As I sit down and write…
Do I ever have an idea of what I am writing about? Who my characters are? Where the story is going? Unfortunately not. Every story has five elements and if I want to ever make it as a writer, I must remember that, and so should you!
I usually sit and start writing. I read a sentence or I have an idea and it triggers something in my mind that makes me want to open my Haley P. (my laptop) and start writing. After a while, the characters take over. No matter what I had in mind to start with, I digress. Most times, I can’t get back on tracks, the story has a life of its own… hence no life.
Let’s take an example: the story I am writing at the moment. I read a prompt: “The cold of te night would soon arrive.” I decided to use the prompt and combine my experience with narcissism and domestic violence to write a story on a topic I know well. Slowly but surely, the story went a different way than I had imagined.
I will try to fix it with this series of tips.
What are the five elements?
Character: the hero
Setting: when and where
Problem: a sum up of the story plot: Event 1, Event 2 and Event 3
Conflict: the hero’s struggle and which forces are up against him. Lesson or Message: the morale of the story
Important Rules:
Now, you have the story, with all five elements, but in order to make sure you hook your reader, you will need some fine tuning. Think about it: would you have kept on reading The Mortal Intruments if Valentine had not shown his ugly face or if there was not a doubt that Clary and Jace were indeed not brother and sister? Would you have been so captivated if Katniss had not been shot on the wide-screen?
When writing there are certain rules to follow, like in everything, you can decide to ignore them, but just know that, if they are called “rules” it is probably for a reason. Once you get over your teenage revolutionary outburst, get on with the rules.
Rule of three: a nice balance, despite all odds, and you are welcome to bend it, just as Alexandre Dumas did with his Three musketeers, who were indeed four…
You see it in the children’s tales (Three Little Pigs…), even in modern tales (Twilight and The Hunger Games…) and you see it in many other stories, three characters, three events, three-word motto…
Someone to spoil the soup and someone to help: and don’t let that bug you too much, they are interchangeable. The spoiler can end up being a helper and vice versa, rendering your story even more breath-taking. The helpers will get you out of dead-ends, because they have “magical powers” or they are know-it-all nerds… They can be living or non-living, small or huge, the possibilities are endless. They come in handy at one point or another.
Hiro must save the world: yes, a noble task or someone to save. If you don’t have a goal, don’t bother. There are experimental stories with nothing to tell, no one to rescue… the bottom line is: who wants to read that?
When to close the chapter: if the story goes on and on, you will have to cut it in chapters. You already understood the rule of three, so, make your own assumptions here. The ending of a chapter is a transition. It closes the door on what has been said and opens the window onto what is coming next. You must give your reader the satisfaction of knowing that what he was reading came to an end, and also give him the motivation to go on reading. This rule also applies to series.
Coming up: how to fix an existing story with these tips…
Free Writing in 2013 