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Topic : Re: How can I begin writing a short story? I like to read short stories, novels, documentaries etc. I used to write a diary as well. I am interested in beginning to write a short story or some - selfpublishingguru.com

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I suspect that your descriptive skills are not necessarily the issue, but that you simply do not know WHAT is relevant to describe and WHY, and then HOW.

A suggestion that COULD help, but which might take some effort in order to work;

Introduce/use a somewhat 'odd' character - It could also be your narrator.

Focus on creating a character that does something or things slightly differently from 'everyone else'.

Maybe they always think about how objects/things are put together, or where the parts of something come from and are manufactured/collected/processed. Maybe they see millions and millions of things around them (grass, sand, tiles, bricks, cables, screws, wooden beams and their natural details, the pages of the books on the table, the threads of the cloth and their own jeans...) where everyone else is simple 'present somewhere'.
Maybe they see similarities between or compare all things to living creatures or other things - Coffe cups are tiny silos, tables are tiny versions of enormous spaceships in the living room(with their landing gear down, of course), speakers are military buildings with a strange weapon/defense system built into them, house-plants are forests and trees, houses and buildings are living creatures and their windows are eyes/other 'bodyparts, and so on...
Perhaps they do not naturally understand all human behavior and feel the need to question it - This can be through thoughts only or with actual dialogue between characters.
Perhaps their mind wanders, and they find themselves slightly startled in some random place after having spent time in their thoughts - Maybe they're on their way to do some grocery shopping and the sound of a car on the street reminds them of something that happened in their childhood. From there, their mind spends some time recalling the events and the emotions connected to it, which leads to other times/memories with similar or opposite emotions, and suddenly, they're standing in their local park (because something inside them made them walk there 'naturally') instead of the local supermarket where they meant to go.

An example of how these things could apply to the narrator;

When I say that these traits could be those of the narrator (and thus, not those of a character in the story), I immediately imagined a short story where we might actually lose track of the main characters sometimes because the narrator gets 'caught up in the details of somethings' or stops following the main character by accident because they 'start questioning something that happened'... Imagine that. It's probably been done, but what hasn't!

Hopefully, you find some inspiration, and maybe these ideas help you on your way to writing the details and descriptions that actually capture your reader and which you yourself find interesting.

Good luck!


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