I tried Nelson’s 9 Steps for Story Writing (and it's brilliant)

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Timestamps
00:00 Intro
1:10 Write a story about something that happened to you
2:32 Change the Point of View
4:00 Create a Ticking Clock
5:28 Create Props/Objects
7:17 Create a Transitional Situation
8:46 Add a World Event
10:14 Add Binary Forces
11:57 Freytag's Pyramid
13:41 Experiment

[nipolitayeng]

I have stopped writing short stories since I was a child, I am not a good writer nor I have the skill and time but this video made me want to write a story rn .

[TryssemTavern]

I've always wanted to write a screenplay that actually focused on step 2. You had a overall plot, a very simple one that ends with police showing up. But you start seeing the same day replayed through the different perspectives of the people who live on the street. Seeing how vastly different their lives are, how some of them have secrets (ranging from harmless kid secrets to affair level) and how some of them are directly tied to what happened or completely cut off despite being right next door.

[era_by_era]

Pertaining to the 'choose a different pov' bit, one of yhe most eye opening pieces of advice i ever heard was seperating thr emotional core from the external layer. You can write a story about being bullied as a child, change it to be about aliens on mars fighting eith UFOs, and that core story is still there.

[sultanalshirah]

Either you have a way of hyping things up to infinity, or am just easily impressed. Or both... both is good.

[kitkatpadywak]

i have a short story idea ive had in my head for the last 6 years and the "choose a different pov" idea sparked an drive to get back into the idea. the story revolves around a guy and his dog and that suggestion made me think about the stories i love that take place from an animal's pov (jack london stories, mainly). im sure thinking about the story from the dogs pov will help a lot, as will the other tips.

[WillNGo]

This is terrific. I really like videos that can make me look at writing in a new way. Very energizing. Thanks.

[haniaha_writes]

I recently wrote a short story using some of these, but not all of them. The ones I found I used were object: violin, ticking clock: waiting and sickness, World Event: Irish Potato Famine, Binary Forces: clinging to dreams through difficulty versus not, Experiment: I wrote this in a non-linear timeline. I entered this story into a short story contest, so we'll see how it went!

I will have to try out all of them next time!

[thoseaglestone]

I love that you wrote about a chess tournament. I am currently writing a novel based on a game of chess I won.

[bhangrafan]

I hate all the formulae for plot writing. I especially hate the "Aristotelean Arc". What is needed is character driven plots. It is about the chemistry of the constellation of characters you throw together. They should be able to write their own plots due to their interactions. What you need: 1) Characters that are interesting enough, for whatever different reasons, to spend time with. 2) Well-drawn characters, a lost art. The characters must be distinct from each other in more than superficial ways. 3) A rich constellation of characters - the selection of characters that you throw together into a situation must have a rich and productive chemistry in generating plots. If these are missing plot theories will not help much, if at all. The final magic ingredient you need is 4) "TRUTH", something much more important than the greatly over-valued 'realism'. Realism hardly matters in drama or comedy, but "TRUTH" is vital. What is "TRUTH"? It's when your reader says, "WOW! That's true!".

[AlecSorensen]

I think the brilliance of the framework is that it's not a strict step by step so much as tools for helping you amp up the drama: multiple POVs (meaning competing interests), significant objects and world events, binary forces, transitions, clocks, then making sure you arrange them so that the tension is increasing toward the end (plot structure).

[manumaan]

#Stories mentioned in this video#
Sonny's Blues - James Baldwin
Goodbye, Columbus - Philip Roth
The Things They Carried - Tim O'Brien
Boys and Girls - Alice Munro
The House of Aeron - Jorge Luis Borges
A Good Man is Hard To Find - Flannery O'Connor
Good Country People - Flannery O'Connor
Where are you going Where Have you been - Joyce Carol Oates
Cathedral - Raymond Carver
Most Dangerous Game - Richard Connell
A&P - John Updike
Visit to the Goon Squad - Jennifer Egan
Girl - Jamaica Kincaid

[jamesobsolete]

14:43 My favorite example of an unreliable narrator comes from What The Hell Did I Just Read when it switches to John’s perspective

[tmargaretobrien]

As a hobby writer, I enjoyed this video very much. I thought it was well done and enjoyed your style of presentation. You have given me a lot to think about and some inspiration to get back to it again. Thank you. I would appreciate a list of the authors and their short stories that you mention in this video please. 💜

[shebreathesingold]

Great info! Thank you for sharing. Request for future videos, could you add segments to your video for easy viewing/reviewing? Thanks!

[ndrgerg]

Thank you so much for providing short story examples! This video has also functioned as a good reading recommendation list, and I've been enjoying the short stories I've read so far!

[adriang]

okay. I like this. Hmm ticking time clock, nice. Some of these go through my mind every day. Nice video.

[kashanustudio]

Thank you this video, it just brought these steps onto my radar, hadn't seen the article. But most importantly, your video helped me see some missing things in my screenplay that I wasn't aware were missing, but I couldn't unsee the lack once I saw it. Lol one day I'll use this for short stories, but for now, the screenwriter in me thanks you!

[Charmian-and-Iras]

Wow! Not only does it sounds like solid advice, but it also sounds really fun to play around with different story elements this way. Thank you for fleshing this out and giving examples 🙏

And, pray, where can we read this chess short story?

[stroiman.development]

Hey, although I'm not a writer of fiction, this was still an interesting video. The take on "Make the narrator unreliable" reminds me of two crime novels I read where in both cases it turns out that the narrator is the murderer. The one I felt quite disappointing. The other however, was a really great ending.

[AphroditeLover-nifn]

Hey, new-young writer here! After watching so many of your videos, I just now realized that I'm just now subscribing to your channel T_T Your videos have helped me so much with my journey has a new writer!