I am planning to write a short story and I have a plot outline and what I want to achieve with that. I have scrivener and ywriter on my pc. There are some templates that I have which help me a but since I am new to writing, I am not sure how to develop the plot. Of course use the brute force method and just keep writing and hope for the best but it would help a lot if I had a template, either scrivener or any other story boarding software or something else, which can guide me there. I know the ultimately the plot has to come from inside of me, but there must be some templates to help. I can give an example - I am quoting from an article here, I would have posted a link but I cannot - According to Freytag's analysis stories have five parts: Exposition - the character's normal life, up to the point of the "inciting incident" that pushes them into conflict. Rising Action - the conflicts, struggles, and pitfalls that the character faces while trying to achieve their goals. In three act structure, the second act, and usually the meatiest portion of the story. Climax - the most important part! The point at which all seems possible or impossible, and the character must decide whether to go for the win or take a graceful failure. The turning point of the story where the conflict comes to a head. Falling Action - how things unfold after the climax, the hero wins or loses, all loose ends are tied up, leading to... Denouement - a New Balance, normal life once again, but different (or perhaps not so different) from the "normal life" of the character's exposition. I need some template that can implement this or any other one. Thanks in advance for any responses.
Those are some great points! Some others that I have found helpful are as follows: The main character should be introduced early on into the story. The main character must have conflict at the beginning that the reader would like to see resolved or addressed at the end. The narrator's point of view should not change. Who is watching the story unfold and relating it to you? Is it first, second, or third person? Allow many to read and correct your manuscripts, a good story must be re-written several times and that does not just mean spell checking. Try to write every day, even when you don't feel like it. Set a goal of 10, 20, or 30 minutes and stick to that. Some can write for longer. Take a little notebook with you wherever you go, and write down the descriptions of how you feel and what you see, smell, taste, etc. Your characters are going to be feeling those things as they walk down the street. The more real they become to the reader the more your reader will invest interest in what happens to them and therefore continue to read your story. Allow your reader to figure out some things for him or herself, for example, you can say your character is sad, but it would be better to describe reactions to situations that allow your reader to sense the character is sad, even if you eventually state it. If you want to write a scary story, Alfred Hitchcock used to say to allow your audience to know the danger is present but your character is unaware. In other words, the person in the shower has no clue that this shadow is creeping up behind them...but the reader knows and wants to scream, 'RUN!'
Thanks for the response. That is a good alternative way of writing a short story. If you use scrivener, they have templates for writing stories/novels. It becomes easy as it will be structured. For example, the template has - persons, background, places, so on which you need to fill (before you can start the novel, preferably) so that you can keep referring to them. There is a template called snowflakes which is similar to ever expanding fractals (a point becomes a line, then becomes a triangle, then becomes a square so on).. similar templates are Extended Short Fiction template and so on. I am looking to see if there are other templates based on what ever you have suggested or what ever I have suggested.
I'm never use this word software before but I find it a fascinating editing tool for writers, the only problem I have with this software is that it only works with Mac and I'm a window user. I'm a newbie writer myself and would love to get my hands on a program similar to scrivener. If anyone knows of a software similar to this one please do tell.
Scrivener is available for windows too. I am using it for Windows currently and I have a blog that I run and I compose all the articles in scrivener. It is very good for research and I can keep track of all the articles in the scrivener as it works with huge file sizes also without any issues.
