If you want to write, I have one piece of advice. Write! And write and write and write! Write everything. Poems, stories, essays, letters, journals. Everything you can think of. Write often. Every single day if you can. That is how you will develop your writing muscles.

When you sit down to write something . . . anything, don’t choose a topic you think will please a teacher or anyone else. Write about something you love. Write about something you want to share with other people or that you want to learn more about yourself. If you love soccer—or you collect dolls—write about soccer or dolls.

Description. It’s one of the most important parts of good writing, to be able to describe something in a way that lets your readers see, hear, taste, smell and feel it.

Last month I suggested that you describe an object, any object, using as many senses as you could to bring to life for your reader that pencil, book, stick of gum or whatever you chose. This month let’s go a step farther. This time instead of choosing any object that might be in front of you, choose one that is important to you, one you have strong feelings about. The object doesn’t have to at hand. It can be something you remember from the past. An old teddy bear. The flyswatter your brother used to chase you with. The piano you hate practicing … or the piano you love to play.

For the last couple of times, we have been talking about description. And when you think of description, what part of speech do you automatically think of? Adjectives, right? And adverbs, too, of course. But there is another part of speech that is as important in description as adjectives and adverbs, often more important. It is strong, carefully chosen verbs.

Until now, I have been talking about description, an important element in every kind of writing. This month I’d like to begin talking about one specific kind of writing, writing stories.

Last time I talked about the difference between a situation and a story. A situation is simply a problem without any resolution, without any growth or change for the character who has the problem. When a character begins to struggle to solve his problem—whether he succeeds or not—you have material for a story.

Let’s start by reviewing what we have already discussed about writing stories.

First, the difference between a situation and a story: A situation is simply a problem no one can do anything about. Not even a change of heart will help. A story is a problem someone must struggle to resolve. The main character may get what she wants or she may change—or both, of course—but in a story a resolution of some kind is possible.

So … you have your story idea, someone who has a problem he must struggle to solve, and you know how you want your story to end. What else is involved in a story plan? Are you ready to begin writing?

Probably not. I believe that more stories fail because writers don’t spend enough time making a plan before they begin to write than for any other reason. So what else is there to know?

Okay, so you’re writing a story. You know who your main character is. You know who the surrounding characters are. You know what your main character wants. You even know how you want your story to end. You’re ready to begin writing … right?

Well, maybe. There is another crucial question to consider. Who—or what—stands in the way of your main character’s getting what he wants? In other words, what will he struggle against?

If you have been going through the various steps I have suggested, you have gathered many ideas for your story. You are ready to begin writing...or almost. You have one decision still to make. What point of view will you use?

Last time we talked about writing your story in first person, that is letting your main character tell the story, referring to herself as I. That is one clear choice you have as a fiction writer, and we all know stories which use that choice well. If you haven't paid attention to point of view when you read—and most people except for fiction writers probably don't—start paying attention now.

We have talked about the different points of view from which a story can be written: first person, when a character tells the story directly, referring to himself or herself as I; third-person limited, when a story is told through a single character, but the character is referred to as him or her.