Hi.
I am really grateful for the platform that Lit provided me to use and abuse. This is my way of giving back.
This is intended for new Writers/Authors who are interested in learning a practical, technical method of developing their stories. Since I am posting this on Lit, the article focuses on Authors wishing to write and post on Lit and similar forums. If you use your head however, you might be able to apply the contents to writing in general. I have divided it into three parts. The first part is a broad introduction to some aspects of writing, the second is a look at classical story structures and the third is a description of a method which I find to be practical and effective for developing ideas into stories.
I am an experienced writer of motion picture fiction and give creative writing workshops from time to time. I developed this method by piecing together what I learned in Art School and from my experiences writing and teaching. May I add though that I do not use this method when writing what I submit on Lit (it was never my intention to post for a broad porn audience). If you do read my other submissions, allow me to quote well in advance the Man from Nazareth, who once said, "Do as I say, not as I do."
When I attended Art School, I was rebellious. I chose to become an artist because I wanted to be free in my creativity. I did not want to be limited by so called "established" rules and conventions. I was like, "I wanna do my own thing, I don't wanna imitate this or that person..." I was not the only student with this opinion (artists, right?).
However, a favorite Professor said something very interesting to us. He said,
"There is nothing wrong with breaking rules, but you gotta know them first, so you know why you are breaking them."
I hope you will find something of use for yourself in these 3 submissions.
What is a story?:
Looking at it from an Author's point of view, a story is an artificial construction, created by a story teller to give a convincing illusion of reality. Though you might feel emotional attraction or attachment to characters, events or dialog in a story, these are all really artificial, abstract constructions that only exist in the head of the storyteller, in our case, the Author.
This definition applies even to a story based on real persons and/or events. First and foremost, everyone's memory is selective and subjective. Though we all tend to say, "This is the way it happened," what we should actually say is, "This is the way I (choose to) remember it." Even when an author models a character on a real person, he/she can never write everything about that person, without easily reaching a million pages. What you do (or should do) is select aspects of that person's character that are relevant to the story you would like to tell, and leave out the rest. The same applies to any events, places, objects and so forth, that you include in your story. You might equate a story to a map of a city. A map is drawn to a scale and shows a two dimensional plan of a city. You can find real places on it, you can use it to navigate accurately from one point to another, but the map and the city are not the same. Writing a good story is like marking a route on a map, that gives you the easiest, most direct way to get you from your starting point to your destination.
What constitutes a good story (generally speaking):
Correct English (or whatever language you are using, smart Aleck):
The first and most basic components of a well written story are correct spellings, grammar and punctuation (except within quotation marks). Errors tend to irritate readers, therefore, it is advisable to use Spell-check and proof read your work.
Disciplined Writing:
Disciplined writing as opposed to carefree waffling gives you a focused story with a clear structure that is easy for a reader to follow. Waffling and aimless, uninspired meandering tend to distract, bore and irritate readers. A skilled Author may like to constantly confuse his/her readers and force them to keep on their toes and use their heads, as Tarantino did in Pulp Fiction. I remember a mate of mine going, "How come Travolta got shot but he was still alive at the end?" I responded with, "Use your head, fool!" (Pulp Fiction is made up of three plots, and Tarantino or his Editor moved some stuff around the "time-lines", so they are not told chronologically.)
Style:
Readers with taste tend to appreciate an author with style, as in, a wide vocabulary, vivid imagery, a clever way with words, usage of puns and well, all those little things that differentiate and elevate a word smith from just another writer, and give him his/her own particular signature. Be assured though that you do not have to be a wordmeister in order to write a good story. And beautiful, superfluous language alone doth not of a boring story an interesting one make. (You may try to aid a limited, dull, redundant vocabulary by consulting a Thesaurus though.)
Emotional involvement:
A story which has impact does not happen in the readers' heads but in their hearts. Readers become emotionally involved if they either sympathize with or despise a character's personality, ethics, goals and actions. The Author has to get the readers to a point where they wish the main characters ill or well. Needless to say, if the readers do not care either way about any of the characters and events in a story, then they will be bored and the story will just breeze past them. They will probably just stop reading way before they reach your carefully planned climax. For example, I will watch Miami Heat because I like them and want them to win. I will watch the Knicks because I don't like them and hope to see them lose. But I don't care about The Pistons, win or lose, so I wont bother watching any of their games. ZAPP!!! BYE!
Tension
Tension is created and heightened through conflicts. The more and the bigger the opposing forces you have in your story, the higher the tension. The opposing forces can come in the form of internal conflicts, whereby a character has to fight against his moral values, beliefs, fears or logic and so forth. Or they can take the form of external forces, as in other people or the environment which make it difficult for a character in a story to achieve their aim.
Suspense
Suspense is created when the reader wishes for a particular outcome, but is not sure if it will come to pass or not. It is also created when the reader fears for a character who is threatened by something or someone. If the outcome of a story is clear after the first couple of lines, you could equate this to attending a boxing match knowing that the ref has been bought and one of the boxers has accepted a million bucks to take a dive after 30 seconds. Unless you were weird, or had a lot of money riding on it, you would simply be bored and would not bother attending the match.
Interesting Plot:
The plot is the sequence of events in your story. Obviously, the more interesting the things that happen in your story, the more interested the reader is. However, "interesting" does not that something out of the ordinary or supernatural has to happen in your story. The points in your plot that add to the tension and suspense are "interesting." If your story has superb, unexpected "twists and turns" going off at spectacular tangents, but they do not add to the tension, suspense or the readers' emotional involvement, then they will have no impact.
Relevance:
The subject matter of your story has to be of some relevance to the reader. You should look at a story like a question and answer session. The question is posed somewhere at the beginning of your story. "Will he/she succeed or fail?" Will he/she be caught or not?" and so forth.
If you write about something that is very trivial and carries no weight for the reader, this is like posing a boring, uninteresting question. Its rare if not impossible to have an interesting answer to a boring question. Why should a reader stick around till the end?
Convincing Logic
Since this seems to a major point of conflict between Authors and readers on Lit, I will devote a fair amount of space to it.
Terms like "convincing", "logical" and "realistic" tend to be confusing. Often, readers post comments like, "Your story was very realistic (or convincing)," or , "Not convincing at all..."
I have already described a story as an artificial construction. Therefore, how does one give this artificial construction a veneer of realism? A realistic story is one in which your artificial construction makes sense, that is, it has no logical flaws. There has to be congruence between characters you establish, and the setting (physical and social environment) and the plot.
In real life, water flows downstream. However, readers of fiction are very lenient and tolerant. They allow Authors to create worlds where water flows upstream, Vampires prowl the nights, Aliens zoom about in space ships, Terminators come from the future and so forth. At the beginning of your story, you as an Author are free to establish any types of characters and societies, abiding in any sorts of fantastic worlds, which follow any sets of rules that you can conjure. However, once you have established the characters and "natural laws" of your story, the readers expect and in fact demand of you to remain bound by them. If you suddenly change any of these, for no apparent reason that can be understood, the readers will sense a flaw in your logic. They will feel annoyed and cheated, like you are playing with loaded dice.
As a kid I once watched a Kung Fu movie with a Bruce Lee look alike, aptly named Bruce Li. The title was, "The Third Leg of Bruce Li." Just before the end of the movie, the bad guys had Bruce Li all trussed up on the floor. One of the baddies raised an evil looking machete to hack off Bruce's head. And then, lo and behold, out of the blue, a third leg appeared on Bruce's hip, and kicked all the baddies and killed them. Then it disappeared. Everybody in the cinema fell over laughing, because this was simply ridiculous. Throughout the whole movie, there had been absolutely nothing to suggest that Bruce Li might have some type of third leg. Mind you, I am not talking about his penis here, I mean a real leg, thigh, knee, and foot in a brand new Chinese shoe. Though we were kids, we just didn't buy that. We thought the film makers were dumb morons and we laughed at them.
