What are the short stories that everyone writes?

gettingby

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I think there are some short stories that everyone tries to write at some point. For example, who hasn't written a story about a writer at one time or another? I think bank robbery stories are another common idea that many writers try and make their own. And writers with any sort of connection to war have probably written a story about war. There is the story that takes place in a bar. There is the story of a breakup. There is the story that starts by waking up from a dream that we later learn is an overdone and a hard sell. But, for most of these common ideas, I think writers can make these ideas there own. What do you guys think? Can we put our own spin on these ideas to make them work? Obviously, many writers do. Or do you try and stay away from these because you know editors have read a hundred bank robbery stories? Also, what sort of stories do you think are typical for writers to try writing? Should we try and stay away from them or not?
 

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For example, who hasn't written a story about a writer at one time or another?

...

There is the story that starts by waking up from a dream that we later learn is an overdone and a hard sell.

Fun fact: My first NaNovel I got bored midway through and wrote a chapter where the characters go on strike and the author has to intervene. I still want to turn that into a short story and submit it places someday.

Then on an assignment I wrote a variation of waking up from a dream that was a psychological horror where the character loses track of where dreams end and reality begins. Probably overdone and not that scary, but I liked it.
 

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Can we put our own spin on these ideas to make them work? Obviously, many writers do. Or do you try and stay away from these because you know editors have read a hundred bank robbery stories? Also, what sort of stories do you think are typical for writers to try writing? Should we try and stay away from them or not?

I guess I don't really think about it too much. I tend to come up with the character(s) first, though, and then the story follows from there.
 

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I've never written stories based off tropes in any genre. I've never written a bank heist story, or a war story, or a story that takes place in a bar. I have written a story about a writer but the writer in the story was me.

Every story I write is based on my own life experience. Whether it’s a literary story, a western story, a mystery story, a ghost story, a humor story, a fantasy story, an adult story, or an MG story, it’s always based on my life experience, my beliefs, etc.

I have written a story about a writer, but the writer in the story was me. I’ve also written a ghost story, but it, too, was based on my own life experience. I don’t see the point of trying to put a spin on existing story types when I can dig into my life experience and write a story no one else can possibly write.
 

gettingby

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Fun fact: My first NaNovel I got bored midway through and wrote a chapter where the characters go on strike and the author has to intervene. I still want to turn that into a short story and submit it places someday.

Then on an assignment I wrote a variation of waking up from a dream that was a psychological horror where the character loses track of where dreams end and reality begins. Probably overdone and not that scary, but I liked it.

You totally should turn that into a short story. It sounds like it would be a fun story.
 

gettingby

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I guess I don't really think about it too much. I tend to come up with the character(s) first, though, and then the story follows from there.

Does that mean you never write these kinds of stories? I don't think it matters if you start with character or how you start or if you outline or don't outline. You are still writing a story. Does the character you start with rob a bank, go through a breakup, wake up from a dream, etc? But maybe you stay away from these types of stories that are pretty typical for writers to attempt.
 

gettingby

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I've never written stories based off tropes in any genre. I've never written a bank heist story, or a war story, or a story that takes place in a bar. I have written a story about a writer but the writer in the story was me.

Every story I write is based on my own life experience. Whether it’s a literary story, a western story, a mystery story, a ghost story, a humor story, a fantasy story, an adult story, or an MG story, it’s always based on my life experience, my beliefs, etc.

I have written a story about a writer, but the writer in the story was me. I’ve also written a ghost story, but it, too, was based on my own life experience. I don’t see the point of trying to put a spin on existing story types when I can dig into my life experience and write a story no one else can possibly write.

Really? I would have thought you would have written just about every kind of short story there is. It kind of sounds like you only write stories that really happened in some form, but that can't be true, can it? I'm curious as to why you write fiction so close to your own life. There is so much freedom in fiction. Why wouldn't you want to take advantage of that?
 

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I follow the old adage that you write what you like to read.

Having just been published as a NF writer, I'm writing some short stories to "loosen up" a bit.

Five plots poked their heads out of the ground and I've written three of them--and they all came from the "What would happen if?" school and they are all horror. I don't outline either since it makes it so much more fun to write. I get the idea, mull it over for a few days, and then it all comes rushing out. Then I set it aside, write the next one, set is aside and return to the first one, etc.

I think we can write whatever we like and certain "take our place at bat" to have a go at the tried and true.

Richard Matheson famously wanted to write a haunted house story so he tired to crack Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House. He wrote Hell House...and fumbled it a bit; great premise, but weak payoff.

Later, Stephen King tried it with The Shining and even dedicated it to Ms. Jackson. He did a great job.

So yes, we can take a crack at the classics...and fail or soar!
 

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Does that mean you never write these kinds of stories? I don't think it matters if you start with character or how you start or if you outline or don't outline. You are still writing a story. Does the character you start with rob a bank, go through a breakup, wake up from a dream, etc? But maybe you stay away from these types of stories that are pretty typical for writers to attempt.

I've never done the "waking from dream" thing, although I did write an experimental flash fiction piece that involved mind alteration.

These days, my stories are mostly about everyday people who face some kind of challenge that's unique to their situation. No bank robberies, either, although a couple did involve criminal activity. I did have a breakup story, but it wasn't the focus of the story. I guess what I meant was I don't tend to think consciously about plot elements when I write.

It's very different from when I was writing SF--there, I would be stuck pretty quick if I didn't have at least a general idea of the plot and story arc in my head.
 

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Really? I would have thought you would have written just about every kind of short story there is. It kind of sounds like you only write stories that really happened in some form, but that can't be true, can it? I'm curious as to why you write fiction so close to your own life. There is so much freedom in fiction. Why wouldn't you want to take advantage of that?


I think we may be talking at cross purposes, and I know I explained myself poorly.

Writing fiction that comes out of your own life is the way to write fiction that sells. I've never known a good, successful writer who doesn't do this, including Stephen King, Dean Koontz, and you name the writer. Ray Bradbury was extremely famous for doing just this.

I find the freedom in fiction is largely an illusion. It's all in whatever mask we decide to cover the real story with. The freedom is no more than a Halloween mask. Some writers have a closet full of vampire masks, some a closet full of ghost masks, some a closet full of gangster masks, etc., but they're all just masks.

There is no such thing as a vampire story, a ghost story, a gangster story, or a bank heist story. These things are just masks we use to cover the real story. Every good story is about a person, or people, and it's about truth. The mask we put on the story is not fact, but the story behind the mask must be true in every sense of the word.

This, I think, is where new writers so often go wrong, especially with short stories. There's nothing at all wrong with deciding that today you'll pull a bank robber mask out of the closet and use it, as long as you have a real, living, breathing person, one with an absolutely true story to tell, to put that mask on.

This is why life experience is so invaluable, and why writers need to use someone else's life experience, if they can't use their own. New writers often just don't understand that a bank heist story is not about a bank heist, a vampire story is not about vampires, and a ghost story is not about ghosts.

This is why Ray Bradbury moved his hometown, and most of the people who lived there, to Mars, and why pretty much all his stories did the same thing, moving real experience, real people, real truth, into the world of fantasy. It's also why many psychologists believe Stephen King often retells the childhood trauma of having a young friend killed by a train while King was with him.

I do only write stories that really happened in some form, and I do only use characters who really exist, or existed, in some form. The mask I put on a story often changes because this is where the freedom lies, but no writer has the freedom to be untruthful about what lies behind the mask.

What works best for me, and for a great many other writers I’ve read about, is first having something to say, having a truth to tell. These things come from experience of how this or that affects real people. It comes from knowing what people are like, understanding how trauma affects them, how setting affects them, what story actually is. Then I decide which mask I want to put on a story.

Very often, there is no need for a mask at all, or, at most, a transparent mask. Many of my stories are not only true, they’re ninety percent factual. A few even more so. Like Ray Bradbury, I can put some pretty fantastic masks on stories, but the mask is never the story. If you haven’t read Bradbury’s Zen in the Art of Writing, do so. Pay close attention to what thoughts generated his stories. Listen to some of his longer interviews on YouTube. He explains it well.

Anyway, I may one day put a bank heist mask on a story, but a mask is all it will be. It’s what lies behind the mask that matters, the real experience, the real truth, the real people, and the real places.
 

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For the most part, I don't write with the intention of setting off bells in someone's head. Because the last thing I want is for someone to identify my story by a label and to love it or hate it because of that label. I want them to read the story and enjoy it or hate it based on it's own merits.
 

Myrealana

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I think there are some short stories that everyone tries to write at some point. For example, who hasn't written a story about a writer at one time or another? I think bank robbery stories are another common idea that many writers try and make their own. And writers with any sort of connection to war have probably written a story about war. There is the story that takes place in a bar. There is the story of a breakup. There is the story that starts by waking up from a dream that we later learn is an overdone and a hard sell.
I don't think I've written any of those of my own accord.

I have written a story that begins with waking up from a bad dream, but it was an assignment in my college creative writing course. It was horrible. I got an 'A.'

My college creative writing course was crap.
 

gettingby

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I think we may be talking at cross purposes, and I know I explained myself poorly.

Writing fiction that comes out of your own life is the way to write fiction that sells. I've never known a good, successful writer who doesn't do this, including Stephen King, Dean Koontz, and you name the writer. Ray Bradbury was extremely famous for doing just this.

I find the freedom in fiction is largely an illusion. It's all in whatever mask we decide to cover the real story with. The freedom is no more than a Halloween mask. Some writers have a closet full of vampire masks, some a closet full of ghost masks, some a closet full of gangster masks, etc., but they're all just masks.

There is no such thing as a vampire story, a ghost story, a gangster story, or a bank heist story. These things are just masks we use to cover the real story. Every good story is about a person, or people, and it's about truth. The mask we put on the story is not fact, but the story behind the mask must be true in every sense of the word.

This, I think, is where new writers so often go wrong, especially with short stories. There's nothing at all wrong with deciding that today you'll pull a bank robber mask out of the closet and use it, as long as you have a real, living, breathing person, one with an absolutely true story to tell, to put that mask on.

This is why life experience is so invaluable, and why writers need to use someone else's life experience, if they can't use their own. New writers often just don't understand that a bank heist story is not about a bank heist, a vampire story is not about vampires, and a ghost story is not about ghosts.

This is why Ray Bradbury moved his hometown, and most of the people who lived there, to Mars, and why pretty much all his stories did the same thing, moving real experience, real people, real truth, into the world of fantasy. It's also why many psychologists believe Stephen King often retells the childhood trauma of having a young friend killed by a train while King was with him.

I do only write stories that really happened in some form, and I do only use characters who really exist, or existed, in some form. The mask I put on a story often changes because this is where the freedom lies, but no writer has the freedom to be untruthful about what lies behind the mask.

What works best for me, and for a great many other writers I’ve read about, is first having something to say, having a truth to tell. These things come from experience of how this or that affects real people. It comes from knowing what people are like, understanding how trauma affects them, how setting affects them, what story actually is. Then I decide which mask I want to put on a story.

Very often, there is no need for a mask at all, or, at most, a transparent mask. Many of my stories are not only true, they’re ninety percent factual. A few even more so. Like Ray Bradbury, I can put some pretty fantastic masks on stories, but the mask is never the story. If you haven’t read Bradbury’s Zen in the Art of Writing, do so. Pay close attention to what thoughts generated his stories. Listen to some of his longer interviews on YouTube. He explains it well.

Anyway, I may one day put a bank heist mask on a story, but a mask is all it will be. It’s what lies behind the mask that matters, the real experience, the real truth, the real people, and the real places.

Hey James -- That's an interesting take on writing fiction, but I can't say that's how I write fiction. I would say up to 10 percent of a story is true where 90 percent is pure fiction when it comes to my fiction. But sometimes I write stories that I don't think have any truth to them at all. Maybe there is some sort of universal truth tucked in, but it's not something I think too much about. I love making up characters and situations. I love the escape writing fiction offers me. If I had to base my fiction on my life or use people I know as characters, it wouldn't be as fun for me.

In the past, I have created characters based on real people, but by the time I am done with a story the character often seems very diffferent from the person I originally thought I was basing the character on. Most of the time my characters are not based on real people.

Same with situations. I have loosely based a story on a given situation, but the truth seems to almost evaporate as I write the story. I have just found it more interesting to explore my imagination. I really like to write absurdist fiction. I like to see how far I can take something, presses right up against the line of some sort of believability. Like is this story believable in this world I have created? I like the weird and unusual.

When I was first starting to write fiction, I would base a story in a real bar just so I could picture it in my head. Same with characters on some level, but things just turned out different. I've had a lot of life experience. I think it helps me tremendously as a writer. I think that is because I had to think and problem solve all over the world and deal with a lot of (often unfortunate) circumstances. At the same time, if I had to base my short stories on real life, I would fear that I would have nothing to write about. Or maybe I just don't want to write fiction that way.

The first short story I wrote, I tried to use a real place and real people I thought were interesting. The story was a disaster. After a long time, I went back to this story and did a complete rewrite. I kept a few of the characters, but changed them even more than I had and I added some that had no resemblance to anyone I have known. Then I changed the situation to something I have never experienced and don't know anyone who has. Now, that story is one of my favorites. Is there any truth in it? Other than this could have happened to someone and I still used a real place as my setting, it's pretty much just fiction.

I do write nonfiction as well. With that it is 100 percent true. Maybe after so many years of writing nonfiction, I needed another form to write in. I chose fiction to get away from the truth, not just mask it.

I know you always have great writing advice and wisdom to share. I'm going to think about this a little more. As you know, my fiction is not selling so I am willing to look at things differently and try new things. I kind of think I may be onto something with my absurdist fiction. It's also just fun to write. With the absurdist fiction I have done, none of it has been based on anything true. Wait, there is a house on my street that I have never been inside, but the setting of one story is what I imagined that house is like inside. I guess I would say something true triggered my imagination in that case.

However, I am going to attempt another story based on something true and see if I can pull it off this time. I have come a long way as a short story writer since the last time I tried this. And I do think your advice is always solid. If this will help me sell a story, I've got to give it a fair shot. But I also will continue with my more fiction fiction. Do you have any thoughts on why this works for you? I'm just wondering because it hasn't worked for me.

I did recently confront my biggest fear by writing a short story about it. I have never experienced this nor has anyone I know, but it is truly my biggest fear. How much truth would you say a story like that has?
 

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I don't worry about whether some aspects of a story might appear in other stories. Some things are common, so obviously will appear in other stories. Having a war somewhere in a story doesn't make it a certain story. Nor does visiting a bar. It's not bad to have things people recognise as real, because it helps ground the story (something that can particularly be an issue in my genres, as a lot of elements are unreal).

I also don't worry about hitting genre tropes. If a reader expects a murder mystery to have clue finding, and eventually uncover the killer, it's not a problem to write that story. It doesn't make it a better story because the detective decided to quit and open an animal hospital instead. Tropes often become popular because readers like them. Rather than viewing that as a limit, consider it a tool you can use.

Avoiding anything that might be common won't increase the chances of selling. What might help is to shake up your submissions a bit. I remember before you focused only on literary markets, but if you're writing weird and absurdist, you really should check out some speculative markets too. If you have written about bank robberies, it might fit in a mystery market. One story can often fit in multiple categories, so use that when you put together your submissions list. Don't be so set on your dream market that you ignore the rest.
 

buz

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I think there are some short stories that everyone tries to write at some point. For example, who hasn't written a story about a writer at one time or another? I think bank robbery stories are another common idea that many writers try and make their own. And writers with any sort of connection to war have probably written a story about war. There is the story that takes place in a bar. There is the story of a breakup. There is the story that starts by waking up from a dream that we later learn is an overdone and a hard sell. But, for most of these common ideas, I think writers can make these ideas there own. What do you guys think? Can we put our own spin on these ideas to make them work? Obviously, many writers do. Or do you try and stay away from these because you know editors have read a hundred bank robbery stories? Also, what sort of stories do you think are typical for writers to try writing? Should we try and stay away from them or not?

I don't know about generalizing about what everybody writes...I haven't yet written most of what you list up there (maybe a breakup? Kind of? Or at least a strained relationship, lol...). To be fair I haven't written all that many stories yet, though.

As far as the other questions--I think the only thing that really turns me off as a reader is being able to fill in all the details myself with some standard template I have in my head which is probably largely based on stereotyping or things I have seen before. If the words I am reading are things I could have invented myself, I don't see the point in reading them; it gives an impression of tediousness. If, for example, your story that takes place in a bar is about a brooding man with stubble in a "dive bar" with bad lighting, who thinks about his wife that just left him, and then gets in a fight with the man who he thinks is responsible, barfight ensues, yadda yadda, it doesn't do anything for me (unless there is some very surprising unknown element here). But if your story that takes place in a bar is about, I don't know, a girl who has decided that temperance is a holy endeavor and the only way to enforce it is to make alcohol more poisonous and kill people, I'm in :p

Thus I don't know about categorical dismissal...I mean, you will occasionally see categorical dismissal in guidelines for short story markets. I think I've even seen a warning against submitting a story that is about a writer, lol, though I can't remember which market it was. Or things like "if it has vampires or werewolves it will probably be a very hard sell for us." I think this mostly comes of there being so many permutations that have been read within the category that it becomes more difficult to give the reader something they could not have filled in themselves, given that category. But IMO, *generally* speaking, while the category issues is connected to this ("I have seen so many of these that it's hard to surprise me anymore") it's less about the category than what you present to the reader, and what the reader can do in response.
 
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These days I tend not to worry too much about genre and character type. Don't get me wrong, they're important but when I think about the books that I love, it's always about perspective.

Did I tell you about the first time I left the UK to head for the US. I had somehow managed to end up a specialist who got passed around from company to company, in what can be a very incestuous relationship for a free market economy.

Don't worry about it, I had been told, they have a couple of furnished apartments in a good area. So there I found myself, alone in the US with my young family at home.

There's also a strange feeling of power when you go from just X at your workplace, to a workplace that are having problems, big problems, and the people there are hanging off your every word. Opposition to your thinking just isn't there as their panic had turned to some strange numbness, well to me. Those there had turned long turned on each other and well, there was also the shooting. In a chemical plant of all places, a chemical plant that produces nuro toxins as a by-product.

I took a chance and knocked at my neighbours door, I had introduced myself as I entered the building in the morning as he was leaving, friendly warm smile , easy to chat to. "Is there a local bar?" I asked and he answered. "I'm just heading to one."

The bar could have been any bar in England, other than the US accents. Well that and a variant of rugby was being played out under the banner of football, in a world series event that only had US teams playing?

We got to talking and he drifted onto how wife had divorced him and married someone else but they talked regular and things seemed to be changing again. She seemed unhappy in the relationship she was in and there were the children.

At first it had seemed a bit odd when the barman leaned in and said to tread carefully there. It seemed a lot odder when he went on to say that they guy had been divorced for nearly fifteen years now and had been saying the same thing for fourteen years.

As I lay awake in my bed I wondered about my own relationship. Was it what it seemed to me? We had married young and had our first child when we were even younger. It was more my wife that had pushed me into taking the US opportunity. There had also been arguments as well, I had told myself that we were just tired and things just got heated at the time.

There's probably a story somewhere in there if I can decide on a genre and main character but until I can figure out the perspective that I'll be watching from... a perspective that's just alien enough to make me wonder...
 

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Hey James -- That's an interesting take on writing fiction, but I can't say that's how I write fiction. I would say up to 10 percent of a story is true where 90 percent is pure fiction when it comes to my fiction. But sometimes I write stories that I don't think have any truth to them at all. Maybe there is some sort of universal truth tucked in, but it's not something I think too much about. I love making up characters and situations. I love the escape writing fiction offers me. If I had to base my fiction on my life or use people I know as characters, it wouldn't be as fun for me.

In the past, I have created characters based on real people, but by the time I am done with a story the character often seems very diffferent from the person I originally thought I was basing the character on. Most of the time my characters are not based on real people.

This may be where you're going wrong. A story with no truth is a story that almost certainly isn't going to sell. No story has to be factual, but it must be true. As for characters, I suspect yours are modeled after real people, just not on a conscious level.

Basing stories on truth doesn't lessen how much fun you can have making up situations, or how wild you can get, but if a story isn't based on a truth, if it has nothing to say, then why read it?

Absurdist fiction doesn't need less truth, it needs more. The wilder a story gets, the closer to the edge you push it, the more it must be grounded in reality. No matter how wild, how grotesque, how weird the mask is, the reader needs to see reality and truth behind it. This is what fiction means.

Some writers, though, can just write a story without thinking about any of this, and still get a story that may be as wild as a March hare on the surface, but that expresses complete truth below the surface. You may be one of these writers, but I'm not. I have to base stories on my life experience, on real people I've known, or the truth isn't there, and the characters never come alive.
 

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I don't really know what this means?

Setting bells off, raising flags, or making people instantly identify a story by the tropes or as one of the stories on the list that Gettingby mentioned. All I'm saying is that if the stories I write cause one of these things to happen, or if someone says, "oh, that's a vampire story", then it wasn't my intention for that to happen. I hope that people are not biased and think, "Oh god, not another vampire story," but instead choose to read the story and judge it accordingly.

As you said, someone might put a "mask" on a story they've written. In other words, they may write a story and immediately identify or sell it as a "vampire" story, which if I took your meaning correctly, seems to mean that people don't have enough confidence in their own story to present it without the familiar packaging.
 

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Marlys

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Interesting reading! I'm happy to say I've written just one thing that appeared on any of those lists--a zombie story, and it sold.
 

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In other words, they may write a story and immediately identify or sell it as a "vampire" story, which if I took your meaning correctly, seems to mean that people don't have enough confidence in their own story to present it without the familiar packaging.

Well, every story wears a mask. If it didn't, it would be nonfiction. Your story must be something, must be some identifiable type of story. There's nothing wrong with tropes, nothing wrong with a story wearing a mask. I see no way to avoid either, and still have a work of fiction.

It's fine to write a vampire story, or a ghost story, or a zombie story, as long as you understand that all these things are just stand-ins for people, a way of telling some fundamental truth about people.

Familiar packaging matters. It's why most people choose to read a particular story by a particular writer. But "packaging" is the operative words. It's what's inside the package that matters, but the package still has to be there. It's what holds the contents together.
 

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I try to take it as a challenge. If I have an idea that almost sounds like something someone else has already written, I try to think about ways in which I could make it my own. If it doesn't work out, it doesn't work out. But I think it would be cool to surprise a reader by making it seem like the story, for example, "just another vampire story" and then halfway through have them realize it's not! It's completely different!
 

Enoise

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personally, I prefer character driven stories to plot driven stories. It helps me to view life from another angle, the character's. I would love to know if my character enjoys washing the dishes or not. Though I still love plot driven stories, they should have a good character arc, and not just from one bank heist to another. For example I love writing from my experience or that of others. If I happen to be the very religious type, my story might just be how a religious person like me was cajoled by a friend to visit a casino, and then I found myself gambling which is against my religion. That might be the whole conflict of the story--questioning my beliefs against my present action (gambling), and then maybe a little introspection about my past days. I believe you got my point. But again, different writers, different tastes and styles.