Read fiction novels. (Stephen King highly recommended for creative purposes)
I've never tried to explain how to write a story, and now that I want to I'm finding it incredibly difficult.
One thing I liked to do was switch between third person and first person writing. Both so I can better tell the story and so I could show off. Get character voices right. Eg. if you were quoting an Indigenous child you might write "orright" instead of "alright" (or perhaps not, depending on how you want to convey the character) - this also applies to your first person narration - even if no one is 'speaking', there needs to be a clear voice. Be implicit in what you write as well as explicit. For example, my exam piece was about the different identities or some shit that were forced upon Indigenous children of the stolen generation. My title was "Stolen: Australia's Genocide" - so I'm saying a lot with three words. When narrating from the perspective of an Indigenous child, I capitalised white man, so, from her perspective it was the "White Man", which effectively creates some oppositional force for the reader (for the reader should be on the side of your character)... And I mean, I also narrated an attempted rape scene, but no where did I mention the words rape, consent, etc etc. However, I think the first line of that scene after a transition was "Put that thing near me and I'll bite it off" - or something that was pretty blatant without having to narrate "He was about to rape her". That scene was actually sick (in the fucked up way, like "you're a sick man") - I'm sure there was a very disturbed feeling created for the reader despite there being nothing too explicit. Actually, the most explicit thing written was "he stood there with a deranged half-smile on his face, absent-mindedly playing with himself", which brings me to my next point of using adjectives to create a feel you want to create, like language-analysis in reverse. Personally, I think the fact that he's playing with himself absent-mindedly makes the whole thing a whole lot more fucked up, and having a half-smile. He's obviously a psychopath.
Also, be bold. If you feel like the idea for the story came really easily, you're probably fucking it up. A lot of stories for Identity and Belonging I would bet was a first-person narrative about an Asian kid that didn't fit in (Growin Up Asian in Australia). Or you could do a conflict piece about someone having an argument or whatever else. But, not many people are going to have the balls enough to narrate a rape scene. So, don't think writing a story lets you get off on having 'complex ideas' - if anything, your ideas should be more complex, because you're having to convey them thematically etc rather than through expository like statements such as "One's sense of identity and belonging is truly the greatest paradox; bla bla bla".
I hope I've given you at least some shred of half of an idea, because I would actually have to sit down and think about it for a bit if I wanted to figure out a really good way to write stories.
I should be watching my lecture *sigh*. Curse email notifications from the English boards.
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