Regardless if you free write or if a writer take time to write extensive plots for their stories, there are five questions that must be kept in mind as the story is written. These five questions are the basic kernel of all short stories and long fiction, providing the strands of the story web that the author wishes to construct.

1. Who are the story’s protagonist and antagonist?
The protagonist and the antagonist are essential to the writing of any story and give it the beating heart bringing it to life. In a short story, there is not much time to establish the characters background or reason to join in conflict. To reduce the time and words needed to explain this conflict is to make these characters define the other by who they are not. By setting them as mirror images of each other, the author gives them both depth by making each a shadow of the other.

2. Where does the story begin?
Where the story begins is key to drawing the reader into the story world, capturing them and holding on to the reader until the end. In short fiction, the journey from beginning to end may be only 5000 words. Yet, the first 50 words is enough to lose the reader to another story. Does that require the author to start with conflict, or a conversation, or some death defying scene? No. The story should start and grow organically.

3. What are the complications?
A simple story of travelling from point a to point b on a long unbroken path would be boring. Think of the Odyssey: would the story have been such an adventure if Odysseus simply sailed home with no adventures? This can be applied to any story. The breaks in the journey, the hurdles that must be overcome, and the pain from the failures make the success or final defeat all that more emotional for the reader.

4. What is the climax?
There comes a time in any journey when the characters must face each other in a final conflict—winner takes all. Without the climax, what would be the point of the story from the readers’ point of view? The author needs to have an idea of what that climax is going to be. In some cases, this climax is the seed of the story that the author developed around it.

5. What is the resolution?
The author may not have the resolution in mind when they start writing, but the resolution must be fitting and natural to the story. Resolutions can be contrived and may get a laugh in the short term, but will more often be scorned. The resolution may have many twists or turns, but the reader should believe the resolution and the finale of the story.

Thank you for reading and please visit www.davidalanlucas.com for the articles, blogs, poetry, and stories that I write.