Now you turn that draft into a finished product, which can be done if you follow the steps that are outlined in lots of classes, books, videos, etc. They all go something like this (with individual variations, of course) :
- Make sure your story follows the steps of ‘The Hero’s Journey.’ That’s a book outlining the stages most stories follow, as in Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz. She finds herself with a problem, decides to find a solution, gathers friends to help her, heads out to solve it, fights her way through, succeeds, and then returns home. It’s a familiar story-line that, with some modification, can be seen in almost all stories.
- Make sure your characters fit the story and that at least one important character is changed during the course of the story. It’s called the ‘character arc.’
- Write the story.
- Re-write the story. And then re-write it again. And so on, until you are either satisfied or can’t stand looking at it any longer.
- Publish it!