History, Wonder Tales, Fairy Tales, Myths and Legends How to Write A Good Fairy Tale | Page 7

WHAT MAKES A GOOD SHORT
STORY AND NARRATIVE?
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You should sort out your ideas using brainstorm!.. then give good points in each!
It should be an interesting topic that catches people attention!
It should have a good character that we can relate to them!
Make believable characters. Make them have a personality, way of speaking, age, bday, etc... The best way to do that is to make character profiles. And make them speak
as how the way they speak. So the dialogue isn't weak.
Make your first sentence grabbing. The first sentence is always very important
because you catch your audience with that.
DO NOT USE PASSIVE VOICE. Use Active Voice.
Get right to the action and don't stop for descriptions. You'll know the right time to
describe.
Description is important to make a vivid scene, but instead of describing a forest with
every tree. Just say: The forest where the smiling sun always shined above. You can
imagine that. Right?
Always follow the structure of a narrative: Orientation, Complication, Resolution and
Conclusion. (Or: Exposition, Rising Action, Climax, Falling Action, Resolution,
Conclusion)
It is good to have more then one complication so it keeps the reader engaged.
Also remember to use language techniques, such as: poetic devices (Alliteration,
Rhyme. (Both infrequently) Irony, hyperboles, similes, mood, and metaphors,
rhetorical questions, the Three 'R's, etc... This will also keep the readers engaged.
If you end the story, make the reader something that he/she would think about all day!
Just have a sort of outline about what you're going to write, even a basic idea will do.
Then, description: vivid description of setting, scene/whatever.
Characters must not be too many as readers could get confused and irritated.
Of course build the story, use appropriate language. If you're writing a short story, give
vivid accounts of feelings undergone by characters. If narrative, identify your emotions
and present them.
As you build story, have 2-3 dialogues, just at few places, to make it interesting.
Don’t use lot of references to what happened in your area while making
generalisations. For example: my school has 4 teams 'anbu', 'aram’, 'arivu' and 'arul'. If
I am talking about sports, I can’t keep referring to the teams I know. If I should say
about a match that it had so few viewers, that it made me wonder if the people had
thought anbu was playing,…” Then this would make no sense to the readers.
build momentum gradually and have a nice climax.
successful short story writers like O.Henry have the twist at the end, a punch line to
sign off; it’s called the "O.Henry twist".