Writing a story

TRY to understand how to start sentences in a range of ways to create variety, pace, drama or emphasis in your writing. The way you structure your sentences –particularly the first word or two can influence the way your reader will respond to your ideas.

There are lots of ways to start a sentence to achieve more sentence variety in your writing. For a start, you use a determiner, like a, an, the, my, you, his, her, our or their. The passenger is sitting alone on the driver’s side of a rented car. A pronoun, for example, I, you, he, she, it, we, and they. They were delighted by it.

An adverb or adverbial phrase: an adverb or adverbial phrase of manner (how) for example quickly. An adverb or adverbial phrase of time (when) for example, occasionally, every evening, that night. We watch television every evening. A no-finite verb, for example, running crawling, cracked. An adjective, for example, slow, huge and violent. Drunk most probably.

A subordinating or co-ordinating conjunction. For example, if, although, as, but, and. He continued running, although he was told to stop. Better writers think about the ways in which they start their sentences. They use a variety of vocabulary and a number of different grammatical ways to start their sentences. This gives the writing pace, rhythm or emphasis, making it more engaging for readers.

Widening your vocabulary. One way of making your writing personal and imaginative is to choose your vocabulary carefully. This can help the reader to understand you and what you feel. Words can build a balanced picture of an experience. Make sure you try new words, especially, where you use a thesaurus as stated before. This lists synonyms (different words with similar meanings).

Previously, we have asked a question: what makes a good opening? The most important part of any story is the opening. When you read an opening of the story, you should think about how the reader is drawn into the story, how language is used to interest the reader and what type or genre each story belongs to.

Remember, an effective story should have characters. To create believable characters, you need to have a clear idea of them in your head. Imagine how they look, behave, think and how they respond to other characters. You also need to think carefully about how to put them across to your readers. For instance, you can use comparisons (similes and metaphors) to describe them. These can give clues about their personalities.

Stories are structured to engage the reader. This structure can be simplified into four basic stages namely: Exposition: What does it mean? This has to do with the setting, characters and situation introduced. This gives readers enough information to engage them in the story; and make them wonder how it will develop.

Next, we have the conflict. The main characters encounter problems they must overcome and makes the reader want to find out how characters will tackle difficult situations. They have the climax where the conflict reaches the worst point; it is not just a problem now, but it is really a serious problem and the effect is that it leaves the reader unable to work out how main characters can ever solve problems.

Finally, there is the resolution whereby the conflict is resolved –happily or sadly. This often leaves the reader feeling relieved and satisfied that the tension of the story has come to an end. Writers make choices about how much information to reveal to the reader and the ways in which they will reveal it.

Better writers know the effect they want their opening to have on the reader. They achieve this effect by deciding how much information to reveal about the characters, the setting and the action. Try to use appearance to show something about your character’s mood or personality. For example, his belt was loose and there were red marks on his shirt. His eyes were large and red. If your character says what matches his or her personality.

As stated before, you will need to include some dialogue (speech) in your story). Remember, the rules for speech layout: the first word inside speech marks begins with a capital letter. Use a new line for a new speaker. The words actually spoken go inside speech marks. Separate the words in speech marks from the rest of the sentence with a comma, exclamation mark or question mark.

Dialogue can be used to add humour to a story and can also increase tension. It can also show more about the character. In addition, dialogue can explain feelings and help move the story on.
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