Anyone have any advice for story writing?

If you want to write horror, read more horror
If you want to write romance, read more romance
If you want to write comedy, read more comedy
Just read more and it will eventually come to you.

Just keep a notepad and jot down ideas. Turn those ideas into an outline for a chapter. I mean, stray thoughts can sometimes make or break a project. You don’t want to loose them!

Pick the genre that you are the most interested in or most comfortable with. Then read some examples by writers you admire.

Try Poe for horror, Woody Allen for comedy, Alice Munro or Edna O’Brien for romance and ask yourself what about the stories work.

Examine the broad premise, the choices the writer makes and the detail and perfection of each sentence. Each choice of a word is a conscious one. Why? What happens if you substitute or vary things in some way?

Make yourself an active reader. If nothing comes now, perhaps you need to try a different approach.

In her book about writing, Bird by Bird,: Some Instructions on Writing and Life: Anne LaMott has a number of short and challenging writing exercises, some only a paragraph long. Try a few of those.

Read more, practice more.
I know this kinda wrong, but eavesdrop for inspiration, no one knows what good stories other have.

If you need a community to develop your skills, I recommend wattpad.com

Try writing what you know and like. Or if you like something but don’t know it well do the research. Tom Clancy was an insurance agent. He just liked researching things and getting the details exactly right. (Is this your semi-annual visit to fluther?)

Pick up this book.

All the writers I’ve known have been people who notice the details in life and think about them. I don’t know if that’s universally true (I don’t know a ton of writers) but it is what struck me about the ones I’ve met.

Other than that, I’ve always thought Henry Miller’s rules for writing were helpful for just about any creative endeavor I’ve applied the repeated premises to.

1. Work on one thing at a time until finished.
2. Start no more new books, add no more new material to “Black Spring.”
3. Don’t be nervous. Work calmly, joyously, recklessly on whatever is in hand.
4. Work according to Program and not according to mood. Stop at the appointed time!
5. When you can’t create you can work.
6. Cement a little every day, rather than add new fertilizers.
7. Keep human! See people, go places, drink if you feel like it.
8. Don’t be a draught-horse! Work with pleasure only.
9. Discard the Program when you feel like it—but go back to it the next day. Concentrate. Narrow down. Exclude.
10. Forget the books you want to write. Think only of the book you are writing.
11. Write first and always. Painting, music, friends, cinema, all these come afterwards.

Create flawed characters and get to know them well. Most of the people you meet in real life are a little bit annoying in one way or another, or they at least have a balance of positive and negative traits that make them distinctive. Then let the plot flow from their character flaws and their choices.

Sometimes I write little short things with the characters just dicking around, as a way to get to know them better. It’s like getting to know people at a dinner party. It’s a low-stakes way to learn how they interact with each other and what they are like.

Two of my favorite movies have odd, flawed characters and character-driven plots. Ghost World In Bruges (muy NSFW).

In Ghost World, two snarky teenagers have alienated themselves from everyone, and they look down on everyone else. The movie is about what happens when they grow apart. One becomes a part of society, and the other forms an odd friendship with a cynical, eccentric middle-aged man. All the plot points come from the characters’ choices.

“In Bruges” is about two hitmen who are sent to a quaint medieval town to wait for instructions. One is mellow, cultured, and introspective, and the other is irreverent, impulsive, and hedonistic. The plot is a gripping mystery full of dark humor, but it’s all wrapped up in the characters and their flaws.

OTOH, a plot-driven story is one where the writer thinks up the plot beforehand, and the characters are just tools to act it out. Most monster/ horror movies are a good example. The characters are just there to get eaten.

If the characters have integrity and act like real people, I’m willing to overlook a lot of other crap in a story. That said, use clear and precise language. You can’t break the rules before you know them. If you balance action, dialogue, and introspection’/ description, the story will flow well, and other people might be interested in reading it.

If you are writing horror, you don’t need to always make it so that the mobile phones don’t work for some reason.

Since mobiles, you always see writers trying to find a work around for why the mobiles don’t work and why they can’t call for help. I think it is a cliche.

Instead of having your character check their mobile to see that there is no signal, have them make the cal for help and get laughed at.

“Help, mutant freaks are trying to rape and kill me in the desert!” ... “Erm, yea well I’m at work at the moment 1000 miles away, not sure what you want me to do about that.”