The writer, who doesn’t have time to plot, always finds time to rewrite.

Sound familiar?

I’ve been guilty of this too, back in early days of my writing apprenticeship. I was so eager to get stuck into writing my story that I wouldn’t bother with plotting.

Plotting gives you a sense of direction. It’s your map, which will lead you to write your story. Leaping into unknown rarely works. Without a plot several things can happen….

Our stories aren’t focused

We lose our way

Our characters don’t come to life because we don’t take time to develop them

We get stuck

For a theme to work and story, which will revolve around theme, it has to contain three things…

1.Character

2.Conflict

3.Resolution

What’s reason for this?

If your theme doesn’t contain these three essential elements, then you won’t be writing a proper short story. It might turn out to be an essay instead.

Because without…

1)Characters

You can’t achieve emotional depth. Readers become engrossed in stories because of characters in them. They either become character (sympathize), or read about an interesting person (empathize).

Emotional depth is achieved when readers use their imagination and senses and/or experiences to live story through characters.

2)Conflict

Your story will be boring. Why? Without conflict, something to stir things up, nothing happens. And a story, in which nothing happens, is one not worth writing about.