Real life is anticlimactic. A good story has a climax. A character does something because it has meaning behind it. In real life we wake up early, eat, go to bed, then repeat. Every story needs a “major dramatic question” as the author of chapter three calls it. This is something that answers the plot of the story. For example, any romance story’s dramatic question is whether or not the two romantic leads end up together. Something that makes a story pop is adding a protagonist and antagonist. You should also set goals for the characters, like mentioned previously in chapter two, desire is important. A key difference between short stories and novels is that typically a novel will contain a subplot. A subplot is a short plotline that exists alongside the main plot of the story. Like novels, short stories need a structure too of a beginning, middle, and end. For the beginning, it shouldn’t start from scratch. It should seem as though things are the same as they have always been. The middle will be the longest section of the story, out numbering the amount of pages during the beginning and end. Tightly linked events should build tension and conflict, making it climactic. As for the ending, this will likely be the shortest bit of the storyline. It will generally follow “the three C’s” pattern: crisis, climax, and consequences. The crisis part will be where tension hits its max point, climax breaks the tension also giving readers the answer to the big dramatic question. Lastly, the consequences are alluded to at the end.