Apr 3, 2012

How to write a successful short story

While a novel would seem to be easier to write as you can meander all over the place with characters and subplots it is far more difficult to write a short story. Writing a short story is an art. The structure of the short story still requires that you have a beginning, a middle, and an end, but you do not have the luxury of forty thousand words within which to tell your tale. You have to be concise, and write tight. You have to do without all those darlings or sayings just because you love it and it sounds clever, and get into the story as soon as you can.



Basic requirements

The five commandments for any story require that your character has a want, a need, an inciting incident, progressive complications, and resolution. In the middle part of the story you deal with the problem or conflict that has presented itself. Here is an example. A young girl with a beautiful voice wants to be a singer. Her father does not want her to be on stage and sing. She loves her father and wants to please him, but she also does not want to give up singing. What does she need to do? She needs to do something to please both herself and her father. The need is usually a hard thing she has to wrestle with if she wants to have both peace in the home with her father and also sing. The story is therefore about going against the grain. In this case, to rise up and make her father understand what singing means to her, and get him to agree, or go against him. In other words, to tell the story satisfactorily, she has to go outside her comfort zone which presents the conflict.



Crisis and resolution

The middle of the story should have a steady build-up and then have conflict. The story will fail if the girl does not satisfy the need as the need is the crux of the story; what she is going to do, what steps she is going to take, how she would satisfy the need. Her actions are pivotal. The bravery or failure of the girl’s actions is what the story is all about and what the reader is there for; to read something that is short and satisfactorily tells the tale. This article for example has a beginning, a middle, and an end even though it is not a short story. A story needs structure; you get in, you have a quick hit, and get out. Don’t stand around like confused detectives at a crime scene when the story ends. Have a hard hitting ending and get out.



http://www.raydajacobs.blogspot.com
http://www.mylot.com/?ref=riempie9












































Plastic surgery for Barbie

It sounds a little flat to say that surgery is all the rage these days as it is a very long time now that women have resorted to a little nip and tuck and plumping up plastic surgery procedures and I have no problem with that. I am however astounded by the number of young people who have scarcely grown out of their training bras who come into the doctor’s office with their Barbie Doll mom with a picture of Racquel Welch and say, ‘I want to look like that.’

What is happening to our kids? Nobody looks like Racquel Welch; not even Racquel, not anymore. We get older, we become sensible and responsible. It was therefore with something of a shock some days ago that I learned of a very special voucher that a mother gave her seven year old daughter; the ‘gift of plastic surgery’ – a voucher for a breast augmentation which she could keep and utilize when she was eighteen, and another voucher recently of $11,000 for any surgery she wants to have.

What message does this mother send to her child? That she is not good enough, that there is something wrong with her? It’s unbelievable how insecure some women are that they would think unnecessary surgery for a child that age is all right. People resorting to plastic surgery when none is needed do not have high self esteem. They rate themselves not on who they are and the values they have, but on appearance. A seven year old is a child; she should be running about in the park and playing with kids her own age. She is too young to make such a decision. What is her mother thinking? And who is the surgeon who will cut into the supple skin of a child to cater to her precocious whims? You are too old to be Barbie; better that you give the doll to the child and you learn what it takes to be a responsible mom.


http://www.raydajacobs.blogspot.com