Working Out a Story -- Thinking It Over
II. Thinking It Over
You will have certain hours for writing, and on the days when you are writing one story you should be planning two or three others, thinking over the details at odd moments, so that you will have everything ready to begin writing again when the story on hand is finished. This thinking it over can best be done systematically, too, according to the following method:
1. Choose a magazine. It is better to write with the requirements and limitations of some one good magazine in view than to write at haphazard.
2. Select a theme suitable to that magazine.
S. Turn this theme over and over and try it with different sets of characters until you find those that seem best adapted to it.
4. Decide upon the atmosphere of your story. Shall it be a Christmas story, a Russian story, a story of rural life, a story of New York society? Complete your character conceptions according to the environment chosen.
5. Decide upon the tone or style which you will use. The very same story may sometimes be told for either The Smart Set or The Youth's Companion, but the style of treatment must be radically different.
6. Select a title. A title should be striking enough to attract the attention of the reader and make him wonder what the story is about. Sometimes a good title will save a good deal of explanation in the body of the story. A title should be short enough to print at the head of a magazine page and symmetrical enough to look well there.
7. Work out the details of your plot. This is not the place to explain the necessary qualities of a good plot. They may be found at length in "How to Write a Short-Story," and various details of the subject arc discussed every month in The Editor.
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