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.

I have been teaching developing writers for many years, and I’ve found that many people, both young writers and adults, will start writing a story and run out of steam. They get a few pages or a few chapters down and can’t go any farther. One reason, I believe, that their stories lose momentum is that they have failed to plan before they began to write. I’m not talking about creating an outline of each step a story will take. For most of us, such an outline would be deadening. We need to keep important elements of our developing stories open so we can keep making discoveries as we write. But many writers get bogged down in their story attempts for one simple reason. They haven’t made sure that the idea they have is suitable for a story. What they start off with may only be a situation.

What is the difference between a situation and a story?

A situation is simply a problem. We all have lots of those in our lives. A boy’s parents are about to divorce. A girl doesn’t want to babysit her younger brother. A puppy is lonely and lost.

A story starts with such a situation, but it requires someone to do something about the problem . . . or at least to attempt to do something. Notice that in each of the situations I’ve named, the main character, boy or girl or puppy, clearly wants something . . . to stop the divorce, to get out of babysitting, to find the way home. The moment you set that main character struggling to get what he wants—or at least to try to get it—you will have a story underway.

Your character doesn’t have to succeed for a story to work. Maybe the boy will discover that he can’t stop his parents’ divorce. It is, after all, unlikely that he could. Perhaps he will discover something else instead, that even if they divorce, his parents will each continue to love him and that his life will go on.

Maybe the girl will discover that her younger brother is important to her, so important that she doesn’t mind babysitting.

Maybe the puppy will have to give up on finding his way back home and accept a new home instead.

But in each case, the main character will have to struggle, trying to get what he wants. And it is that struggle that will make your story.

So let’s start by gathering some ideas for stories . . . your stories. What is your character’s problem? What does the problem make him want? What would a resolution to the problem feel like?

For this month, jot down story ideas as they come to you. Next month we’ll talk about the next step.

And in the meantime, if you are impatient to move on, check out my book, What’s Your Story? A Young Person’s Guide to Writing Fiction. Both adults—especially adults writing for children—and young writers have found it useful.