Ten Steps How to Write a Compelling Story

Learn how to write stories that capture and keep your readers interest, and you'll submit one story after another for publication. Here are ten proven steps to use for your storytelling success:

• Pick a creative title. This will catch the reader's eye with enough curiosity to begin reading your story.
• Use a powerful hook in the first sentence or paragraph. Start with the most exciting part of your story, the conflict or problem.
• Continue to use conflict and resolution in several scenes to develop your story.
• Use sensory details in your descriptions. Let your reader hear, see, smell, touch, and taste what is happening.
• Show, don't tell. Write active verb sentences and resist the temptation to use adverbs and adjectives (ly and ing words). Avoid using passive language, forms of the verb "to be"(is, was, were, has, had, would, could, should, etc.).
• Use believable dialogue in fiction and nonfiction. Read your story out loud to check your conversations.
• Include a turning point, the place where your main character changes direction in thought or action. 
• Your turning point will reveal the takeaway value of your story. Make it clear without spelling it out. 
• Write a conclusion that will keep your reader thinking about your story a long time after finishing it.

Who accepts personal experience stories? Here are a few publishers:

Chicken Soup for the Soul

Cup of Comfort

Guideposts

Angels on Earth
Inspire Press

Be on the watch for other magazines and anthologies that use inspiring stories. This is a growing market to grow your writer platform. Don't miss the opportunities.

Seven Tips for Writing Your Personal Experience Story

Do you blog or journal your experiences? Do you have a story to tell? Here are seven tips to follow as you develop your story for publication.

1. Consider what magazine you would like to submit your story to. Get a copy or two and study its style, departments and columns so you can suggest how your article will fit into their periodical. Find their writer guidelines. Do they want queries first? Do they want submissions by U. S. Mail or e-mail?
2. Think of an attention grabbing title.
3. Start with a powerful hook--action, problem, or conflict.
4. Use fiction techniques--show (don't tell), multiple scenes, plot, climax, dialogue, description.
5. What is the point of your story? Make it your takeaway. Christian editors are looking for takeaways.
6. Write your query or cover letter. This has to be every bit as good as your manuscript or better. Make the editor want your article.
7. If the publisher sends you an assignment from your wonderful query letter, submit your story exactly as assigned and within the prescribed deadline. Sometimes assignments are on a speculation basis. Make your story excellent so it will be accepted and so you can get more assignments with this publisher and build a working relationship.

Here are some great books on writing:
Writers on Writing-Top Christian Authors Share Their Secrets
Writing for the Soul by Jerry B. Jenkins
On Writing Well by William Zinsser