The Short Story Plot

Since stories revolve around the change in the characters. A good way to create story ideas is to first create a character.

You can write the characters out on note cards or computer, but your method should be one "object" per character - one card, one word document, etc. This way you can pull them out of the virtual deck, and organize them together to play their part in a story.

Write down a few traits that define the characters personality, where they live, when they live, their age and a few things about their background. What they do for a living, etc.

Once you understand what makes a character tick, you can write down what they want.

Notecards make a great, portable way to write down plot ideas while you are on the go.

Once you know what a character wants, you can develop a typical protagonist vs. antagonist plot by developing a character who wants to stop the protagonist from getting what they want.

The reasons that the antagonist doesn't want the hero to reach their objective has to make sense, and has to be in line with the antagonist's belifs. Make sure both the anotagoist and protagonist have believable objectives.

Writing about something you feel deeply about lends your writing a sense of realism. Draw from your own emotions and past experiences as much as possible.

Some stories will be plots in which the main character must make a major decision. In this case, the there should be reasons that the character should not make the decision.

"Bob would have taken the job in Detroit, but his daughter is going to college here, and he would only see her on holidays."

"Jessiera would have given the ingredients to the old witch, except she knew what the hag would do with them. She could only guess what the apparition would do to her if she didn't."

In the above examples, the decision is the focus of the story, and the climax of the plot will be the decision itself. Usually the decision will result in something significant to the main characer.

A third type of story is self discovery, which tends to be a more introspective story line in which the main character discovers something about himself. These types of stories are ussually slower-paced, sometimes the character change occuring through reflection.

Perhaps the wealthy wife of a plantation owner who witnesses the birth of a baby amongst her slaves. It is not until this moment that she recognizes that slaves are no less people than her, and she recognizes the ugly reality of her position.

In any story type, nature can play the role of adversary. Things that stand between the character and their objective can be anything, from wind and rain to time itself.

Once you have determined who will be in the story, and why, lay the story line out in sequential scenes.
Create a seperate document for each scene.

Think of each scene as as scene in a movie, but also think of it as a complete story, with the characters in the scene having their own goals.

Naturally, the characters will ussually fail in the goals, often placing themselves in a worse position from section to section, providing for the continuation of the story.

Between each scene, allow the character to think about what occured in the prior section, and make a decision that leads them to the next one.

Smaller sections of thinking create a faster paced story. Longer passages of thought create a slower moving story.
It is not until the climax of the story that the objective is finally met, or not met, and the issue is finally resolved, the character changed and the reader has experienced a sense of closure.