Crafting A Story

Much has been written by various authors about how stories are crafted. I thought that I would add my two cents, and that is likely to be all that it is worth;) I'm still a beginning writer after all but I do feel that I have learned some things about the process that I wanted to share with others just starting the journey from reader to writer.

Everyone likes a good story, so what makes a story good. The answer almost certainly varies for different readers but still, there are certain aspects of good stories that are probably universal. Humor me, as I break down what I see as the important aspects of a story, then we can discuss each and also whether I missed any. I do emphasize the word DISCUSS here. There is a comments section to this post and it would be very helpful if others would chime in to improve this article with their own thoughts.

Elements of a story: (in order of importance)

(Element 1) Characters

It may come as a surprise to some that I would put Characters in order of importance ahead of plot. I strongly believe that it is the connection that the reader makes to the Characters that determines if the story is considered good or mundane.

An example of a reasonable plot which featured Characters with limited depth would be my story M12-Conflict and Compassion, https://www.storystar.com/story/27621/denise-arnault/fiction/drama-human-interest. I was focused on the message in the plot and rushed the story to publication before fully bringing the human character to life.

Darrell Case gives an excellent discussion of this in his story ‘Are Your Protagonists Living?’ https://www.storystar.com/story/27996/darrell-case/true-life/inspirational-2

Describing a character's faults as well as their good points is vital to creating good, identifiable characters. One way to really make your characters come alive is through the proper use of dialogue. A story with just description and little dialogue is boring to read.

Making good characters has actually always been my biggest weakness as a writer. I am trying to modify my editing routine to combat it!


(Element 2) Plot

A plot needs to be interesting, or no one will be interested. This seems obvious but I have read stories in the past that just droned on like a history lesson with no real interesting aspects. I’ve even written stories like this. My M13-Tisquantum Gives Thanks https://www.storystar.com/story/27751/denise-arnault/fiction/drama-human-interest was very close to boring when I finished the first draft. I was really interested in getting the historical part of the story right and struggled to make it also interesting.

All said and done, most writers will probably have no trouble coming up with interesting plots with twists and turns. That is kinda what we do. Just be sure that you look at it carefully before publication to ensure that the story is not all plot without any of the other important elements.


(Element 3) Setting

The setting is generally a natural result of the plot. The important aspect for writers is that they describe the setting adequately. In my experience, readers can be split into those that visualize everything as they read, having a movie play in their mind as they go, and other readers that read the words and concepts but do not visualize. I’m so jealous of the first group since I am a member of the second.

My opinion is that graphic descriptions are essential for the first group. I think that the non-visualization group relies on the descriptions to provide context to the scene. Either way, if descriptions are lacking, then the story will seem flat and lifeless.

I cannot determine a specific example from my published stories that demonstrates a total lack of description, but if you ever read one of my first stories, you would spot this problem regularly. This is one of the reasons that I feel that editing is so important.

(Element 4) Editing

As alluded to several times earlier in this article, I believe that editing is essential to good writing. If I had thought this way before I published my first story, M01-Permanent Solution to a Temporary Problem, things would have been better. If you read it carefully you will notice the name of the Messenger change. There are other errors, but I won’t point them all out. It did make me embarrassed enough to resolve to edit more completely.

As I will explain, editing also allows the writer to improve the story before releasing it to the world. I have a habit of editing in stages or waves or passes. That statement seems vague so I will explain in more detail.

Editing is not just reading through looking for misspelled words. Editing is a process of polishing the story to complete it. To this end, when I finish my first draft I read through the story a number of times. Each pass through the process, I am concentrating on a specific aspect, although of course other mistakes are corrected also when found.

Editing Pass 1 - Spelling and grammar

When I am writing a story, I get in a creative zone and my fingers are flying as fast as they can trying to get the words down. My fingers are not nearly as fast as my brain, though. The inevitable result is misspelled words, bad grammar and reusing the same words too frequently. Also, make sure that the story stays in the same voice and tense throughout.

Example: Mary did not feel loke she could feel her fingers bause the wind was so cold.

You can see that I misspelled like instead of loke and bause should have been because. Also, I used the word feel twice in the same sentence. (Note: Try to avoid using the same descriptive word more than once in the same paragraph, much less the same sentence. It catches in the reader’s mind like a hiccup.

The corrected sentence might be: Mary did not think that she could feel her fingers because the wind was so cold.

Of course, there are many ways of describing this scenario but in this one we have corrected those obvious mistakes.

Editing Pass 2 - Describing

Next, I consciously read through to ensure that I have described the scene adequately. This is where I have agonized the most. How much is too much or not enough? There is a balance to be achieved. You want your readers to be able to ‘see’ the scene, but you don’t want your short story to become a novel.

It is OK to let readers fill in some details on their own. For instance, it is usually not necessary to describe the fabric used in the lampshades unless that matters to the plot. You could say that the light in the room was dim, or you might say that the small lamp was unable to dispel the gloom, and let the reader decide that the room was dimly lit. There is a concept known as showing, not saying that I am not good at implementing that you might want to search for.

Editing Pass 3 - Listening

I find it invaluable to have my story read to me by a screen reader. I can truthfully state that I have never listened to one of my stories during this THIRD pass through and not found something that needed changing. Usually there are many small things.

I believe that my problem is that I remember what I was thinking when I wrote the scene and sometimes, I see what I remember instead of what I actually wrote. Listening overcomes this pitfall for me. Whatever the reason, even after reading through several times to catch mistakes, listening ALWAYS finds more for me.

My method is to write my stories in Microsoft One Note. I do this for two reasons, (1) I can work on the story on my phone, iPad, laptop or desktop whenever I get the chance and it will sync automatically so the latest entries are always available no matter which device I use, and (2) One Note has a built-in immersive screen reader. I start the immersive reader, listening until I detect a problem, close the reader, fix the problem, restart the reader, and repeat until no issues are detected.

Note: The reader can restart wherever you put the cursor before clicking play .

Editing Pass 4 - Characterization

Are my characters real enough? Are they interesting enough? Are they following their path?

This may be my weakest editing phase. I have added it to my editing passes recently to try to overcome a lack of depth to my stories.

Editing Pass 5 - Listening

This was not a mistake. I know that I put listening as pass 3. My last editing pass is also listening. I will listen to the entire story one last time just to be sure.

One last note on editing, look for the underlined words when you post it on StoryStar. The site has an excellent built-in grammar check that you should make use of. It always finds a few things that I need to change before hitting the publish button.

Writing Method

Much of this section of this article was previously released in my article To Plan or Not to Plan. As promised in that article, I have completed my Short Story Template, which can be download at the link provided below, so I thought that I would reiterate my reasons for creating it here.

I have read that there are two methods that writers might use in creating their stories: (1) Planner or (2) Pantsers

(Writing Method 1) A Planner is someone who plans everything out sometimes meticulously. There are websites such as The Plot Factory https://plotfactory.com and planning tools such as the Snowflake Method which is explained very well at
https://www.imagineforest.com/blog/snowflake-method/
I used their sample Excel spreadsheet to layout one of my stories and found it useful. Personally, I’m not sure that it made my story M04-Children Can Be Cruel https://www.storystar.com/story/27285/denise-arnault/fiction/inspirational-2 any more well written than my usual Pantser method. Since I had never planned a story before writing, I may not have given it a fair trial, being in too big of a hurry to get to actually writing.

I have a modified version of their Snowflake spreadsheet that I created on my website that you are welcome to download and modify to suit you at https://www.denisearnault.com/Tips/Snowflake%20Writing%20Template.xlsx

You can also get the actual spreadsheet that I used when writing M04-Children Can Be Cruel with this link: https://www.denisearnault.com/Tips/Messenger%2004%20Children%20Can%20Be%20Cruel%20-%20Snowflake%20Writing%20Template.xlsx

Note: My personal website is currently a work in progress. I have great plans but who knows if I’ll ever implement them.


(Writing Method 2) A Pantser is someone who writes somewhat by the seat of their pants, putting plot and words down as they come to them and usually going back and cleaning up in the editing phase. I think most of us are Pantsers. I’m trying to move into the middle with some planning at least.

I am also in the process of creating a version of the Snowflake Method more specifically geared to short stories, which can be found on my Writing Tips page at https://www.denisearnault.com/Tips/WritingTips. Look for the tip on Short Story Template. This template will change as I work out what I need to work for me. There are examples of a blank template that you can try for yourself, as well as the template that I filled out when I wrote M19 - A Room At The Inn, showing how I used the template.

My only concern right now with the template is that is does not meet my goals of being cross device friendly and text-to-speech friendly, both of which I really rely on. This can be alleviated by awkward copy and pasting, but is not seamless enough for me right now. The latest version of the template should always be located at https://www.denisearnault.com/Tips/Story%20Story%20Template.pdf