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        Well, here you are, willing to write a story.  But what kind of story, what do you use, and, most importantly, what the hell do you write?  I can’t answer all of these questions for you, but I can try.

        First things first, though, what kind of story do you want to write.  Well, the obvious answer is ‘a good one.’  But more specifically, you should pick a type a story that fits your attention span.  Not everyone can write a full length novel after all.  If you don’t have a lot of time on your hands, stick with a short an sweet short story.  If you want to dedicate a couple months of hard work, go for the great American (British, French, Canadian, whatever) novel!

        Short stories are just that, short.  The problem is that every single word in a short story has meaning.  Lots of thought must go in to one to make the precious few seconds that a reader reads worth wild.  They are almost always very short in time, usually less than a day, and have very few characters.  I think it is relatively safe to say that the works of Edgar Allen Poe are among the best short stories ever written, even if a tad creepy.

        Longer stories, I’ll call them novels, even if that isn’t the proper name, are different.  Here, efficient story telling isn’t as important as in a short story.  They can have dozens, or even hundreds, of characters and cover several years in time.  These stories always need more work, mostly in setting up a long plot.  If anything, you need an outline to arrange everything.

        Well, you finally decided on a type of story, now what do you write about?  Lot’s of topics to choose from here.  Good bet is that you will want to write a Freespace based story since this happens to be a Freespace site.  When it comes to those types of stories, there are still a multitude of topics.  Really, just think of a scenario, and go from there.  You’ve probably played quite a few missions and campaigns, so you probably have enough fodder for something.  Just look at all the stories on the Archive, maybe you’ll get a little more inspiration.

        As a general rule, most sci-fi stories try to teach people something, reflect on a current issue, or bring up a potential problem with a future idea or technology.  You don’t have to do this at all, but it might give you a direction if you have a moral to the story.  Most stories, if not all, are about some type of conflict, Man vs. Nature, Man vs. Man, or Man vs. Himself (that’s ‘Man’ as in ‘all people’).  No matter what story you write, you’ll end up sliding into one of these conflicts, so expect it to happen and work with it.

        From here on, you’re more or less on your own.  You can use the Workshop for guidance, but you’ll have to do most of it.  I wish I could write the story for you, but then it would have my name on it instead of yours.  So good luck to you and your story.  Oh, and when you’re done, send it to yours truly so I can post it, okay?

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