4 Tips for Writing a Good Story

Every aspiring writer will inevitably come to a point where they have a crisis of confidence and feel they cannot write a good story—or at least, cannot write to the level of proficiency they wish. How do you write a good story, anyway? We could write entire tomes about this Impostor Syndrome, or Fraud Syndrome, […]

Every aspiring writer will inevitably come to a point where they have a crisis of confidence and feel they cannot write a good story—or at least, cannot write to the level of proficiency they wish.

How do you write a good story, anyway?

We could write entire tomes about this Impostor Syndrome, or Fraud Syndrome, but for today let’s look at 4 tips for writing good fiction.

1). Dig Into Your World & Look for Conflict

Before you can put together a story, you have to have some idea about where and when it will take place.

Take the time to get to know the place and time in which your story will take place, and you will begin to discover conflicts and ideas that can spark stories.

To be sure, you could set any of a number of stories in any of a number of settings. You could tell a romance story, or a thriller, or a mystery story, in Old Kingdom Egypt, Rome in the time of Julius Caesar, Tang Dynasty China, Capetian France, 9th-century Persia, and so on, but the circumstances of all of those places will have a lot to do with the kinds of characters you’re likely to encounter and the things they’ll be likely to care about, the ways in which they’ll think of themselves and other people, and so on.

Let’s take an example from the fantasy genre, with its “high magic” series (abundant magical elements) and “low magic” series (fewer magical elements).

As fantasy author Caribbean Yogi pointed out: “Low magic series tend to depend greatly on the settings and scenery along with intense plot twists… [and] the character’s personality traits.” With low magic, there is less use of magic to provide plot points, but the same basic thing applies to high magic settings as well: the backdrop informs what the characters do, what they care about, and at least to some degree what the stakes are.

2). Find Conflict & Create a Premise

Now that you’ve dug into your world, it should start to be obvious where the conflicts are.

Real-world settings, including and perhaps especially historical settings, will be brimming with conflict because that is the nature of human beings. If you require convincing on this score, look into the institution of the harem in the Ottoman Empire, or the complex rivalries that brought down the Roman Republic and turned it into what we call the Roman Empire in the 1st century BCE, or the English Civil War (1642-1651 CE), or the Mongol conquests of the 13th century CE, or… pretty much any other time and place of your choice.

Don’t limit yourself to considerations of the privileged elite, either. Think about the perspectives of common people (they were most people for most of history, after all), including servants, slaves, and marginalized ethnic, racial, and religious groups.

You can also find story writing ideas practically everywhere, all around you. Did a friend go through a bad breakup? Console them, and file away everything you know about their ex and the relationship for use in a story someday. Read a particularly interesting or terrifying story in the news? File it away for possible later use.

3). Use Your Premise to Meet Characters

You have your world, that is to say your setting, and you have your conflict leading to a premise. Excellent, now to meet some characters.

You see, once you’ve laid out the setting, found conflict, and used that to create the basis for a premise, it’s not actually all that hard to think of some ideas for characters.

You’ve found the conflict that you want to animate your story, so think of some characters who could have a stake in the outcome of that conflict.

It’s perfectly fine to think big, i.e. Napoleonic Wars, World War I & II, and science fiction/space opera battles between starships, but also don’t be afraid to think small. Maybe your conflict is within a single household, perhaps between two people.

Whatever your premise, find some people with a stake in the outcome and then dig into who they are. Who are they, and why do they care what happens here?

4). Now to Plan Out Your Plot—or Simply Wing It

By now, you’ll probably have a pretty decent idea of the kind of story you want to tell, and how you want to tell it and with whom, so it’s time to plan out the plot. Alternatively, it’s perfectly okay to wing it if that’s how you write.

There are two main types of writer: architect-style “plotters” who plan out everything beforehand, and gardener-style “pantsers” who wing it. Whichever one you are, it’s time to step in and do it.

Of course, either way you’ll need to keep writing, no matter what. As we’ve discussed before, every day is a writing day. It doesn’t matter how much of an impostor you may feel sometimes—and we all have those feelings—you need to keep writing, no matter what.

Conclusion

Whatever type of stories you want to tell, you will almost certainly have to overcome feelings of doubt. These feelings are normal among writers, and the good news is that you can beat them. Follow the 4 tips we’ve discussed here, and you’ll be off to a good start.