Dealing with everyday stress is like having an ailment. The only way to de-stress is to find a way to break the mundane activities and spice it up with something new. With the thousands of worthwhile activities around, one thing pops into mind whenever a form of relaxation comes to mind. Writing, but not just simply doodling with pen and paper - writing short stories.
Life is full of stories and if you have four billion human beings walking around the planet, then you have at least four billion wonderful stories to read about. The variety depends on each person telling the story. These may be fiction or nonfiction, but what is important about them is whenever you write a story, you share a part of yourself in the process. Sharing is therapeutic after all.
So, how do you start writing a short story? Does this have any format, a limit, a theme?
HG Nadel talks about the basic parts of a story in general. It has to have a beginning. HG Nadel says that beginning is where you set the mood and start forming the scenes in your mind. Introduce a character or two or better yet, show the reader how you want the pace of the story to be.
Then there is the body. This is where everything else happens. What the conflict is all about. Is it about love? Friendship? A battle of sorts? An event in a life? Basically, this is what happens in the story.
Finally, you have to make a conclusion. Resolve the conflict; solve the problem. Did the hero of your story get the girl? Win the war? Found the treasure? Here is where you wrap everything up and tell the reader that the story has ended.
An important note to remember is that short stories are fiction where you can tell your readers about a whole, new world that you created or a scene in a life that was not yours. This is where you are able to play as an omniscient being as you instruct the characters of your story what to do.
An old definition of a short story is a story that you can tell in one sitting. A contemporary short story is roughly composed of at least one thousand words but no more than twenty thousand.
This may not be everyone's cup of tea, but is a highly recommended one in terms of mental stimulation. After all, the imagination is exceptionally active whenever you create these fictional characters and scenes. Breathing life into them is enough hard work, what more when you revolve a whole length of story around these characters?
Now with all these in mind, how could you even recall the stressful day that you had? Channel your frustrations into a short story.
HG Nadel is an American producer born in France. Nadel writes short stories, novels and much more. She is an excellent screenplay and script writer, self published author, recording artist, and a musician.
Nadel shares useful information regarding film script writing and related topics!
