BRAINSTORMING A SHORT STORY

Get ideas from here:
http://shortstoryideas.herb.me.uk/characters.htm
http://www.creative-writing-now.com/short-story-ideas.html
http://www.writing-world.com/fiction/giles.shtml

Read collections of short stories:
http://www.google.com/search?q=short+story+collections&tbm=bks&tbo=1&oq=short+story+collec

Possible Topics: remember you can manipulate these any way YOU want!

* Take your favorite word, phrase, sentence, or paragraph from a writing marathon
* Life Experiences: Bio-Fiction
* Current Issue: create a character completing how you want to handle it or how you wish you would handle it
* Take a Reader’s Response where you disliked, questions, or were concerned and rewrite the piece to answer or address those points
* Rewrite the beginning of a story from a different point of view and go from there
* Rewrite an ending or write a sequel
* First memory
* Dreams
* Problematic Fiction
* Favorite Character
* Art…write a story
* Favorite Town days memory—or just summer
* Rewrite the ending from a different point of view
* Find a crucial moment in your story with a character, make them do the exact opposite
* Quotation write: Character? Word? Idea? Event?
* Year in a nutshell
* Labels
* Advertisement write
* Newspaper Headline: what fictional story can you make of this?
* What are your scars, figuratively or literally and visible or invisible? Write about one.
* What scars have you given, figuratively or literally and visible or invisible? Write about one.
* Insert the word “gifts” in place of the word “scars” above.
* What have you not received? What gifts have you not given?
* My craziest experience in a restaurant or shopping mall
* The hardest thing I’ve ever done
* My first encounter with a bully
* The toys I’ll never give up
* A friend who moved away
* I couldn’t believe that my mother made me...
* Putting my foot in my mouth
* What do I worry about?
* My worst vacation
* A “visit” to a hospital, doctor’s office, or dentist’s office
* Coping with brothers and sisters
* A typical evening at home
* Morning madness
* When I was a discipline problem
* We all make mistakes.
* Why do I deserve the job?
* My brother (or sister) made me so mad!
* Hanging out
* Greed
* Alone on a desert island
* How it would feel to walk in space
* What invention would you like to see in your lifetime?
* Why appearance is not so important


NOW WHERE DO YOU GO?

Prewriting Strategies:

Generate ideas, unleash your imagination, brainstorm purpose and genre

Complete ONE of the following suggestions and post to the blog.

1) Create a "graphic organizer" and briefly describe the short story elements.
2) Write a snapshot of the character, setting, or both.
3) Answer the who, what, where, when, why of your short story like an interview.
4) Freewrite: give yourself a time limit; write! Don't stop. Don't worry about spelling, grammar, etc.
5) Write a paragraph as if it were a pitch to a publisher and sell your short story idea.

Thinking About Plot...using "The Lady, or the Tiger?"

The plot is the one of the most important elements of the story; however, the characters decide what happens, when it happens, and how it happens. This occurs when the external or internal plot plays a major role. In The Lady or the Tiger?, the external conflict causes the princess to have tremendous internal conflict. Because the plot line ends at the climax, many readers are not satisfied with the author's falling action and resolution. Think about the princess' character (background, upbringing, feelings, thoughts, actions) to determine what you think happens next.

Write a new ending (falling action and resolution) for the story in which you reveal the princess’s decision (falling action) and show the effects of the decision on all the characters (resolution). Use your short story elements graphic organizer as a guide just like an author would. In other words, you must be true to Stockton's story.

Think about questions like...

1. What happens to the young man?
2. How does she feel about it?
3. What does the king do next?
4. What does the princess do next?