It may help to think through your story in scenes. (See previous blog for more information on scenes.) Each scene must move the story forward. If an event is unnecessary, leave it out. Even in a book, your writing must be tight.

Scenes include five things:
1. Setting
2. Antagonists
3. Action
4. Somebody wins
5. Resolution

Build suspense as you go along. Keep the reader guessing. Before a conflict is solved, put a barrier in your main character’s path. Don’t give the story away. Once you get into novel writing, you can confront the main character with conflict upon conflict, but in short stories stick to one conflict. Keep the reader hanging on a cliff. In novels, try to end each chapter on a cliffhanger. If you don’t, the reader might put your book down and never pick it up again. Don’t you have half-read books on your shelf?

Stories need to be filled with action. Stay out of your character’s mind, and keep the story focused on his activities. Once in a while, you can tell us what he thinks, but not all the time. Make your reader identify with the main character and the problems he or she is experiencing.

Be careful not to allow the characters to take over. You must know what they are going to do. That is why you write the ending—or at least a brief summary of what will happen— after you write the beginning. Don’t manipulate the characters into implausible actions or conflicts. They must be believable, or you will lose your credibility with your readers.

The main character must solve his own problem. He should get a just reward, whether good or bad, but in the Christian market, you usually find a happy ending. Don’t leave the ending up to the reader or leave any loose ends. The reader should have a sense of completion and feel comfortable after finishing your story. A “problem solution story” is much more powerful than a “come to realize” ending.

Let’s help our readers to identify with our main character to solve their problems. We can’t tell them though, we must show them. Then by reading, they will see for themselves. If you preach at your readers, you will lose them. Please keep this in mind.

Include lots of dialogue, using words that are simple and relevant today. Keep your sentence structure simple. Vary the word length of both sentences and paragraphs. But sentences should seldom exceed 25 words. Keep the story in one viewpoint, that of the main character, and make the story about that individual. Third person is usually the most effective writing tense, although first person can be powerful too.

Write from the heart. We can use a similar emotional response within ourselves to evoke a reaction in our reader. If we don’t feel an emotion, we can’t arouse that sensation in our reader. Before you start writing, ask yourself, “What emotion do I want to evoke—compassion, anger, sadness, pain, fear, love, joy?” What arouses your passions? What do you care about? What do you want to change? How can you help others? In our writing, we need to have something to share that will benefit others, change their lives. Help the readers to get in tune with themselves through the experiences of your characters, particularly your main character.

Make your readers laugh. Make your readers cry. Instead of causing your characters to cry, create tears in your reader’s eyes. Show the humanness of your characters. We can help others through our shortcomings, our mistakes, and our failures. We can share the lessons we’ve learned through our characters. Our characters can say, “I don’t walk in your shoes, but this is what I’ve been through, and this is how I coped.” Our characters must appear real to our audience in order to help the readers cope with their daily lives and grow as Christians.

Who are you writing about? Yourself? Your own experiences? Your childhood? You should write what you know, so you may want to write from your own experiences. If so, make sure that others will benefit from those experiences. Your story needs to answer the question, “So what?” It must have a point that will have take-away value for the readers—value they can take into their own lives and use. Fiction allows you to use your own experiences, but you can couch them in fiction and change the details. We don’t have to undergo exactly what was experienced in what we want to write about, but it is vital that we feel passionately about our subject.

Be sure to write to the needs of your audience, not your own needs: OPNAD (A Lee Roddy creation). Write for other people’s needs and desires. This includes the publishing house as well as the reader. Match what you are writing to a market. Know what your publishing houses are looking for. What length do they want? What age is their audience? Go to writers’ conferences and ask the editors what they want. Don’t just tell them what you are writing, but ask what their needs are.

You have probably heard the expression: Show, don’t tell. Show through emotions and personal stories. There is power in simplicity and personal sharing. Use the concrete story filled with emotion, not the abstract idea. Emotion is where people live. Reach out with your writing and touch their hearts.

Conflict is essential to your story. In fact, without conflict you have no story.

There are four types of conflict:
1. Person vs. Person
2. Person vs. Self
3. Person vs. Environment
4. Person vs. God

Go to your library or your local Christian bookstore, read lots of story openings, and take notes. You will also find many opportunities on the Internet for studying story openings. See how the author introduces conflict. Then decide how you would resolve the conflict if you were writing the story or book. This is an excellent exercise.

When you are writing a short story, limit your characters to two to four. Also, only have one conflict. In a book, you can keep introducing complication upon complication, solving some as you go along and waiting until the end to solve the main conflict. But remember: If you solve everything before the book is finished, the reader will put it down. Why should he continue reading? Build suspense, don’t tell it all. Surprise the reader and provide an interesting twist. Don’t allow him to figure out the ending before you get there.

Without a problem to solve or a conflict to overcome in the story, the reader quickly becomes bored. Therefore, you need to introduce the problem as close to the beginning of the story as possible.

Set a mood that matches the nature of the situation. The reader wants to feel a part of the events as they unfold. Never hold out on your reader; he will feel cheated. He should know as much as the main character does during the development of the story.

The example below, taken from the opening of Chapter 9 of my book, Eyes Beyond the Horizon, (Thomas Nelson) sets an ominous mood by using such phrases as “inky pools of tree shade,” “torch darting in the blackness,” and “stabs of summer lightning.” The reader knows something dangerous is about to happen.

A bright moon, sweeping across the starry midnight sky, washed over the transmitter buildings of Christian Radio City Manila with a dim white light. It picked out the figure of a guard as he passed between inky pools of tree shade, his torch darting in the blackness like stabs of summer lightning…

In the stillness, night sounds carried across the heavy atmosphere with astounding clarity. The footsteps of an announcer crackled on the gravel as he walked along the roadway between the quieted compound houses…

Behind the night-hushed scene stood a tall antenna tower, pinnacled by red warning lights. At the top, a man held by his head dangled helplessly three hundred feet from the ground!

As you write short stories, take the readers on a journey with you and capture them with your descriptive scenes.

Develop a location for your story that readers can picture in their minds. Use all of your senses so the reader can live the experience with you and feel like he or she is there. If you are painting a beach scene, for example, hear the thunder of the waves crashing on the shore. Taste the salt from the spray. Smell the clean, crisp air. Feel the soft breeze brushing across your face.

The following example is taken from the opening of Chapter 1 of my book, Eyes Beyond the Horizon, co-authored with Eleanor Bowman and published by Thomas Nelson:

Not a leaf of the flame trees stirred on Marpi Cliff. Douglas Campbell found the stillness foreboding and unnerving. In the early morning dawn he watched the dark clouds as they formed a circle around the tiny island of Saipan. The menacing clouds hung back on the horizon, brooding, threatening with an evil intent to sweep land and sea into their possession.

Narrative is used here to tell a mini-story from the narrator’s viewpoint. It also sets the scene, so the reader can sense the approach of the typhoon and feel its momentum building.

Here are six more items that you will want to include in your character sketches.

6. Your Characters’ Outlook on Life: Is it positive? Negative? Fearful? Reckless? Practical? Romantic?

7. His Habits, Both Good and Bad: Habits define him as a character. Does he eat a leisurely breakfast of bacon and eggs or grab a cup of black coffee on the run? Is his desk cluttered or spotless? Does he keep appointments on time or always arrive ten minutes late?

8. His Education, Profession, and Station in Life: What does a character’s career tell about him, his abilities, interests, and long-range goals? A diplomat or university professor will likely have different concerns and ways of expressing them than a taxi driver or steelworker. At the same time, be wary of stereotypes. Perhaps that diplomat got his start as a taxi driver.

9. His Strengths and Weaknesses: Every human personality has both a light and dark side. A balanced mixture of these lights and darks creates a three-dimensional character, but keep in mind that some traits can be both a strength and a weakness. For example: the strong, silent type who refuses to open up and communicate with his mate.

10. His Idiosyncrasies: What gestures or mannerisms are peculiar to this character? Does he pull on his ear, clear his throat, tap his fingers, fidget with his collar, lick his lips, fiddle with his glasses, twist his ring, or shrug his shoulders? (Of course, if he does all these at once, he has a real problem!)

11. His Voice: Avoid the trap of letting all your characters sound alike—like you, the author! Readers “hear” a character’s voice in their heads, and they’ll cringe if he doesn’t sound authentic. Worse, they’ll stop reading if characters don’t have distinctive voices. Determine what rhythm of speech your character has—smooth, flowing sentences or short and choppy? What tone of voice—soft and mellow, deep, nasal, singsong, melodic, breathy, gravelly, or monotone? Does he mumble? Have an accent? Use big words to impress people? Stutter? Speak too loud? Too fast? Does he speak with an affectation that puts distance between himself and others or with a warmth that puts others at ease? Whatever the case, make him a one and only original!

You won’t use all the description in your story, but you must have a picture of the person formed firmly in your mind. To explore a character’s feelings in depth, mentally step into his skin and write from his viewpoint. In this way, your characters will help you write your story. They can help you bring it alive in ways you couldn’t do by yourself.

Your characters need to appear authentic, whether they are real people or not. Your characters must be real to you, or they will never seem real to your readers. So take time to develop these individuals in your mind. Then develop a character sketch of your main character as well as the secondary characters. Following are 5 of 11 items you may wish to include in your sketches, taken from Chapter 8 of The Complete Guide to Christian Writing and Speaking, available on our website under books/books on writing.

1. A Character’s Physical Appearance: Not just whether he’s tall, dark, and handsome or short, fat, and ugly. Rather, what separates him from the masses and makes him unique, one in a million?

2. His Personality and Temperament: Is he cool and laid back, hot and fiery, aggressive, passive, impulsive, or cautious?

3. His Motivations: What makes him act the way he does? What are his felt, or perceived, needs? What are his real needs? What does he desire more than anything else in the world?

4. His Background and Family History: History tends to repeat itself in generation after generation, as evidenced in the biblical concept of “the sins of the fathers.” Beliefs and actions are deeply rooted in the past.

5. His General Attitude Toward Others and Himself: Does he accept himself and others? Does he have identity and self-esteem problems to work through? Or does he have a healthy self-concept?

Next week will feature items 6-11 that you may wish to include in your character sketches.

Short stories and novels have a beginning, a middle, and an end. Write the beginning and the end before you go back and fill in the middle. You may change some things as you go along, but you must have a game plan.

Another way to phrase this is the three O’s:
Objective – Beginning
Obstacle – Middle
Outcome – End

In the first paragraph of your story, you must hook the reader. Open with an exciting beginning that makes him want to read on. Also open with the viewpoint character. Write your story as seen from one person’s viewpoint, either first or third person; third person is usually easier to write. Paint a brief picture of your main character, showing his personality, so the reader can see him and identify with him.

Example taken from The Hair Pulling Bear Dog by Lee Roddy:

At first, D.J. Dillon thought the terrible nightmare had returned. In his sleep, he again heard the squeal of brakes, the crash, and then the awful silence. The 13-year-old boy’s blue eyes blinked open. He stared into the soft moonlit darkness of the kitchen where he slept on a roll-away bed.

His blond head turned automatically toward his parents’ bedroom wall beside him. He started to call softly, “Mom?” Then he remembered.

She was dead six months now, killed in that auto accident. The mountain’s silence had carried the sound for miles. D.J. had heard it up the canyon without knowing who was in the collision.

Memories flashed over him again. The hurt swallowed him like a silent, ugly monster. D.J. started to turn over and bury his face in the dusty pillow when he heard the crash again-but now he was wide awake!