In an earlier blog entitled “Telling Your Story with Style and Passion,” I discussed the steps on how to begin the process of writing a short story and on how to create a character map and effective story plot. Theme and Time Span were also addressed. This blog will cover dialogue, word choice and imagery, sentence structure and variety, and other grammar related suggestions plus effective ways to capture the attention of your readers from the very first word and clever ways to keep them reading and enjoying your story until the last word. 
Let us address dialogue first. Dialogue can be a very effective way to depict your characters and tell your story. However, it must contribute to the main focus of the story. Every word that you have your characters say must contribute to revealing your theme … if it doesn’t, be ruthless and take it out of the story. It might confuse your readers about what it is you are trying to tell them.
Next, you want to transform your readers into your story so they will feel as if they are actual observers. Vivid imagery is one great way to draw the reader into your story. You must capture the reader’s interest in and empathy for your characters. You need to paint such a vivid picture that the readers can imagine themselves in the scene. Again this goes back to placing yourself there and transposing this into your writing. Ask yourself as a reader, what questions you might have about a character or event that you may not have included in your story and add these details only if they enhance your story and your theme. Try to describe your characters so they come alive to the readers as real people—not just fictional. Your goal is to make the readers empathize with the problems the characters are facing and get involved in their lives. Give enough information to make them seem believable. To describe your scenes and events, always use powerful verbs, highly descriptive adjectives and adverbs that embellish the story, and develop your own unique way of expressing your ideas. If this is challenging for you, use a Thesaurus to help you find the perfect words. Try to find a writing style with which you feel comfortable—whether it is very formal or more casual. Of course, this choice of style may also be dependent upon your plot, your setting, and your characters.
Style also involves your sentence structure. Always try to use your best grammar skills, of course, and always use Spell Check to check for errors unless of course, the misspelled word a slang word deliberately being used in the dialogue between your characters. Varying the length of your sentences is very effective. Shorter simple sentences are usually more dramatic than long complex or compound sentences. I always read my writing out loud to listen to the flow of the words and the sentences. It helps me to hear any problem areas in my sentence structures. If possible, also share your writing with another person by reading it out loud to this person and getting objective advice from this person. Sometimes as a writer, you become too close to your story and do not always hear all of the problems.
Remember your story begins with the very first word—the very first sentence—the very first paragraph, so make sure you capture your readers’ attention as soon as you can. Include your setting and introduce your main character if possible. Within the first few paragraphs, you should introduce the problem or conflict. You only have a short space in a short story to tell your plot so do not waste time or space getting out your information quickly and effectively. Build your story carefully with details relevant to the story and the theme that will continue to keep your readers involved and interested in the life or lives of your characters. Build up to the climax so that the readers are ready for this and accept the outcome of the conflict resolution. Again it must seem believable to the readers. Finally, do not forget about the ending. Unless you are writing a story that has an open-ended conclusion, you must bring your readers down from the high point of the conflict resolution to an acceptable ending but one that they will remember as well. Thus, your last sentence—your last paragraph is just as important as the first one. So make it meaningful and significant and related to your theme if possible. This is your last chance to share your overall story message.
The last step, of course, is the editing. Read it over and over and over again and again and again out loud. The first draft will not be your final draft. Do not be afraid to rework it if needed. I suggest getting away from it for a few hours or a few days. Distance from your story will allow you to have a fresh perspective when you read it at a later time. Once again I always do this. It works well for me.
I will now share a little bit of my story with you. This is the first paragraph and a small portion of the second one. I hope you enjoy it and that it will make you want to read the entire story when it is published in the future. The conflict resolution and the ending paragraph must remain secrets now, of course. One final comment to remember: This story will represent you so LET YOUR PASSION AND PERSONALITY SHINE THROUGHOUT IT, TOO.
SHE ONLY WANTED TO DANCE
By Randi D. Ward
Lying in her bed alone on a warm, humid night in mid-June, seventeen year old Julia unhappily contemplated about not being able to perform on a Broadway stage dancing to her favorite songs. This was the lowest night of her life. She had completely given up on life. She had missed out on so much recently and did not believe anything positive would occur in her future ever again. All of her life, she had fantasized about being a professional dancer and nothing else. Now this fantasy would remain just that—a fantasy. From the early age of four years, she had taken numerous dancing lessons-ballet, tap, ballroom, Latin, hip hop, and modern dancing. She had excelled at all of them. Dancing was her passion. She had always received great praise and encouragement from all of her instructors. Julia’s ability and talent to use her graceful, lovely body to express music was truly a gift from God.
Dancing came so easily for Julia, and a successful career in dancing would have been a certainty if not for that tragic, sad, rainy night on December 7 over a year ago when a totally irresponsible and tremendously insensitive, self-centered drunk driver crossed the center line on Route 10 and violently crashed into her small VW beetle head-on.
Randi D. Ward
July 30, 2013
