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A Brief Guide to Writing Short Stories Effectively (writing short stories) A short story is basically a condensed version of a book or a rapidly progressing story. It has fewer characters than a novel and covers less amount of time. A short story generally is around 6,000 words or 6 pages. Do your research and organization before you begin to write. Outline your plot and the background. Make sure they make sense and flow together. Individually list the events of the story in the order in which they occur. Create your characters. Not just their name and role in the story, but as if they were real people with real lives. By creating more information for your characters you will get a sense of what they would do or how they would be and convey that to your writing. By creating an outline you will have a point of reference to look back upon and make sure you have included all vital points of the story. When writing a short story, you will need a captivating first paragraph. You have roughly 5 to 7 lines to appeal to your reads unlike novels that have the whole first chapter. This can actually make or break your story. You will need to grab their attention and keep it to make them want to read more. By starting the plot in the first few sentences it will make people want to know more. They will keep reading to find out who is involved and why. Keep the timeline of events brief. You are writing a short story and the timeline should match that. A timeline of a day, a week, or maybe even a month is generally the span a story should cover. Use character dialogue as a way to move the plot ahead. In a short story there is no time for general chitchat. By using the character dialogue you are deepening the plot as well as moving it along. Do not add unnecessary characters. By adding them you are wasting time one someone that is not linked to your story or its plot. Provide swift and precise details to keep the story moving. Elaborate descriptions of characters, plot, or surroundings will only waste your words and are not essential to making a good story. Use short words instead of phrases that mean the same thing. Building to the climax should be most of the story. Keep the conflicts building to the climax simple and easy to understand. You writing should be able to evoke the following emotions empathy, pain, hurt, despair, surprise, and desire just to name a few. Since the story is only a few pages long in its entirety it is necessary to maintain consistency through out the beginning, middle, and end. Make sure the dialog and plot complement each other. Keep the same point of view through out the story. You are almost ready to be published. After completing your own proofreading and editing, let someone else read it, a neighbor, your spouse, colleague, or a close friend. Even if they are not writers themselves they will be able to help point out any grammar errors. They will be able to tell you if something just doesn’t make sense. You are trying to fit a lot of captivating information in a small space; it is easy to leave something out. Something you may not catch because you know what is supposed to happen, while your will not. By following these simple rules, you will be able to write a short story that is captivating and effective. Writing short stories isn’t for everyone. Many writers like more detail and for short stories the space is just not available.

How to Choose Writing Software and a Few Suggestions (writing software) There are many choices available to today’s writers. From the cheapest to the most expensive the choice is entirely yours. Writing software can make you life easier and more organized. Whether you are an established writer or just starting out there is writing software available for you. First, you need to figure out what features you are looking for in the writing software. You do this by first accessing your needs as a writer. What kind of writing do you do? Do you write screenplays, novels, technical writings, or a collaboration of things? By knowing what you are going to expect from the writing software will make it much easier to pick out. From writing poems, to advertisements, to novels there is writing software out there for you. Here are a few that you can consider: Write That Down is software that is geared towards agents, publishers, freelancers, and screen writers. The application has tabs for contests, publications, submissions, accounts, and many more. It offers features from both sides of the writing world, for the writers and publishers. This may be a little too much for some. The Wizard of Words is pretty much a one size fits all as far as writing software goes. It has formatting for novels, articles, short stories, term papers, and so much more. For book writers is has a repair editing wizard that reformats just about any aspect you need it to. It even has tools for creating book proposals and query letters and mass mailing them. It requires Microsoft word 97 and higher. Style Writer is a style and grammar checking. It checks your writing against over 35,000 common language problems. You can change the type of writing it is checking and it adapts to the document type. It has 15 specialized features that will help you in your writing ventures. You can add and delete the grammar and style advice. It will track your progress and show you as you learn to stop making these mistakes on your own. When you install the software it merges itself with your own word processor. Writers Block is a replacement for Microsoft word. This software is a word processor and spread sheet rolled into one. It allows you to write in blocks and then arrange them how you want. It has a power panel in which you enter the writing for the current block. It floats above other programs so you can easily read from one page and type into the power panel. Rough Draft is a free download program. Well they would like donations but that is your choice. It is similar to Microsoft word but is more user friendly. It has special modes for plays and screenwriting. And it has an instant back up feature. Unfortunately, it does not have a grammar checker, tables, pictures, or footnotes. A popular choice for written media publishing is Adobe Page Maker. You can type your text right into the formatted layout and has a new data merge feature that you can merge previously saved spreadsheets or other databases to create new projects. That is just a brief overview of a few of the writing software products out there that looked interesting to me. During your writing journey, search for writing software that have multiple purposes, such as those software titles that create congressional letter, name generators, poetry, and jokes. Whether you are an inspiring new writer, an accomplished novelist that has been writing for years, or maybe a publisher or editor there is software out there for you.

Communication Key to a Better Work Environment Everyone knows the story of A Christmas Carole. On Christmas Eve, poor Bob Cratchit, who is working late again, spends his day working up the courage to ask his boss, Mr. Scrooge, if he can have Christmas Day off from work to spend with his family. When he finally does get up the nerve to ask, Mr. Scrooge lets forth a tirade over lazy people using Christmas as an excuse to have a day a off from work. This fictional story unfortunately rings true for a lot of people who have to work up the courage to ask for things from their employers. An employee who has to feel about their employer the way Bob Cratchit felt about Mr. Scrooge is not a very happy and productive employee. To get the most of out of your workers, you have to create a much more hospitable working environment. To create a better working environment, keeping the lines of communication open is absolutely crucial. How does communication work in your office? Do you get the impression that everyone is walking around on eggshells around you? While this kind of fear from your employees may be good for your ego in some senses, it is really bad for your business. When your employees don’t feel like they can talk to you, you will lose control over what is going on with your business. You may be the boss, but your employees are the ones who are actually on the front lines. To know what is really going on out there, you need your employees to communicate honestly with you. If they feel that you are unapproachable, they will hide problems and concerns from you, and you won’t be able to act to fix them. You can’t expect to run your business with half of the information about what is actually going on, and so your business will suffer for your “mean boss” routine. There are still other problems with creating an office environment in which your employees feel like you are unapproachable. In general, there will be a dark cloud over the office when you are around. The stress will keep employee morale low, and employees with low morale are employees with low productivity. Besides, who wants to work hard for someone they cannot approach or who doesn’t show they any respect? Shutting down those lines of communication will definitely affect your bottom line as employees “phone it in” because they don’t feel invested in making your business a success. If you want a better working environment, you have to improve the lines of communication. If there has been a communication breakdown in the past, take the time to address it with your staff. If you staff is small, talk to them each one on one, letting them know that your door is always open and that you want more regular communication with them. If you have a larger staff, schedule a meeting to address the issue. Weekly office meetings are a great way to keep communication channels open and swap ideas in the office environment. If weekly meetings are not feasible, find some way of touching base with your staff on a regular basis, either through weekly emails or a weekly newsletter. Also, you should encourage your staff to communicate with each other. Sharing information among the staff is a great way to generate fresh ideas and fresh approaches to problems. If your office is suffering from a communication problem, make nipping it in the bud a priority. The pay off will be more productive workers and a whole lot less stress. Who knew work could actually be a pleasant place to be?