Learn How to Write Short Stories-the easy way

Learn How to Write Short Stories-the easy way, is a method I use for writing stories without complicated theories of style and technique of great authors.

Stop Thinking and Start Writing

No one knows who you are, and no one will care until you write pages of text that readers find interesting to read. If you have never published your words, and don’t have reams of paper all over the house, your solution is simple. Stop thinking and start writing. The best piece of advice I was given is this, “Write 1 million words, and then throw them all away. Now begin writing the story that we will want to read”.

I Cannot Edit a Blank Page

I cannot edit a blank page, and no editor wants to look at your empty pages. This may all seem a bit harsh if you are a budding writer, so get used to it, there will be more.

Learn How to Write Short Stories-the easy way

A Little Boy Goes Walking

Once upon a time, long ago and far away, there was a little boy named Carl. Carl loved to play, and he loved to play outdoors. He went for long walks along the seashore and he hiked into the forest. Little children like Carl, walk and run but they also love exploring, and this is how they learn about their world. They have no fancy names for walking, they let their little feet take them wherever they want to go.

Carl walked in the rain, and he walked in the snow. He walked when the weather was sunny and he walked when it was windy. Everyone likes to walk when it’s warm and sunny. Even grownups like to walk when the weather is warm and sunny. Children don’t need reasons to go walking, they just open the door of their house and go walking. They walk or run for no reason at all.

Grownups, on the other hand, need a reason, or a purpose. They believe that to go walking requires a profound philosophical purpose. They dislike walking very far and walking when the weather is too hot or too cold. The conditions have to be just right. The word they use to describe these conditions is ideal. Most of all, they dislike walking for no reason or purpose.

Grownups don’t believe that squawking seagulls or chirping squirrels are good reasons for walking along the seashore, or on a trail in the forest, and because they are older and bigger than little children they can do mostly whatever they want. One day Carl will be a grownup. Little children cannot avoid becoming grownups. I hope that Carl doesn’t stop walking when he grows up.

Grownups say and do strange things. This is what it looks like to children. They say things that don’t always make sense. They tell young children, “Go outside and play”, but they stay inside and watch people play on a screen. Then they say, “Don’t fight with your brothers and sisters”, but they fight with other grownups all the time. They fight a lot. Maybe this is why they like wars so much. Wars were invented by grownups, so fighting is always fun for them. They don’t need special reasons to start a war. Starting a war can be as simple as wanting what someone else has.

Grownups like to play, but they prefer to play with people their own age. They play games like baseball, hockey, and football. They only like playing games, when they win. Children find this confusing. If you don’t like playing games, why play games at all? Playing games for grownups is not about having fun like it is for little children. It is an exercise for other important things. This is why they need a reason to have fun. They don’t like playing for fun. Having fun is a waste of time for grownups.

Grownups like to raise their voices and say bad things to one another. This can escalate into fighting, which leads to their favourite game – the war game. They love war games, and they spend a lot of time playing this game. They just can’t get enough of it. This confuses the little children. Grownups say, “don’t fight”, but they are the ones who do all the fighting. Children don’t know about fighting and wars until they learn it from grownups. Children don’t like fighting in wars. They would rather go out and play. It makes them sad when children have to live through wars. In many countries, young children are trained to become soldiers and to fight in wars.

This is a big secret, and it is kept from the little children. They do not want the children to know about this. They say, “Wars are bad”, but they always play this game of war. The game of war is very tiring, but they have rules, and one of the rules is stopping for a rest, and stopping to have their meals. War games have many rules, and it takes a long time to learn all the rules, but they are permitted to play even when they don’t know all the rules. This does not appear to bother them, and it doesn’t affect the game in the least. “The war must go on”, they say, “We must continue, we cannot stop now”. “This is not the time to stop”. “We’ll stop later when we are tired and hungry”.

This is why Carl began walking along the seashore. All these rules and reasons were getting very annoying. Carl only wanted to go outside and play. Why did he need so many reasons to walk? Carl was born and raised at the edge of a big, blue ocean. Oceans are not really blue, they only look blue. This is because your eyes make it appear to be blue. If you dip your cup in the ocean, you’ll find that it has no colour, so the ocean is not really blue.

Once Carl asked a grownup why people said that the ocean was blue when it wasn’t. This made the man very angry and he said, “Don’t ask so many crazy questions”, people will think you are being obnoxious. Carl did not want to be obnoxious so he stopped asking questions. He did not know what being obnoxious was, so he did not want to ask the man what being obnoxious was. Little children don’t know what being obnoxious is, so it doesn’t interfere with their walking. Carl decided it would be better not to ask. It didn’t seem very important as long as he could continue walking.

Oceans are salty and they make the air smell nice when you walk along the seashore to listen to the waves, crashing along the beach. Carl wanted to know why grown-ups said that the ocean was blue when it wasn’t. Walking along the seashore, he could talk to the ocean, and find out why it looked blue when he looked at it, but when he poured it into a bottle, it was not blue.

When Carl was little, and the grownups were playing noisy games, he’d slip away quietly to avoid the noise. It was easy because he just walked away. He became very good at it. One day he walked along the seashore to a point of land that pushed itself into the sea. Beyond this point, he could not hear the noises anymore. This made him happy, and the pain in his ears went away. It did not matter if the sun was shining or not. All that mattered was that he was alone and that the grownup noises were gone.

There were no grownups here and all he could hear was the sound of the waves crashing on the shoreline, and the birds talking. The birds are always talking. Sometimes they sing softly and at other times they have to squawk. This is not noise to the ears of little children. The birds float and dip in the wind, and talk to the ocean and the other birds.

Not far from the ocean there was an evergreen forest. It looked dark and scary from the seashore, but when Carl entered the forest all was quiet and peaceful. It was so quiet that he could hear someone talking inside his head. The voice said, “Come, don’t be afraid”. Carl wasn’t afraid because he was an explorer. All small children are explorers. He didn’t know why he was an explorer, but he knew he wanted to explore the forest. He was exploring a new land. He was searching for a land where there were no noises and no wars. He could not see or hear anyone, so he continued on his way. The sun was shining in between the trees to warm up the forest floor.

This floor was the biggest floor he had ever seen. The forest floor was covered with a soft green carpet. When he walked on it, it did not make any sound.

He tried to make a noise, by jumping up and down, but he couldn’t. The moss on the forest floor would not let him. The moss said, “Be quiet please, the baby animals are sleeping”.

The trees were tall, and he had to lean far back to see their tops. He leaned too far, and he fell on the forest floor. It did not hurt so he sat up on the floor.

He heard a bird singing. He took off his boots and his stockings to walk on the forest floor. It felt good on his little feet. He stood up and walked to where the bird was singing. All the trees were covered with thick, brown skin to protect them from the cold and to keep the water inside their bodies.

The trees had long arms extending away from their bodies. This was a resting place for the birds. The birds stood on the branches to sing and to rest when they were tired. Birds love the forest. It is less windy in the forest than it is over the ocean. This makes it easier for the small birds to fly. The ocean is where the wind is strong and cold. It is quiet in the forest, and the birds make little cups of grass and twigs here, to lay their eggs. Birds make tiny eggs to keep their babies warm and protected when they are young.

They make a little house inside their bodies so that when their babies come out they don’t have to get dressed right away. The mother bird sits on these eggs very gently. This is to keep them warm and safe. Later they will hatch. This is when the baby birds break their egg shells and tell their mother that they are big enough to come out and play. They say, “cheep, cheep, cheep”. This means that they are hungry and they want to eat now. Baby birds like to eat, and they eat a lot. When they are young, they’re always hungry. They eat little bugs and little worms. They taste very good. Their mouths are small and they can only eat small pieces of food.

They cannot fly right away because their wings are too short and they have no feathers on them. Their wings are covered with a tiny fur called down. Later they will grow feathers like their parents. Their feathers will be the same colour as their mother’s or father’s, depending on whether they are little boy birds or little girl birds. Most of the time they have brothers and sisters, and they all wait in their little baskets for their mothers and fathers to bring them tiny worms and bugs. They can only eat small pieces, so their parents have to cut them into small pieces with their sharp beaks. Their parents put the food in their beaks because they have no plates and forks to eat with.

Carl wanted to walk towards a chirping sound. He had never heard this sound before. He was an explorer. He had to find out what was making that sound. It sounded like music. Something fell on his head. He looked up and saw a squirrel laughing at him. Carl said, “Hi! What is your name?” The small brown animal said, “I am a squirrel”. The squirrel dropped another shell on Carl’s head. Carl said, “Hey, why are you dropping things on my head”? The squirrel laughed. “Why are you standing under my branch”? Carl laughed. The sun was shining and Carl and the squirrel are laughing.

“Where are your boots, little one”? “They are at the tree where the bird is singing”. “Which bird is that”? asked the squirrel. “The brown and yellow bird on that branch”, said Carl. Carl turned around to show the brown and yellow bird to the squirrel, but the brown and yellow bird was gone. “There’s no bird on that branch”, said the squirrel. “Birds don’t stay on a branch very long”. “They only stop to rest, if there is no nest on the branch”. This was something new to Carl, and he wanted to find out why. When he turned around to ask the squirrel, the squirrel was gone. He walked to the tree, to put his boots on but they were gone.

He could hear the ocean. The ocean was saying, “Carl, come and talk to me”. “I want you to meet my friends”. Carl walked to the ocean. The ocean was close by. When he left the forest, the sun was way up in the sky. His eyes hurt so he closed them a little bit. He could not look into the sun, and when he closed his eyes, he fell down onto the sand. There was a branch on a rock, and it pulled on his foot. The branch made a little red mark on his foot. “Where are my boots”, he said to the ocean. The ocean said, “You left them in the forest”. “Yes”, said Carl. Carl’s stomach was saying, “Carl, I’m hungry”. Carl was hungry too. He said, “Goodbye. Ocean”, and he began to walk home. He could not walk fast because his boots were in the Forest below the Tree where the Squirrel lived.