Stories are a fundamental piece of us. When we sleep, with all external sources are blocked and we are alone with ourselves, we tell ourselves stories in dreams. In the Bible, with all the ways God could reveal Himself to mankind, he did not begin with a speech, or a list of characteristics, or even a message of love. He began with a story – “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” Most people will struggle to remember any school lesson or speech they’ve ever heard, but can re-tell stories they’ve heard and seen many, many years later. Stories communicate in ways far deeper than almost any other means because they reach us in our very innermost being.
At Create Great Stories, writers learn to write their own stories, receive feedback, improve their stories, and learn to excel in their story-telling abilities. There’s no better way to learn than through experience. No one begins as an excellent writer, regardless of how many books they read or how many lectures they attend. By reading a variety of stories, then writing their own stories, writers teach themselves what they like, what doesn’t work, what things need tweaking, and what they want to share with the world.
Most importantly, writers learn that they are not alone. They are part of an encouraging community of other writers learning their craft and helping each other improve. The environment is safe, with no tolerance for profanity or sex, while letting writers create and explore in any genre and style.
There are a large number of stories for writers to read as examples. There’s a whole page of Public Domain stories. There are Draft stories and Completed stories. All the stories are available without the writer forced to look in places where stories are likely to be disgusting, perverse, and just as bad, horribly written.
The writing system begins with creating Draft stories. Draft stories allow a writer to create new stories with the full expectation that each story will have flaws, missing pieces, undeveloped characters or plots or dialogue, and sentences that don’t make sense to the reader. The point of a Draft story is to get something written and published for others to see. Instead of toiling away in hopes that someday something great will emerge, the writer is enabled to develop ideas and stories quickly.
Draft stories are not permanent. They are expected to be deleted by the writer after enough feedback has been provided. A new Draft story can then be published where the writer incorporates improvements to their stories. A story may undergo many versions of draft, each time receiving detailed feedback.
The end goal is always to create Completed stories. These stories are the works that the writer wants to share with the world. Even Completed stories are not perfect. No artistic endeavor is ever “perfect.” The story is, though, at a place where it has achieved the writer’s intent, is sufficiently interesting to the reader, and has reached the place where no more investment of the writer’s time is worthwhile. The writer can publish the story as Complete, achieve the satisfaction of creating a worthy story, and move on to creating yet more stories.
Writing stories allows a person to explore their own ideas and express their creativity in ways that are enjoyable, insightful, and deeply meaningful to their readers. This site allows people to begin that journey at the earliest moment, a journey that leads to lifelong improvements and satisfaction for both the writer and their readers.