The Writing Company · with the Mayor

Write a Story

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Write a Story

You have learned the moves. Now you get to use all of them at once, on a story of your own.

Every story you have ever loved has the same few parts working underneath it. Here is what to put in, and what each part does for your reader.

A narrator who cares

Somebody is telling this story, and they want to tell it. The reader should know who the narrator is and why this moment matters to them.
Characters the reader comes to know

At least one person besides the narrator, with enough detail that the reader can picture them. Not a list of traits. A person.
A setting the reader can stand in

A place and a time, anchored with a detail or two the reader can see, hear, or smell. "The backyard" is a label. "Grandma's backyard, under the old oak" is a place.
A sequence of events

Things happen, in an order, and each one moves the story forward. First this, then because of that, then this. The order is the story.
A conclusion that lands

The story comes to a close that follows from everything before it. Not "and then I woke up." An ending the reader feels.

Spend your tools

And woven through all of it, the craft moves you already know. Here they are, pointed at a story.

Nelson · Specific nouns

A noun names a person, a place, a thing, or an idea. "Cousin" is a common noun; "Maya" is her proper name, and it earns a capital M. "Tree" is common; "the old oak" is precise. Name the exact thing, and use the real name when you have one.

My cousin and I built it near the tree. Maya and I built our fort under the old oak.

Vinny · Strong verbs

Two jobs here. Pick the precise verb: not "put up" but "raised." And keep your tenses in step. If the story already happened, "comes" should be "came." One slip in tense trips the reader.

We put up the fort, and then rain comes. We raised the fort, and then the rain came.

Jake · Show, do not tell

Could we be more specific? There is a gray version, "we were disappointed," and a painted version, the drops darkening the roof while we went quiet. Paint it, and the reader feels the disappointment without the word.

We were disappointed when it rained. We watched the first drops darken the blanket roof, and we went quiet.

Connie · Compound sentences for rhythm

A short sentence lands hard. A compound one, two thoughts joined with a comma and a conjunction, gives the reader room to breathe. Let them take turns, and your writing finds a rhythm.

We built the walls and we built the roof and then it rained. We built the walls. We built the roof, and then the rain came.

The Mayor · Voice

Voice bends to two things: who is reading, and why you are writing. A story for a friend sounds warm; a report for a teacher sounds tidy. I write one way, Slang writes another, and each fits its moment.

This document details the construction of a backyard fort. Let me tell you how Maya and I built the best fort in Grandma's yard.

The Mayor · The paragraph as a small machine

A good paragraph is a small machine. The topic sentence is the switch, the body sentences are the moving parts, and the closer shuts it off clean. If a sentence has no job, it jams the works. Every part pulls its weight.

Sentences that sit near each other but do not work together. The topic sentence starts it, each body sentence adds a part, and the last sentence closes it.

The Story Plan

In the Writing Company we do not start writing and hope. We plan the trip first. Here is my plan, and here is how I aim it at a story.

The Mayor's Power Plan

Pick it. Choose the idea worth the trip.
Plan it. Map your notes before you go.
Pour it on. Write, and keep going: more detail, more feeling, more of what only you know.

The Seven Story Questions

Answer all seven and the trip is packed.

Who is the main character?
When does the story take place?
Where does the story take place?
What does the main character do or want to do?
What happens when they try to do it?
How does the story end?
How does the main character feel?

Writers remember them as W-W-W, What = 2, How = 2. Say it out loud once. It sticks.

Watch the Mayor plan it

Watch me run the plan on the story you have been following: the afternoon my cousin Maya and I built a fort in Grandma's backyard, and it started to rain.

Pick it. The brainstorm found four good memories: the fort, a bike ride, a lost dog, a snow day. I pick the fort afternoon. It has another person in it, something goes wrong, and it ends on the porch. Stories live in moments like that.

Plan it.

Who? Me, and my cousin Maya. Grandma is there at the end, on the porch.
When? Last summer, in the afternoon, at Grandma's house.
Where? Grandma's backyard, mostly under the old oak tree.
What do I want to do? Build a real fort with Maya, using an old wool blanket and the low branches.
What happens when I try? The wind comes up and the blanket flaps loose. Then it starts to rain right on top of us.
How does it end? We weigh the blanket down with rocks and keep it up, then haul the last of it onto the porch.
How do I feel? Proud, and soaked to the socks, and already planning the next one.

Pour it on. Seven answers, and the story already has a beginning, a middle full of trouble, and an ending that earns its feeling. Question five is where your story lives. A story where nothing goes wrong when the character tries is not a story. It is a walk.

Eight ways to prewrite

Before you plan your own, here are seven prewriting tools, run on that same afternoon. Watch how different the same day looks through each one. Open any card.

Freewrite A stream of thought. Go wherever your brain takes you.

Last summer at Grandma's my cousin Maya wanted to build a fort. There is a big old oak in the backyard with low branches. We found an old wool blanket in the garage and decided to hang it over the branches and make a roof.

What it gave us. A meander. It starts at Maya, drifts, and lands on the oak. Your job afterward is to find the strand worth keeping.

Brainstorm If it pops into your head, it goes on the page.

Built a fort with Maya at Grandma's. Rode bikes to the creek. Found a lost dog on our street. Stayed up for the snow day. Learned to whistle last spring.

What it gave us. Options. The brainstorm found four different memories, not one. It widens the search before you commit.

Cluster An organized brainstorm. Lines show which ideas belong together.

Center: built a fort in Grandma's backyard. Branching out: the old oak, low branches, the wool blanket, wind came up, rain started, rocks to hold it down, hauled it to the porch.

What it gave us. Relationships. The cluster picks one idea and grows it. The bikes and the dog are gone now. We have chosen our story.

5W and H The journalist's six questions.

Who? Maya and me. What? A fort under the oak. Where? Grandma's backyard. When? A summer afternoon. Why? We wanted a place that was ours. How? An old wool blanket over the low branches.

What it gave us. Coverage. Six slots force out details a freewrite skips, like the time of day and why the two of us built it.

Five Senses See, hear, taste, smell, touch. The tool for sensory detail.

See: the gray sky and the blanket bellying in the wind. Hear: the first fat raindrops on the wool. Smell: wet grass and the old blanket. Touch: the cold rocks we stacked and the rough bark of the oak.

What it gave us. Specifics. Not "it started to rain." The first fat drops on the wool. That is the level of detail that puts a reader in the yard.

Series of Events A list of what happened, in order. The tool for narrative.

We found the blanket in the garage. We threw it over the low branches of the oak. The wind came up and the blanket flapped loose. It started to rain right on top of us. We piled rocks on the edges to hold it down. We hauled the last of it onto the porch.

What it gave us. Order. The events line up first to last, and it surfaces moments a freewrite glossed over. Sequence is the bones of a story.

Character Sketch Everything about one character. Pick the details that help the story.

Maya is my cousin, two years older than me. Tall, with a braid that is always coming undone. She is the one with the plans, and she does not scare easy. When the rain came, she laughed and reached for the rocks instead of running inside.

What it gave us. A real person. Not every detail makes the final story, but knowing Maya this well means the Maya in the story acts like herself.

A story writer usually reaches for the Series of Events, the Character Sketch, and the Five Senses first. But any of the seven can crack a story open. Pick the tool that fits the gap you have.

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