My Process for Writing a Short Story/Prose

The first step in the writing process for any short story/prose is brainstorming. Sometimes, you might be lucky enough to come into the process with an plan already in place, or at least a concept. If not, and even if so, this step is very important. Usually, I tend to listen to music that I feel fits what I am trying to write, while brainstorming words and phrases and collecting quotes in a document. This part should be very messy. Just let your brain empty all its thoughts.

Computer or a pen and paper :)

During this step, you should begin to pick your favorite elements from your brainstorm and think about how you might create a short story or prose out of them. In the case of the example above, I decided to go with a short, approximately 500 word long prose. Think also of the style you are attempting to emulate in this step. Sometimes, taking inspiration from the style of a different author can help you expand your abilities as a creative writer. Finally, consider your intent as an author and think about how the elements you've included thus far work to emphasize that intent.

This piece might seem to be a pretty big jump from the last, but that's simply how it is. After you've brainstormed, you have to start writing. My brainstorm inspired me to create a piece where the main character addresses all of the strangers they are writing this love letter to individually. There are a few meanings to this but I wanted it to be up for interpretation as I do not think my interpretation is necessarily the most interesting. The image included is of the first draft of this first paragraph.

This final step is my favorite. Within it, you should take the paragraph you've just written and, essentially, fiddle with it. Edit the sentence lengths, add interesting details, and overall make the paragraph more to your liking. I tried to make this paragraph simplistic and minimalistic but still somewhat beautiful in the descriptions it provided, like an appreciation of the small details in life. I don't know if I achieved that, but it was quite fun. Also, I would recommend you fix up the formatting so that it is optimised for reading purposes during this step.

In this final step, you simply repeat steps 2 and 3 with the rest of your paragraphs until you have a piece you are happy with. At that point, change any other formatting issues you may have, and you're done! I hope you had fun :)