CREATIVE WRITING GUIDELINES

Getting Started
Here are some generally accepted guidelines for writing short stories:

• Your story should have an arresting title.
• It should be short and able to be read at one sitting.
• Not a word should be wasted.
• You should get straight down to action. Begin in an interesting or exciting way and waste no time in creating the scene or atmosphere. You can start in the middle of the action when something is happening.
• There must be a point to your story-an idea, a theme, a direction.
• Leave no loose threads. Everything must have to do with the story and its development.
• There is usually only one focus-the characters, the setting or the plot.
• You must decide from whose point of view to tell the story. Is it told in first person by someone involved in the plot or by a narrator using third person?
• Only the characters essential to the story should be introduced. Sometimes two characters are in conflict.
• You should have some kind of a complication or conflict.
• The climax of the story is near the end.
• The ending can be a little unexpected - a twist, a statement of the theme or even a surprise, but don't sacrifice the whole story just to achieve the surprise ending. You may explain what has happened or leave the ending open, for the reader to work out.

In summary, the mark of a good short story is economy. Action develops quickly, the crisis is created with the greatest precision, and then, quite sharply, the story ends. (With thanks to Viv Rusk.)

Here are some worksheets on style and tone which may help.

Practicalities

• The hardest part about writing a story is coming up with an idea. This page is designed to help with that but as a starting point, try to think of a beginning and an ending. Write a very simple plan of 4-5 dot points.
• You should try to use a variety of sentence beginnings.
• You should expect to write 500 -1000 words and in that you might have 8-20 paragraphs.
• Use dialogue (direct speech) only to liven up the story, show character or move the plot along, not to tell the whole story.
• You should aim to write excitingly by using interesting vocabulary and fresh imagery, but, generally, keep your language simple and direct.
• Edit for correctness, unnecessary repetition and to tighten and fine tune the story.

Genre

• Adventure-travel, underwater, adventure-romance, time travel, scientific
  
• Sci Fi-space travel adventure, space fantasy, new planet sci fi, alien sci fi, earth invasion sci fi, real sci fi set in the near future on earth, medical sci-fi
• Detective-police detective, police procedural, private eye, psychological crime, forensic crime, lawyer procedural
• Romance-historical romance, gothic, medical, adventure, modern
• Western
• War-world wars, land, air and sea war, historical
• Thriller-spies, CIA/FBI, government
• Horror-teen, medical, supernatural, monster, alien abduction, gothic
• Historical-battles, boats, war, romance, adventure
• Family-sagas, new woman, mid life crisis, family crisis, separation
• Biographies, Autobiographies, Diaries-real or imagined
• Fantasy-sci fi, goblins and other worlds

HORROR

Not all stories on the internet are well written. It's best to learn from stories which have been published in writing as that means they have gone through a selection process and editing. You will need to be a critical reader to decide if a story is up to the standard of authors published in print.

FAIRY TALES, MYTHS and LEGENDS

Use fairy stories to create new and amusing stories in a variety of ways. This has already been done by Roald Dahl in his "Revolting Rhymes"

• The modern version
• the politically correct version
• feminist version
• told by a character e.g.Cinderella
• told from the evil person's viewpoint eg the wolf
• the horror story (see below)
• what happened next? The story continues.
• news stories based on fairy tale
• the Rap version
• the future version
• fractured fairy tales.

Myths

Aboriginal dreamtime.
Bulfinch's Mythology.
Encyclopedia Mythica: an erudite resource with information about almost anything to do with any form of mythology.
Olympian gods and goddesses, text and images.
Mythical realm: with many good pictures of beasts and characters.

Legends

King Arthur: and his knights.
Camelot: in comics.
Loch Ness monster.
Urban legends.

Foreign Tales
1001 nights: as told by a number of authors
Sacred texts, legends and sagas-Arabian and European.
Chinese stories from classical literature.

Parables
Students familiar with the parables of Jesus may enjoy writing something similar to illustrate a moral or proverb. The stories also make interesting reading for students unfamiliar with the Bible.
Parables of Jesus; Bible stories for children; Colour in Bible stories.

Fables
You can take a moral of your own or a proverb or aphorism and write your own fable to fit. You could take the traditional fable and modernise it or use it as a satire on an event that is happening in the news.
Aesop's fables; More Aesop's Fables.
Proverbs. Use the proverb as the moral of your story.

CLASSIFIEDS

Classified ads are a great source of ideas for stories because behind each ad there IS a story. If a wedding dress is for sale and has never been used, what happened? What was in the parcel that was lost? How did a family lose contact with each other to the degree that they have to advertise for a missing brother? Why has a tall, dark and attractive executive, 35 years old, had to advertise in the paper to find a partner?

You could collect a series of ads from the local papers or use classified ads from the internet to write your story. There are papers from anywhere in the world available, if you choose to go that way. I often get students to choose an ad from the Lonely Hearts column and write a story about the person putting in the ad or about the person who answers and what happens when they meet. I have had wonderful writing on this topic, which is good if you are doing a unit on love or romance, related to Romeo and Juliet, for example.

One journalist from the "Weekend Australian" started writing a column each week on the real story behind an ad, some years ago. I copied a few of the stories for this page but she threatened to sue me. I took the stories off the page and removed the links but hadn't thought to remove them from the server, so she threatened to sue me again! I should have asked to use them, but they were there each week for all to see in the newspaper, and I thought it was harmless enough and for a good cause.

Gumtree for free advertising.
The Trading Post, SA. But you can check out the whole of Australia if desired.
Online newspapers from around the world..

There are millions of classified advertisements available via the internet but you may like to limit yourself to one topic or one place to make your task simpler.

Dear Mrs Web. Realistic problems and advice.
Relationship advice.
Dear Abby: problems and answers from Abigail Van Buren.

Google headlines; Top breaking news headlines; ABC news online; Fun headlines.

• THAT was no time or place for any girl of twenty to be wandering unprotected. "Rung Ho!" by Talbot Mundy
• 'A telegram! Make haste and open it, Jane; they always make me so nervous! "Beechcroft at Rockstone" by Charlotte M Yonge
• To Jason Gridley of Tarzana, discoverer of the Gridley Wave, belonged the credit of establishing radio communication between Pellucidar and the outer world. " A Fighting Man of Mars " by Edgar Rice Burroughs
• Sabor, the lioness, suckled her young--a single fuzzy ball, spotted like Sheeta, the leopard. "Tarzan and the Golden Lion " by Edgar Rice Burroughs
• Had I the slightest qualification for the task, I, Allan Quatermain, would like to write an essay on Temptation. "Allan and the Ice-Gods: A Tale of Beginnings" by H. Rider Haggard
• Scarlett O'Hara was not beautiful, but men seldom realized it when caught by her charm as the Tarleton twins were. "Gone with the Wind" by Margaret Mitchell
• It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen. "1984" by George Orwell
• My first interview with Dr. James Winter was under dramatic circumstances. It occurred at two in the morning in the bedroom of an old country house. "Round the Red Lamp" by Arthur Conan Doyle
• The first time they met, Eddie pulled out the pistol. "Wet Places at Noon" by Lee K. Abbott
• Ty Bonte kept his eyes fixed on his hands folded in front of him, the knuckles white as he tried to control his rage at being treated like a kid. "The Weight of Dreams" by Jonis Agee
• Do blind people sleep with their eyes open? "Skin Deep" by Diana Wagman
• I remember the first time we met as though it were yesterday. "Mrs. Hornstien" by Frederica Wagman
• Even at their wettest, his eyes could be surly, and when the heavy upper lids slid down he had sealed you away, unworthy of further insult. "Sporting With Amaryllis" by Paul West
• For the past eight years, always starting on August twelfth, Ruth Young lost her voice. "The Bonesetter's Daughter" by Amy Tan
• I am the reporter at the Castleford Herald-American who argues the most with our editor, which means said editor has more or less assigned Crazy Pete Sabatino and his conspiracy theories permanently to me. "Exposé" by Laura Van Wormer
• Timothy X. Farrell suddenly visualized the opening shot to the film that he had planned to make of Daphne Du Maurier's lush novel Rebecca. "The Golden Age; An American Chronicle Novel" by Gore Vidal
• I had a bad fright that morning. "Losing Nelson" by Barry Unsworth
• Bech had a new sidekick. "Bech at Bay" by John Updike
• On the steps of the Scheles' house, stained glass on either side of the brown front door, Sidney shakes the rain from his plastic mackintosh, taking it off to do so. "The Hill Bachelors" by William Trevor
• Though it was a freakishly warm day just before Halloween, Victor's eleven o'clock appointment emerged from her silvery limousine with a mink coat thrown over her arm, and a pair of emerald green leather gloves on her hands. "The Clairvoyant" by Marian Thurm
• Towards the end of the afternoon Dunning sat in the office, going through papers, from time to time licking a thumb as he turned a page. "Cassada" by James Salter
• I never meant to be a private eye. "The Naked Detective" by Laurence Shames
• Years ago, on New Year's Day, my older brother, Ethan, and I went skating on a river. "The Odd Sea" by Frederick Reikin
• The child had been warned. "Charity" by Mark Richard
• We were at the Four Seasons Hotel, in the Bristol Lounge. "Sudden Mischief" by Robert B. Parker
• A man called Priest pulled his cowboy hat down at the front and peered across the flat, dusty desert of South Texas. "The Hammer of Eden" by Ken Follett
• In the rugged Corsican hills above the waters of Porto Vecchio on the Tyrrhenian Sea, there stood the skeletal remains of a once-majestic estate. "The Matarese Countdown" by Robert Ludlum
• Listen. Here is a love story. "Here in the World" by Victoria Lancelotta
• Now the little plane drops and the fat woman sitting next to him yelps and spills her coffee; his tray of food goes flying. "The Hunter" by Julia Leigh
• It was the way Gwen was standing, head tilted admiringly, that made my heart leap, that got me wondering. "Don't Think Twice" by Wayne Johnson

  First lines: from Said What?; Stephen King first lines;
  NY Times: first chapters- a huge resource where I found many of the above first sentences.

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  DESCRIPTION

  Photo landscapes to describe.
  Flickr photos.

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  WRITING LINKS

  Creative writing sheets.
  Web English teacher ideas.
  Teaching creative writing. Look at the teaching of imaginative writing for ideas.
  Hints on getting ideas for creative writing from a writer.

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  First published 9/6/02. Updated to a single page 2/2/08. Updated 25/11/2012. Removed 2013. Put back on Teaching page 26/1/2014. Links last checked 7/4/2025.
  

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