How to create a story

How to Write a Story: The 10 Best Secrets

Writing isn’t easy, and writing a good story is even harder.

I used to wonder how Pixar came out with such great movies year after year. Then, I found out a normal Pixar film takes six years to develop, and most of that time is spent on the story.

In this article, you’ll learn ten secrets about how to write a story, and more importantly, how to write a story that’s good.

Everything I Know About How to Write a Story

Since I started The Write Practice over a decade ago, I’ve been trying to wrap my head around how to write a good story. I’ve read books and blog posts on writing, taken creative writing courses, asked dozens of other story writers, and, of course, written stories myself.

The following ten steps are a distillation of everything I’ve learned about writing a good story. I hope it makes writing your story a little easier, but more than that, I hope it challenges you to step deeper into your own exploration of how to write a story.

Wait! Need a story idea? We’ve got you covered. Get our top 100 short story ideas here.

1. Write In One Sitting

Write the first draft of your story in as short a time as possible. If you’re writing a short story, try to write it in one sitting. If you’re writing a novel, try to write it in one season (three months).

Don’t worry too much about detailed plotting or outlining beforehand. You can do that once you know you have a story to tell in the first place.

Also, don't worry about plot holes or getting some details wrong as you write. At this point, you don't even have to have finalized character names.

Your first draft is a discovery process. You are like an archeologist digging an ancient city out of the clay. You might have a few clues about where your city is buried beforehand, but you don’t know what it will look like until it’s unearthed.

All that’s to say, get digging!

“

Write your first draft as quickly as possible. Write a short story in one sitting and a novel in three months.

2. Develop Your Protagonist

Stories are about protagonists, and if you don’t have a good protagonist, you won’t have a good story.

The essential ingredient for every protagonist is that they must make decisions. As Victor Frankl said, “A human being is a deciding being.” Your protagonist must make a decision to get themselves into whatever mess they get into in your story, and likewise, their character arc must come to a crisis point and they must decide to get themselves out of the mess.

To further develop your protagonist, use other character archetypes like the villain, the protagonist’s opposite, or the fool, a sidekick character that reveals the protagonist’s softer side.

It's a good idea to develop a character profile for every single character. This will help you make more believable characters and keep you from getting character details wrong. Some kind of character sheet is essential for your POV character at the very least.

Note: Character development isn't just for fictional characters! You need to have a well-rounded character if you're writing memoir/personal narratives (you're the perspective character) or certain types of nonfiction as well. Readers fall in love with characters.

3. Create Suspense and Conflict

Conflict is essential to every type of story. Conflict is what drives your characters and what keeps your readers reading. If there is no conflict, your reader will be bored, and there is no story.

There are two basic types of conflict. External conflict is the action of your story, the thing everyone sees on the surface. But don't forget about internal conflict! This is the process of your POV character warring with themselves and is what sets up the crisis point of the story and the character arc.

You also need suspense for a compelling story. Suspense isn't just for thrillers; it's a plus for any type of story.

To create suspense, set up a dramatic question. A dramatic question is something like, “Is he going to make it?” or, “Is she going to get the man of her dreams?” By putting your protagonist’s fate in doubt, you make the reader ask, what happens next?

To do this well, you need to carefully restrict the flow of information to the reader. Nothing destroys drama like over-sharing.

4. Show, Don’t Tell

Honestly, the saying “show, don’t tell” is overused. However, when placed next to the step above, it becomes very effective.

When something interesting happens in your story that changes the fate of your character, don’t tell us about it. Show the scene! Your readers have a right to see the best parts of the story play out in front of them. Show the interesting parts of your story and tell the rest.

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The simple guide for when to show and when to tell: show the interesting parts of your story and tell the rest.

5. Write Good Dialogue

Good dialogue comes from two things: intimate knowledge of your characters and lots of rewriting.

Each character must have a unique voice, and to make sure your characters all sound different, read each character’s dialogue and ask yourself, “Does this sound like my character?” If your answer is no, then you have some rewriting to do. (Want more character development tips? Click here. )

Also, with your speaker tags, try not to use anything but “he said” and “she said.” Speaker tags like “he exclaimed,” “she announced,” and “he spoke vehemently” are distracting and unnecessary. The occasional “he asked” is fine, though.

6. Write About Death

Think about the last five novels you read. In how many of them did a character die?

Best-selling fiction often involves death. Harry Potter, The Hunger Games, Charlotte’s Web, The Lord of the Rings, and more all had main characters who died.

Death is the universal theme because every person who lives will one day die. You could say humans versus death is the central conflict of our lives. Tap the power of death in your storytelling.

7. Edit Like a Pro

Most professional writers have an established writing process that often involves writing three drafts or more. The first draft is often called the “vomit draft” or the “shitty first draft.” Don’t share it with anyone! Your first draft is your chance to explore your story and figure out what it’s about.

Editing is often the part of the writing process that causes the most anxiety, but it's necessary. Your second draft isn’t for polishing, although many new writers will try to polish as soon as they can to clean up their embarrassing first draft.

Instead, the second draft is meant for major structural changes (make sure it's a complete story!), for cleaning up any plot holes, or for clarifying the key ideas if you're writing a non-fiction book. This is where you make sure your story is complete, has believable characters (they should have character names now!), and that everything makes sense.

(Need a refresher on the basics of story structure? Click here.)

The third draft is for deep polishing. Now is when everything starts to gel. This is the fun part! But until you write the first two drafts, polishing is probably a waste of your time.

8. Know the Rules, Then Break Them

Good writers know all the rules for the type of story they're writing and follow them. Great writers know all the rules and break them.

However, the best writers don’t break the rules arbitrarily. They break them because their stories require a whole new set of rules.

Respect the rules, but remember that you don’t serve the rules. You serve your stories.

9. Defeat Writer’s Block

The best way to defeat writer's block is to write. If you’re stuck, don’t try to write well. Don’t try to be perfect. Just write.

Sometimes, to write better stories, you have to start by taking the pressure off and just writing.

10. Share Your Work

You write better when you know someone will soon be reading what you’ve written. If you write in the dark, no one will know if you aren’t giving your writing everything you have. But when you share your writing, you face the possibility of failure. This will force you to write the best story you possibly can and to amp up your creative writing skills with each story you write.

(Not quite ready to publish, but are interested in beta readers? Read our definitive guide on beta readers here. )

One of the best ways to write a story and share your writing is to enter a writing contest. The theme will inspire a new creation, the deadlines will keep you accountable, and the prizes will encourage you to submit—and maybe win! We love writing contests here at The Write Practice. Why not enter our next one?

How to Write a GOOD Story

All these tips will help you write a story. The trick to writing a good story? Practice. Practice on a daily basis if you can with a regular writing schedule.

When you finish the story you’re writing, celebrate! Then, start your next one. There’s no shortcut besides this: keep writing. Even using the best book writing software or tools like ProWriting Aid (check out our ProWritingAid Review) won’t help compared to continuing to write.

Get a Free Book Idea Worksheet to plan your story in a sentence: This worksheet from our Write Plan planner will help you identify the core elements of your story.
Click here to download the free book idea worksheet. 

What are your best tips on how to write a story? Let me know in the comments!

PRACTICE

Do you have a story to tell?

Take fifteen minutes to start. Write the first draft of a short story in one sitting using the tips above.

Need a prompt to get started? Try this one: She was pretty sure that tree hadn't been there yesterday.

Then, share your story in the practice box below. (Now you're practicing tip #10!) And if you share your practice, be sure to leave feedback on a few practices by other writers, too. Excited to see your story take shape!

Enter your practice here:

How to Write a Short Story in 12 Concrete Steps [Examples]

Writing short stories can help tremendously in the process of becoming a successful author.

Remember that becoming a successful author is a journey, many start with short stories, blogging, or even poetry before going on to writing a book.

You probably don’t think short stories are very hard to write.

In fact, you might be the type who assumes short stories are even easier because, well…they’re short.

But that’s just not the case (there’s an art to writing an amazing short story)—and I’ll tell you why in just a minute.

Short stories, and getting good at writing them, can actually set you up for success in other writing ventures as well. That’s why we’re showcasing the most important steps for writing a short story.

They may be difficult to get good at, but we’re breaking down how to make them much easier, and what makes for a good one to begin with. Want to learn how to write a short story, and get better at this style of writing?

Be sure to check out our post on publishing short stories once you’ve mastered the writing part.

If you want to learn how to write a short story or be a better short story writer, you’ll have to go through these main steps:

1. Generate your idea
2. Know your character
3. Outline your short story
4. Start with something out of the ordinary
5. Get your draft done as soon as possible
6. Edit your short story
7. Title your short story
8. Get feedback about it
9. Practice often
10. How to write a short story every day
11. Define your core message
12. Write a satisfying ending

Once you get through the steps for writing a short story, make sure to take a look at the short story ideas, tips for writing them, and common questions with answers all about short stories (including how long a short story is).

How to Write a Short Story in 12 Full, Concrete Steps

If you’re ready to tackle this avenue of creative writing or you just want to learn how to write a short story to strengthen the overall quality of your book, here’s how you can do that.

#1 – Come up with a strong short story idea

You can pull ideas from short stories from everywhere.

Former short story editor and now-published short story author (with 2 collections), Hannah Lee Kidder says, “The best short story ideas will always come from you yourself. Those are the ideas that you’ll care the most about and be able to bring to life the easiest.”

That said, we know it can take a trigger to come up with short story ideas that make you want to craft great writing around. Ultimately, you’ll have the best results by tweaking any idea you have of your own, but we also wanted to provide some short story ideas to help you get started.

Here are 20 short story ideas to take your writing to the next level:

1. Your character opens the mailbox to find their biggest fear inside.
2. After a devastating fall, your character is learning the hardships of healing after an accident.
3. Character accidentally insults their company’s CEO – right before a big promotion.
4. The character lost a child years ago but lives as if it just happened the day before.
5. Your character’s village wise woman tells the story of how magic was lost due to abuse.
6. Your character lives in a space pod traveling space, and they’re also claustrophobic.
7. Ash floated from the mountaintop and awoke your character from their night’s sleep.
8. Your character hasn’t eaten in days and stumbles upon real berries, and so does a starving bear.
9. When your character’s heart is broken, they must find a way to heal it – any way.
10. Your character is an orphaned 7-year-old who hears voices.
11. Your character just found out they have a rare disease…that hasn’t been detected anywhere in centuries.
12. After a fight with their ex, your character decides to go on a trip to the neighboring town that hosts very…unusual tales.
13. Your character accidentally runs into the wrong person on the street…and now they can’t sleep at night.
14. When your character moves schools, they didn’t expect to find a secret lurking throughout the school…that all the teachers know about.
15. It’s your character’s turn in their culture’s ritual of fighting a lion barehanded. They’ve never been good in fights.
16. After extreme weather conditions plague your character’s town, they finally leave home to find everybody has gone missing.
17. Your character is in the back of an ambulance, trying desperately to revive someone who’s apparently dead…so why are they still away and breathing?
18. After a short stint at a hospital as a nurse, your character decides to take their skills to the mountains as a wilderness medical professional. They just didn’t expect to find odd and interesting injuries among campers.
19. An apple appears at your character’s front door every morning and they can’t figure out who’s putting it there.
20. When an avalanche quakes the mountains in your character’s town, it unveils something that’s been hidden for…millenia.

Sometimes short story ideas are enough but if you want to utilize them effectively, keep these tips in mind:

• Keep it simple and focus on a single portion of a character’s life
• Make sure the reader has a clear picture of your main character right away
• Focus on the theme and message you’re trying to get across
• Let the short story idea create a life of its own
• Be unique and think of many possible endings to the story before outlining

#2 – Focus on Character Development

In order for a short story to be impactful, you have to know your character well. Having good character development is essential in short stories since your main characters often drive the story.

You only have a certain amount of time to show your readers who that person is and you can’t do that if you don’t even know who they are.

Think about it.

If you write a short story about your best friend, whom you’ve known for many years, versus writing one about someone you just met yesterday, you’ll be able to craft a much stronger story about your best friend because you know them so well. Creative writing techniques can help you bring out the best or most compelling things about your characters.

The same goes for your fictional characters.

But when writing a short story, you won’t have the same type of character arc as you would when writing a full-length novel.

You don’t have to spend a ton of time on your main character, but know their history, age, personality, family life, friend life, love life, and other details that shape the way someone sees the world.

Keep in mind that since your short story is, well, shorter than a novel, you may remove a few steps. Knowing the overall character journey, however, can be helpful for your main character development within short stories.

Spend enough time on character development when you’re learning how to write a short story or improving your creative writing skills will pay off by introducing your readers to memorable characters.

#3 – Outline

Thankfully, the outlining process for short stories is much easier than a full novel, but I do still advise creating one in order to have a cohesive flow throughout the story.

This is definitely useful for those of you who prefer outlining versus just writing by the seat of your pants.

• The point of view you’ll use
• How you’ll start the story
• How you’ll get from the beginning to the main issue
• What happens at the “climax” (yes, even short stories have one!)
• Resolution of the main issue
• The very end

Keep in mind that the art of how to write a short story can close with something that ends very abruptly or you can flesh it out until there’s a satisfying ending.

This is really up to you as an author to decide. Practicing this for short stories can help you create an outline for your book, too.

#4 – Start with something out of the ordinary

Take Hannah Lee Kidder’s example from this video above. One of the short stories in her anthology, Little Birds, opens with a woman collecting roadkill.

In order to hook readers from the start of your story, you should write an opening scene that’ll catch someone’s attention right off the bat.

Here’s what that looks like at the start of the short story:

Short Story Opening Example:

Odd? Yes. Attention-grabbing? You bet! This is how to write a short story with an opening that gets readers engaged, invested in your character, and motivated to read the entire story.

Because we’re automatically intrigued by the fact that people don’t normally go around collecting roadkill. It’s another place creative writing skills can really help you draw in your readers in a short story.

Now, you don’t have to start your short story with something as strange as that but you do want to give your readers a sense of who your character is by depicting something different right away that also has to do with the core focus of your short story.

Take this short story called The Gift of the Magi by O. Henry, for example. This author starts with a very low money amount and then hits you with the fact that it’s Christmas the very next day.

This is out of the ordinary because many readers understand that having such little money (scraped up money, at that) right before Christmas isn’t typical. It’s odd – and also hits their emotions right away.

If you want to learn how to write a short story, read the opening paragraphs of short stories. And pay attention to the many different ways writers hook readers.

#5 – Get the draft done ASAP

Done is better than perfect. That’s the best way to approach the process of writing a short story or anything else. We’ve all heard or read these words time and time again – and that’s because they’re important; they’re true.

This is especially the case when it comes to short stories. Once you have your outline and know how to start writing, drafting the short story in full comes next.

Don’t worry about editing or polishing the story up in any way right now. After all, you can’t possibly make good edits until you know what the story looks like in full. When you’re learning how to write a short story, resist the urge to get it perfect.

That would be like matching your earrings to your pants without first having the full outfit put together. You don’t know if those earrings work well with it until you see what else you’ll be wearing.

It’s the same for writing. Focus on getting your draft done so you can move on to the next step.

The process of how to write a short story is rarely one-and-done but usually takes writing, rewriting, and editing to create your best work.

#6 – Edit your short story

Editing is where the real magic happens when you’re learning how to write a short story. We all have this idea in our minds that we’ll get it perfect the first time and that’s just not how writing works.

Most of the time, your first draft is just the bare bones of what’s to come but through line editing, developmental edits, and proofreading, it will transform into something better.

Think of the actual writing as the wooden structure of a house and the editing as the drywall, paint, windows, light fixtures, doors, and anything else that’ll make the house complete.

These are a few things to keep an eye out for when editing your short story. The elements of story structure to look for include:

• Point of view consistency
• Tense consistency
• Consistency with the setting of your story
• Weak verbs (replace them with our list of strong verbs found right here!)
• Showing versus telling (readers need you to show more!)
• Stronger imagery
• Spelling/grammar/dialogue

If you want to learn how to write a short story, editing is a necessary part of the process. So what’s that look like? The editing process for short stories is pretty much the same for novels.

The only difference is that short stories tend to focus more on imagery and exposition than they do full character and plot development.

#7 – Title it!

This can be one of the most difficult things for any book, let alone a story that’s only a few hundred to a few thousand words.

The good news? Short story titles are a little less important than titles for novels. They can also be very abstract.

What you want to think of when titling your short story is this:

• What’s the overarching theme?
• Something unique about the story?
• Sounds intriguing but not explanatory?
• What makes sense after reading the short story?
• What could be mysterious enough to be intriguing?

These questions will help you develop a title that not only makes sense but is also intriguing enough to pull readers in while staying true to what the story is about.

It’s also great practice to help you come up with titles when you write and publish your book.

Learning how to write a short story includes learning how to write a great title or headline. And let’s face it, a great title or headline gets readers to pay attention. Put your creative writing skills to work here. Come up with a bunch of different titles, and ask our writing partners or target audience for feedback.

#8 – Get feedback

No matter how experienced (or inexperienced) you are as a writer, you need feedback.

To create your best work, it’s just part of the process when you’re learning how to write a short story. I know…it can feel scary. But feedback from the right people will help you make your short story better.

In order to learn and improve and ensure your message is coming across as desired, you need someone else’s fresh eyes on it.

Google Docs is a great option to write your short story and get feedback from others all in one place.

We need this help because the simple fact is, we’re too close to our writing.

It’s impossible to read your story with a critical eye when you’re the one who came up with and wrote it in the first place. That’s just we’re wired when we’re learning how to write a short story or anything else. We need feedback to improve.

Allowing others to read your work and offer feedback is one of the best ways to improve and make sure your story is exactly how you want it. This is why writing partners and even beta readers are so important.

#9 – Practice by writing short stories often

The number one best way to learn how to write good short stories is by writing them often.

When you’re writing regularly, your brain falls into the habit of being creative and thinking in terms of short stories.

If you want to learn how to write a short story and get good at it…practice. The more you do it, the easier it will get and the more you’ll improve. So focus on writing a certain number of short stories per week and stick to that – even if they aren’t your favorite.

#10 – Write one short story every day for 30 days

This is separate from writing short stories often. If you really want to kickstart your progress and get really good quickly, then create a challenge for yourself.

Want to learn how to write a short story, get good at it, and write faster? Do this…

Write one short story, whether it’s 500 or 1,000 words, per day for an entire month.

When you’re done, you’ll have 30 full short stories to review, edit, and improve upon. Doing this not only builds a habit, but it also gives you a lot of experience quickly.

After those 30 days, you’ll know more about how you like to write short stories, which mean more to you, and how to write them to be good. If you want to learn how to write a short story, give this challenge a try. Seriously, it’s just 30 days.

#11 – Focus on a single message to share

Short stories are known for being impactful even though they’re not novel-length.

Learning how to write a short story forces you to think of ways to take your reader on a journey in a much shorter space than a book.

And that means they have to have a core theme or message you want to get across. This can be anything from loving yourself to ignoring societal expectations.

In order to do this, think about what you want people to walk away from your story feeling.

What is the desired outcome?

If you just want people to enjoy the story, that’s great. However, what makes a story impactful and enjoyable is what readers take away from it.

Brainstorm some themes that are important to you and work your short story around them. When you understand how to write a short story this way, it will not only make you care about your story more (which means it’ll be written better), but it’ll also make it more satisfying for readers.

#12 – Tie it up with a satisfying ending

Nobody likes a story that ends on a major cliffhanger.

It’s okay for your short story to have an unresolved ending. In fact, that’ll likely be the case simply because the story is…well, short.

But you do want to tie your story up in a way that leaves the reader feeling satisfied even if they didn’t get all the answers.

Many times, this means circling back to an idea or element presented in the beginning. It’s one storytelling strategy of how to write a short story and wrap everything up.

This story structure often allows readers to feel as though they’ve read a complete story versus just a snippet of a larger one.

Need help wrapping things up? Check out this VIDEO: How to End a Short Story and other valid concerns.

Why All Writers Should Learn How to Write a Short Story

There’s a lot more to writing short stories than you may think. As a short story writer, keep in mind that just because they’re shorter in length doesn’t mean it takes any less skill to execute a good one.

Short story writers get this…Being able to tell a full story in such a short amount of time arguably takes more skill than writing a full-length novel or nonfiction book.

That being said, why is it beneficial for all writers to learn how to write a short story?

#1 – You learn the skill of showing

Short story writers have a challenge that requires some patience to overcome, but it’s worth it. When you only have a few pages to hook readers, paint a clear picture of the main character, and tell a story, you end up mastering the skill of showing instead of telling.

The reason for this is because, in order to accomplish a successful and good short story, showing is a major part of that.

It’s far too difficult to write a great short story without showing the details and using strong verbs to paint a clear image of your main character’s life. Great short story writers understand the “show don’t tell” concept.
If you want to learn how to write a short story, getting clear on this will save you a lot of time.

Those skills will transfer into anything you write, automatically making it that much better. One more reason is that learning how to write a short story will help with other writing projects.

#2 – You’ll strengthen individual chapters

No matter if you’re a fiction writer, short story writer, or if you prefer nonfiction, the idea here is the same.

A chapter is basically a short story that’s a part of a bigger whole. The same skills you apply to write a great short story will also help you write stronger chapters.

Each part of your book should be polished, strong, and enticing for your readers. Using short story writing methods will help you achieve that within your chapters.

Why is writing good chapters important if there’s a whole book available for someone to read?

Because it hooks readers and keeps them turning that page.

And when readers look back on an entire book filled with incredible chapters, the entire book as a whole will be seen as being that much better. Spending time learning how to write a short story sets you up for success when you write your book or pursue other writing projects.

Hello, 5-star reviews!

#3 – It makes the story sections of your nonfiction book more captivating

Every nonfiction book has portions where stories must be told in order to get the point across.

This is what allows people to relate to you as an author, which pulls them in deeper and makes the core message of your book resonate with them more. It’s another part “how to write a short story” skills will help you connect with readers.

But if those stories are weak, not well-written, and lackluster, it’s unlikely someone will enjoy them as much.

It’s also likely that your message will get lost because the book doesn’t carry the same impact.

Keeping readers engaged from start to finish can feel like a tall order. But when you learn how to write a short story with a beginning, middle, end, and a message readers will love you for it.

How long are short stories?

Short stories should remain below 7,000 words in order to be considered a “short story.” They can be as short as only one sentence, as this is known as flash fiction.

You already know that short stories are… shorter than your average novel but do they have any other differences?

Here’s a chart detailing the main differences in how many words are in short stories, novels, novellas, and nonfiction works.

As you can see, the main difference is length, but that’s not all. When you understand how to write a short story, you’re only writing a very impactful snippet of your main character’s otherwise full life.

You don’t have to unpack your entire character’s life story in a few hundred words in order to write a great short story.

Ready to write YOUR book?

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How to make stories on Instagram from your phone, tablet or computer

This simple and clear instruction will teach you how to publish Stories on Instagram* in different ways: for example, scheduled stories through SMMplanner or directly from Instagram*.

In this article, I will tell you how to post stories from your phone, tablet or computer: in general, from where you are most comfortable right now. It only takes a few minutes to learn how to make Stories on Instagram*!

How to make an Instagram Story* from your phone or tablet

Open the Instagram app* and go to your news feed. Then click on the camera icon in the upper left corner.

The mode for creating and editing stories will open. You can shoot a new story right now (using the camera) or make it from an existing photo or video.

First, let's consider the first option: shooting directly. By default, the camera field will open, and along the left edge, formatting options. Can choose:

• Create . A text entry box will open on a plain colored background. In such a story, you can add a gif, wish a person a happy birthday, choose a template, poll, countdown, text with a question. There is a tool "ask me a question" with a field for entering the answer.
• Boomerang . Several frames per second are recorded. Instagram* plays them as a video, then in reverse. Boomerang is an endless repetition of what has been created.
• Collage . 2 to 6 consecutive shots. They are photographed and effects are added to them.
• Multishot . Consistently removed or added from the gallery 8 photos that will be shown to the user.
• Level . The future frame is divided into 3 squares, and a level appears in the central one as an indicator of how correctly the author holds the camera. As soon as the camera is level, the level will blink yellow. Ideal for those who are afraid to fill up the horizon.
• Photo booth . 4 consecutive frames with a delay between them in a second, you can apply the same effect to all.
• Superzoom . The meaning of such a story is to gradually increase the center of the frame to the melody and the selected effect. Looks funny. Various effects are available - epic, drama, sadness, fire, hearts and others.
• Hands free . With it, you can start the shooting mode without hands. And also you can add an unlimited number of photos and video fragments to the video.

By the way, if stories are used for business purposes, then you should draw up a content plan. And how to compose it for stories, we have analyzed in the article "How to compose a content plan for Stories on Instagram *".

There are also a number of additional settings: for example, you can choose whether you need a flash (click on the lightning icon), you can switch to the front camera (camera icon with arrows in the lower right corner) or put a funny mask on the image (icon with a smiling face) .

Once you figured out how to make a beautiful Instagram story* with these settings and mode, click on the round center button on the screen. A normal click will take a photo, and if you need to record a video, press and hold the same button.

Now let's figure out how to post the photo or video you took earlier. To do this, click on the gallery (to the left of the lightning icon), and select the desired file.

Clicking on the "Gallery" button will open other options for places where there can be photos on the phone. You can search for photos in other albums that you have on your phone. For example, if you want to make a story from photos uploaded to the “download” folder, then you just need to select it.

Once you've made your story, choose whether you want to send it to your feed, save it to your phone, or send it to a friend. There is also a function to send stories only to a limited circle of friends. You need to choose people for this circle in advance.

By the way, to develop your business it is useful to look at what your competitors are doing. In order not to show them your interest, you can do it anonymously. How to do this - we consider in the article "How to anonymously view Stories on Instagram *".

You can also add additional elements to stories: pictures, stickers, widgets, gifs or captions. You can edit photos, add effects and filters.

To add a gif, widget or sticker to your story, click on the smiley sticker icon. Here you can add geodata, a hashtag, mention one of your friends (by nickname), make a poll or vote, add time or weather, and attach funny stickers or gifs.

You can move gifs, stickers, or widgets within an image, and zoom in or out.

In addition, you can also draw by hand in stories. To switch to drawing mode, click on the pen icon in the upper right corner of the screen. You can choose the color and drawing style.

It is possible to add text to your stories - to do this, click on the Aa icon in the upper right corner of the screen. So you can type text and change the font, as well as the color of the text and the color of the background under the text. Text size can be scaled.

To always stay in trend, you should see our article “Visual Stories Trends 2021 on Instagram*”. And now let's figure out how to make a new story on an Instagram profile * from a computer.

How to make a story on Instagram* from a computer

Sometimes you need to post a story, but the phone is not at hand or the file is stored on the computer. Or maybe you need to schedule stories for the future so that the publication comes out on schedule. In both cases, the delayed posting service SMMplanner will help you, it is he who allows you to post stories from your computer.

In order to post Stories, go to SMMplanner and log in through any convenient social network or email, depending on what was used during registration. Then click on the "Schedule a post" button, and after that - if the data did not pull up automatically - select the desired account and project.

When publishing stories through SMMplanner, a lot of background design options appear:

• picture;
• fill;
• videos;
• image and design through the constructor in Canva;
• picture and design through the constructor in Crello.

Clicking on the creation via Canva will open a mini-editor inside the SMMplanner page. All the tools available on the Canva website are available. You can add templates, individual elements, add and edit text. There are free and paid templates, some of the elements are paid. But no money will be withdrawn for anything if the client does not choose to pay for such content.

You can easily assemble story content from free templates, elements, and backgrounds. To distinguish them from paid ones, you need to look at the lower right corner of each picture or element. Paid ones will have a small crown symbol.

You can change the size, font, color, text direction of all texts, even if they are taken from a template. Unnecessary blocks are also easy to remove. When the work on the stories is finished, you just need to click on the "Insert in Story Builder" button and continue editing there.

You can create your own GIFs for stories. How to do this is discussed in detail in the article “How to make your own GIF for stories on Instagram *”. It's a fairly simple process, they can be added to Instagram* and then used in all stories.

You can fill the entire background of the emoji, and write a question or the desired text in the center. If necessary, in the settings, you can create a duplicate story and publish it again as many times as you like. If you don’t know what story to make on Instagram* — try different ones, release edited duplicates.

When adding a picture, you can select it in full size with blurring of the borders at the top and bottom. There is another way to place an image - filling. Then part of the frame will be cropped, but the photo will be over the entire area of ​​the story. There will be no white fields in both versions.

If it's hard to decide on a background, we advise you to read the article "How to choose backgrounds and templates for Instagram Stories *". There we figure out how to choose the right pictures for each type of business.

Through SMMplanner, you can add any stickers, polls, tests to your stories, ask the audience questions and insert a countdown.

To select the desired sticker, you just need to click on it. It will immediately appear on the preview screen on the left. It can be moved, resized, edited, entered the desired words.

When you're done, you just need to click on "Schedule". That's it, you can schedule posts on Instagram*-Stories!

A separate Instagram* Stories constructor is now available.

We tell you how to work with stories on a computer and phone. We analyze the functionality and design examples.

Kozlova Julia TeachLine Training Center

VK stories: what are they and what are their goals

VK stories - photos and videos published at the top of the main news feed lasting 15 seconds. This content is available 24 hours.

Plus stories in their multi-format, you can design a visual, video or text. Added wide functionality for additional design of stories. As well as the ability to announce publications from the tape and clips.

Why use VK stories?

1. Share the most important. Announcements, discounts, announcements - this is what is important to quickly convey to your audience.
2. Tell your friends and followers about what you are doing now. Content in real time. Show production, the process of creating your product.
3. Engage subscribers in the story. Hold the attention of the audience, tell a holistic story with emotions, defeats and victories.
4. Combining visual content with text. VKontakte has a predominantly reading audience, but stories are also about the visual. Change the picture so that subscribers do not get tired of the same content.
5. Multiple increase in touches with your audience. Remember, in order to warm up the audience and eventually sell, there should be a lot of touches with a potential client. Stories provide this opportunity, since you can publish a lot of them with frequent periodicity. But subscribers quickly touch your account and move on. Since this is a format for fast consumption of content.
6. Announcements of publications from the feed. Tell what is in this post, interest the audience so that the user wants to go and see more detailed information.

Creating a story VKontakte

You can work with stories from a computer and in a mobile application. You can create it both in your personal account and in the community.

How to create a story in a personal profile from a PC:

1. In the news feed, find the stories feed and click on the "+".
2. We get into the editor. There you can choose a background or upload a photo, overlay text and choose a font, size and color.
3. You can edit the placement of photos, text and stickers. You can do this by hovering the mouse over the corner and adjust the location and size of the element.
4. Add stickers that are available to you. To make the story more vivid and interesting.
5. Creation of graffiti. But it is quite difficult to make them with a mouse.
6. Overlay filters. You can adjust their intensity.
7. Editing images according to different criteria: saturation, sharpness, temperature and others. There is a button "Make beautiful", then your photo will be corrected automatically. You can also add linear and radial blur.
8. When your story is ready, we publish it.

Personal page story editor from PC

How to create a community story from a laptop or computer:

1. In the community menu we find the "Manage Stories" section.
2. We get to the page of stories. We immediately see the statistics, active and completed stories, as well as the "Download story" and "Create story" buttons.
3. When you click "Download story" we get to the download page from the device, and recommendations for uploaded images will also be displayed here.
4. Loading prepared stories. You can add a link, but only to the VKontakte material and select the button in which the link will be embedded.
5. Post N stories.

Community story editor from PC

How to create a story in the application:

1. We find the camera sign on the personal page or community. Or "+" in the story feed.

   How to create a story from phone

2. You can upload a photo or video from your device. Take a photo in the "History" section, shoot a video in the "Video Story" section. You can switch the camera from front to selfie and back by clicking on the 2 circular arrows. How to create a photo or video in story
3. Choose your own masks and filters when shooting. Masks and filters VKontakte
4. After creating or uploading materials, the editor opens for design. Story Editor VK
5. Graffiti. Three markers to choose from: regular, translucent and luminous. You can choose the pen color and size. Graffiti in stories
6. Stickers, in addition to the usual pictures in this section there are interactive elements.

• Place (geolocation tag). When you click on the sticker itself, its appearance will change.
• Hashtags, use branded or themed hashtags,
• Mentions. Tag clients, partners, employees or companies. After seeing this story, your subscriber will be able to go and get acquainted with the specified account. When you just start typing the name, you will get a hint.
• GIF animation. Make stories come alive.
• Opinions or questions. You can ask any questions to subscribers, or they to you. Enter the name of the request, buttons and choose the color and design, light or bright.
• Poll. Question or voting with answer options. You can make up to ten options. Make it color-coded, anonymous poll, multiple choice, and disable vote cancellation.
• Tag products or services. But they should be saved in your bookmarks.
• Adding a photo. You can correct it first.
• Add a sticker with the current time.

Stickers in VKontakte stories

7. Add text. Font, text layout, size, background - this is what can be adjusted. Text editor
8. Selecting a background. You can blur, choose color or graphics. Choose a background: blur, color from the palette or standard graphics
9. Add music to the background and select a playback fragment. Adding music to stories
10. You can add a story and create a so-called series.
11. After all the stories are framed, we publish.

Designing a story

We have selected tips for you that will help you design stories.

1. Sign the story. What is it about, what idea do you want to convey. Not everyone watches stories with sound.
2. Do not place text close to the edge, it may be covered by the interface and will be difficult to read.
3. Make text readable. If you have a colorful photo, place it on a substrate.
4. On video where there is no speech, add background music and select the desired fragment of the song.
5. Decorate your photo beautifully. For example, you can add several identical photos, one larger than the other smaller, and they will look more interesting than one. When you click on an additional photo, it will change shape. Unusual story design Unusual story design
6. Position text vertically. This will help to attract attention with an unusual arrangement of elements, and will hold the user's attention. Vertical text layout increases viewing time
7. Specify the time during which this action was performed.
8. Scale down a photo or video and add 3D text to the background. Distribute text to the right or left, separate paragraphs so that the text is easy to read.

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