having enough of this, Isra grabbed her pillow and climbed up with it.

Holding steady onto the ledge of the bed, she smacked him with it. Hard.

Waking up with a start Eric looked at Isra annoyed.

“What is wrong with you? I was trying to sleep!” He flings the pillow on by his face,to the floor.

“You’re loud enough to wake the dead. Stop snoring like an old man.”

“If you’re so mad about it go sleep somewhere else…” Eric says drifting back to sleep, too tired to argue.

Sighing Isra climbed back down to her bunk bed. She knew it wouldn’t be long before Eric would start snoring again. Gathering her pillow from the floor and the blanket from her bed, she walked out of the room closing the door behind her.

Now, it was quite dark in the house. Though, Isra knew her way around the house from memory. She was careful to go down the stairs, and not to make too much noise to wake Eric’s parents.

In the living room Isra made herself comfortable on one of the couches. Placing her pillow down and wrapping herself in the warmth of her blanket comforted her. She sighed in relief. Now she could finally sleep.

I really like it. It’s very detailed in my opinion. I’ve read a book like that called… “Wish”. I want to publish all six of my books when I get older. I’M ONLY NINE so maybe when i’m in my 20’s

dont worry about your age. you can be just as good as any other writer. i am only twelve and i am almost finished writing my book that i am hoping to publish. go for your dreams, dont let your age stop you.

I’m 16 and have published my first book, best experience of my life, I am very close to publishing my 2nd book and sooo excited! Don’t worry about your age, the younger the better I say! You go girl and good luck with your writing career. You are a very gifted young lady! Xx

If you want to publish your books, why not now? There isn’t a law against young authors. I’m not much older than you, but my book is being published this year. All you need is the money to publish–that’s the REAL hard part for a younger writer.

Hey, don’t worry, I’m eleven and I deeply enjoy writing, and I’m looking to get a book published very soon. There’s no law forbading youngsters from getting books published… In fact, becoming a young author is one of the VERY BEST things you could do to benefit you in the future.

Yea I’m 11 and I’m gonna start writing stories on an app called Wattpad

It’s a great way to get feed back and to start sharing your stories.

The temperature was searing. Tara squinted her eyes as wavy lines of heat danced in the distance. Michael shuffled out of the taxi behind her and bent to drop 30 pesos in the driver’s expectant hand. “Why did we have to come all the way to Acapulco just to get our teeth cleaned?” Tara whined like a child dreading the dentist. “We’re not just getting our teeth cleaned”, Michael explained, “I need 4 crowns, you could use some fillings, and dental work is so much cheaper in Mexico. Plus, it’ll be like a vacation as soon as we’re finished. I have 3 days of the most romantic stuff planned for us, just wait.” Tara smiled at the thought of what Michael’s idea of “romantic stuff” could be. It was 9:15 am Thursday, if all went to plan, they would be partying on the beach Friday night. The shop they had been dropped off in front of was a modest, stucco covered building with one dark window bearing a small sign that read “Dentista”. They were 45 minutes early for their appointments but hopefully that meant they would be done sooner. 30 minutes and 16 pages of paperwork later, they were ushered down a brightly lit corridor to a room containing an x-ray machine. Once finished there, they were led to adjoining rooms. Each contained nothing more than a large, green dental chair, procedure light, and metal rolling cart filled with shiny, sharp instruments. “The dentist will be right in,” said the plump assistant in a thick Mexican accent. Since the office saw so many tourists, the staff all spoke in English, and this reassured Tara that it wasn’t so bad after all. She was looking up at a poster of an aquarium filled with fish that was taped to the ceiling when the dentist strode in. He was tall, about 6 feet, with dark hair, dark eyes, and a brilliantly white smile. While peering at her x-ray films, he rattled off a list of work that she needed, and she agreed, not really understanding just wanting to get it over with. The plump assistant appeared and placed a mask over Tara’s nose and mouth as she crooned, “To make you comfortable!” The last thing she noticed before she lost consciousness was the poodle print scrubs the assistant was wearing. Tara woke up being shaken by Michael. “Come on let’s go, I’ve been finished for an hour.” She groggily sat up and placed her hand to her warm, swollen cheek. The assistant was back, handing Michael prescriptions for pain killers and giving him instructions not to eat for 2 hours. They stepped outside into the bright sun and began walking slowly towards the nearest intersection where they could hail a cab. After a short taxi ride they arrived at Hotel Catedral, a quaint, boutique inn on the outskirts of the city. The room was cramped, but clean, and after a quick shower, they both laid down and quickly fell asleep. The next 2 days were spent drinking, lounging on the beach, and making love. Tara awoke late Sunday morning and started packing. While she would miss relaxing on the beach, she couldn’t wait to get back home to her apartment. Her stomach had been bothering her on and off throughout the trip and she thought it may have been the water she was drinking. They took a taxi to the airport and the trip home was uneventful except for a few severe stomach pains Tara had on the flight. She took a few more pain pills and they eased up enough for her to take a nap. They barely had time to walk through the door when Tara felt a sudden urge and bolted to the bathroom. “Are you okay?” Michael called from the hall. “Fine, just gimme a minute!” Tara snapped, and Michael went in to the living room and laid down on the couch. When Tara had finished in the bathroom, she stood up and saw something strange in the toilet. It looked like what appeared to be several small balloons floating in the water. “What the…” Tara stared confused, and called for Michael to come into the bathroom. He popped his head in the door and looked at her questioningly. She pointed to the toilet and he shook his head as if to say, “I’m not going in there.” Tara walked to the sink and grabbed a pair of tweezers sitting near the mirror. When she reached towards the toilet, Michael yelped, “What are you doing?!” “Shush, hold on!” she said. She pulled back the tweezers and pinched in the end was one of the balloons. She carried it to the sink and quickly rinsed it off. Michael came closer and said, “That came out of you?” ‘Yeah, gimme something to cut it open.” He produced his pocket knife and she proceeded to make a small slice down the center of the balloon. A white powdery substance spilled from the cut. “Oh my god, it looks like drugs! Tara exclaimed. “How did this get inside me? It must have been the dentist! I told you we shouldn’t have went down there for dental work! What are we gonna do?” “Maybe we should go to the emergency room and get checked out? Michael suggested. “Ok but we should just say our stomachs are hurting and not say anything about the drugs. We don’t want them thinking it’s ours and taking us to jail.” After spending 4 hours in the ER, a CAT scan and bloodwork, the couple was assured that they were in perfect health and probably ate something bad. They headed home, relieved there were no more foreign objects in their bodies but worried about what to do about the dentist. “He can’t get away with this, said Tara excitedly, he probably does this to tourists all the time!” “But if we call the police and tell them our story, they might think we’re involved somehow,” said Michael. They arrived back at their small Austin apartment and decided to eat some dinner and think the matter over some more without rushing to alert the police. After all they were safe at home and had no plans on leaving the country any time soon. Maybe they could just put this whole thing behind them like a bad dream. A crazy story to tell the grandkids. Once the dishes for dinner had been washed and Tara was settling down on the sofa next to Michael, a knock sounded at the door. “Who could that be? “Michael asked. He got up, slowly walked to the door, and peeped through the eyehole. On the other side of the door were 3 well-dressed Latino men. The one standing closest to door was dressed in black pants and jacket with a tucked-in turquoise shirt. He spoke first. “We know you’re in there and you have something that belongs to our boss.”

I wrote two stories so far Murderous Twins (Mystery) and Pregnant at 18 (Drama n Romance) total words for both 27000

THANK YOU FOR THIS. I LOVE TO WRITE AND I NEEDED INSPIRATION!!!

My First Story.. I woke up late that morning, too excited to sleep at first and then I don’t remember when I dozed off to sleep early morning. Bright sunlight hit my half open eyes and I jumped off from the bed. It was 8:00 am already.

“Mama … why didn’t you wake me up? Has he left already?” Mother smiled “Its Sunday! Didn’t felt like waking you up from deep sleep you were in, besides you must have been dreaming, there was beautiful smile on your face. And don’t worry Papa won’t go without you.”

I was super relived and ran to hall, where my dad was ready, waiting for me. “We are going to City, right?” He simply nodded and smiled “Now get ready else we will miss the bus”

I ran to bathroom for shower and within seconds was out and in front of mirror combing my hairs. “Dry them properly, your hairs are wet, you’ll catch cold”

But here I was holding my dad’s hand and pulling him out of the door. We took bus from the bus stop and were on our way to City.

Finally the day had arrived when I was going to get my first Bicycle. It all started when my dad promised to get me Bicycle if I score good marks in final exam next year. All my friends had their own bicycle. Even my juniors had their own.

I patiently waited for one year to get my dream bike.

On the result day I was very nervous. When there was announcement that I stood first in 5th C, I jumped up in air and almost snatched my report card from our class Teachers hands.

I was telling everybody on my way back that I was going to get bicycle, since I stood first in class. After reaching home I told mom about the result and she was very happy. Then dad came back from work in the evening, he was very happy to hear about my results and patted on my back.

“So you are going to get me Bicycle” I said with glimmer in my eyes. “Let’s see” he simply said taking off his shoes

I was almost broken in tears to hear those words. He had not said no but neither did he say yes. I broke down “this is not fair, you promised”.

Next day, mom broke the news to me that finally I am going to get my Bike this Sunday.

Squeezing sound of halting break of bus brought me back to present. “We have reached, Lets go” said dad.

We reached the Big Bicycle store in Gol market. There were so many bikes, I just couldn’t take my eyes off. I picked the one with Marron color. Salesman explained the features to me. I looked at dad expectantly, he nodded and I hugged him.

Dad went in to meet the shop manager, I waited outside to see my bike being assembled by the worker. I saw dad having conversation with the shop owner. I don’t know what was wrong but dad came out.

“Let’s go now we will come next week, and take this Bike home” dad said with his fingers in my hairs. I couldn’t believe my ears. After waiting for almost a year I am getting my bike and now he is saying to wait for one more week.

I threw his hand away in disgust and ran away to hug my bike and started crying. Dad tried to convince me that He had assumed the Price of Bicycle to be lot less. And now he doesn’t have enough cash to buy this bike.

But I refused to budge down. I was so much carried away by anger, I couldn’t see the nervous face of my father. It must have been really awkward for him to face this situation.

“Okay. Let me see what can be done!” he went in. I waited outside partly sobbing and partly smiling.

Few moments later dad came out smiling. I knew he had bought the bike and we were going to be taking it home today. This was happiest day of my life.

It took me few years to understand that my dad had sold his ring that day to fulfill my wish!

This is what I’ve got so far:

Capt. Lee asked for interrogation volunteers. The Interrogation Rooms were full and there weren’t enough interrogators. Lt. Jones volunteered. She told him thee was a suspect in Interrogation room D. Should be easy — a straight-up homicide. Just tape the confession.

Entering IR D, he saw an inconspicuous middle-aged man. Inconspicuous? Maybe 100 years ago.

Lt. Jones introduced himself and sat down. He sat down and said he was there to get the man’s side of the story. Then he turned on the recorder. The man looked at him with amusement. “Do you really want my confession” he asked. Jones said he needed the man’s name and address first. “All right. I am Daniel Alan James, address 132321 Atlantic Avenue, Plot D3.”

Jones looked up sharply. “That’s a cemetery. Your real address please.” I get the nuts, he thought.

“I am not ‘pulling your leg’ as you so quaintly think. That is my address.”

“As to my confession. In 1869 in Palm Beach, I burgled May Palmer’s house I got a sackful of jewelry. I also hacked off her head. Sternly he looked at Jones. “You kept that back. He acted like that fact should have been publusged,, like he wanted credit for it.

“In 1920, in Miami Beach, I attended a speakeasy. I abducted a somewhat plump girl, Cynthia Handel, and eventually disposed her of in the Dismal Swamp.” Chuckling, he continued. You could say the alligators had a fine meal that night.

In 1936, Cleveland, Ohio. I presume you’ve heard of the Torso Murders there? The Mad Butcher of Kingsbury Run? It was never solved. Poor Eliot Ness — he wanted so badly to be Mayor of Cleveland and not just Safety Director. That case would have given him the Mayor’s office. I denied him that.””I

Above the gables of the orphanage roof, a tremulous, gentle sound began to keen. It began quietly, as oh so fragile a thing. I held my breath where I had awakened in my bed to keep from drowning it out- the sound of a human singing through a violin.

I knew exactly who it was that sang. She had come in just that day, eyes wide, mouth closed, and a violin case clutched to her chest like it was the only thing she had left in the world. I was older than her and so in a different dormitory, but still the sound found its way, sorrowfully, lovingly, through the still night air.

The sound of it made me want to cry, as it stirred in me a pain I’d long ago learned to shove away, the origin of which was the only thing that me and the little virtuoso child shared. It unfurled itself deep within me, reaching out for the sound as it grew, grew louder and more powerful as the beginning upset turned to something more violent, something filled with righteous indignation at what had happened to her… to… to me. Tears welled up in my eyes and I curled into my pillow as I fought the onslaught of emotions. The anger, the injustice, the harrowing *grief*. It all slashed and dove and resonated through the air- through my soul. I curled around the reopened wound, feeling the unreleased cry of pain inside of me. But the tears still fell. They were like rain.

Suddenly the vibrancy in the tone fell flat. The last ringing note was undulating through the air, twisting with fading passion, as a quieter, stiller strain took its place. Dispirited and exhausted, the muted notes struggled to find me, and I imagined them getting lost. It was both a relief and a loss as I felt the raw emotions drain away. It felt… hollow. It was like how I usually felt only much, much worse, the sheer weight of it making it a pain all its own, although it signified the absence of it. It was a rock I couldn’t push off my chest, or a vacuum inside of me. It *hurt*.

Still, my eyes dried as I listened to the dispassionate, lilting notes. They bumped into each other with pattern but no passion. The lack of colour in it compared to everything else the little violin girl had played almost made me want to cry again- for her this time, instead of me. I wanted to comfort her. To tell her that she could find a family here again… even if it wasn’t the same.

But then- then something magical happened. I heard something in a note shift. Just ever so slightly, regaining some of its lost fullness. My heart jumped against my rib cage at it, like a baby bird too eager to be out of the nest. The sound broadened and deepened, spinning and growing to an unimaginable size and intensity, filled with such thought and memory as one can only know inside themselves. I couldn’t imagine that something of such monumental size was coming from such a tiny person and her instrument- no, her partner. Her friend. It had to be her friend to join her in all this.

The graceful creature grew and grew on when I thought it could grow more. Time had lost all meaning to me as it tapered and streamlined itself into something lighter- losing its weight and despair- but not its memory. That stayed. I could feel it within me, too- the warmth that was spreading through the song. It touched at my fingers and toes, the tip of my nose, and the center of my belly. I let out a breath as the weight- the vacuum, whatever it was- released, no longer afraid of it or drowning out the soaring melody that cozied into the corners of the resting place of me and so many others that had experienced what this other child was experiencing right now.

But I knew, as the music carried on through the night, a peaceful balance between love and light and sorrow, that she was going to be just fine. We were all going to be just fine.

This inspired me so i tried it came up with this so far

Things have been difficult lately. Even breathing seems to take a lot of effort. But grief often shuts people down. And everything seems to blur out. You must be wondering what broke me? Nothing just the same old heartbreak that broke souls in every time period.

That night I made my way Aden’s house. We had been dating for almost four years. He had asked me to marry him a week ago and I had to ask my parents if they accepted they’re daughter to get married at 21. To my surprise my parents had said yes and I was on my way to blow Aden’s mind with the amazing news. I rang his doorbell several times even though I knew where they key to the door was kept but manners were still important. After fifteen minutes of standing out the door my mind started exploding with thoughts I shouldn’t be thinking about. Aden’s car was still parked in the garage which meant that he was still home. I rushed to get the keys from under a plant pot and opened the door. Aden’s house was a mess but Aden was a clean freak. I made my way to Aden’s room and gently opened the door to see my whole world crashing in front of me.

Aden lay in bed with another women pressed to his side as they slept. No words, no tears just an apology. Just two words “ I’m sorry “ and I ran down the stairs, across the street and away from the person I had given my everything.

You see every person leaves a mark behind. But Aden , Aden left behind the deepest scars.

(please don’t judge, I’m only 12. And btw I’m a girl. I’m using my dad’s account)

It’s dark. My own shadows drown me. This is nothing new to me though, I’m not shocked or scared. Just lonely. Nothing to look forward to I’ll thing myself sitting and think, hoping. I don’t know how long this lasts, seconds, minutes, hours. I can’t sense the time passing, I don’t fully understand it. I don’t know how I got here or when I’ll leave. My life feels like it has no meaning. But yet, somehow I feel like I’m waiting for something, this longing for something to happen. But at this moment in time…I’m not really sure. I must have had more than this life, I must have lived in something different, color, happiness, friends, family….love…maybe, or is that me dreaming?

Have I lost my mind completely now. Maybe I’m not even here, In this darkness. Am I just mad? Why am I even asking…I’ll never get an answer. Sitting here hoping dreaming will do me no good! I must fight back. I’m not sure what I’m fighting for but if I do have a motive to fight then it must be worth it. Without thinking I lunge into the dark clouds. Fighting, not with any weapons but just by my longing for whatever is outside this lonely cage. The chains of my fear and uncertainty tug at my arms pulling me back but using all my force I shake them off and continue forward through the endless darkness…This place must end. There must be an ending for me, more than this dark realm. I jump forward, ready to scream as I hit the floor but I don’t have to. I didn’t fall…Am I..floating?

No, I don’t feel like I’m standing. I feel something on my hand but I can’t see what it is or even move to shake it off. Then I suddenly realize. The thought that I’ll no longer be lonely, this thing I feel, it’s a person. These thoughts, my feelings they allow me to take control. I slowly open my eyes. It all shoots my at once colour…light! I’m lying down on a bed, a hospital bed. My memories come soaring back. I look over to my right hand and see the lady holding it, in shock, but smiling brightly. It’s my mother! And in what seems like the longest time ever…I smile.

Clark stood at the window and watch as the first snow started to fall. He thought back to when he was a little boy and how he loved to go outside and play in the snow. The snowmen him and his sister would build, the snowball fights him and his friends would have. Then his smile changed to a sad face. He remember the last first snow fall that happen when he was a kid. That was the last time he was happy about seeing the snow. Clark’s father Ernest was at the local convenience store, when two mask men came in to rob the place. One of the robbers told Ernest to give him his wallet. He did but a long noise from the back of the store in scared the robber that he jumped and the gun he had pointed at Clark’s father went off and shot him in the chest.

Clark was home in the bed, but he jumped up out of his sleep, he felt that something was wrong. He got out the bed and went looking for his mother. When he got to the end of the hall he saw his mother at the door talking to some police. She turned when she heard the floor Creek. ” Clark honey, what are you doing up”? His mother asked with blood soaking red eyes . ” mother is everything alright? ” with every step he took closer to his mother he knew that what ever reason the police was at his house it wasn’t good. Every since that Dreadful night Clark, the night his dad was killed, he has hated the snow. It always seems to remind him of that night. It’s like all the good times he had in the snow was replace by the death of his dad, his hero, the man he wanted to grow up and be. They never did find the guys that robbed that convenience store.

Conceited Conflict

Simon did not die…

The inviting aroma of freshly brewed coffee had been enough to persuade him to walk straight into the little beach-side shack without as much as a second thought. He had made a mental note to thank Danny–his colleague and friend–for suggesting the place for a quick getaway.

People close to Simon knew that he savored these small pleasures of life: a peaceful evening relaxing at the beach, the blushing horizon as the sun set for the day, the scents of the tropical sea, the areca nut trees swaying to the music of the breeze, the waves at the shallow end lightly caressing his feet, the warm texture of the sand slipping away beneath his toes, children running around flying colorful kites… cocoa-rich dark chocolates, and fresh coffee.

And why not? After all, he thought, what was life without these? Nothing but a stressful grind, it was. To fight the distressing official battles day in and day out. To struggle to defeat the unethical schemes of the back-stabbing lot who lurked among colleagues and friends. To come back home to the nagging demands of a materialistic spouse. All that did nothing good for the soul.

It was late evening when Simon had walked toward the shack. When he got closer, he had noticed two men standing engulfed by the dark shadows behind the shack. Although he could not discern their features, and they were speaking only in whispers, their body language had betrayed the fact that they had been exchanging an agitated conversation.

As Simon was about to enter the shack, one of the men thrust a wad of money into the other’s hand. The other man briefly regarded the bundle before stuffing it into his trouser pocket.

A drug deal, likely–Simon had thought–or some other such shady business. How could these people come to such spectacular and peaceful places and engage in such disreputable and squalid acts? What a disgusting lot!

He had shaken his head to clear his thoughts, and inhaled deeply as he entered the shack. Freshly brewed coffee! He had smiled as he sat at a small, round, plastic table in a corner. All other concerns would have to wait for half an hour, at least.

Outside, unknown to Simon, the deal had been concluded. The men had followed up by exchanging a small vial of some sort. Then one of them had raised the hood of his jacket over his head and walked away swiftly without turning back, with his hands in his pockets. The other man had vanished into the darker shadows behind the shack.

The next afternoon…

Although–when it concerned professional life–Danny lacked severely in the department of moral and ethical values, he was regarded in their circles as a gem when it concerned friendship. He had rushed to the hospital at once when Simon’s wife had called. Dysentery–she had told him, repeating the doctor’s diagnosis–perhaps acute food poisoning. Very severe symptoms. Quite unbearable. Must have been something he ate yesterday.

Danny had stayed on at the hospital with Simon’s wife to lend her moral and emotional support. He wanted to make sure–he had said–that she got all the help she needed; he wanted to make sure that Simon recovered all right.

The third evening…

Simon rested motionless on a bed at St Sebastian Hospital. Motionless. Still. He wasn’t even breathing. He was finally free of all suffering.

Epilogue 1…

Normally, convincing a chemist and obtaining the required substance might have been the biggest challenge. On this occasion, however, a well-maintained friendship with a pharmaceutical assistant had proved quite rewarding.

The rest was simple to plan and execute. Simple did not mean without risk, but in this case the desired reward would be sufficient compensation for the risk.

The dosage would be just right. The doctor would have only the patient’s symptoms to go on, which would be easily mistaken for those of common diseases such as food poisoning or dysentery.

It would all be over even before anyone suspected foul play. Even if other signs did manifest afterwards, there was no incriminating evidence.

Epilogue 2…

Simon had felt the first signs of fatigue when he was almost half way back home from his getaway spot. He had believed that the nausea was caused by travel-sickness. Later that night his condition had become worse, and next morning he had tried home remedies for diarrhea. By afternoon, he had started discharging blood, and had to be hospitalized immediately.

Danny had stood by his bed in the hospital, looking in his weak eyes, holding his hand reassuringly. Behind those heavy eyelids, in those weak eyes about to close, Danny had seen a faint spark of realization. The reality of the deal he had witnessed behind the coffee shack had dawned on Simon. I wish you understood, my friend–Danny had thought–that it was nothing personal, that everything is fair in professional rivalry. In any case, it was too late now. There was no turning back.

Don’t strain yourself trying to talk–Danny had said–Just close your eyes, let go and relax.

— End —

(I’m only 12 so don’t judge me, I tried :D)

I’m alone. I’m surrounded by darkness. I’m lonely, I have no-one except silence to keep me company. I’m not sure how long I’ve been here…Minutes, hours….days? They mean nothing to me, I don’t know how time passes and why it matters. I’m too close to giving up. Surely my life must mean something. I can’t have been made to just be nothing, to exist only feeling, loneliness and fear. The fear of being forgotten, by this world, by myself. If I’m not already.

There must be meaning for me, something bugger, better. It’s all I want, all I ever dream about. A life with meaning, color, happiness…family. But that’s just a dream. That can’t be real, I have no memories out of this place why would I be suddenly be gifted such happiness. Is this it? I am going mad? Have I been here so long just lost my mind? No. That can’t be. I can’t give up, I must try….try escape this realm of darkness. I stand up, shaking slightly. No, I must be strong! I run forward, not sure where I’m going. Not sure if this place even ends.

I start hearing voices, they’re speaking to me… “stay…strong…everything’s going to be ok” I hear the voice saying. It was comforting, gentle and kind sounded. It sounds familiar….I run faster, using all of strength. I race through the darkness, wind smacking my face until I come to what looks like the edge. It was a drop, so deep I couldn’t see the bottom. Without thinking, using all my desire, the want to be somewhere with meaning and happiness I lunge forward and jump.

I…I didn’t fall. I’m alive, I think. I don’t feel like I’m standing. Wait, am I floating? No, don’t be silly. I’m…lying. I feel something touch my hand but I don’t have strength to even shake it off. I can’t see anything…Then suddenly reality hits me. I slowly open my eyes…It all hits me at once: Color, sound, people. I look over to my right hand to see who was holding it. She was crying but smiling at the same time. It was mother. And for the first time in what seemed like forever, I smiled.

“I’m borrowing one of your geese.”

Asta jumped in her seat by the fireplace, woken from her accidental nap. She whirled in her seet to see Jeppa, the slightly unhinged neighbour, filling the doorframe. He looked like any regular farmer, brown coveralls and pipe dangling from the side of his mouth, but sported a permanent wide-eyed stare that made the children (and everyone else) wary of him. Asta had half a mind to go back to sleep and let Jeppa be Jeppa, but curiousity got the best of her.

“Pardon?” She asked, slowly getting up, her arthritis crackling in her knees. “You’re borrowing what?”

“I’m borrowing one of your geese,” He repeated, unblinking. Then he turned on the spot, as if the conversation was over and done with.

“But why?” Asta exclaimed, hopping after him on stiff legs into the front yard. Three of her large, snowy geese were drowsily waddling through the hole in her white fence as Jeppa marched over and seized one of them by the neck. The other two hurried into a nearby hedgerow, abandoning their brother to fate. Jeppa stood there for a moment and admired the view over Asta’s fields, completely obvious to the furious flapping and hissing of the goose.

“What are you doing? Let go of him!” Asta cried, but Jeppa remained blissfully ignorant to the chaos he created.

“Beautiful day, isn’t it?” Jeppa sighed happily, still unblinking. Then, remembering why he was strangling a goose, he heaved it up under one arm and took off towards his own rickety cottage a few hundred yards down the gravel road.

“Wait!” Asta cried, limping after him. When she finally caught up to him he was crawling up a worn ladder propped against his roof, hissing goose tucked into his armpit as if it was nothing more than the daily newspaper.

Finding her best old-angry-crone voice, she howled; “Jeppa! Get down this instant! What on earth are you doing with Herman?”

This seemed to reach the decision centre in Jeppa’s head, and he stopped on the topmost rung. He stared at the wobbly chimney for a moment, as if pondering its existence, before replying. “I can’t afford a chimney sweep,” he commented simply. Then, with both hands, he heaved the goose up in one fluent motion and dumped it into the chimney. The hissing and flapping increased in volume, projected into the open air by the narrow chimney, until it became unbearable to listen to. Then it stopped. The goose must have fallen into his fireplace.

Asta’s mouth fell open. She sat down on her bum like a baffled toddler.

“Are you alright there? You look like you saw a ghost!” Jeppa chuckled obliviously as he descended from the roof and moved to let the goose out of his kitchen. The moment the door opened, a great, fluffy black thing scuttled out and down the road, hisses and quacks flying about it like the soot covering it.

“That,” Asta said, her voice quivering, “was my prized competition goose, Herman.”

Jeppa finally seemed to realise the extent of his actions. Wringing his hands he inched towards the door, hoping to use it for protection when she exploded, which she was bound to do.

“Isn’t… isn’t there a competition for black geese, perhaps?” Jeppa asked, hopefully unblinking.

Most short story ideas I have are too big write in just one sitting. The first one I wrote took months. It’s why I can’t write flash fiction.

I’m trying to write Flash Fiction. I love the challenge. It’s amazing how you can cut out redundant word from each editing. Try it, Sebastian. It’s good practice.

Okay, here goes: Persephone, Persephone Akeldama. She was a beautiful girl, slender waist, flowing blonde locks, petite figure. This quiet girl was often referred to by her fellow students as the “perfect doll”, due to her stunning looks and the love she received from the teachers. In a the darker half of this world, her nickname was not much different. The flawless puppet, she was called. Flawless because of her swift assassinations, and puppet because of her emotionless features. No one in school knew her profession, and no one in the dark world knew her real age, or even what she looked like. She was a complete mystery to both sides, only this was known about her: She is a prodigy. Of course, “Prodigy” meaning different things in either sides of the world. There was a large gap between prodigy killer and prodigy student. Not many assassins are born into their jobs, Persephone being an exception. At three, she was already trained to fight, and at the early age of twelve, she was already a well known assassin. due to her quick learning, her parents payed even more attention to her, punishing her whenever her actions did not fit into the range of perfection, training her more than any twelve year old should ever have to endure. And of course, making her kill. One by one, Persephone’s emotions died, every person she killed, every order she received. She carried them out with swift and deadly accuracy, losing all her innocence. Her purity was lost long ago.

So she found nothing wrong with killing her parents.

Persephone never loved anyone, because she was a killing machine, exactly how her parents had designed her. Her mothers last words: I’m so proud. Her fathers? :I’ve trained you well. A now orphaned Persephone felt no remorse, no guilt, no grief. Only a small pang of loneliness.

And that was the last emotion she would ever feel.

Ummmm, I got the juices flowing, just need my writing to flow……in the right direction.

So I combined all 10 of the “general ideas” into one premise. I think this is more the premise of a collection now… Oh well. Here’s the premise (or the rough draft)

As a child, Kell, a painting prodigy, discovers her parents’ dead bodies, leaving her emotionally scarred. Later in life, she clings to her boyfriends for moral support, which leads to many failed relationships. Her Fiance and colleague breaks up with her because he needs to spend more time on his work, even though it crushes both of them. Kell doesn’t look when she’s walking down the street, sobbing, and she bumps into her rich soulmate, Neil. They have a whirlwind romance, which ends up with their marriage. On their honeymoon, though, Kell’s mother’s ghost confronts her and warns her to delay the journey. Kell and Neil go anyways. A hurricane strikes, and the couple is stranded with a phycopath who just so happen to be Kell’s parents’ murderer. The couple doesn’t make it out alive.

I know that’s pretty dark, especially for a 17-year-old. It’s also not that great. But hey, I hope it gave you an idea or two! Happy writing!

You should really think about turning this into a novel! You’ve got quite the imagination.

The last laugh Kate Bester

“What? Oh heavens no! When?” Faye dragged the pink sweatband back from her forehead and shook her shoulder length blonde hair off her neck. She had just returned from the gym when the house phone rang.

“…sometime last night, peacefully. She had to go sometime, Faye.” Debbie’s longsuffering voice was irritating.

Faye sighed and shifted the weight from one shapely leg to the other. She crossed one ankle over the other and stared at her Reebok trainers. She bit her tongue before she could blurt out what came into her mind – why now? She had a very special and important occasion coming up and serious shopping to do!

“Mom was nearly eighty, you know Faye, but death is always unexpected, I know,” Debbie went on. Was she imagining it or was there a touch of accusation in Debbie’s voice? Deborah, her older sister, had never married. Instead, she stayed with Mom after Dad passed on ten years ago and took charge of the rambling old house in George. Come to think of it, when Debbie gave up nursing, moving in with Mom was the natural thing to do.

Faye had to muster all the self-control that she could to sound genuine and concerned. It was Mother after all…

“When is the funeral, then? Do you want me to come and help you with the arrangements?” she kept her voice low and even in case Debbie thought she was serious about the offer to help.

“No thanks, Faye, everything is fine. Mom had everything in place as usual. It will be a cremation of course…”

Debbie’s voice trailed off and Faye could just about suppress the groan that escaped from her chest before she said goodbye to her sister. She sank down in the closest, huge, overstuffed chair after she had put down the receiver. Of course. That is Mother. Well, was she corrected herself. Nothing ordinary or conventional. A cremation no less, so that all her old hippie friends could attend in their colourful rags and long hair and chant and blow their flutes and shake their tambourines. Faye had to admit to herself that a cremation at least would be better than embalmment. Her mother was quite capable of having them roll her in the scales of the boophone bulb like the Khoisan did with their dead.

Faye groaned again. She must be in shock otherwise why wasn’t she crying. Crying? No, she’d done enough crying after the second divorce in eight years. The last one was particularly messy but this time she stuck to her guns and got the house and a stiff alimony. Not that it’s about the money, which is never enough anyway, but one has to keep up appearances. She had spent a fortune on refurbishing the gazebo next to the pool. Oh gosh yes, and she must still pay for the embroidered voile curtains around the patio. And for the plant containers and cane furniture from Bali…

Faye sighed as she levered her challenged limbs from the chair. She will have a warm shower and then make her calls. Damn! Now she will have to drive all the way to George. She smiled. Yes, she will have to. Because of Mother’s pendant. She had to have it. Must be worth a small fortune by now…

That pendant was given to her mother by a very grateful Indian businessman. Mother had met him on a plane to Mumbai all those years ago when she travelled to India to see for herself what mysteries lay behind the lotus curtain. She ended up in his luxurious home and taught the whole family to speak English while she enjoyed every facet of that exquisite culture. If memory doesn’t fail her, the pendant has a top quality eleven carat flawless ruby, enhanced by… a shiver of delight passed through Faye’s body despite the warm gush of water.

At the garage to fill up and prepare the vehicle for the trip, she remembered how bored she was on weekends as a child. They travelled endless dusty roads, slept in tents, either sweating or freezing. Her botanist parents would be off in the veld , ooohing or aaahing, clicking their tongues and cameras. Deborah would be whooping somewhere in a shallow river. In her tent, her feet against the anchor pole, Faye swore she would never live this way. She would have money and everything it could buy. These bunny-hugging weirdo’s – her family – may enjoy the outdoors but she despised the smell of citronella candles, morning coffee and tinned food. Not to mention the squatting behind a bush when nature called. Ugh!

At nine o’clock the next morning, Faye was over the Overberg Pass and heading for Caledon. She would stop for tea at the Blue Crane and buy some of her mother’s favourite dried herbs. Yes, some buchu and lavender and rosemary. She’ll keep them on her lap during the cremation service and speeches to soothe her mind. Afterwards she will let them join her mother’s body to nirvana…

It was exactly twenty past one when she saw the huge pine trees and the red brick house behind it. The garden was a botanist’s dream. Like her mother exactly – colourful, mysterious, exciting and completely unusual. Faye’s eyes followed the garden path up to the porch. Handfuls of laurel tied with raffia or beads or leather thongs garnished the pathway from the gate to the porch and around the open door’s frame where fairy lights twinkled.

She opened the car door and slid off the seat. The manicured feet in the Blahnik sandals stepped together neatly on the tarmac as she automatically pressed the remote lock. Gingerly she approached the garden path and as daintily as possible made her way to the house.

Then it hit her. This wasn’t a welcome for her. The laurel symbolized Apollo’s way to remember his Daphne! Daphne didn’t want to marry Apollo and begged her father, Perenaeus, to hide her. He promptly turned her into a laurel tree. From then on Apollo worshipped the tree, hugged it, spoke to it and let all heroes and kings wear a laurel wreath on the head as adornment. This was for Mother.

Suddenly, there was her sister. Oh heavens, clad in a flowing caftan, pearls, beads, feathers and leather thong sandals, she could’ve been Mother!

Quickly Faye went over and folded her sister in her arms. While her sister was yoga-breathing against her shoulder, she took in the room behind. She smiled to herself . Ostrich feather boas were draped over the window frames, door frames and thrown over the backs of chairs. Huge black and white photographs of ostriches in all poses adorned the walls. Ostrich eggs and paraphernalia were displayed everywhere. This was a shrine to the ostrich as Nieuw-Bethesda was to the owl…

She let go of Debbie and cleared her throat. She took a deep breath, “Debs, what are we going to do with all this stuff ?” she hoped her chicanery would go undetected. Back in her mind there was an image of Mother’s ostrich leather handbags, shoes and purses she had collected before it became export posh. Her heart went on a gallop from excitement and anticipation.

At last they were alone. They cleared away the last few cups and plates. In the kitchen, Faye poured two large tumblers of Merlot for her and her sister.

“Sis, if you’re up to it, we can go through Mom’s things and decide what to do about some of it.”

“Of course, my dear.” Faye gulped.

Then the pendant was in the palm of her hand. This was a testing moment. She wanted to hang it around her neck immediately but thought it would seem callous. She let the heavy gold chain slide sensuously through her fingers while the ruby’s red eye winked at her.

“You have it, Faye, it’s too ostentatious for me. Mom also never wore it for that reason.”

“And these, Sis.” Debbie was on all fours in front of a deep drawer. She was pulling out ostrich leather gloves in every colour, handbags, clutch bags, more boas. They lay on the Kelim carpet like offerings to a queen. Faye stared and stared. “Oh yes!” her mind sang.

After breakfast the next day, Faye took her leave of Debbie who promised to visit as soon as everything was tied up and settled. When she was passing Mossel Bay, she started to relax and fingered the pendant at her throat. A warm glow filled her and she stretched to see it again in the rear mirror. It was an exquisite piece! She still felt surprised at how nonchalant Debbie was.

She decided to stop for refreshments outside Swellendam. She enjoyed stretching her legs in the shade of the old trees and watching the goats, chickens and ostriches they kept there for entertainment. She parked in the shade of a huge oak tree and went to the restaurant. She carried her fruit juice over to the enclosure on the lawn. A billy goat came towards her. Behind him a young ostrich craned its neck. A sheep, two lambs and a kid trotted up. Faye leaned forward.

She shrieked, jumped back and feverishly fumbling at her throat, she saw it

Ostriches also like jewellery.

I have not written a very long piece. It a quite short story. So…here it is…

Sydney woke up with a start, as beads of sweat adorned her furrowed brows. Next to her was her twin sister, Tanya, sleeping peaceful as Sydney had been a couple of moments before. She looked around as if searching for something or someone. Sydney almost dismissed the episode and went back to sleep when she heard it again, this time, even evident. The sound that had woken her up from her slumber. The sound that made her shiver and was even vexing than the sound of nails on chalkboard.

And then, it stopped. She looked around her for the source of what she heard. She decided to get some fresh air and walked out of the room she shared with her twin.

As she walked to the porch, she glanced at her reflection in the mirror. She couldn’t put her finger on what was wrong but she knew something was. She leaned in to get a closer look at her reflection when something hit her head and she fainted. When she regained her consciousness, she looked around her. She was in the porch and it was dawn. She went back into her house when she glanced at the mirror again. She could see her mother, her sister and her father. They all looked around as if searching for someone. What she couldn’t understand was why she couldn’t see her reflection in the mirror. Then, realization struck her like a ton of bricks. She was in the other side. Of the mirror.

Then the ending credits rolled in. Though it was just a trailer, it was well shot. Everyone couldn’t wait to see the full movie. We congratulated our friend, Mills, who had shot the film and went to hang out at her place.

Wonderful ideas. Thanks for inspiration.

*I’ve been wanting to write for a long time but never really got the push until right now. Sorry if it’s bad, it’s my first short and I’m 14* “One, two, three. Perfect, now I can go…” I quietly say to myself. I have something called Pure-O. Some people think that it’s worse than “normal OCD”. The others think that it’s completely unreal and it’s made up. What people don’t know about me is that I have Pure-O and it’s completely real and my life revolves around it. I make sure that people don’t find out about it because I am considered “ popular and high-status” where I live. “ Happy, good thoughts. Nothing bad.” I think to myself. “They won’t find out….hopefully. I am Claire Williams who has the best makeup and the straightest hair. Not the Crazy Williams girl that broke down in front of everyone because her presentation wasn’t how she planned it.” I think. Then the flashbacks swoop in and fill my brain. “Hi my name is Claire Williams and I am doing my presentation on the Economic Downfall of 2008…” I pause and look around. I see people snicker and talking. The teacher is just looking at me and gesturing for me to continue. I get scared and forget everything that I worked so hard to memorize. “Umm. I’m sorry ma’am, I can’t finish.” I tell my Economics teacher. When I try to move and collect everything, I can’t move. “No no no no no this can’t be happening. I can’t be having a panic attack at school.” I think to myself. I feel tears well up into my eyes. They slowly fall down my face and I taste the warm salty fluid. I suddenly tense up and can’t breath. Because no one knows about my condition, no one can help me. “Look! Williams is going crazy! Crazy Williams.” I hear people snicker from the back and the attack gets worse. I hear something new in my flashback…. It sounds almost as a ringing. I realize the bell is ringing for the students to get to class. I come back to reality and hope for the best on my first day of Senior year. I mean after all, it’s just school. Nothing bad could happen right?

PEN-082a 694w Anne Frank, Bella and Me by Helen Kudatsky

At nine, I bought my mom, Bella, a birthday gift on June 12th, a magenta lipstick for 19c. I was so proud. First present I ever purchased. She made me return it; It was too extravagant, and besides, she said, “every day is my birthday.” I cried. I knew her secret though. although a proper Jewish woman, sometimes she longed to be a gypsy.

Now, 60 years later, I’m reading “The Diary of a Young Girl” by Anne Frank, here in the home where I live. Though nursed, I’m often blue that I can’t dance or paint anymore. But I love to read and write, and my friend, Julie, the librarian, kindly brought me Anne’s book, which I am now devouring.

Anne was an eloquent writer, describing her schoolmates and boyfriends. She began the diary at 13, disclosing her first period, having a special secret and becoming a woman. I too began to menstruate at 13, pondering the mystery. It’s horrid to imagine eight people in 1944, crammed into the Secret Annexe, handling eating, sleeping, hygiene and trying to stay alive, while whispering and tiptoeing to avoid discovery by the Gestapo.

To maintain normalcy, the adults set up a plan. The children continued their studies: Dutch, French, English, history, geography and art. Although Anne liked most subjects, she found algebra notably loathsome. I’m in that club too.

Her people have become my friends and family: Anne Frank herself, Edith, her Mummy, Otto, her beloved father, Margot, her sister, and the others hiding with them: the VanDaans, their son, Peter who was first, her friend, then later, her crush and confidant, Dr. Albert Dussel, the dentist and Moortjie, the cat. Four of Otto’s devoted employees provided food, supplies and world news, which kept them alive and boosted their morale.

After the war, Miep, a helper, found Anne’s diary in the demolished remains and rubble of the annexe. She gave it to Otto, the sole survivor of the group. He was stunned by Anne’s maturity and the breadth of her feelings. The Diary has been published in 67 languages, portrayed on stage and screen, and is considered one of the most moving accounts of the Holocaust.

For those of us beholding atrocity, Anne Frank is a beacon: humorous, inquisitive, forgiving, cheerful. Sometimes moody, though, she was nicknamed “the incurable chatterbox.” as she’d quarrel with others in the Secret Annexe they occupied for their 25 months in hiding.

My mom, Bella, shared a birthday with Anne Frank, June 12th, but didn’t know of it until years after Anne’s death. Bella lived to be 95. She loved reading as much as Anne did, and she wrote poetry and stories, but didn‘t start until middle-age. Anne, 15, died in March 1945, just two weeks before the war’s end, when she would have been liberated. In two years of hiding, Anne was devoted to writing in the diary, at times prosaic, sometimes distraught, frequently terrifying, but often funny, spiritual and uplifting.

If the war had only ended sooner, I imagine the writing that Anne could have produced and I envision Bella meeting her. Bella, born in 1913, Anne in 1929, 16 years her junior, they could have been aunt and niece; I see them sharing a Shabbat dinner, singing a Hanukah song; I picture them speaking one of their languages. They believed in the same things. Finally, I dream of them proudly sharing their writings, a mystery, a story of love and longing, a poem, and of course, on June 12th, their mutual birthday.

I dream of them walking hand in hand, pale wrinkled fingers holding a smooth teenaged palm. They come to a table set before them, on it matzoh brei with applesauce, a plate of potato latkes with sour cream. There are apples and honey, wine and rugalech. Bella and Anne eat heartily and shout for joy, no longer whispering or tiptoeing, no longer afraid to be Jewish women writers, no longer afraid at all.

PEN-082a-Anne Frank, Bella and Me.wps by Helen Kudatsky w:09/03/17 ei 09/19/17 694 wds 08 mn 99 Park St.#104 Brookline,MA 02446 C-617-939-3387 e-m: [email protected]

My story plot is of the fantasy/adventure type.

In the fictional town of Surron, Colorado (which is surrounded by high mountainsides from every angle, a tragedy occurs on September 5, 1963. Six-year old Robert “Bert” Aruson witnesses his drunken, abusive father murder his mother with a broken beer bottle. Advancing on him, the father sleeps on another discarded bottle and trips, impaling himself on the bottle with which he killed his wife. Robert runs off into the forest to escape his father to look of help, unaware of his father’s death. With his parents living far back into the woods, he ends becoming lost and spending the night in the forest. A mother bear, Dewa, with two cubs of her own, the boy Gemape and girl Biha, discover the young boy and adopt him into their family, christening him with the new name Nuun. Ten years later in 1973, Nuun has led a happy existence with his loving and supportive new family, having even made new friends like the crow Hai and the mouse Naeene. He even prevented unnecessary violence between his family and a wolf pack led by Dande and Gupa. Any hunters that come into the forest have their weapons stolen and permanently disposed of in the night by Nuun. By this time, Nuun and his actions have become something of an urban legend in Surron. Back in that town, the mayor Aaron Burdon (who resides upon a hill overlooking the town) runs the town, though he views it with contempt due to one incident. His younger brother, Reagan, was beaten by thugs hoping to steal money off of his rich person, leaving him with brain damage. Despite this, the townspeople started treating him and his brother differently afterwards, cruelly even. This has caused his hatred to ferment over the years until he comes up with a plan to destroy the town’s population with explosives at the upcoming July 4 picnic. His wealth and power make the workers unable to resist him, as they will become jobless should he imprisoned. “Nuun” comes across one of Burdon’s worksites and almost steals workers lunchbox, but is chased away. News soon spreads through the town and Nuun finds his happy life in danger of being shattered once again unless he can have assistance from friends both human and animal.

Nikita This is the story of me, Nikita, an orphaned girl, who didn’t know anything about her family. I was kept in the orphanage with a bunch of other girls. Ms.Keeper, the owner of the orphanage doesn’t tell anyone anything about themselves or their family. I didn’t know anything about myself, but everyone knew that in Ms.Keepers room there was a filing cabinet with documents of the real stories of our lives. Nobody ever dared to go in there though. Ms.Keeper looked like she was somewhere in the 30’s, she had grey hair, bags under her brown eyes, a slim body and a huge pimple on her long nose. She was not married. I have brown hair, brown eyes, freckles and a healthy, slim body.

I always thought of running away. I felt like I was in that orphanage forever. I remember growing up in there since I was a child and now that I’m 17 years old, I’m still here, hoping to find my family. But that, I thought was too unrealistic. I was sitting in an orphanage, hoping to find my family. No, I wanted to DO something to find my family. The only thing that held me back was Ms.Keeper and the thought that I really had no family. Ms.Keeper was always afraid of one of the girls running away, that’s why she made some workers put a stronger fence around the orphanage property. Ms.Keeper was also afraid of talking to the government. I thought so because the government will shut down her orphanage. One time, I overheard Ms.Keeper talking on the phone to the government and they said that it was illegal to not show the orphans their identity and who they are, but Ms.Keeper ignored them and kept talking about something else. Also, at 18 years old, you are free to leave the orphanage and become independent. I just turned 17. No one else was my age except another girl, aged 14 and all the rest were smaller than her. There was once a girl named Gabby who was the only person who was older than me. Just last year, she turned 18 and was supposed to go. On her birthday, Ms.Keeper made an announcement at the last moment that Gabby was leaving right now and is right by the door. Every girl ran out to give her hugs and goodbyes. Ms.Keeper didn’t even move. She didn’t even say bye. It was so cruel of her. We didn’t have a birthday cake with Gabby because Ms.Keeper threw her out the door on her birthday!

Everyday, Ms.Keeper lets us go outside for one hour, three times a day. We ate mostly sandwiches and drank water and sometimes juice. We also had some snacks, which were mostly fruits. We did school during the day too but this wasn’t real school. Ms.Keeper taught us everything. Ms.Keeper also bought us a TV, which was in the dining room. We mostly had everything we needed, except a family.

One day, when Ms.Keeper let us go outside, I was lying on the grass by myself at the farthest point from the orphanage. Then all of a sudden I heard someone coming. I looked up but saw no one. When I turned around, I saw a boy, looked like he was 15. He had brown hair, blue eyes and was tall. He said “hi” to me and I said “hi” back. We talked to each other for awhile until Ms.Keeper called us in. I really hoped that Ms.Keeper didn’t see me talk to that boy because she would punish me.

For the next three days, I talked to that boy over the fence every recess. He told me about his life and it really surprised me. He said he had a house as big as the whole orphanage (the orphanage is as big as a hotel). He said he had his mom and dad living with him, that he has money, any kind of drink, and lots of junk food. He played video games everyday and watched TV and also he quit school. His mom and dad don’t care about what he does as long as he’s home by midnight! When he told me this, I started thinking, is every life out there like his? What is everyone’s else’s life like? I couldn’t sleep that night or any other night after that day.

Soon, we became friends and he asked if the orphanage was boring. I didn’t even know what to say because it was alright living in the orphanage but compared to his life, it was nothing. I didn’t say anything and he asked if I wanted to run away to his house. I, of course, was surprised and didn’t say anything for awhile but then I said I would think about it. Ms.Keeper called us inside, and I don’t know why but she never caught me talking to him. Ms.Keeper usually stands by the door of the orphanage, looking into the field of how we are playing. I was farthest away from her so maybe she doesn’t see so well.

After those days, I couldn’t sleep because I kept thinking of running away. But how was I supposed to run away? If I got caught, I would be punished and I would have to be a slave to everyone, washing dishes, sweeping, and cleaning. Besides, I couldn’t run away because we all slept in rooms with four people to each room. Our room was the farthest away from the exit. I would have to tip-toe (at night?!?) through the whole orphanage just to get to the exit. No, I couldn’t do it. I was too scared. But that boy kept assuring me that everything will be okay.

I talked it over with the boy and I decided to run away with him at night, at 11pm because he had to be home by 12pm. By 8pm, all the girls in the orphanage would be sleeping, but Ms.Keeper stays up till 10pm, listening to classical music in her favourite rocking chair. As not to wake Ms.Keeper, the boy suggested that he would come to my window at night and I would climb over. Our room was on the lowest level – level one- so it was the closest to the ground. It was supposed to happen in two days from then. I was very nervous and scared, and I kept looking at Ms.Keeper if she had any suspicions, but it didn’t look like it.

It was the day of the run. I packed all my stuff, which wasn’t really much. I put all my clothes in my pockets (it fit perfectly). I was wide awake that night, listening till Ms.Keeper turned off her classical music and went to bed. It was perfectly silent. You could hear every single breath of the girls. My tummy had a trillion butterflies in it and I couldn’t stop my heavy breathing. At 11pm, there was a quiet knock at my window and I knocked back. That was our signal for letting each other know we were ready. I then looked at everyone in the room. They were sound asleep. I opened the window and it’s super squeaky. I waited a moment to see if anyone woke up, but no one moved. I climbed over the window to the boy. I closed the window with a loud squeak and started running with the boy to wherever my feet let me go. It was a dark night and only the half-lit moon was our source of light. The boy led me through streets and streets of houses until we came to a huge house. It was so pretty. It looked like the orphanage but it had no spiderwebs. It was clean and super nice. It looked like they were rich to have all those diamond stuff on the door.

They boy opened the door and the light hurt my eyes. It was so bright in there, so big. The stairs were curved, like I only saw in fairy tales, and there was his mom standing in the doorway. She first smiled, but when she saw me, she made a confused face and came closer. I was so scared. What would his mom do? Did he tell his mom about me? My brain threw me a thousand questions to answer of which I didn’t know the answers for. The lady came closer and asked the boy slowly who I was. He told his mom that I was a friend from the orphanage. His mom got angry, her face started to turn red and she started to talk louder. She started saying that I’m filthy and that she doesn’t want to see me ever again and to get out off this house. I looked at the boy. He started to cry. I tear went down his cheek. He begged his mom to let her stay for the night but his mom didn’t budge. The boy’s mom shut the door on me and I was outside in the cold.

All of this was for nothing. This meet we had. All the recesses we talked, all the nights I didn’t sleep, and I couldn’t go back to the orphanage now. I was alone. I didn’t even know where to go. I got off the boys lawn and I sat down on the sidewalk, crying and I realized I didn’t even know what the boy’s name was! Suddenly, I heard a door open. I looked back to see if it was the boy’s mom. No, it wasn’t. I looked around and saw that the boy’s neighbor has opened the door and was calling me. The person at the door was a grandma. She told me to come in. I stood up and came inside. She told me that she heard the neighbors talking loudly so she went to see what the commotion was about. She asked me if I wanted to eat but I refused. She sent me to bed, not knowing anything about me. She was so kind to me. She sent me upstairs where I had my own room. I fell asleep very fast, and I slept till lunch the next day. I forgot all about the orphanage and went downstairs to meet my hero. She was making breakfast for me. We sat down at the table and she told me her name ( Grandma Laura ) and I told her all about my life. Every single thing. When I came to the part about the orphanage, her eyes widened.

Grandma Laura told me that many many years ago, she was the owner of the orphanage! The government fired her because they thought she wasn’t suitable for the job. When she went away, she made photocopies of the documents of the girls and kept them because the girls were so precious to her that she couldn’t just leave them. Grandma Laura stood up and went upstairs to go get them. When she came back down, she had a whole ton of documents! She found one by the name of Nikita.

That morning changed my life. She let me read my own document. It figures out that my real mom died while having me. My dad was still alive. My dad’s name was Walter Eggons. The grandma’s eyes widened when I told her the name of my dad. She told me that that was her husband! So Grandma Laura was my mom? She didn’t die? But Grandma told me the whole story. My dad, Walter, first married a lady named Agnes, and they had a baby named Nikita ( that was me) and during childbirth, Agnes died, but I lived. Later, my dad could no longer care after me so he dropped me off at the orphanage when I was 1 year’s old. For my dad, that was a hard decision. He had to work but he couldn’t leave me at home and there was no one to look after me. After my dad’s wife died, he married Laura. Laura was sitting in front of me, tears in her eyes and on her cheeks. She then told me the saddest news- my dad died of cancer a couple months ago. I started choking back sobs, and then tears. Grandma Laura was the only family I had. She was my stepmother.

It has been seven years since that happened and right now I am sitting with tears in my eyes, telling you this. I live with my stepmom and my husband, Jeffrey. Turns out that after that day, I lived with my stepmom for a couple months but then the boy’s mom found out that I was still in this neighborhood. The boy was so happy to hear that, and he told me his name- Jeffrey Jones. We soon joined our friendship together and a couple months later, we were married. Also,he wasn’t 15 years old, like I thought, he was 17.

-Written by Nikita Eggons-Jones

I hope you like this so far tell me what to improve on.

Gunnvor is the daugter of a powerful samurai but that is only thing that they have in common. Her father is a ruthless man who fights for war, on the other hand Gunnvor fights for humanity, no one can see her true colors because they want to believe she wants bloodshed as well like her father. She hates their thoughts, imprisoned in her fathers hand, the only way to escape, is for some one, like her, to save her in the outside.

As she swoon her sword with grace she sliced the broom like heads off. Her father and mother were observing her progress as a warrior, when she was do she went to her parents and bowed. She left leaving them behind a cold chill settled on them, the mother knew why the father ignored. Gunnvor loved to walk in the town down below her house, all the people were Good-hearted and kind in every way. She sometimes is jealous of the children for having such free lives. But she does not listen to her selfish conscience, she walked across the flower bridge as a gentle men suddenly bumped into her. “Oh sorry about that I didn’t see you,” Gunnvor quickly got up embarrassed for fall. She looked up and saw man that was strong but kind, she then noticed that he didn’t recognized him, he look like he was from another country. She then suddenly pulled her sword pointed it near his neck. the man was taken aback, he looked shocked and then said ” Yes did I say some thing offensive.”

“your not from here are you,” She moved a little closer, her sword started to dig into skin. “Yea I’m just traveling, I came from the neighboring kingdom, I thought they were in good terms…..right?” He backed away a little from the sword cutting his neck. Gunnvor then lowered her sword slowly, The man rubbed his neck just to find that it is bleeding “by the way what is your name,” she sheathed her sword in it’s case. “My name is gunnvor,” He quickly whipped his head to her “What the, Gunnvor, the daugter of the samurai.”

“Yes.” she turned and started to walk away and stop slightly turned her head ” And you,”

“Uh my name is Cota.” he said then Gunnvor walked away, when she arrived at home she swept past her father to her bed room. That night she could not stop thinking of Cota, she thought how strange he was dressed and the way he looked. The next how ever her father again trained gunnvor, the train this time was diffrent, he was pushing her to far.

Many days have past and Gunnvor noticed that Cota was spotted many times near her house. Then when she training with her father which was basically torture, Cota came up to her father ” You will stop hurting her,” He said slowly and manically. However he was not moved “My wife has convinced you to protect her,”

“No I came In my own accord.” The father then spun and grabbed his sword and pointed to cota. “Well then can fight me,”

“We”l see,” cota grabbed his sword and the two fought, they fought for a few hours and the father was vanquished. Cota then went to Gunnvor and asked her hand in marriage.

Nikita This is the story of me, Nikita, an orphaned girl, who didn’t know anything about her family. I was kept in the orphanage with a bunch of other girls. Ms.Keeper, the owner of the orphanage doesn’t tell anyone anything about themselves or their family. I didn’t know anything about myself, but everyone knew that in Ms.Keepers room there was a filing cabinet with documents of the real stories of our lives. Nobody ever dared to go in there though. Ms.Keeper looked like she was somewhere in the 30’s, she had grey hair, bags under her brown eyes, a slim body and a huge pimple on her long nose. She was not married. I have brown hair, brown eyes, freckles and a healthy, slim body. I always thought of running away. I felt like I was in that orphanage forever. I remember growing up in there since I was a child and now that I’m 17 years old, I’m still here, hoping to find my family. But that, I thought was too unrealistic. I was sitting in an orphanage, hoping to find my family. No, I wanted to DO something to find my family. The only thing that held me back was Ms.Keeper and the thought that I really had no family. Ms.Keeper was always afraid of one of the girls running away, that’s why she made some workers put a stronger fence around the orphanage property. Ms.Keeper was also afraid of talking to the government. I thought so because the government will shut down her orphanage. One time, I overheard Ms.Keeper talking on the phone to the government and they said that it was illegal to not show the orphans their identity and who they are, but Ms.Keeper ignored them and kept talking about something else. Also, at 18 years old, you are free to leave the orphanage and become independent. I just turned 17. No one else was my age except another girl, aged 14 and all the rest were smaller than her. There was once a girl named Gabby who was the only person who was older than me. Just last year, she turned 18 and was supposed to go. On her birthday, Ms.Keeper made an announcement at the last moment that Gabby was leaving right now and is right by the door. Every girl ran out to give her hugs and goodbyes. Ms.Keeper didn’t even move. She didn’t even say bye. It was so cruel of her. We didn’t have a birthday cake with Gabby because Ms.Keeper threw her out the door on her birthday! Everyday, Ms.Keeper lets us go outside for one hour, three times a day. We ate mostly sandwiches and drank water and sometimes juice. We also had some snacks, which were mostly fruits. We did school during the day too but this wasn’t real school. Ms.Keeper taught us everything. Ms.Keeper also bought us a TV, which was in the dining room. We mostly had everything we needed, except a family. One day, when Ms.Keeper let us go outside, I was lying on the grass by myself at the farthest point from the orphanage. Then all of a sudden I heard someone coming. I looked up but saw no one. When I turned around, I saw a boy, looked like he was 15. He had brown hair, blue eyes and was tall. He said “hi” to me and I said “hi” back. We talked to each other for awhile until Ms.Keeper called us in. I really hoped that Ms.Keeper didn’t see me talk to that boy because she would punish me. For the next three days, I talked to that boy over the fence every recess. He told me about his life and it really surprised me. He said he had a house as big as the whole orphanage (the orphanage is as big as a hotel). He said he had his mom and dad living with him, that he has money, any kind of drink, and lots of junk food. He played video games everyday and watched TV and also he quit school. His mom and dad don’t care about what he does as long as he’s home by midnight! When he told me this, I started thinking, is every life out there like his? What is everyone’s else’s life like? I couldn’t sleep that night or any other night after that day. Soon, we became friends and he asked if the orphanage was boring. I didn’t even know what to say because it was alright living in the orphanage but compared to his life, it was nothing. I didn’t say anything and he asked if I wanted to run away to his house. I, of course, was surprised and didn’t say anything for awhile but then I said I would think about it. Ms.Keeper called us inside, and I don’t know why but she never caught me talking to him. Ms.Keeper usually stands by the door of the orphanage, looking into the field of how we are playing. I was farthest away from her so maybe she doesn’t see so well. After those days, I couldn’t sleep because I kept thinking of running away. But how was I supposed to run away? If I got caught, I would be punished and I would have to be a slave to everyone, washing dishes, sweeping, and cleaning. Besides, I couldn’t run away because we all slept in rooms with four people to each room. Our room was the farthest away from the exit. I would have to tip-toe (at night?!?) through the whole orphanage just to get to the exit. No, I couldn’t do it. I was too scared. But that boy kept assuring me that everything will be okay. I talked it over with the boy and I decided to run away with him at night, at 11pm because he had to be home by 12pm. By 8pm, all the girls in the orphanage would be sleeping, but Ms.Keeper stays up till 10pm, listening to classical music in her favourite rocking chair. As not to wake Ms.Keeper, the boy suggested that he would come to my window at night and I would climb over. Our room was on the lowest level – level one- so it was the closest to the ground. It was supposed to happen in two days from then. I was very nervous and scared, and I kept looking at Ms.Keeper if she had any suspicions, but it didn’t look like it. It was the day of the run. I packed all my stuff, which wasn’t really much. I put all my clothes in my pockets (it fit perfectly). I was wide awake that night, listening till Ms.Keeper turned off her classical music and went to bed. It was perfectly silent. You could hear every single breath of the girls. My tummy had a trillion butterflies in it and I couldn’t stop my heavy breathing. At 11pm, there was a quiet knock at my window and I knocked back. That was our signal for letting each other know we were ready. I then looked at everyone in the room. They were sound asleep. I opened the window and it’s super squeaky. I waited a moment to see if anyone woke up, but no one moved. I climbed over the window to the boy. I closed the window with a loud squeak and started running with the boy to wherever my feet let me go. It was a dark night and only the half-lit moon was our source of light. The boy led me through streets and streets of houses until we came to a huge house. It was so pretty. It looked like the orphanage but it had no spiderwebs. It was clean and super nice. It looked like they were rich to have all those diamond stuff on the door. They boy opened the door and the light hurt my eyes. It was so bright in there, so big. The stairs were curved, like I only saw in fairy tales, and there was his mom standing in the doorway. She first smiled, but when she saw me, she made a confused face and came closer. I was so scared. What would his mom do? Did he tell his mom about me? My brain threw me a thousand questions to answer of which I didn’t know the answers for. The lady came closer and asked the boy slowly who I was. He told his mom that I was a friend from the orphanage. His mom got angry, her face started to turn red and she started to talk louder. She started saying that I’m filthy and that she doesn’t want to see me ever again and to get out off this house. I looked at the boy. He started to cry. I tear went down his cheek. He begged his mom to let her stay for the night but his mom didn’t budge. The boy’s mom shut the door on me and I was outside in the cold. All of this was for nothing. This meet we had. All the recesses we talked, all the nights I didn’t sleep, and I couldn’t go back to the orphanage now. I was alone. I didn’t even know where to go. I got off the boys lawn and I sat down on the sidewalk, crying and I realized I didn’t even know what the boy’s name was! Suddenly, I heard a door open. I looked back to see if it was the boy’s mom. No, it wasn’t. I looked around and saw that the boy’s neighbor has opened the door and was calling me. The person at the door was a grandma. She told me to come in. I stood up and came inside. She told me that she heard the neighbors talking loudly so she went to see what the commotion was about. She asked me if I wanted to eat but I refused. She sent me to bed, not knowing anything about me. She was so kind to me. She sent me upstairs where I had my own room. I fell asleep very fast, and I slept till lunch the next day. I forgot all about the orphanage and went downstairs to meet my hero. She was making breakfast for me. We sat down at the table and she told me her name ( Grandma Laura ) and I told her all about my life. Every single thing. When I came to the part about the orphanage, her eyes widened. Grandma Laura told me that many many years ago, she was the owner of the orphanage! The government fired her because they thought she wasn’t suitable for the job. When she went away, she made photocopies of the documents of the girls and kept them because the girls were so precious to her that she couldn’t just leave them. Grandma Laura stood up and went upstairs to go get them. When she came back down, she had a whole ton of documents! She found one by the name of Nikita. That morning changed my life. She let me read my own document. It figures out that my real mom died while having me. My dad was still alive. My dad’s name was Walter Eggons. The grandma’s eyes widened when I told her the name of my dad. She told me that that was her husband! So Grandma Laura was my mom? She didn’t die? But Grandma told me the whole story. My dad, Walter, first married a lady named Agnes, and they had a baby named Nikita ( that was me) and during childbirth, Agnes died, but I lived. Later, my dad could no longer care after me so he dropped me off at the orphanage when I was 1 year’s old. For my dad, that was a hard decision. He had to work but he couldn’t leave me at home and there was no one to look after me. After my dad’s wife died, he married Laura. Laura was sitting in front of me, tears in her eyes and on her cheeks. She then told me the saddest news- my dad died of cancer a couple months ago. I started choking back sobs, and then tears. Grandma Laura was the only family I had. She was my stepmother. It has been seven years since that happened and right now I am sitting with tears in my eyes, telling you this. I live with my stepmom and my husband, Jeffrey. Turns out that after that day, I lived with my stepmom for a couple months but then the boy’s mom found out that I was still in this neighborhood. The boy was so happy to hear that, and he told me his name- Jeffrey Jones. We soon joined our friendship together and a couple months later, we were married. Also,he wasn’t 15 years old, like I thought, he was 17. -Written by Nikita Eggons-Jones

Yoyoyo its generikb here and today we are playing roller coaster tycoon

Anyone got ideas for a short story titled as Leornard’s Fatal Oversight. In need of help asap.

Ugh, this is getting do frustrating! I thought to myself as I struggled through the streets. My ankles kept twisting every time I slipped. Heels are so not comfy. I shouldn’t have worn them. As if my struggle wasn’t enough, people were pushing me as they passed me by. I was being shoved left and right amidst the bustling sidewalks of New York. Feeling fed up, I decided to lean onto a nearby store to regain my balance. What an awful idea it was. Unfortunately, I have miscalculated the distance between me and the store and I ended up leaning on thin air. I tried to right my footing before it was too late but I ended up tripping on my own feet. With a loud oomph I slammed into a passerby. Papers went flying around us as we both fell to the ground.

“Oh my gosh! I am so sorry.” I tried to hurriedly stand up but I ended flat on the ground again. “I didn’t mean to! I was just trying to lean on the wall to regain my balance since it’s the first time to wear heels, and oh my god, it is very hard and painful.”

The person nodded quietly and started gathering the papers. I got to my knees and tried to help. “I was supposed to be looking smart for today’s meeting, but I don’t think it’s been working out so well. I bet I look as smart as a baboon’s butt.” I heard the person chuckle but I went on with my rant, “I also bet that I am a total mess; I don’t how will I meet everyone at work this way. Oh man! They sure will give me an earful of criticism!” I didn’t realize I had been holding on to the few papers I collected while he tried to pull them from my grasp. “Oh, I am so sorry, once again,” I said still holding on to the papers while I got up, “I didn’t realize I was holding on to the documents…it’s not like I’ve read them; I’m just guessing they were documents as your suit looks neat and yeah.” I tugged gently on the lapel of the suit and finally raised my eyes to his face. My eyes probably widened as I saw him for the first time. To cut it short, he was hot! Like smoking salmon hot; or more like hot chili pepper that Indians eat hot! Now I’ll give all the details, I know you want them…I would want them if I was listening to one of my friends telling me such a story. Anyways, he stood a good foot or so taller than me. He had light brown hair styled backwards. His angular, defined jaw was covered with a five o’clock shadow. Bright hazel eyes shone with amusement as a slight smile covered his lips. “I don’t usually talk to strangers as much as I do. God! I’m coming off as talkative! I am not usually the talkative type; I seriously don’t know what is wrong with me today. And whoa, you look handsome,” my eyes widened in shock as he raised both eyebrows, “Did I say that out loud? Oh my god, I said that out loud. I didn’t mean to say that…I don’t mean you’re not handsome, because you’re one hell of a man; I just mean…Ugh! Now I’m coming off as a weird man-gazing half-crazed stalker. That is if I’m not fully crazed. I don’t think I’m making any sense…I should probably get going.” I went to turn around when I felt a tug onto something I’m holding to. With a confused look I looked to my hands and found the stack of papers. With a not so faint blush, I handed him the papers, “I’m sorry again.” I threw my hand behind my shoulder pointing in the opposite direction, “I should probably get going,” I said with a sheepish smile. I turned to leave again, but I was stopped…again. He cleared his throat, “I think you’re forgetting something.” “Um…no, I think I’m,” I turned his way to find him holding my bag. I awkwardly stepped to take it and said, “Thanks. I’ll see you around, not that I know where you are…I’ll just get going.” I took my bag and headed off in the opposite direction before I could embarrass myself any further. As I waited for the subway, I recalled what just happened and face palmed. I took the short ride to the office to compose myself. I was in for a surprise once I entered the meeting room, though. The man I bumped into was standing at the head of the table. “Good morning everyone, before starting today’s meeting, I would like to introduce you to the company’s new CEO…” Well, I wasn’t expecting this. I sat rigidly on the chair once we were told to. “Good morning everyone, I am Nathaniel and I am looking forwards to working with everyone on this team,” he said with a smile on his face. “Mr. Nathaniel, I would like you to meet our best employee, Ms. Felicity Brown.”My boss pointed my way and I wish he hadn’t. Nathaniel’s eyes found mine. They were filled with amusement. Oh this was going to be a long day.

And this, kids, is how I met your father.

A great (and family friendly) writing site is http://www.storybird.com

I might write a story about a girl who was born a princess but all her family died on a ship except her aunt and cousin…she gets taken to an orphanage and everyone else thinks she died too and she gets adopted a few Years later she goes to school and everyone is talking about her…one days she finds out that… oh u want to know well I’ll probs write a story about it on wattpad so u can look for it, it will be called…A princess???

Four new members have a look at couch on top of Crestwood center ship

high school graduation sports activitiestrail Softballand therefore Swimmingbeach ball Tennismales adolescent girls info Field HS HS WrestlingCollege Pro Submit ScoresSubmit

WRIGHT TWP. In all perhaps had to be the most significant reorganization matching presented among Luzerne regional 11 institutions zones, Crestwood school panel swore located in four sign ups compared to the ne member, repairing incumbents which are either of them missing in action unique reelection tenders belonging to the primary or elected to get not to research another phase.

wayne Brogna, Stacey Haddix, Kimberly Spath and thus Lauren McCurdy got been sworn appearing in thursday night. The four bought conducted completely considering that the to produce enhancement community. really earning incumbent from a big part that do survived habitual grievance in past times two very long time came anna Hollock Bibla, which will garnered your ex first four year terms the particular snowboard. you become a member of in 2017 because of profitable an exclusive two year sitting.

The aboard had been proven a good solid director in just cost Jones deleted the primary. He extended in the direction this quite get-together ahead departing the barrier. But contact considering his or place for year isn an exciting new face. really 5 4 election with all four rookies in opposition of, james Costello vice president in the past year came branded president.

following the meeting, Brogna documented can lone even talk to gain themselves even so that he fully Costello ran into finished loads of dubious ballots the actual game board during the last two growth cycles. he explained he’s talked containing Costello together n’ your own questions that can the pup, but admitted no sign ups may possibly well most try out the us president job, if he or she. so which he wasn safe voting for Costello.

barry Boone is unanimously specified as vice chairman, Maureen McGovern came chosen assistant, and after that Brogna been recently branded as treasurer.

all of the reconstituted block have their first finding for normal establishment votes arrange for Dec. 19, Five days right after the contract over curious law firms in order to post proposals on a structured feasibility study, sense my blackboard can have to be able to merit a legal contract.

Four newbies your day Crestwood their school panel accept the promise of health care office at some stage in thurs reorganization talking. right between lead are actually Stacy Haddix, Kimberly Spath, Lauren McCurdy and as a consequence randy Brogna. 17 public speaking.

while prompt wednesday authorities chairman paul Belusko should become aware of if will probably be at center arena this booked careers class a better or at site of the event thus more people beautiful vietnamese women may easily give priority to.

Belusko proclaimed she will be polling an additional four authorities musicians in email’s over the past weekend on recommendation mayor choose George light brown undertaken especially during tuesday night time seeing replace the to and time production for the.

looking to you can keep them respond back to me made by the following thursday, Belusko considered that Friday.

maybe authorities decides to transfer an appointment it provides a week in order to place and with seating rather than a unique fourth area chambers.

was regarded as thinking that it is recently doing open talking long before the performance visit someplace (home buyers and thus local authority or council) may questionthings just to associated with us transfer to the author’s your job session. which unfortunately whatever i thinking about, Belusko claims.

you will most likely plumbing service in sunday night-time show results demonstrations that when local authority or council could not vote on awaiting the law. comments together with inquires are allowed even though council monday date the general public get togethers. timetabled start.

village owner david Gazenski suggested it authorities call on which direction to start.

over council if that they move this approach to a different store, Gazenski alleged.

nearly as Belusko may reaching out to authorities, so too will white because of main receiving area for the mans professional recommendation.

I get distracted super easily, but I started writing down my most intrusive thoughts. 1, it helped me remember them, and 2, it helped me focus on the task at hand. From intriguing concepts to funny-sounding words. Some are quotes for funny dialog, some are character quirks. Now I have a list of really bad, really creative ideas that deserve to be told and deserve to die. Simultaneously.

For example, “Becoming so good at keyboard shortcuts that they do precognitive Googling” “A vegan who is transformed into a dog” “A math curriculum that hires voice actors from pop culture to voice the lessons ” “A character (probably lonely) makes a friend online and goes in for a fist bump with the monitor, only to break it.”

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• How to Publish a Short Story: Find Your Publication and Idea - […] submit, it’s time to plan the story. If you’re stumped for writing ideas, check out our 100 Best Short…
• Merry Goodman on Using Real-Life Experiences to Come Up With Story Ideas - […] always getting asked this question: “Where do you get your ideas?” I always give some rambling answer, but boiled…
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• 8 relaxing activities to help you cope with coronavirus stress | Top News - […] your computer) and some ideas. If you want to get creative, write a short story based on one of these…
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• 10 Best Creative Writing Prompts – jcgregsolutions - […] Try a few out, and if you’re ready to take the next step in your writing, check out our 100…
• story ideas for teens – Language Skills Abroad - […] http://www.creative-writing-now.com/story-ideas.htmlhttp://thejohnfox.com/2016/06/creative-writing-prompts-young-adult-ya/http://www.journalbuddies.com/writing-grade-level/35-fiction-writing-prompts-for-teens/https://thewritepractice.com/short-story-ideas/http://yourstoryclub.com/short-stories-love/story-of-teenage-love/index.html […]
• Ten Secrets To Write Better Stories – WELCOME TO LIBRARY OF K V NO. 2 INDORE - […] Wait! Need a story idea? We’ve got you covered. Get our top 100 short story ideas here. […]
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Creative Writing: What It Is and Why It Matters

By: Author Paul Jenkins

Posted on Published: January 13, 2023  - Last updated: January 15, 2023

Categories Writing

Writing can be intimidating for many people, but creative writing doesn’t have to be. Creative writing is a form of self-expression that allows writers to create stories, characters, and unique settings. But what exactly is creative writing? And why is it important in today’s society? Let’s explore this further.

How We Define Creative Writing

Creative writing is any form where writers can express their thoughts and feelings imaginatively. This type of writing allows authors to draw on their imagination when creating stories and characters and play with language and structure. While there are no boundaries in creative writing, most pieces will contain dialogue, description, and narrative elements.

The Importance of Creative Writing

Creative writing is important because:

• It helps us express ourselves in ways we may not be able to do with other forms of communication.
• It allows us to explore our creativity and think outside the box.
• It can help us better understand our emotions by exploring them through storytelling or poetry.
• Writing creatively can also provide much-needed escapism from everyday life, allowing us to escape into a world of our creation.
• Creative writing helps us connect with others by sharing our experiences through stories or poems they can relate to. This way, we can gain insight into other people’s lives while giving them insight into ours.

Creative Writing: A Path to Mental and Emotional Wellness

Writing is more than just a way to express your thoughts on paper. It’s a powerful tool that can be used as a form of therapy. Creative writing has been shown to improve emotional and mental well-being.

Through creative writing, we can gain insight into our emotions, develop self-expression and communication skills, cultivate empathy and understanding of others, and boost our imagination and creativity.

Let’s examine how creative writing can relieve stress and emotional catharsis.

Stress Relief and Emotional Catharsis

Writing has the power to reduce stress levels significantly. Writing about our experiences or about things that are causing us anxiety or distress helps us to release those complicated feelings constructively. By expressing ourselves through creative writing, we can work through the emotions associated with stressful situations without having to confront them directly.

This is especially helpful for people who struggle to share their emotions verbally or in person.

Improved Communication and Self-Expression

Creative writing is also beneficial for improving communication skills. Through creative writing, we can explore our thoughts and feelings more intensely than by speaking them aloud. This allows us to think more clearly about what we want to say before actually saying it out loud or in written form, which leads to improved self-expression overall.

Additionally, writing out our thoughts before speaking aloud allows us to articulate ourselves better when communicating with others—which is essential for healthy personal and professional relationships.

Increased Empathy and Understanding of Others

Through creative writing, we can also increase our empathy towards others by exploring different perspectives on various topics that may be unfamiliar or uncomfortable for us—such as racism, homophobia, sexism, etc.—and allowing ourselves the opportunity to see the situation from someone else’s point of view without judgment or bias. This helps us become better communicators and more understanding individuals overall.

The Professional Benefits of Creative Writing

Creative writing is a powerful tool that can help you communicate better and more effectively in the professional world. It can also help you develop various skills that prove invaluable in many industries. Whether you’re looking to build your résumé or improve your communication, creative writing can effectively achieve both.

Let’s take a closer look at how creative writing can benefit your career.

Preparing Students for Careers in Writing, Editing, and Publishing

Creative writing is the perfect foundation for anyone interested in pursuing a career in writing, editing, or publishing. It teaches students the basics of grammar and composition while allowing them to express their ideas in imaginative ways.

Creative writing classes also allow students to learn from professionals who have experience as editors, agents, and publishers. They can use this knowledge to learn creative writing, refine their craft and gain valuable experience before entering the job market.

Improving Skills in Storytelling and Marketing for Various Careers

Creative writing teaches students to think critically about stories and craft compelling narratives that draw readers in. This skill is precious for those who wish to pursue careers outside traditional writing roles—such as marketing or advertising—where storytelling is key.

People who understand the fundamentals of creative writing will be able to create persuasive copy that resonates with readers and effectively conveys a message.

Enhancing Team Collaboration and Leadership Skills

Creative writing isn’t just about expressing yourself through words; it also provides an opportunity to practice working collaboratively with others on projects. Many creative writing classes require students to work together on group projects, which helps them develop essential teamwork skills such as communication, critical thinking, problem-solving, and creativity.

As they work together on these projects, they will also gain confidence in their ability to lead teams effectively—an invaluable asset no matter what industry they pursue after graduation.

Uncovering the Power of Creative Writing

Creative writing has become an increasingly powerful force in shaping our society. Creative writing has many uses, from preserving cultural heritage to promoting social change.

Preserving Cultural Heritage with Creative Writing

Creative writing has long been used to preserve and share cultural heritage stories. This is done through fictional stories or poetry that explore a particular culture or group’s history, values, and beliefs. By weaving these stories in an engaging way, writers can bring a culture’s history and traditions to life for readers worldwide. This helps bridge cultural gaps by providing insight into what makes each culture unique.

Promoting Social Change & Activism with Creative Writing

Creative writing can also be used for activism and social change. Writers can craft stories that help promote awareness about important issues such as poverty, race relations, gender equality, climate change, and more.

With the power of words, writers can inspire readers to take action on these issues and work towards creating positive change in their communities.

Through creative writing, writers can raise awareness about important topics while fostering empathy toward individuals who may be facing difficult or challenging situations.

Fostering Creativity & Innovation with Creative Writing

Finally, creative writing can foster creativity and innovation in various fields. For example, businesses can use creative copywriting techniques to create compelling content that captures the attention of customers or potential investors.

Aspiring entrepreneurs can use storytelling techniques when pitching their ideas or products to potential partners or investors to make their cases more persuasive and memorable.

By harnessing the power of words through creative writing techniques, businesses can create content that resonates with their target audience while inspiring them to take action on whatever message they’re trying to convey. It often aids the overall creative process.

Frequently Asked Questions

What are the benefits of creative writing.

Creative writing has many benefits, both for the writer and the reader. For the writer, it can be therapeutic, helping them to explore their emotions and better understand themselves. It can also be used as entertainment or communication, allowing them to share their ideas with the world. For the reader, creative writing can provide enjoyment, escapism, and insights into the human condition.

How can I improve my creative writing skills?

There are several ways you can improve your creative writing skills. Firstly, make sure you allow yourself time to write regularly. Use a writing prompt to inspire a short story. Secondly, read as much as you can; great writers are also great readers. Thirdly, experiment with different styles and genres to find one that suits you best. Fourthly, join a writers’ group, writing workshop, or creative writing program to get feedback from other writers. Finally, keep a journal to track your progress and reflect on your work as a creative writer.

What is the importance of imagery in creative writing?

Imagery is an important element of creative writing, as it helps to create a more vivid picture for the reader. By using sensory and descriptive language, writers can transport readers into their stories and help them relate to their characters or themes. Imagery can bring a scene alive with detail and evoke emotion by helping readers create strong visual images in their minds. Furthermore, imagery can help make stories more memorable by giving readers a deeper connection with the characters or setting.

What are the elements of creative writing?

The elements of creative writing include plot, character, dialogue, setting, theme, and point of view. The plot is the structure or main storyline, while the character is the personage involved in this story. Dialogue includes conversations between characters to give insight into their emotions and relationships. Setting refers to the place or time in which a story takes place, while theme explores deeper meanings behind a story’s narrative. Finally, point of view defines how readers experience a story through first-person or third-person omniscient narration.

What’s the difference between creative writing and other types of writing?

The main difference between creative writing and other types of writing is that it allows the writer to create their own story, characters, settings, and themes. Creative writing also encourages writers to be inventive with their style and use descriptive language to evoke emotion or bring stories alive in readers’ minds. Other academic or technical writing types typically involve more research-based information and are usually more objective in their presentation. Additionally, most forms of non-creative writing will have stricter rules regarding grammar, structure, and syntax.

What is the golden rule of creative writing?

The golden rule of creative writing is to show, not tell. It’s the core creative writing skill. When it comes to creative writing, it’s essential to use descriptive language that immerses readers in the story and allows them to experience the events through their emotions and imaginations. This can be done through metaphors, similes, sensory language, and vivid imagery.

How important is creativity in writing?

Creativity is essential in writing as it allows writers to craft a unique story and evoke emotion from the reader. Creativity can bring stories alive with fresh perspectives and exciting plot lines while creating an escape for readers and giving them more profound insights into the human condition. Writers who combine creativity with technical aspects such as grammar, structure, language usage, and flow will create pieces that capture their audience’s attention and provide an enjoyable reading experience.

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Dream up a secret library. write a story about an adventurer who discovers it. what’s in the library why was it kept secret, write a story about a future academic (or another influential person) “rediscovering” a book that, in its time, was dismissed. the book can be fictitious or real., your protagonist is a writer who discovers a new favorite author. how does their writing, or even their own personality, change as the protagonist falls under the writer’s influence, write a story about discovering a lost manuscript. it can be from a famous (or infamous) author, or an unknown one., subscribe to our prompts newsletter.

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Your teacher tasks you with writing a story based on an eavesdropped conversation. When the story is published, your subject isn’t happy.

A character overhears something at a black-tie event that puts the night in jeopardy., write a story in which someone can only hear one side of a conversation and must piece together the meaning of what they’ve heard., write a story about a child overhearing something they don’t understand., write a story in which someone is afraid of being overheard., write a story about a character driving and getting lost., write a story about a tennis match between two rivals., write a story that begins with someone dancing in a bar., write a story around someone (literally) bumping into someone else., write a story about a character running late for a job interview., win $250 in our short story competition 🏆.

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Creative Writing Prompts

When the idea to start a weekly newsletter with writing inspiration first came to us, we decided that we wanted to do more than provide people with topics to write about. We wanted to try and help authors form a regular writing habit and also give them a place to proudly display their work. So we started the weekly Creative Writing Prompts newsletter. Since then, Prompts has grown to a community of more than 450,000 authors, complete with its own literary magazine, Prompted .  

Here's how our contest works: every Friday, we send out a newsletter containing five creative writing prompts. Each week, the story ideas center around a different theme. Authors then have one week — until the following Friday — to submit a short story based on one of our prompts. A winner is picked each week to win $250 and is highlighted on our Reedsy Prompts page.

Interested in participating in our short story contest? Sign up here for more information! Or you can check out our full Terms of Use and our FAQ page .

Why we love creative writing prompts

If you've ever sat in front of a computer or notebook and felt the urge to start creating worlds, characters, and storylines — all the while finding yourself unable to do so — then you've met the author's age-old foe: writer's block. There's nothing more frustrating than finding the time but not the words to be creative. Enter our directory! If you're ready to kick writer's block to the curb and finally get started on your short story or novel, these unique story ideas might just be your ticket.

This list of 1800+ creative writing prompts has been created by the Reedsy team to help you develop a rock-solid writing routine. As all aspiring authors know, this is the #1 challenge — and solution! — for reaching your literary goals. Feel free to filter through different genres, which include...

Dramatic — If you want to make people laugh and cry within the same story, this might be your genre.

Funny — Whether satire or slapstick, this is an opportunity to write with your funny bone.

Romance — One of the most popular commercial genres out there. Check out these story ideas out if you love writing about love.

Fantasy — The beauty of this genre is that the possibilities are as endless as your imagination.

Dystopian – Explore the shadowy side of human nature and contemporary technology in dark speculative fiction.

Mystery — From whodunnits to cozy mysteries, it's time to bring out your inner detective.

Thriller and Suspense — There's nothing like a page-turner that elicits a gasp of surprise at the end.

High School — Encourage teens to let their imaginations run free.

Want to submit your own story ideas to help inspire fellow writers? Send them to us here.

After you find the perfect story idea

Finding inspiration is just one piece of the puzzle. Next, you need to refine your craft skills — and then display them to the world. We've worked hard to create resources that help you do just that! Check them out:

• How to Write a Short Story That Gets Published — a free, ten-day course by Laura Mae Isaacman, a full-time editor who runs a book editing company in Brooklyn.
• Best Literary Magazines of 2023 — a directory of 100+ reputable magazines that accept unsolicited submissions.
• Writing Contests in 2023 — the finest contests of 2021 for fiction and non-fiction authors of short stories, poetry, essays, and more.

Beyond creative writing prompts: how to build a writing routine

While writing prompts are a great tactic to spark your creative sessions, a writer generally needs a couple more tools in their toolbelt when it comes to developing a rock-solid writing routine . To that end, here are a few more additional tips for incorporating your craft into your everyday life.

• NNWT. Or, as book coach Kevin Johns calls it , “Non-Negotiable Writing Time.” This time should be scheduled into your routine, whether that’s once a day or once a week. Treat it as a serious commitment, and don’t schedule anything else during your NNWT unless it’s absolutely necessary.
• Set word count goals. And make them realistic! Don’t start out with lofty goals you’re unlikely to achieve. Give some thought to how many words you think you can write a week, and start there. If you find you’re hitting your weekly or daily goals easily, keep upping the stakes as your craft time becomes more ingrained in your routine.
• Talk to friends and family about the project you’re working on. Doing so means that those close to you are likely to check in about the status of your piece — which in turn keeps you more accountable.

Arm yourself against writer’s block. Writer’s block will inevitably come, no matter how much story ideas initially inspire you. So it’s best to be prepared with tips and tricks you can use to keep yourself on track before the block hits. You can find 20 solid tips here — including how to establish a relationship with your inner critic and apps that can help you defeat procrastination or lack of motivation.

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10+ GCSE creative writing ideas, prompts and plot lines

Getting a good GCSE creative writing plot going can be difficult, here are some ideas to help you out.

Ahead of your exams, here are a selection of GCSE creative writing ideas and prompts to hopefully provide some inspiration.

The Lost Timepiece

Prompt: In an old, dusty attic, a teenager discovers a mysterious pocket watch that doesn’t seem to tell the correct time.

Potential Story Directions:

• The watch could transport the teenager to different moments in history whenever it's wound.
• The watch might belong to a long-lost relative, leading to a family mystery.
• The watch could be counting down to a significant event, and the protagonist must figure out what is about to happen.

The Secret Garden Door

Prompt: Behind the overgrown ivy in the school's garden, a student finds a door that wasn't there before.

• The door could lead to a magical world, offering an escape from everyday life but with challenges of its own.
• It might be a portal to the past, showing the school's history and secrets.
• The door could be a metaphorical passage to self-discovery, revealing hidden aspects of the character’s personality.

The Last Message

Prompt: A character receives a mysterious message in a bottle on the beach, written in a cryptic language.

• Deciphering the message could lead to an adventure, perhaps a treasure hunt or a rescue mission.
• The message might be from a distant land or time, offering insights into an ancient or futuristic world.
• It could be a personal message from someone significant in the character’s past, triggering a journey of emotional growth.

Midnight at the Museum

Prompt: A night guard at a museum notices that the exhibits come to life after midnight.

• The guard could interact with historical figures, learning about history firsthand.
• There might be a plot to steal an exhibit, and the living exhibits help to thwart it.
• The phenomenon could be linked to a supernatural event or an ancient curse that needs resolving.

The Forgotten Melody

Prompt: A pianist discovers an old, unplayed piano in a neglected music room that plays a melody no one seems to recognize.

• The melody could be a key to unlocking forgotten memories or a hidden past.
• It might be a magical melody, having various effects on listeners.

Each of these prompts offers a starting point for creative exploration, allowing students to develop their storytelling skills in imaginative and engaging ways.

Galactic Storm

Prompt: Astronauts on a mission to a distant planet encounter a bizarre, otherworldly storm.

• The storm could have strange, mind-altering effects on the crew.
• It might be a living entity, communicating in an unprecedented way.
• The crew must navigate through the storm to discover a hidden aspect of the universe.

Unearthed Powers

Prompt: A teenager suddenly discovers they have a supernatural ability.

• The power could be a family secret, leading to a journey of self-discovery.
• It might cause conflict with friends and society, forcing the protagonist to make difficult choices.
• The ability could attract unwanted attention, leading to a thrilling adventure.

Reflections of Reality

Prompt: A story that mirrors a significant real-life experience involving friendship or a pet.

• The story could explore the depth of human-animal bonds or the complexities of friendship.
• It might involve a heartwarming journey or a challenging ordeal.
• The protagonist learns valuable life lessons through these relationships.

Chronicle of Times

Prompt: A character discovers a way to travel through time.

• Traveling to the future, they encounter a radically different world.
• In the past, they might inadvertently alter history.
• The story could explore the moral and emotional implications of time travel.

Apocalyptic Event

Prompt: A natural disaster of unprecedented scale threatens humanity.

• The story could focus on survival, resilience, and human spirit.
• It might involve a journey to avert the disaster.
• The narrative could explore the societal changes that occur in the face of such a disaster.

The Unsolved Case

Prompt: A detective starts investigating a complex and mysterious murder.

• The investigation uncovers deep secrets and conspiracies.
• The detective's personal life might intertwine with the case.
• The story could have a surprising twist, challenging the reader's expectations.

Retold Fable

Prompt: Modernize a classic fable or story, such as the Boy Who Cried Wolf, in a contemporary setting.

• The story could be set in a modern city, exploring current social issues.
• It might be told from a different perspective, offering a fresh take on the moral of the story.
• The narrative could blend the original fable with current events, creating a powerful commentary.

Forbidden Love

Prompt: Two characters from vastly different worlds fall in love, against all odds.

• Their love could challenge societal norms and expectations.
• The story might explore the sacrifices they make for each other.
• It could be a journey of self-discovery and acceptance in the face of adversity.

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Prompting Creativity: Revisiting Aristotle’s Advice on Plot and Character

• First Online: 10 October 2021

Cite this chapter

• Mark Rossiter 3  

Which is more important in creative writing, plot or character? Students almost always say the latter, but Aristotle in his Poetics disagrees. Plot for him is everything and he goes on to define what he calls a complex plot and how it is they move us. This chapter re-examines his work, setting it against more contemporary perspectives and with reference to the author’s own short fiction. Practical exercises developed through years of workshop experience enable writers to explore the question for themselves, producing story fragments that can be a springboard to further creative projects.

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To reiterate: Aristotle is talking about tragedy, but as we’ll see, his advice applies to the nature of narrative itself, its structure and its mechanics.

This pattern can be contrasted with well-known dramatic structural forms such as Freytag’s Technik des Dramas , more commonly known as Freytag’s Pyramid, which describes five acts: “the introduction […] the rising action […] the climax […] the return […] the catastrophe” (Freytag 1900 , p. 115), and Joseph Campbell’s monomyth or hero’s journey, whose 12 steps include “The Call to Adventure […] The Road of Trials [...] Apotheosis […] The Crossing of the Return Threshold […] Freedom to Live” (Campbell 2004 /1949, pp. vii–viii).

I do recommend you write your own scenarios, tuck them away and return to them later. Meantime, here are some my students have used: a person sees a reflection of themselves in a mirror or a window in the street; casually opening the car glove box; in a share house/hostel/prison; two people argue in a cinema/gallery/bistro; I think you’ve had enough; a goldfish bowl; alien incursion; sorry, it’s overcooked; are you positive?

Alison, J. 2019. Meander, Spiral, Explode—Design and Pattern in Narrative . New York: Catapult.

Google Scholar  

Aristotle, and S.H. Butcher. n.d. Poetics . MIT Internet Classics Archive. Accessed 6 January 2020. http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/poetics.1.1.html .

Austen, J. 2006. The Complete Novels . New York: Penguin Books.

Bedford, J. 2005. Workshop Analysis Lecture. Advanced Narrative . University of Technology, Sydney.

Brooks, P. 1992. Reading for the Plot . Harvard: Harvard University Press.

Campbell, J. 2004.  The Hero with a Thousand Faces . Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press. (Original work published 1949).

Freytag, G. 1900. Freytag’s T echnique of the Drama  (J. Elias, and M.A. MacEwan Trans., 3rd ed.). Chicago: Scott, Foresman and Company.

Hemingway, E. 1964. A Moveable Feast . New York: Scribner.

James, H. 2007. The Art of Fiction. In The Critical Tradition , ed. D.H. Richter, 464–475. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s.

Kuehl, L. 1978. Joan Didion, The Art of Fiction No. 71. The Paris Review . Accessed 5 January 2021. http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/3439/the-art-of-fiction-no-71-joan-didion

NY Book Editors. n.d. What is Literary Fiction? NY Book Editors. Accessed 6 January 2021. https://nybookeditors.com/2018/07/what-is-literary-fiction/

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Rossiter, M. (2021). Prompting Creativity: Revisiting Aristotle’s Advice on Plot and Character. In: Adelaide, D., Attfield, S. (eds) Creative Writing Practice. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-73674-3_8

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Home / Book Writing / Author vs Writer: What’s the Difference?

Author vs Writer: What’s the Difference?

People often mix up the terms “author” and “writer”, but there is a difference. A writer is someone who wrote, but an author is someone who wrote books. There were many types of writers, and here, you’ll learn about what makes an author different from a writer, and how you can become one.

With this knowledge, you'll be able to better understand authorship and determine if your path is that of a writer or an author.

• What is the difference between a writer and an author.
• Who originates the ideas and owns the writing
• Whether your work is published under your name
• Whether you should be a writer or an author
• How to become an author

What is a Writer?

A writer is someone who engages in the act and process of writing. This is a broad definition that encompasses many types of writing. Essentially, if you spend time writing creatively, whether it's fiction, nonfiction, prose, poetry, scripts, blogs, or journaling, you can consider yourself a writer.

The key criteria is that you are actively involved in writing as an ongoing pursuit or hobby. You don't necessarily have to be published or make money from your writing to be called a writer.

Types of Writers

There are many different types of writers that fall under the broad definition above. Some of the most common include:

• Fiction writers – Writers who focus on fictional stories, novels, or other creative works. This includes genres like romance, sci-fi, fantasy, horror, historical fiction, and more.
• Nonfiction writers – Writers who create factual, informational, or journalistic works like biographies, memoirs, self-help books, news articles, and blogs.
• Freelance writers – Also known as commercial writers, freelancers are hired by companies, publishers, or individuals to create specific written content, like website copy, marketing materials, technical documentation, research reports, scripts, and more.
• Journalists – Writers who report on factual events and news for newspapers, magazines, websites, TV, or radio.
• Bloggers – Writers who create regular blog content focusing on a specific topic or niche.
• Screenwriters – Writers who create scripts and screenplays for television, movies, and digital productions.
• Content writers – Similar to freelance writers, content writers create written web content for businesses and websites.
• Academic writers – Writers who create scholarly books, papers, articles, and other content, usually within a specific academic discipline.
• Technical writers – Writers who create instruction guides, manuals, how-to guides, and other technical documentation.
• Copywriters – Writers who create advertising and marketing materials like brochures, websites, digital ads, commercials, and more.

So basically, a ‘writer’ is anyone who writes, no matter the genre, format, or industry.

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What is an Author?

An author is a writer who originates ideas and content for a book or other literary work that is formally published. In other words, authors are published writers. Simply writing a manuscript does not make someone an author – it requires actual publication and distribution of the work.

Some key criteria that distinguish authors from general writers include:

• They compose original ideas, stories, and information for publication in book format or other literary formats.
• Their full work is published formally under their name, as the originator of the content.
• They typically own the copyright and intellectual property of the published work.
• There is an element of authority or expertise lent to being the named author of a published book or major literary work.
• For full-length book publications, most authors partner with a publisher who prints, markets, distributes, and sells the book.

So an author is someone who comes up with the ideas for a book, and it is published under their name, giving them the rights to the content.

What’s the Difference?

While there is overlap between writers and authors, and all authors consider themselves writers, there are some key differences that distinguish the two titles:

Who Originates the Ideas

• Writers may write up other people's ideas, rewrite content, or work from an assigned topic. For example, freelance writers are hired to write content for clients on various subjects.
• Authors are the original creators and originators of the ideas, content, and stories covered in their literary works. Their books come from their own minds and perspectives.

Who Owns the Writing?

• Writers usually write content that is owned or copyrighted by an employer or client. For example, freelancers who write website copy for a marketing firm don't own or have rights to that content.
• Authors own the full rights and copyrights to their published books and works, since they are the sole creator. There are some exceptions if rights are sold or transferred to a publisher.

Is Your Work Published Under Your Name?

• Writers may never see their name published or receive credit for written works. For example, ghostwriters or staff writers for companies.
• Authors are published under their own name and are publicly credited for their books and other literary creations. Their named authorship is key to their title.

When it comes to publication, authors have two main options: traditional publishing or self-publishing.

Traditional publishing involves submitting book proposals to publishing houses, who then contract and publish approved manuscripts. The publisher handles editing, distribution, marketing, and sales. The author receives an advance and royalties.

Self-publishing allows the author to publish their book independently by paying for editing, design, printing, and distribution themselves. The author retains full creative control and rights over their work. Popular self-publishing platforms include Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing, IngramSpark, and Draft2Digital.

Basically, an author credit is given to anyone who publishes a full literary work under their own name. The ideas and content have to be theirs in order for them to be considered the author of the book.

Should You Be an Author or a Writer?

So, how do you know which path is right for you? Here are a few tips:

Consider your motivation – Do you want to write for the joy of writing, or do you feel called to author and publish your own book? Writings fulfill the act itself while authors want to complete and distribute a major work.

Does originating ideas appeal to you? – Authors thrive on creating their own stories, worldviews, characters, and topics. If this suits you, authoring a book may be appealing.

Evaluate your commitment – Writing can be casual while authoring a book takes immense commitment. Are you excited by a major project and willing to spend months or years completing an entire manuscript?

Do you crave control over your work? – Authors maintain creative control and ownership over their books. If this control matters to you, authorship may be the path.

How do you feel about professional editing? – Writers may not get much editing while manuscript development and professional editing are key to authorship. If you're open to constructive feedback, authoring could work.

Consider public recognition – Writers often go unpublished while authors get public credit and recognition. If you desire acknowledgement, authorship provides this.

Weigh your willingness to promote a book – Writers have less marketing responsibility while authors must vigorously promote their books through tours, social media, and more. If you’re willing to be your book’s biggest champion through marketing campaigns, talks, and events, authoring has greater appeal.

Think about monetary motivations – Writing gigs can provide steady paychecks to writers while authors only earn money if their book sells. Advances and royalties over the long-term may incentivize those drawn to authorship.

These can help you decide if your temperament, motivation, commitment, and goals are more in line with writing or authorship. Know yourself before you decide which is the better fit.

How to Become an Author

If examining your motivations leads you to pursue authorship, here is a brief overview of common steps to publishing your first book:

• Pick your genre or nonfiction topic – Choose a book category and narrow your focus to a specific concept, story premise, or area of expertise. Research the target market.
• Create an outline – Map out your full manuscript with a beginning, middle, and end. Authors often start with a chapter outline and expand it as they write.
• Write the first draft – With initial research done, it's time to start writing your manuscript. Set a regular writing schedule to maintain momentum. Expect many revisions along the way.
• Hire a professional editor – Once the draft is done, invest in editing services to refine your manuscript. A critique of plot, characters, pacing, structure, and grammar is invaluable.
• Design your book cover and interior – Work with a graphic designer to create an eye-catching cover and appealing interior formatting.
• Choose traditional vs self-publishing – Decide which publishing route is right for your book and follow the steps to get your manuscript printed and distributed.
• Market relentlessly – As the author, dedicating time to tirelessly promoting your book through social media, speaking engagements, book signings and any other creative avenues is vital to sales. Leverage your network.

This provides a high-level overview of the path to becoming a published author. We have much more in-depth information on successfully writing and publishing your first book available here .

Can You Be an Author Without Writing?

An interesting question that often comes up is whether someone can be credited as a book's author without writing the manuscript themselves. There are two common scenarios where this happens:

• With a ghostwriter – Celebrities, public figures, and business leaders frequently hire ghostwriters to author their memoirs and guidebooks. The named author provides background info and may outline topics, while the ghostwriter does the actual writing. The celebrity is still listed as the credited author.
• When physically unable to write – Writers who become paralyzed or lose the use of their hands may bring on co-writers who assist with the physical typing and writing. As long as the original author dictates the outlines and content, they maintain their authorship.

So in both cases, as long as the author initiated the ideas and content direction, they can get author credit even if they didn't physically type the manuscript themselves. The core creativity and ownership still stems from them as the originator.

Bottom Line: Get Writing

When you get right down to it, the only thing that writers and authors have in common is that they write. Regardless of your publishing aspirations, you have to start with writing. 

Maybe you just want to write short stories for fun, or you want to write a novel. 

Just start writing. 

Join a writing group for support. Take a class or workshop to get better. Or set aside time every day to write.

You won’t get far as an author if you don’t write every day. So write something every day. Just focus on writing at first. Worry about publishing later.

Learn to love the act of writing. And soon, you might find that you’ve taken the first steps to go from writer to author.

Dave Chesson

When I’m not sipping tea with princesses or lightsaber dueling with little Jedi, I’m a book marketing nut. Having consulted multiple publishing companies and NYT best-selling authors, I created Kindlepreneur to help authors sell more books. I’ve even been called “The Kindlepreneur” by Amazon publicly, and I’m here to help you with your author journey.

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Creative Writing: Complete that Story!

Subject: English

Age range: 7-11

Resource type: Unit of work

Last updated

28 May 2024

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‘Creative Writing: Complete that Story’ is a bundle of resources for use in the classroom or as part of home learning. It comprises of 52 story starters to engage children primarily in Years 5 and 6 but can also be used for younger and older children too. Storytelling should spark children’s imaginations and these story starters will do just that! From these story starters, that include elements of grammar from the UKS2 curriculum, the child/children will be able to plan the rest of the story in order to complete it. This can be: a fun and active talk for writing opportunity, can form part of a mindful storytelling activity or can be a stimulus to create independent writing. The pack includes the following:

Workbook: This workbook can be printed for individual use and allows the child to work through the story starters in any order they choose. There is lined paper, a draw your story page and a boxing up page to plan the story. There are additional lined pages at the back of the workbook if needed. Some children will just jump into the writing stage, whereas others may enjoy the opportunity to plan their ideas before writing.

Story Starter PowerPoint: This PowerPoint shares all the story starters (52 in total) individually and can be a whole class activity or starter. This enables the story to be discussed as part of the planning stage.

Story Starter Cards: These cards can be printed and cut up and can be used as a fun Literacy starter or to start a story telling game. At home, these can be used as a storytelling opportunity at any point in the day. Your child/children can select a card and actively discuss what could happen next. They are intended to be used to unearth talk for writing; they can solely be used as an opportunity for storytelling without the need to plan and write the story down.

Blank Story Starter Card Templates: These can be printed off to enable the child/children to write their own story starters. These can then be swapped between the children in order for them to continue each others’ stories. This really does give the children ownership of the writing process and it’s always an enjoyable experience to share the finished stories with their peers!

Boxing Up and Draw Your Story Templates: These are both part of the workbook but have been separately created so they can easily be printed alongside any of the activities in this pack.

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No one knows what ‘creative nonfiction’ is. That’s what makes it great.

In the first paragraph of “ The Fine Art of Literary Fist-Fighting ,” Lee Gutkind, the “Godfather” of the creative-nonfiction genre (a title used once to describe him in Vanity Fair in 1997 and since taken up repeatedly over the years, mostly by Gutkind himself, including in the bio on this book jacket), begins with a question he often receives: “‘What is creative nonfiction?’ Or, in some cases, ‘What the hell is creative nonfiction?’”

It’s a fitting sentiment for the genre, and for its longtime champion. This term, which others forgo in favor of “literary nonfiction” or “narrative nonfiction,” or simply “the essay,” as Gutkind writes, is a blanket that seeks to cover works from Joan Didion’s stylized journalistic chronicles of the ’60s to Mary Karr and the memoir boom of the ’90s to Annie Dillard’s nature writing, and everything in between that isn’t made up but also probably wouldn’t run in the newspaper. To practice or teach creative nonfiction (or whatever else you might want to call it) has been to operate from a defensive position. As Gutkind shows, this is a genre whose inception and growth were met with uncertainty, skepticism and in many cases disdain.

In trying to name, categorize, legitimize creative nonfiction, it’s hard not to feel that you’re being defined by what you are failing to do — it’s not creative in the eyes of fiction writers, or rigorously factual in the eyes of journalists, or properly literary in the eyes of academics. Here, Gutkind attempts to narrate the history of the genre, and that story is inevitably one of contestation and conflict — about what “creative nonfiction” even is, above all else, and just how “creative” writers can be before they’re no longer writing nonfiction. Those are familiar debates for some of us, and they haven’t stopped. I was in graduate school more than a decade ago, at one of the creative-nonfiction programs that Gutkind describes, and I was constantly getting into “Literary Fist-Fights,” though I imagine most of the people around me wanted to punch me for real.

Gutkind has been out there on those self-drawn front lines since the early ’70s. He’s a writer of numerous creative-nonfiction books (for which he immersed himself in topics ranging from the lives of those awaiting organ transplants, to the cutting-edge robotics program at Carnegie Mellon, to the ecosystem of a children’s hospital), a professor and an editor, all of these identities working toward a final form somewhere between evangelist and carnival barker. “I know that all of this scheming, all of these machinations, seem pretty crass and certainly not literary,” he writes about his efforts to get sustained funding for his seminal magazine, Creative Nonfiction. “I got a lot of heat from colleagues and other writers for being an unabashed promoter and even a self-promoter. Okay, maybe that was true — or partly true. But so what? It might work.”

It did work, and those of us who love the genre — many first drawn in by Gutkind’s magazine or his edited anthology — are grateful for it. These days, I don’t know if anyone would knock the hustle. Doomed hustling is the only literary mode left available, as so many great magazines, especially the kind that published the inventive, diverse work that we might call creative nonfiction, have fallen by the wayside — cut from shrinking university budgets, bought and gutted by venture-capital goons, scrubbed from the internet. The latest issue of Creative Nonfiction came out in 2022; there doesn’t seem to anything coming down the pike.

To look back, in these times of true literary and academic scarcity, the “fist-fighting” of grad program expansion and barbs exchanged between the tenured and endowed can seem like pretty enviable brawls. As much as anything, “The Fine Art of Literary Fist-Fighting” is a book about academia, a version of it that’s nearly extinct. Multiple scenes take place in panels at academic conferences, or during contentious department meetings; enemies are blazered, bloviating, Faulkner scholars who pound the table and refuse to let nonfiction writers into their ivory tower.

In the midst of all this, Gutkind, in his own telling, is the perma-rebel: a former hippie motorcycle man without a graduate degree, who doesn’t belong. He’s the scrappy kid from the real world, pushing himself through every door the fancier folk might want to slam in his face. But for most of the book, he’s ensconced within the literary and academic establishment, ultimately moving comfortably through the tenure track at a major research university in the city where he was born. I don’t mean to downplay Gutkind’s enormous accomplishments; only to say, as a fellow academic, that it’s easy to get caught up in the perceived intrigue of a meeting, to frame yourself only against those in your bubble, to lose sight of the fact that the art being discussed is a far more compelling subject than the minutiae of the discussion about it.

Gutkind is at his best in this book when he grudgingly becomes the type of memoirist that he usually writes about. The moments when he stops to look back on his own evolving perspective and investment are truly compelling — reflecting the continuing intellectual curiosity of someone who cares enough about this field to allow himself to change with it. He thinks back on essays that he rejected from the magazine that he might accept now, and shows us how dogmas seem indispensable until suddenly they’re old fashioned.

Most compellingly, he reflects upon his writing career, the choices he made within the murkily defined borders of creative nonfiction. He describes a scene from his second book, in which he sits outside a motel room to eavesdrop on a fight between two White baseball umpires and their crewmate, the first Black umpire in the National League. Decades on, he delves into not only what happened in the scene but his place as eavesdropper, the context leading up to the moment, the stylistic choices in not making up but certainly emphasizing the cruel language, and most of all, whether “in the end I actually hurt the man I was trying to help.” He puts himself, and us, right back in the moment — and the results are vivid, ambiguous, emotionally resonant, fascinating.

That is the enduring thrill of creative nonfiction — tiptoeing along the border between art and fact. It requires turning a critical eye on your own ambition, your care for others, the literal truth of what happened and the style with which you might express how it felt, as well as the question of whose story is being told and who has the right to tell it. It’s one that Gutkind chronicles as a reader, too, capturing the experience that we who love the genre have all had, coming upon a work that feels epiphanic with all these tensions and intimacies, even if you didn’t have the language to call what you were reading “creative nonfiction.” He writes of what it meant to a young journalist to encounter a piece that broke the rules, as he did when he first read Gay Talese’s “Frank Sinatra Has a Cold.” And he describes the awe he felt upon reading James Baldwin’s “Notes of a Native Son,” an essay that achieved so much . He captures this experience as an editor, too, when a then-unknown writer sent him her first manuscript and, decades into his career, he discovered that he could still be surprised.

This is, I think, what so often gets buried in discussions about creative nonfiction — including many of those documented in this book. The more one zeroes in on defining and defending, the more the writing can move away from whatever it is that makes the genre meaningful to so many people. Gutkind has given his life to this genre; I wish I knew more about what it means to him.

The Fine Art of Literary Fist-Fighting

How a Bunch of Rabble-Rousers, Outsiders, and Ne’er-Do-Wells Concocted Creative Nonfiction

By Lee Gutkind

Yale University Press. 292 pp. $35

More From Forbes

How writing can make you a better coach.

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Telling your story

Storytelling is an essential part of leadership communications. In the following sentence, Steve Almond, author of Truth Is the Arrow, Mercy Is the Bow , writes:

“The most fundamental question for readers is to who we’re being ask to care about, what they desire, and what sort of trouble they encounter in pursuit of that desire. In other words, what promises is the piece making? Has our protagonist been forced to reckon with external obstacles and internal conflicts?”

If you were to substitute readers for followers and a piece for a story, you would have an excellent framework for shaping a story. Almond has authored 11 books and has taught writing in MFA programs for decades. Truth Is the Arrow is a distillation of what he teaches. And he does it with verve, candor, style and courage.

Why We Need Stories

For that reason, his exploration of storytelling is worth exploring for leaders who need to communicate more effectively with their followers. Stories have beginnings, middles and ends, and in the management environment, leaders know the beginning but not the ending. Forming the ending – fulfilling the mission – is a series of "middles" – ever-changing and ever-challenging.

The narrative in fiction has been plotted, though when the writer is writing, they may not know it at the time. Same for work life. We mark milestones, but we are still in the process. Storytelling – that sheds light on people and effort – makes the progression worthy of further commitment.

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A vital part of storytelling is revealing something of yourself. Almond does a skillful job telling parts of his story throughout the book. He is not afraid to laugh at his early writing efforts. More directly, he deals with family challenges and is not afraid to call himself out for shortcomings in his teaching.

Almond notes that writers come to workshops to express themselves, and part of that expression involves the grasp of self-knowledge. In this regard, the principles of the writing process mirror the coaching process, peeling back the layers to help the individual learn more about themselves.

An essential part of storytelling is humor. At this, Almond is a master. Not afraid to reveal his own foibles, he does so in ways that make us laugh and at the same time say, “I know that feeling.” That lesson is something that binds listeners – and followers – to the storytellers. Consider it vulnerability tinged with what it means to be fully alive.

Revealing Self

Near the end of the book, there is a chapter, "Man at the Top of the Stairs," that explores a character's inner life. Writers have to find a different way of being in the world," writes Almond. "The making of literature is the manner by which we come to understand our inner lives, by which we travel in difficult truth toward elusive mercy, and thereby affirm the bonds of human kindness."

Same holds true for leaders. Their connection to those they lead may waver from time to time, but when the leader knows themselves they have the capacity to look outward, to connect with others with story that resonate with shared experience. And when those stories reflect hopes and aspirations tempered with kindness and grace, the connection between leader and follower remains resilient and firm.

First posted on Forbes.com 5.00.2024

Note: For more insights into the parallels between writing and coaching, here is my LinkedIn Live interview with Steve Almond.

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Traveling arts organization sparks creative writing skills in students across Santa Barbara County

SANTA BARBARA COUNTY, Calif. – They are called story pirates.

“Part of a group of folks who take stories from students and live action play them out before they’re very eyes," director of education Jenna Hamilton-Rolle of the UCSB Arts & Lectures.

The actors create a fast-paced fully-improvised show.

The results are hilarious.

“The main character is a purple slug named tom and he's making paintings," student Mason Sancez of Brandon Elementary School.

Hosted by the UCSB Arts & Lectures Art Adventures Program, the focus is bringing kids into the story creation zone to create a story on the spot.

"They're in there telling their stories will the pirates reenact their imagination. so they’re having their story come to life," said parent Sara Sanchez of Brandon Elementary School.

UCSB Arts & Lectures believes Story Pirates will help kids open their minds and use their imaginations

"So excited the students are having a great time. they’ve been looking forward to the story pirates and we’ve been so blessed to have them come to our school," said Sara Sanchez.

The Story Pirates are best known for their podcast which has more than 70 million downloads.

And their hope is to remind students that they are all creative geniuses.

“Have value in the words that they use and so encouraging them to bring those that creativity in those arts to life," said Hamilton-Rolle.

“It’s super fun. it’s like … the best assembly i’ve seen," said Mason Sanchez.

The Story Pirates team hopes the students can now set sail on their own journeys to become the story-tellers of tomorrow.

Jump to comments ↓

Patricia Martellotti

Patricia Martellotti is a reporter for News Channel 3-12. To learn more about Patricia, click here .

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Please keep your comments respectful and relevant. You can review our Community Guidelines by clicking here

If you would like to share a story idea, please submit it here .

Mansfield man finds creative success in telling stories

"Quiet on the set. Action!"

Making movies since his childhood, a lifelong local is hitting his stride.

Meet your neighbor and man of various talents, Cody Adkins.

With a starring role in last summer’s release, " Summer of Sorrow: The Movie ," Adkins found himself in an unexpected position.

“I started out as an extra,” he said. Incidentally, the man and woman originally cast as the lead characters suddenly dropped out.

It was Adkins' first time on screen in a movie. He was surprised to suddenly find himself cast as the main male character — his grandfather, no less. “That was a wild ride,” he said.

No stranger to movie-making, Adkins has been creating his own films since he was 10.

Adkins moved on to weddings and commercials as he grew older, initially working under the business name of Ol’ Dutch Productions. He has done commercials for City Grille, The Vault and recently for an automotive group in North Carolina.

Adkins shot weddings for four years, but he wanted to move into more creative outlets. His business needed to reflect the new direction of the brand, so he renamed it Nomadica Cinematics.

More: 'A Mouthful of Knuckles' to be filmed in Mansfield later this year

Many projects are in the works

Since this past fall, Wilmington, North Carolina, has been the filming location for a film Adkins wrote called "Beyond the Finish Line." He also has another movie he wrote in pre-production called "Echoes in Eden." It will be his first attempt to earn a spot in a film festival.

And that's not all.

“I have a pilot series that I’ve written five episodes," he said. “I have three other scripts that are finished, but I don’t have time to shoot that many things at one time."

Adkins is seeking like-minded people to collaborate, so readers are invited to contact Nomadica Cinematics via Facebook .

Adkins' younger brother and best friend, Luke, has been one of his longest collaborators. Adkins started off by filming Luke’s live music events or making music videos with him, which helped him hone his creative skills.

“He’s a big part of what I do,” Adkins noted. “He helps me with anything musically when it comes to any of my video projects."

So does Gus Cadle, a buddy since the seventh grade.

"We’re just a creative trifecta. It’s been the three amigos for as long as I can remember,” Adkins added.

It's all about storytelling

Adkins' creative energy begins with writing. “I’m just a storyteller; I like to tell stories,” he said.

His short stories are available on Amazon under the name Nicholas Adkins.

“My name is Nicholas Cody. I write under Nicholas Adkins, but I do everything under Cody Adkins when it comes to the videos,” he said.

"I do a little bit of everything," Adkins said. "I’m close to releasing a book of poetry. I’ve spent two years writing a poem — sometimes multiple poems — every day.”

Is the next great American novel on the horizon? He’s been working on his Midwestern tale for eight years. The “big, epic story” takes place in Ohio Valley, West Virginia and Kentucky.

Adkins said he as "a few years' worth" of creative things to share.

Life beyond work

It wasn’t until after Adkins graduated from Mansfield Senior High School that he got together with his now-wife, Diana, also a graduate of Mansfield Senior. He graduated in 2006 while she graduated in 2007.

“We met later in life. I was about 23, she was 22. We’ve been growing strong ever since. I found my soulmate,” he said.

The couple has been married for 10 years and been together for 12. Their love has blessed them with three daughters.

“My oldest daughter is Breyonia, my middle daughter is Sophia and my youngest is Emma,” Adkins said. “It’s a whirlwind ― me and all the women."

“We love to be outside. We hike, camp. We’re an adventurous family," he noted. "We like to travel. We recently just got back from Tennessee."

The unknown road always beckons him.

“I do a lot of traveling. I’ve been to 25 or 30 states,” Adkins said.

Although he has lived in Mansfield his whole life, he said his soul belongs in Sedona, Arizona, but added it's "not in the cards yet."

Adkins' father, Bernie, cheers him on just as he does all of his children. “He’s my biggest fan,” Adkins said. “He loves all his kids, man.”

The time is ripe for Adkins' decades-long work ethic to shine.

“I’ve been making little home videos since I was 10, now here I am living the dream. I’m just full steam ahead at this point,” he explained. “I’ve taken the right steps and I’m on a path that’s leading me into the direction I've always seen myself going."

Correspondent Joe Di Lullo can be reached at muckrack.com/dilulloj or [email protected] .

'My Prize Puppy': Bluewater Elementary teacher publishes book she wrote in fifth grade

NICEVILLE — What was once an assignment during a creative writing class is now an inspirational and heartwarming story about perseverance and the power of imagination.

Stephanie Lafitte, a second-grade teacher at Bluewater Elementary School, wrote the story during a creative-writing class in fifth grade. She recalls that the story's inspiration came from trips to the mall with her family. Each trip, she stopped at a pet store, where she would watch puppies in the window, and she would beg her parents to take one home.

"We would go to the mall, and I would sit at the pet store every time, and I would look at all the little puppies on the window," Lafitte recalled. "I was like, 'Can I go look at the puppies?' And of course, my parents said, 'You're not getting a puppy."

The little girl in "the story "My Prize Puppy" is unnamed but can be seen as a stand-in to Lafitte, as the character is depicted wearing purple-colored clothing, Lafitte's favorite color.

The story's catalyst, which leads to a heartwarming conclusion, is the character's lack of the $10 required to buy a dog from the store.

In spite of feeling sorry for herself, the main character decided to spend her piggy bank savings on what she could afford — a dog leash. The following chain of events sees the character do everything a normal dog owner would do, from playing fetch to walks after dinner, even going so far as entering her puppy into a dog show.

The self-laminated, staple-bound notepad on which Lafitte originally wrote her story almost 40 years ago sat untouched in her parents' house, along with other short stories she penned throughout her childhood.

After her father, Paul, was diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease in 2021, her sister found the short story while cleaning up the attic. Lafitte originally threw these stories away, except for "My Prize Puppy," after her father and sister urged her to keep it.

Lafitte then took the book home, where it again sat untouched until December 2022, when her father died. After rediscovering it, she noted that the dog show was held on the same date as her father's birthday, May 16.

"Little things like that just told me to do it," Lafitte said.

These little things then led to conversations with her husband about publishing the book. Those talks prompted Lafitte to contact book publishers, with four publishers immediately reaching out. By August 2023, Lafitte ultimately decided to make a deal with Dorrance Publishing Company in Pittsburgh.

After receiving her first copy, Lafitte said that her family's initial reaction to the story was positive. She points out that her mom, who usually doesn't show much emotion, was "giggly" while reading it.

Lafitte said she's sure her father would be a fan of the book.

"He would literally have tons of these. He would buy a hundred and more and have them in his car," Lafitte laughed. "I promise you, he would go to everybody. He would probably go everywhere in this city and sell these for me.

"He always told me, 'I am so proud of you,' like every week, 'I'm so proud of you. You always wanted to be a teacher and you followed through. You never even steered from the path.'"

After overwhelming support from her family, it was time to debut the book in front of her class. Lafitte said she was initially apprehensive about sharing the book with her students. Those doubts subsided as she began reading the book to her class for the first time.

"They literally did not make a sound," Lafitte said. "I thought to myself, 'Holy cow, this is a really good book.'"

The sentiment was shared by fellow teachers as well. Lafitte said her co-teacher's father had shed a tear or two by the end of the book.

"That makes my heart so happy," Lafitte said.

In addition to her student's love of the book, the kids were also in for another surprise as they saw the illustrations by Bill Ivins. Before moving to second grade, Lafitte taught a grade lower for most of her career. Because of this, some other kids in the book live on in her story as characters in the book.

The dog in the story also resembles one of her two real dogs, Ghost, an Australian shepherd-golden retriever mix rescued from The Alaqua Shelter following Hurricane Michael in 2018. Lafitte said Ghost will be the main character in her next book, which is in the early stages of writing.

Those interested in purchasing a copy of "My Prize Puppy" to learn of its heartwarming conclusion can visit the Dorrance Publishing website at https://tinyurl.com/mrw7dxxy .