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Julia Gousseva

Writer, Creative Writing Teacher

How to Write an Original Short Story

Have you always wanted to write fiction but don’t know where to start? Have you started writing but got stuck and don’t know how to finish? Do you have ideas but find it hard to develop them into a complete story that makes sense? Or do you experience writer's block, get stuck, and lose motivation?

If you have experienced any of these problems or if you simply want a clear and specific way to develop your idea into a story, you’re in the right place.
 
This course will present an approach to writing stories that I have developed over a number of years and refined with my students in face-to-face classes.

This approach is a step-by-step strategy for crafting short stories that promises that you are going to write an original short story if you're willing to follow the basic principles I will present.

It’s different from other systems and other techniques of fiction writing. It’s more structured, and it works really well for beginning writers because it gives them a lot of practical help with the nuts and bolts of building a short story.

We’ll start by discussing some general principles and reading two short stories: one by Guy de Maupassant, and the other by Anton Chekhov.

Then, we’ll get to the sections with specific tips, specific procedures, and step-by-step directions on how to go from start to finish of the whole writing process.

This approach is not magic, its' not a formula, and it doesn’t include all possible ways to write a story.

Just one way. And one approach. 

I realize that there are other approaches, but my goal is not to provide the survey of all possible ways of writing a story. It is to take beginning writers along the most confident path to the completion of their first story.

This course is designed to meet the needs of all beginning fiction writers. I have used this approach in my classroom courses for a number of years, and my students find it effective, efficient, and enjoyable.

I hope you will, too! See you in class!

Julia

Hello, dear writers!

My name is Julia Gousseva. I'm a writer, a reader, and a teacher of college-level creative writing classes. I'm thrilled to be able to share my knowledge and experience with me.

I've been writing stories ever since I was a little girl. One day, my grandmother gave me an old leather-bound notebook with yellowed pages. The notebook was half-filled with stories my grandmother wrote when she was a little girl. 

"Now, it's your time to write stories," she told me.

And I've been writing ever since. My work has been published in Highlights for Children, The Sun Magazine, and Chicken Soup for the Soul anthologies.  A few years ago, I enjoyed a year-long assignment with the Tucson Citizen writing My Tucson column.

Creative writing is my passion, and you can often find me at work on a new project. I'm the author of Adventures of Alex and Katie children’s books, Anya’s Story historical fiction series, three mystery novels, and a book of short stories.

My current project is a historical fiction novel about Stalin’s destruction of Moscow’s Christ the Saviour Cathedral in 1931.

I started teaching college-level writing courses in 1993, as a graduate student at the University of Arizona. Since earning my PhD in 2001, I have been a full-time writing instructor at a community college in Arizona. My favorite classes to teach are short story writing and creative nonfiction.

My website is www.juliagoussevabooks.com