Plan Your First Short Story From a Single Idea

One idea and a blank page is the most common reason a story never gets past the first paragraph. This turns your rough idea into five plain beats: what your protagonist wants, what stops them, the turning point, and how it resolves, so you have a skeleton to write into instead of staring at nothing.

I have one idea for a short story and nothing else. {INPUT} = [describe your idea in a sentence or two, however rough].

Turn this into a simple story skeleton I can actually write from: a protagonist with a clear want, an obstacle, a turning point, and an ending that resolves the want one way or another. Keep it to five short beats, no more. Do not write the story itself, just the skeleton, in plain language, so a first time writer is not staring at a blank page.