This week: The Key Elements of a Short Story Edited by: Lilli 🧿 ☕  
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"Start writing, no matter what. The water does not flow until the faucet is turned on."
~ Louis L’Amour
"Get it down. Take chances. It may be bad, but it's the only way you can do anything really good."
~ William Faulkner
"The first draft is just you telling yourself the story."
~ Terry Pratchett
"You don’t start out writing good stuff. You start out writing crap and thinking it’s good stuff, and then gradually you get better at it."
~ Octavia E. Butler |
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There are five key elements to every story: plot, setting, characters, point of view, and conflict. Whether or not you realize it, a story should naturally include all these elements. It’s what creates the story’s flow, builds anticipation, and excites readers. In this newsletter, we will take a brief look at these components.
PLOT
The plot is the events or actions that drive your story. It describes the “what” of your tale. The plot lets the reader know what’s happening, describes the problems your characters are trying to solve, and gives the details on how they attempt to solve them. A compelling plot is essential to any story. Powerful emotions can drive your story and give your characters plenty to talk about.
Hang on… there’s more to a plot that just that! A story should include these plot elements: exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution. Let’s take a look at each one.
1. Exposition
The exposition gives the reader background information to jump right into your story’s world. This is typically found near the beginning of a story. If you decide to begin your story with action, somewhere along the way your reader needs to get a crash course on your characters’ or setting’s history.
Some examples of exposition include:
 Flashbacks
Character dialogue
Letters from the past
Setting or character descriptions
Point of View (aka POV, such as the narrator or main character’s thoughts)
Rising Action
The rising action is the moments in your story that lead up to the climax. These can be choices your main characters have made and the events happening that are at odds with your characters’ goals. This is where your story builds and your reader invests in your characters.
Typically, this is the longest section of your story. A lot happens between the start of the story and that moment, but often a reader will find themself holding their breath, waiting to see what will happen. That is the power of rising action.
Climax
This is the primary turning point and what your story has been building towards. What are your main characters going to do? Will they succeed or fail? Will your character fail or be victorious? The goal of the climax is to resolve the conflict.
Falling Action
Now that the main conflict is resolved, it’s time to begin wrapping everything up. The falling action is a great time to tie up any loose ends while also giving the characters a chance to deal with the aftermath of the climax.
Resolution
If you still have unanswered questions in your plot, answer them now. The resolution is also the time to show the next step in the characters’ lives. Do they live happily ever after? Is a new era dawning? Or do they just continue on with their ordinary existence with a fresh experience under their belt?
The resolution of one story can also be the start of another. You can introduce a new conflict or raise more questions for your reader. Wrap it up, then begin again! #sequeal!
2. SETTING
The setting of the story is the physical location and point in time in which the plot takes place. Consider what best serves the main theme of the story. Modern day Chicago or civil rights era Alabama? Victorian England or Miami in the 80s? There are so many places you can travel to, and so many interesting times to draw from. Choose your favorite and start writing!
3. CHARACTERS
The characters are the people, animals, beings, or personified objects driving the story. A story can have many characters or just one main character as the focus. It's all up to you!
The story’s characters should be compelling; whether they're good or evil doesn't matter as long as the reader invests and cares about them.
Kinds of Characters
There are many different kinds of characters, but most stories include these two common types:
Protagonist
The protagonist is typically the ‘good guy’ in a story. A reader will typically root for this character. This main character is important and central to your plot. They are often trying to overcome the conflict while finding themselves at odds with the next character type.
Antagonist
The antagonist of the story doesn’t have to be a single person. It can be any character, group, or force at odds with your protagonist. This doesn’t mean they have to be ‘evil’ or the ‘bad guy’, but the antagonist often pushes the conflict onto the protagonist.
4. Point of view
The Point of view (or POV) describes the lens through which the story is told.
Types of Point of View
The POV you choose shapes the entire story and perspective. There are several POVs to consider, but the most common are first-person, second-person, and third-person.
First-Person Point of View
A story told in the first person is most often told from the point of view of the protagonist. Our protagonist narrator will speak using first-person pronouns (I, we, me, etc). And as the reader, we are privy to their innermost thoughts and feelings.
Second-Person Point of View
You won’t see second-person used very often in literature, but it is an important POV to keep in mind. In the second person, the reader is addressed directly and may even become a character, of sorts, in your story. This point of view is written using second-person pronouns (you, your, etc).
Third-Person Point of View
Third-person POV is by far the most common point of view in fiction. In this kind of story, the reader is a bystander, observing the actions of the characters as told by an ‘outside narrator’. This POV uses third-person pronouns (he, she, they, etc).
Third-Person Omniscient
A third-person omniscient narrator knows everything going down in the story. As a reader, we can learn the inside thoughts and feelings of all the main characters. The story unfolds in front of us, and we get to experience it through a variety of character lenses.
Third-Person Limited
In this POV, our narrator has access to only one character’s inside thoughts and feelings. As the reader, we typically follow this one character as our main character, learning only what they know and seeing the world through their eyes and experiences.
5. Conflict
Conflict is the big problem of the story. What is the main character trying to overcome? That is the conflict.
Conflict comes in a variety of forms, but will almost always involve an antagonist. There can be one major conflict in your story, or the characters may encounter several throughout the tale. But more than likely there is one big theme driving the major conflict. What does that look like? Here are the different types of conflict:
Character vs Self
In this type of conflict, the main character must overcome something within themselves to achieve their goal. These internal conflicts may look like doubt, fear, or a grudge. It’s whatever is holding them back from their desires.
Character vs Character
In a character vs character conflict, someone is standing in the protagonist’s way. This is a very common conflict type in superhero tales. There’s a ‘bad guy’ the main characters must defeat before the story ends.
Character vs Nature
Character vs nature conflicts pit our characters against some kind of natural force. It could be a natural disaster (tornado, hurricane, wildfire, avalanche) or any other type of survival tale. Many post-apocalyptic stories involve both character vs nature and character vs character conflicts.
Character vs Society
The final conflict type is when characters are battling oppressive societal norms. In character vs society, our protagonist feels like they are at odds with the whole world. This can often be broken down into character vs character to get a strong emotional pull (such as a kid at odds with their parents) but the themes are much bigger than any one person, typically.
Well, there you have it! What are you waiting for? Go and write that story!!
But remember, all of this takes practice and we rarely get all right on our first attempt. That's why it's important to keep writing and never stop!
Special thanks to tracker  for suggesting this topic for a newsletter.
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Short Stories: September 04, 2024 Issue [#12728]
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