Tips on Writing Stories/ Novels

In this step-by-step guide, this will help you:

1. Write an effective and interesting story
2. Receive good grades in English classes when it comes to stuff like this
3. Enhance your writing skills

Part One:

Choose a Topic

This is the most important part in writing something--whether short stories, novels, essays etc. You must decide on what to write about. It shouldn't really be hard since your using your own mind and creativeness. Just pick some of your interests and make up a story about it.

Brainstorm Your Ideas

Once you've come up with an idea, start writing down your ideas. Pick out the important elements that will be useful in the story.

The important question in the process of brainstorming is this: What is the story about?

Also, choose on how what perspective your story should be written. There are three options to choose from:

• First-Person Point of View
• Third-Person Point of View[Limited]
• Third-Person Point of View[All-Knowing]

This may be a little time-consuming to do since you will have to do a lot of thinking. But I'm pretty sure it'll be worth it!

What's Your Goal?

Well, of course there's always a reason why something was written. What's Yours?

Stories could be written to inspire others, entertain, express your feelings about something, opinions, and many others. Your reason could be confidential---you know, might be too personal---or you can tell your friends and fans!...hehe

Part Two:

Make Your Plot Summary

This is the easiest part to do---for me anyway. Write the events [by sequence: start, middle, end] that will happen in the story.

Try to write it briefly but with detail. For my first novel: "The Prophecy"...I have already made my draft---summary only----it reached twelve pages! It only became that long because of too many detail. ;)

Identify the Elements

There are five main elements in every story.

• Theme
• Setting
• Point of View
• Characters
• Plot

No story will be complete without these five. If a work is missing at least one of these elements, then it will not be counted as a story anymore.

Part Three:

Prepare Yourself

In this part, you are in what we call 'rough draft'. Give yourself a couple of minutes to rearrange your thoughts before the actual writing. Think about the events in your story: " What will happen in the story? How will this event happen? When will it happen?

Begin Writing

This is the climax in the process of writing---the actual writing of your work! It's common for people to have a writer's block---probably because of too much excitement or anxeity.

Keep calm! Let your mind flow freely as you write. Always keep in mind the sequence of events in your story. At this point, it doesn't matter about the grammatical and spelling error because you're only starting the whole writing process.

Keep the Elements in Mind

Make sure you pay attention to what you write. Yeah, it is the only a rough draft but the elements should always be there.

Make sure that the reader will understand the things you will write and not be left confused.

Part Four:

Rewriting

When you are done with your rough draft, go over it again and rewrite it.

This process is important because it helps you go over your own mistakes.

In this part, you can add and delete some statements in your work.

Part Five:

Final Draft

Once you've finished the rough draft and the rewriting process, do a final run check on the whole story. Check the spelling, grammar and punctuation. Check the sequence of events. Check the effectiveness of the five elements.

After all this, get a second opinion from a friend. He/she can give you some pointers where you need some changes.

Now, if you're all done with everything, you can choose to publish your story!

.....Have fun writing.....