Writing stories for fun, for school or for English as a foreign language (EFL) exams.   Stories, or narratives, are a part of several English language examinations such as Cambridge's First for Schools (formerly known as the First Certificate in English or FCE for short), the Learning Resource Network's LRN and the English Speaking Board's ESB.  Apart from exams though, many students are asked to write a short story as a school assignment and find themselves in a bind.  Add to this crowd those who enjoy writing or want to put pen to paper in the hopes of entering a competition or becoming the next book-to-film adaptation tycoons, but don't know where the launchpad is. Well, this post hopes to get the creative juices flowing.  

When analyzing stories, certain key terms must be taken into account. In the previous list of literary terms , the variety of concepts presented are used not only to explain stories but also poems. I n addition to this, a number of other words were incl uded in the list that could be seen as pertinent to a class discussio n on a text.  This time round, however, the list will deal with key notions exclusively associated with stories . By looking at each main category, readers can evaluate works by authors and be able to elaborate on the stories themselves, either in w rit ing or orally . It is therefore vital for anyone involved in th e process of critically assessing literary work s, to keep these terms in mind so as to be able to write or speak ab out them in an academic environ ment ; h eck, even over a cup of coffee with f riends at a social gathering.   Note to teachers:  Naturall y, teachers should ha nd this list to students and cover each concept at ...

"Powder" is a short story intended to quickly state the obvious - a father's bond to his son is always a difficult thing to forge when parents aren't on good terms with each other. The level of difficulty in achieving this increases as fathers aren't used to explicitly explaining to their sons that they are trying to forge a stronger bond at a particular moment in time to begin with. Accordingly, the complications the father in this particular story is required to overcome are not only the time constraints the mother has placed on the trip as a whole or the mistrust towards her husband she has allowed her son to bear witness to which the father feels he must compensate for, but also the disparity in character traits that father and son exhibit. Having read the story for the first time, students predominantly respond to the query "What was the story about?" either with "I didn't get it. Some father and son skiing" or "S...