Story CircleHow to write a story for beginners
From want and obstacle to scenes, the first line, dialogue and revision: the steps of writing a short story from start to finish.
Guides
Creative writing guides
These creative writing guides answer the questions that come up when you write a story or a book, one page per question: finding an idea, creating a character, building a story from start to finish, starting a book, getting unstuck, fiction genres, branching and interactive stories, fan fiction, and writing with other people. New to writing? Follow the five steps below.
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They are written to solve the problem in front of you, not to explain Story Circle, so they are useful even if you never open the app. Short definitions of words like narrator, plot and branch are in the glossary of creative writing terms.
Where to start
Which writing guide should you start with?
If you have never written before, start with the idea and work through these five; each one answers the question the previous one leaves you with.
How to come up with story ideas
Start here if you have nothing worth writing yet. It shows how to generate ideas on purpose and cut the best one down to a single sentence.
How to create a character
An idea does not move until someone has to live through it. This guide builds that someone from a want, an obstacle and a contradiction.
How to write a story for beginners
With an idea and a character, finish one short story scene by scene. A finished first piece teaches you more than any further guide.
How to start writing a book
Moving from a short story to something book-length? Know which early decisions you will not be able to change later.
How to overcome writer’s block
Open this on the day you stall. It helps you work out which kind of stuck you are and pick the fix that matches.
Once you have finished those, the list of fiction genres helps you pick a form. If you are thinking of a story where the reader picks the way forward, how to write a branching story shows how to build one without the branches running away from you.
The craft
How do you write a story or a book from start to finish?
These guides take the questions on a single writer’s desk one at a time: the idea, the character, the structure, starting a book, and getting unstuck.
How to come up with story ideas
Ways to generate story ideas instead of waiting for them, a test for whether an idea is a story, and how to cut it to one sentence.
How to create a character
Building a character from want, obstacle and contradiction, plus their voice, the decisions that define them and when they should change.
How to overcome writer’s block
The different kinds of being stuck and a fix for each, what the standard tips really do, and when taking a break is the right call.
How to start writing a book
The decisions you make before a book starts: one line or branching, how many chapters, chapter length, who can write, and which ones you cannot undo.
Forms of fiction
How do you choose a form of fiction to write in?
Genre, branching and someone else’s world: each form makes the reader a different promise and hands the writer its own rules.
Interactive fiction
The main kinds of interactive fiction, a short history of the form, and the shapes a branching story can take.
List of fiction genres
The promise each fiction genre makes to the reader, subgenres and hybrids, and how choosing a genre changes what you write.
How to write a branching story
Where a branch earns its place, how to keep the tree small, writing the chapter where paths merge, and how many endings are enough.
What is fan fiction
What fan fiction is and is not, the vocabulary of the form, where copyright draws the line, and staying consistent in someone else’s world.
Writing together
How do you write a book with other people?
The ways groups share the writing of one book, and what keeps a shared book from falling apart.
Collaborative writing
How groups usually split the writing of one book, how to start a book with other people, and what stops a shared book falling apart.
In Story Circle
Where do these guides fit in Story Circle?
In Story Circle, the decisions these guides describe are made by a book’s writers together rather than by one author. Whoever sets up the book writes the first chapter and lays down the characters and the story rules. The next empty chapter slot goes to the first writer who starts writing in it, with a timed writing window to finish, and every submitted chapter passes an automatic content review before it is published.
In a branching book, one chapter can have several continuations and each reader chooses a path, so the choices in the branching story guide turn into a real tree. Picking up from a chapter someone else wrote is also the “start from a full page” idea in the writer’s block guide, in practice. How Story Circle works walks through the whole loop step by step.
Looking for somewhere to write? You do not have to set up a book yourself: an empty chapter slot in a book someone else started is open to you too. The first writer to start it is the one who writes it.
