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Remember: Most people in book publishing believe that a cover is a book’s No. 1 marketing tool.

1. The title should be big and easy to read. This is more important than ever. (Many people will first encounter your cover on a screen, not on a shelf.) This is such a well-worn cliche of cover design that I have a designer friend with a Facebook photo album called “Make the Title Bigger.”

2. Don’t forget to review a thumbnail image of the cover. Is the cover compelling at a small size? More people are buying books on a Kindle or mobile device, so you want the cover to read clearly no matter where it appears. You should also anticipate what the cover looks like in grayscale.

3. Do not use any of the following fonts (anywhere!): Comic Sans or Papyrus. These fonts are only acceptable if you are writing a humor book, or intentionally attempting to create a design that publishing professionals will laugh at.

4. No font explosions! (And avoid special styling.) Usually a cover should not use more than 2 fonts. Avoid the temptation to put words in caps, italics caps, outlined caps, etc. Do not “shape” the type either.

5. Do not use your own artwork, or your children’s artwork, on the cover. There are a few rare exceptions to this, but let’s assume you are NOT one of them. It’s almost always a terrible idea.

6. Do not use cheap clip art on your cover. I’m talking about the stuff that comes free with Microsoft Word or other cheap layout programs. Quality stock photography is OK. (iStockPhoto is one reliable source for quality images.)

7. Do not stick an image inside a box on the cover. I call this the “T-shirt” design. It looks extremely amateurish.

8. Avoid gradients. It’s especially game-over if you have a cover with a rainbow gradient.

9. Avoid garish color combinations. Sometimes such covers are meant to catch people’s attention. Usually, it just makes your book look freakish.

10. Finally: Don’t design your own cover. The only people who should consider designing their own covers are professional graphic designers—and even then, it’s not advisable.

Bonus tip: No sunrise photos, no sunset photos, no ocean photos, no fluffy clouds.

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Go Fund Me information about what it needed for affective campaign - Britney

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Go Fund Me information about what it needed for affective campaign - Britney

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Campaign ideas:

Social media

Share it through emails

Use facebook

Tips for good descriptions:

High modality

Persuasive techniques

Descriptive words

Ideas to go into description:

Reason to fund us

What the book includes

A segment of what one of the stories about to get readers enticed

A photo of what the book cover may look like and illustrations inside

Include the blurb at the back of the book

https://support.gofundme.com/hc/en-us/articles/203604494-GoFundMe-Guide-Six-Steps-to-a-Successful-Campaign

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Hello fellow teachers!

Teaching writing has probably never been harder. How do you teach writing to students whose main experience with writing is text messaging!

At the same time, writing is more important now than ever. Colleges make life-changing decisions about students' acceptance based on their writing, and employers say good writing is a hard skill to find in the workplace. Writing is a must-have skill.

So how can you teach writing more effectively?

How to Teach Writing

At The Write Practice, we strive to convince our readers why learning to write better is important to them and their lives, and we do this before we ever teach a single concept.

In other words, we talk about the question why a lot because we believe that a student whois convinced what they're learning is important to them will always learn better.

We also believe deeply in deliberate practice, and that's why at the end of each lesson, we give students a chance to put what they've just learned to use immediately, encouraging them to share their work with other writers to get feedback.

Teaching Resources for Writing

With that in mind, we've assembled a list of our eleven best resources about writing for students.

1. Why We Write: Four Reasons. George Orwell wrote that there are four reasons why people write. We've updated his list to encourage new and experienced writers alike to think about what motivates them to write. Click here to view the article.

5. Why Your Writing Sounds Weird (And What to Do About It). Most schools don't teach sentence structure anymore, but the reality is that if your sentences aren't structured correctly, your writing will sound weird. Here's a fun and authoritative guide to sentence structure. Click here to view the article.

9. 16 Observations About Real Dialogue. Writing good dialogue is hard work. In this article, we give honest observations about realistic dialogue, and then challenge students to a fun and creative exercise. Click here to view the article.

11. 10 Best Writing Prompts. Students love writing prompts, and these are our 10 best! Have fun with them! Click here to view the article.

How to Use These Resources

You're welcome to use these resources in any of the following ways:

Print the articles and use them in your classes

Email or link within your syllabus for your students to view on their own

Develop lesson plans based on the concepts discussed

Use the exercises at the end of each article for homework projects

Allow students to read and critique each others' writing

Also, if you do decided to use any of these resources in your classrooms, please send us a note letting us know. We love hearing from teachers!

Good luck, and happy writing!

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Teaching Resources: 10 Resources for Writing Teachers

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Hello fellow teachers! Teaching writing has probably never been harder. How do you teach writing to students whose main experience with writing is text messaging! At the same time, writing is more important now than ever. Colleges make life-changing decisions about students' acceptance based on their writing, and employers say good writing is a hard skill to find in the ...

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Our characterisation doc

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Create a new document and edit with others at the same time -- from your computer, phone or tablet. Get stuff done with or without an internet connection. Use Docs to edit Word files. Free from Google.

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https://docs.google.com/a/education.nsw.gov.au/presentation/d/1czZ8SeiKMSOzvP8yCvOTvN-69cBBdu2eaOicdDYU1iM/edit?usp=sharing

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a description of how to set out a short story

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Usually read in one sitting in approximately 30 minutes

Limited number of characters (1 or 2)

Limited setting

Unexpected endings

Lack of closure

Focus on one incident

Abrupt beginning, story starts in the middle of the action

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What are the elements of the setting?

Broadly defined, setting is the location of the plot, including the region, geography, climate, neighbourhood, buildings, and interiors. Setting, along with pacing, also suggests passage of time. Place is layered into every scene and flashback, built of elements such as weather, lighting, the season, and the hour.

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This is our google doc of the setting element of creative writing

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I made a word document with links that I found helpful.

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Create a new document and edit with others at the same time -- from your computer, phone or tablet. Get stuff done with or without an internet connection. Use Docs to edit Word files. Free from Google.

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Jerz > Writing > General Creative Writing Tips [ Poetry | Fiction ]

Writing short stories means beginning as close to the climax as possible - everything else is a distraction. A novel can take a more meandering path, but should still start with a scene that sets the tone for the whole book.

A short story conserves characters and scenes, typically by focusing on just one conflict, and drives towards a sudden, unexpected revelation. Go easy on the exposition and talky backstory - your reader doesn't need to know everything that you know about your characters.

1. Get Started: Emergency Tips

Do you have a short story assignment due tomorrow morning? The rest of this document covers longer-term strategies, but if you are in a pinch, these emergency tips may help. Good luck!

What does your protagonist want?
(The athlete who wants her team to win the big game and the car crash victim who wants to survive are not unique or interesting enough.)

When the story begins, what morally significant action has your protagonist taken towards that goal?
(Your protagonist should already have made a conscious choice, good or bad, that drives the rest of the story.)

What unexpected consequences - directly related to the protagonist's goal-oriented actions - ramp up the emotional energy of the story?
(Will the unexpected consequences force your protagonist to make yet another choice, leading to still more consequences?)

What details from the setting, dialog, and tone help you tell the story? Things to cut:

Travel scenes. (Save words. "Later, at the office, I...")

Character A telling character B about something we just saw happening to character A. (Cut the redundancy.)

Facial expressions of a first-person narrator. (We can't see what our own faces look like, so don't write "A smile lit my face from ear to ear.") See Writing Dialogue.

What morally significant choice does your protagonist make at the climax of the story?
(Your reader should care about the protagonist's decision. Ideally, the reader shouldn't see it coming.)

An effective short story (or poem) does not simply record or express the author's feelings; rather, it generates feelings in the reader. (See " Show, Don't (Just) Tell.")

Drawing on your own real-life experiences, such as winning the big game, bouncing back after an illness or injury, or dealing with the death of a loved one, are attractive choices for students who are looking for a "personal essay" topic. But simply listing the emotions you experienced ("It was exciting" "I've never been so scared in all my life" "I miss her so much") is not the same thing as generating emotions for your readers to experience.

Keep a notebook. To R. V. Cassill, notebooks are "incubators," a place to begin with overheard conversation, expressive phrases, images, ideas, and interpretations on the world around you.

Write on a regular, daily basis. Sit down and compose sentences for a couple of hours every day - even if you don't feel like it.

Collect stories from everyone you meet. Keep the amazing, the unusual, the strange, the irrational stories you hear and use them for your own purposes. Study them for the underlying meaning and apply them to your understanding of the human condition.

For those of you who are looking for more long-term writing strategies, here are some additional ideas.

Read, Read, Read

Read a LOT of Chekhov. Then re-read it. Read Raymond Carver, Earnest Hemingway, Alice Munro, and Tobias Wolff. If you don't have time to read all of these authors, stick to Chekhov. He will teach you more than any writing teacher or workshop ever could.-Allyson Goldin, UWEC Asst. Professor of Creative Writing

2. Write a Catchy First Paragraph

In today's fast-moving world, the first sentence of your narrative should catch your reader's attention with the unusual, the unexpected, an action, or a . Begin with tension and immediacy. Remember that short stories need to start close to their end.

Dry. Nothing sparks the reader's imagination.

The second sentence catches the reader's attention. Who is this guy who goes in his shower every day and screams? Why does he do that? What, exactly, is "scream therapy"? Let's keep reading...

The rest of the paragraph introduces I and an internal conflict as the protagonist debates a course of action and introduces an intriguing contrast of past and present setting.

"It is important to understand the basic elements of fiction writing before you consider how to put everything together. This process is comparable to producing something delectable in the kitchen-any ingredient that you put into your bowl of dough impacts your finished loaf of bread. To create a perfect loaf, you must balance ingredients baked for the correct amount of time and enhanced with the right polishing glaze." -Laurel Yourke

3. Developing Characters

Your job, as a writer of short fiction-whatever your beliefs-is to put complex personalities on stage and let them strut and fret their brief hour. Perhaps the sound and fury they make will signify something that has more than passing value-that will, in Chekhov's words, "make [man] see what he is like." - Rick Demarnus

In order to develop a living, breathing, multi-faceted character, it is important to know way more about the character than you will ever use in the story. Here is a partial list of character details to help you get started.

Appearance. Gives your reader a visual understanding of the character.

Action. Show the reader what kind of person your character is, by describing actions rather than simply listing adjectives.

Speech. Develop the character as a person - don't merely have your character announce important plot details.

Thought. Bring the reader into your character's mind, to show them your character's unexpressed memories, fears, and hopes.

Imagining all these details will help you get to know your character, but your reader probably won't need to know much more than the most important things in four areas:

For example, let's say I want to develop a college student persona for a short story that I am writing. What do I know about her?

Her name is Jen, short for Jennifer Mary Johnson. She is 21 years old. She is a fair-skinned Norwegian with blue eyes, long, curly red hair, and is 5 feet 6 inches tall. Contrary to the stereotype about redheads, she is actually easygoing and rather shy. She loves cats and has two of them named Bailey and Allie. She is a technical writing major with a minor in biology. Jen plays the piano and is an amateur photographer. She lives in the dorms at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire. She eats pizza every day for lunch and loves Red Rose tea. She cracks her knuckles when she is nervous. Her mother just committed suicide.

4. Choose a Point of View

First Person. The story is told from the view of "I." The narrator is either the protagonist (main character) and directly affected by unfolding events, or the narrator is a secondary character telling the story revolving around the protagonist.

I saw a tear roll down his cheek. I had never seen my father cry before. I looked away while he brushed the offending cheek with his hand.

This is a good choice for beginning writers because it is the easiest to write. (But if your viewpoint character is too much like you, a first-person story might end up being a too-transparent exercise in wish-fulfillment, or score-settling.)

Second Person. The story is told directly to "you", with the reader as a participant in the action.

You laughed loudly at the antics of the clown. You clapped your hands with joy.

(See also Jerz on interactive fiction.)

Third Person. The story tells what "he", "she," or "it" does. The third-person narrator's perspective can be limited (telling the story from one character's viewpoint) or omniscient (where the narrator knows everything about all of the characters).

He ran to the big yellow loader sitting on the other side of the gravel pit shack.

Your narrator might take sides in the conflict you present, might be as transparent as possible, or might advocate a position that you want your reader to challenge (this is the "unreliable narrator" strategy).

First Person. "Unites narrator and reader through a series of secrets" when they enter one character's perceptions. However, it can "lead to telling" and limits readers connections to other characters in the short story.

Second Person. "Puts readers within the actual scene so that readers confront possibilities directly." However, it is important to place your characters "in a tangible environment" so you don't "omit the details readers need for clarity."

Third Person Omniscient. Allows you to explore all of the characters' thoughts and motivations. Transitions are extremely important as you move from character to character.

Third Person Limited. "Offers the intimacy of one character's perceptions." However, the writer must "deal with character absence from particular scenes."

Point of view is the narration of the story from the perspective of first, second, or third person. As a writer, you need to determine who is going to tell the story and how much information is available for the narrator to reveal in the short story. The narrator can be directly involved in the action subjectively, or the narrator might only report the action objectively.

Yourke on point of view:

5. Write Meaningful Dialogue

Make your readers hear the pauses between the sentences. Let them see characters lean forward, fidget with their cuticles, avert their eyes, uncross their legs. - Jerome Stern

Dialogue is what your characters say to each other (or to themselves).
Write Meaningful Dialogue Labels
Each speaker gets his/her own paragraph, and the paragraph includes whatever you wish to say about what the character is doing when speaking. (See: " Quotation Marks: Using Them in Dialogue ".)

The above paragraph is confusing, because it is not clear when one speech stops and the other starts.

"Where are you going?" John asked nervously.
"To the racetrack," Mary said, trying to figure out whether John was too upset to let her get away with it this time.
"Not again," said John, wondering how they would make that month's rent. "We are already maxed out on our credit cards."

The second example is mechanically correct, since it uses a separate paragraph to present each speaker's turn advancing the conversation. But the narrative material between the direct quotes is mostly useless.

"John asked nervously" is an example of "telling." The author could write "John asked very nervously" or "John asked so nervously that his voice was shaking," and it still wouldn't make the story any more effective.

How can the author convey John's state of mind, without coming right out and telling the reader about it? By inference. That is, mention a detail that conjures up in the reader's mind the image of a nervous person.

Beware - a little detail goes a long way. Why would your reader bother to engage with the story, if the author carefully explains what each and every line means?

6. Use Setting and Context

Remember to combine setting with characterization and plot.

Include enough detail to let your readers picture the scene but only details that actually add something to the story. (For example, do not describe Mary locking the front door, walking across the yard, opening the garage door, putting air in her bicycle tires, getting on her bicycle-none of these details matter except that she rode out of the driveway without looking down the street.)

Use two or more senses in your descriptions of setting.

Rather than feed your readers information about the weather, population statistics, or how far it is to the grocery store, substitute descriptive details so your reader can experience the location the way your characters do.

Our sojourn in the desert was an educational contrast with its parched heat, dust storms, and cloudless blue sky filled with the blinding hot sun. The rare thunderstorm was a cause for celebration as the dry cement tunnels of the aqueducts filled rapidly with rushing water. Great rivers of sand flowed around and through the metropolitan inroads of man's progress in the greater Phoenix area, forcefully moved aside for concrete and steel structures. Palm trees hovered over our heads and saguaro cactuses saluted us with their thorny arms.

Setting moves readers most when it contributes to an organic whole. So close your eyes and picture your characters within desert, jungle, or suburb-whichever setting shaped them. Imagining this helps balance location and characterization. Right from the start, view your characters inhabiting a distinct place. - - Laurel Yourke

Setting includes the time, location, context, and atmosphere where the plot takes place.

7. Set Up the Plot

Plot is what happens, the storyline, the action. Jerome Stern says it is how you set up the situation, where the turning points of the story are, and what the characters do at the end of the story.

Explosion or "Hook." A thrilling, gripping, stirring event or problem that grabs the reader's attention right away.

A character versus the internal self or an external something or someone.

Exposition. Background information required for seeing the characters in context.

Complication. One or more problems that keep a character from their intended goal.

Transition. Image, symbol, dialogue, that joins paragraphs and scenes together.

Flashback. Remembering something that happened before the short story takes place.

Climax. When the rising action of the story reaches the peak.

Falling Action. Releasing the action of the story after the climax.

Resolution. When the internal or external conflict is resolve.

A plot is a series of events deliberately arranged so as to reveal their dramatic, thematic, and emotional significance. - Janet Burroway

1. She becomes a workaholic.

2. Their children are unhappy.

3. Their children want to live with their dad.

4. She moves to another city.

5. She gets a new job.

6. They sell the house.

7. She meets a psychiatrist and falls in love.

8. He comes back and she accepts him.

9. He comes back and she doesn't accept him.

10. She commits suicide.

11. He commits suicide.

12. She moves in with her parents.

Understanding these story elements for developing actions and their end results will help you plot your next short story.

Brainstorming. If you are having trouble deciding on a plot, try brainstorming. Suppose you have a protagonist whose husband comes home one day and says he doesn't love her any more and he is leaving. What are actions that can result from this situation?

The next step is to select one action from the list and brainstorm another list from that particular action.

8. Create Conflict and Tension

Conflict is the fundamental element of fiction, fundamental because in literature only trouble is interesting. It takes trouble to turn the great themes of life into a story: birth, love, sex, work, and death. - Janet Burroway

The protagonist against another individual

The protagonist against nature (or technology)

The protagonist against society

The protagonist against God

The protagonist against himself or herself.

Conflict produces tension that makes the story begin. Tension is created by opposition between the character or characters and internal or external forces or conditions. By balancing the opposing forces of the conflict, you keep readers glued to the pages wondering how the story will end.

Mystery. Explain just enough to tease readers. Never give everything away.

Empowerment. Give both sides options.

Progression. Keep intensifying the number and type of obstacles the protagonist faces.

Causality. Hold fictional characters more accountable than real people. Characters who make mistakes frequently pay, and, at least in fiction, commendable folks often reap rewards.

Surprise. Provide sufficient complexity to prevent readers predicting events too far in advance.

Empathy. Encourage reader identification with characters and scenarios that pleasantly or (unpleasantly) resonate with their own sweet dreams (or night sweats).

Insight. Reveal something about human nature.

Universality. Present a struggle that most readers find meaningful, even if the details of that struggle reflect a unique place and time.

High Stakes. Convince readers that the outcome matters because someone they care about could lose something precious. Trivial clashes often produce trivial fiction.

Possible Conflicts Include:

Yourke's Conflict Checklist

9. Build to a Crisis or Climax

This is the turning point of the story -the most exciting or dramatic moment.

The crisis may be a recognition, a decision, or a resolution. The character understands what hasn't been seen before, or realizes what must be done, or finally decides to do it. It's when the worm turns. Timing is crucial. If the crisis occurs too early, readers will expect still another turning point. If it occurs too late, readers will get impatient-the character will seem rather thick.- Jerome Stern

Jane Burroway says that the crisis "must always be presented as a scene. It is "the moment" the reader has been waiting for. In Cinderella's case, "the payoff is when the slipper fits."

While a good story needs a crisis, a random event such as a car crash or a sudden illness is simply an emergency -unless it somehow involves a conflict that makes the reader care about the characters (see: " Crisis vs. Conflict ").

10. Find a Resolution

Open. Readers determine the meaning.
Brendan's eyes looked away from the priest and up to the mountains.

Resolved. Clear-cut outcome.
While John watched in despair, Helen loaded up the car with her belongings and drove away.

Parallel to Beginning. Similar to beginning situation or image.

They were driving their 1964 Chevrolet Impala down the highway while the wind blew through their hair.

Her father drove up in a new 1964 Chevrolet Impala, a replacement for the one that burned up.

Monologue. Character comments.
I wish Tom could have known Sister Dalbec's prickly guidance before the dust devils of Sin City battered his soul.

Dialogue. Characters converse.

Literal Image. Setting or aspect of setting resolves the plot.
The aqueducts were empty now and the sun was shining once more.

Symbolic Image. Details represent a meaning beyond the literal one.
Looking up at the sky, I saw a cloud cross the shimmering blue sky above us as we stood in the morning heat of Sin City.

The solution to the conflict. In short fiction, it is difficult to provide a complete resolution and you often need to just show that characters are beginning to change in some way or starting to see things differently.

Yourke examines some of the options for ending a story.

Got Writer's Block?

The Writer's Block
Comprehensive Web site that offers solutions to beating writer's block such as various exercises (not necessarily physical), advice from prolific writers, and how to know if you really have writer's block.

Regular access to an instructor who is a published author, and a peer group that is motivated to read your drafts, might just be the extra motivation you need to develop your own skills.

If you are counting on the credits transferring to help you complete an academic program, check with your university registrar.

Overcoming Writer's Block
Precise, short list of ways to start writing again.

Learn through Schooling
Some online colleges and universities offer creative writing courses. Look for ones that offer creative writing courses that cover the plot and structure of short stories.

Show, Don't (Just) Tell
Don't just tell me your brother is funny... show me what he says and does, and let me decide whether I want to laugh. To convince your readers, show, don't just tell them what you want them to know. There. I've just told you something. Pretty boring, huh? Now, let me show you...

Short Stories: Developing Ideas for Short Fiction
A short story is tight - there is no room for long exposition, there are no subplots to explore, and by the end of the story there should be no loose ends to tie up. End right at the climax, so that the reader has to imagine how a life-changing event will affect the protagonist.

Creative Writing Forum
Have a story you'd like to share? Looking for feedback? Feel free to post in this creative writing forum.

MLA Style: Step-By-Step Instructions for Formatting MLA Papers
Need to write a paper in MLA format? This step-by-step includes images showing how to use MS-Word to create the title block, page layout, and works cited list.

Archived discussion of "Short Stories: 10 Tips for Creative Writers"
Dec. 2002 - submitted by Kathy Kennedy, UWEC Senior
(for Jerz's Advanced Technical Writing class)
Jan 2003 - edited by Jamie Dalbesio, UWEC Senior
(for an independent study project with Jerz)
May 2003 - edited by Jerz and posted at Seton Hill University
Jan 2007 - ongoing edits by Jerz
May 2008 - reformatted
Sep 2010 - tweaked Writer's Block section
Mar 2011 - reformatted and further tweaked
Jun 2017 - minor editing. Are "Keds" still a recognizable brand of kids shoes?

Related Pages

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Short Story Tips: 10 Ways to Improve Your Creative Writing

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Jerz > Writing > General Creative Writing Tips [ Poetry | Fiction ] Writing short stories means beginning as close to the climax as possible -- everything else is a distraction.

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https://docs.google.com/a/education.nsw.gov.au/document/d/1vTWi25mjXilf2GcJtnptpiujGGKf9GNFt4VZ0Dhcg7E/edit?usp=sharing

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(the other one won't delete)

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This creative writing assignment focuses on the importance of having a well-described setting in your student's fiction stories. By learning how to concentrate on details in their own rooms, neighborhoods and cities, they will be more able to express those qualities when creating fictional locations.

Start the creative writing assignment by teaching your students about setting. Discuss how setting is the context for a story and is often used to set the mood or tone. Since setting includes time, any location can be placed in a certain culture or historical period, for example, in many parts of the United States, a story set over 500 years ago would involve American Indians. Ask your students for some examples of setting in books that they enjoy and make a list.

Talk about the fact that many authors base the settings in their books on places that they've lived or places that they've researched. For example, popular young adult author Sarah Dessen bases many of her books in a town based on Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Give your students a creative writing assignment inside or outside of class to make a list of 10 sentences or more that describe the city you all live in. After the assignment is complete, have the students volunteer to read these descriptive sentences out loud and at the end, make a list on the board of some of the common themes that have come up. Ask your students to write down this list as well.

Follow this classroom activity with an assignment to create a story set in a fictional town that is very similar to the town or city you live in. Remind them that they have a whole list of ways to describe this location, in addition to all the sentences they heard in class. Give them as much freedom as possible with what the story can be about. When the assignment is complete, have as many of them read the story aloud in class as possible. This can be a great teaching moment for showing how the same town (the same setting) can be used completely differently in different stories. This goes to show how much impact a setting can have in fiction.

Other assignments you can create as a follow-up include having your students come up with a story based on a place they've never been, which would require extensive research or to have them make up a location on another planet entirely.

Done with Creative Writing Assignment #1? Go back to Creative Writing Tips.

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Written by Bryan Cohen Bryan Cohen is the author of more than 30 books, many of which focus on creative writing and blasting through that pesky writer's block. His books have sold more than 20,000 copies. You can find him on Google+ and Facebook.

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This creative writing assignment focuses on the importance of having a well-described setting in your student's fiction stories. By learning how to concentrate on details in their own rooms, neighborhoods and cities, they will be more able to express those qualities when creating fictional locations.

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This is my Google Document link that I created explaining both Morals and Themes.

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Dialogue meaning: A conversation between two or more people as a feature of a book, play or film.

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A informative link I found concerning the Theme and what affect it plays in short stories

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Go on share a little...

THEME IS PERSONAL

What is a theme is a question I am asked frequently. Particularly by younger visitors to this site.

The whole area of theme can be confusing, with some people mixing up the idea of theme with plot.

Many people read books that explore specific themes over and over again, sometimes without realizing it.
They do this because the themes mean something to them on a personal and emotional level.
In other words they are fully engaged in following the characters as they progress through the story. This is why it is so important that writers understand how theme affects their work.
People tend to choose books and films based on themes - whether they are conscious of it or not.
LOVE OR REVENGE?

You might hear someone saying they enjoy love stories and revenge stories etc.
Experienced writers can build a large fan-base of readers who relate to the particular themes they explore in their stories.
THEME AND PLOT

One of the biggest areas of confusion is the difference between theme and plot.
For example, the plot of a novel about marital breakdown may concern secret affairs between neighbours, but the theme may be betrayal, love, loneliness etc.
Another story might describe the actions of passengers in a plane crash but the theme could be loss, survival etc.

BETRAYAL

Stories can have more than one theme. The story about a plane crash could involve many themes. Was the plane sabotaged by the pilot's friend? Then betrayal would be a theme here.

REVENGE

If the pilot survives and returns to deal with his friend then you could be dealing with the theme of revenge.
In the same example there could be two newlyweds who find their love tested during their ordeal? Then the theme could be love. The plot is what the story is about, and theme is how the meaning of a story is defined.
In the above example the story remains the same but the themes have infinite and varied possibilities.
As an author, or writer, you do not explicitly tell the reader what the themes are in your story - this would detract from the reading experience.
SHOW DON'T TELL

You don't want to tell your readers what the story is you want to show them.

However, you would mention the themes in your synopsis, tag-line, or on the blurb on the back of your book.
Theme can be an important selling point as readers choose themes which appeal to them.
Instead of being told what the story is the reader, or viewer will learn almost subconsciously from following the character's experience.

Sometimes readers relate to a particular theme without actually identifying why that is.
The theme could be related to something from their childhood years, an incident, even a trauma, something they have never consciously thought about.
CAN YOUR AUDIENCE RELATE TO YOUR THEME?

If nobody can relate to the experiences of the characters in your story, then frankly, nobody will care.
This applies to film and television too. Caring about what happens to your characters is what engages your reader or viewer. This is what makes them keep reading, or watching.
CHOOSE YOUR STORY THEMES WISELY

No matter how cleverly plotted the events in your story are, they must relate to a widely understood or universal theme.

The reason theme is so important is because this is how a story relates to real human experience. There is more about choosing your theme here.

HUMAN EXPERIENCE IS WHAT MATTERS

Without a theme a story is just a list of events. In a successful work, theme and story influence each other and overlap.

In my own work I am aware that I have returned to explore certain themes several times. Survival, love, friendship and freedom are among the themes explored in my book Piggy Monk Square.
The best stories are the ones we remember long after reading and the stories we remember longest tend to be ones that explore the grey and complex areas in the thematic landscape.
Good stories explore questions where there can seem to be many answers - they engage us and make us think.

Stories like this allow your audience to explore the trials and tribulations of your characters while simultaneously absorbing the various consequences for the human condition. These stories make your readers think.

If you have succeeded in making your readers think, then your story has succeeded on a very important level.
Best of luck with your writing Grace
P.S. All the information on this site is provided free for you. All I ask in return is that if this article has helped you in some way please share it and let me know in the comments below.

If you have any questions please don't hesitate to ask. However, please don't ask me to do your homework...

Go on share a little...

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What is a theme? Learn how to identify the theme in a story.

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Go on share a little... What is a theme is a question I am asked frequently. Particularly by younger visitors to this site. The whole area of theme can be confusing, with some people mixing up the idea of theme with plot. Many people read books that explore specific themes over and over again, sometimes without realizing it.

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A very helpful link we found about charactisation

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Because of their flexibility and malleability, digital technologies - especially web-based tools - dramatically expand options for providing Universal Design for Learning (UDL) supports as compared with exclusively print-based media.

Created in partnership with the Google Literacy Project and Carnegie Corporation of New York to celebrate World Book Day in 2008, CAST launched UDL Editions of classic public domain texts, including a short story, sonnet, speech, and more, from world literature to demonstrate the power of technology to transform texts in a way that responds to the needs of all kinds of learners.

UDL Editions brought seven classic texts into a scaffolded digital reading environment with flexible supports for three facets of learning: understanding content, building skills, and having fun. Six of the texts could be viewed in English, and one in Spanish.

The tool reached a target audience of users 10 years of age or older. To incorporate UDL, readers chose their text and level of support desired: minimal, moderate, or maximum, and accessed multimedia resources for background information and enrichment activities for further learning.

Supports included:

Glossary words

In-context explanations of idioms and literary devices

Stop-and-think prompts

Animated coaches providing hints and support

Image descriptions

"Build-your-own" activities to understand the authors' craft

Interactive maps

Teacher resources

In addition, a toolbar contributed by Texthelp offered:

Text-to-speech read-aloud

Dictionary and encyclopedia links

Highlight-and-gather

Translations between English and Spanish

Varied literature was selected to show how a UDL-supported and scaffolded environment can support content across the curriculum and across grade levels. With powerful new technologies and UDL principles, old classics became smart, reader-friendly texts that opened up a new world of reading to learners with diverse abilities, interests, and skills.

UDL Editions and other literacy research project work conducted by CAST informed the development of UDL Studio, which guides and supports educators to build their own UDL-supported materials.

For more information about UDL Editions, contact Kristin Robinson.

UDL Editions in Research

Universal Design for Learning in the Classroom: Practical Applications, published in 2012, uses UDL Editions as a case study to discuss how the principles of UDL apply to reading comprehension, teaching, and learning in Chapter 3: Reading Strategy Instruction, Universal Design for Learning, and Digital Texts: Examples of an Integrated Approach.

In particular, it addresses the what, how, and why of reading:

What: What are the words on the page/screen, and what do they mean?

How: How does the reader make sense of the text?

Why: Why should the reader care about the text?

Learn more & order the book

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Publicized by Google around the world, UDL Editions was a model for presenting classic texts from world literature in a flexible online interface with just-in-time, individualized supports for struggling and expert readers alike.

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These are the top 10 elements of the setting in a creative writing piece.

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No matter if you are just getting started or want to break into fiction writing, setting is a crucial element to any story. In order to create an imaginary world for your story, you'll need to know the fundamental elements of setting first. Discover the basic elements of setting in a story from Between the Lines.

Fiction has three main elements: plotting, character, and place or setting. While writers spend countless hours plotting and creating characters and then imagining their character's arcs and dilemmas, often too little attention is paid to place. This is a fatal mistake, since the place fiction is staged provides the backdrop against which your dramas ultimately play out.

But setting is more than a mere backdrop for action; it is an interactive aspect of your fictional world that saturates the story with mood, meaning, and thematic connotations. Broadly defined, setting is the location of the plot, including the region, geography, climate, neighborhood, buildings, and interiors. Setting, along with pacing, also suggests passage of time. Place is layered into every scene and flashback, built of elements such as weather, lighting, the season, and the hour.

The Fundamental Elements of Setting

Here is a list of the specific elements that setting encompasses:

1. Locale. This relates to broad categories such as a country, state, region, city, and town, as well as to more specific locales, such as a neighborhood, street, house or school. Other locales can include shorelines, islands, farms, rural areas, etc.

2. Time of year. The time of year is richly evocative and influential in fiction. Time of year includes the seasons, but also encompasses holidays, such as Hanukkah, Christmas, New Year's Eve, and Halloween. Significant dates can also be used, such as the anniversary of a death of a character or real person, or the anniversary of a battle, such as the attack on Pearl Harbor.

3. Time of day. Scenes need to play out during various times or periods during a day or night, such as dawn or dusk. Readers have clear associations with different periods of the day, making an easy way to create a visual orientation in a scene.

4. Elapsed time. The minutes, hours, days, weeks, and months a story encompasses must be somehow accounted for or the reader will feel confused and the story will suffer from a lack of authenticity. While scenes unfold moment by moment, there is also time to account for between scenes, when a flashback is inserted, and when a character travels a long distance.

5. Mood and atmosphere. Characters and events are influenced by weather, temperature, lighting, and other tangible factors, which in turn influence the emotional timbre, mood, and atmosphere of a scene.

6. Climate. Climate is linked to the geography and topography of a place, and, as in our real world, can influence events and people. Ocean currents, prevailing winds and air masses, latitude, altitude, mountains, land masses, and large bodies of water all influence climate. It's especially important when you write about a real setting to understand climatic influences. Harsh climates can make for grim lives, while tropical climates can create more carefree lifestyles.

7. Geography. This refers to specific aspects of water, landforms, ecosystems, and topography in your setting. Geography also includes climate, soil, plants, trees, rocks and minerals, and soils. Geography can create obvious influences in a story like a mountain a character must climb, a swift-running river he must cross, or a boreal forest he must traverse to reach safety. No matter where a story is set, whether it's a mountain village in the Swiss Alps or an opulent resort on the Florida coast, the natural world with all its geographic variations and influences must permeate the story.

8. Man-made geography. There are few corners of the planet that have not been influenced by the hand of humankind. It is in our man-made influences that our creativity and the destructiveness of civilization can be seen. Readers want visual evidence in a story world, and man-made geography is easily included to provide it. With this in mind, make certain that your stories contain proof of the many footprints that people have left in its setting. Use the influences of humankind on geography to lend authenticity to stories set in a real or famous locale. These landmarks include dams, bridges, ports, towns and cities, monuments, burial grounds, cemeteries, and famous buildings. Consider too the influences of mankind using the land, and the effects of mines, deforestation, agriculture, irrigation, vineyards, cattle grazing, and coffee plantations.

9. Eras of historical importance. Important events, wars, or historical periods linked to the plot and theme might include the Civil war, World War II, medieval times, the Bubonic Plague, the gold rush in the 1800s, or the era of slavery in the South.

10. Social/political/cultural environment. Cultural, political, and social influences can range widely and affect characters in many ways. The social era of a story often influences characters' values, social and family roles, and sensibilities.

11. Population. Some places are densely populated, such as Hong Kong, while others are lonely places with only a few hardy souls. Your stories need a specific, yet varied population that accurately reflects the place.

12. Ancestral influences. In many regions of the United States, the ancestral influences of European countries such as Germany, Ireland, Italy, and Poland are prominent. The cities and bayous of Louisiana are populated with distinctive groups influenced by their Native American, French-Canadian, and African American forebears. Ancestral influences can be depicted in cuisine, dialogue, values, attitudes, and general outlook.

Plus, read more daily writing tips.

This excerpt comes from Between the Lines by Jessica Morrell, from which you can learn more about the craft of writing. Be sure to read this related post about writing sensory details in setting. Plus, peruse these books on writing:

You might also like:

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The Top 10 Elements of Setting In a Story

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No matter if you are just getting started or want to break into fiction writing, setting is a crucial element to any story. In order to create an imaginary world for your story, you'll need to know the fundamental elements of setting first. Discover the basic elements of setting in a story from Between the Lines .

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Evocative language
Dialogue (Chantelle)
Imagery - similes, metaphors, alliteration, assonance, onomatopoeia (Brooke)
Story structures - plot, flashback, non-linear, multiple narrative perspectives (Arabella and Megsy)
Sentence structure - simple, compound, complex (Benji)
Variety of punctuation (Jaiden)
Themes/morals (Brit)
Characterisation - character development (Bri and Abbi)
Setting - developing a setting (Reese, Kirralea)
Vocabulary - interesting new words (Jessie)
Features of short stories (Ms, Ti and Chloe)

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How to write creatively - language techniques, structure etc.
How to create effective visual designs
How to collaborate
How to market and promote
How to learn independently
How to edit for publishing

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1. Individual:
Two pieces of creative writing
Contributions to class discussions
A process journal in the form of a blog
A visual text

2. Group:
Collate and edit the creative pieces
Develop the design and layout of the anthology
Raise $1200
Promote the anthology for sale
Donate a copy to the school library and Kurri Kurri Public Library
Leave a legacy

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How can we collate an anthology of creative pieces worthy of publishing and publish it?