dmoss
15th August 2006, 10:54 PM
Getting Started:
Before starting your story, there are several things to be taken into account. First of all, ask yourself several questions about your story's Concept. Is your story's concept too narrow? Does it allow for plot twists and multiple storylines to take effect? If you make the plans for your story too narrow, you won't have any room to grow outward, and into new territory once your first storyline has been completed/accomplished. However, if your plot is too broad, your readers may get confused and lost early-on. They might not feel welcome into the story if they don't have the comfort of knowing the concept from the beginning. Finding the perfect medium is essential to the shelf-life of your story.
After choosing the right concept for your story, it's time to start creating your Characters. It is important that your story has a protagonist (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protagonist), in order to function properly. In all likelihood, your main character will need to be likable. If your readers can't feel compassion for the main character, why should they continue reading? It is also important that your story includes some kind of antagonist (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antagonist), which provides trouble for your main character. The antagonist doesn't need to be a single person; it can be a larger force, or perhaps a company.
The next essential part of getting started concerns the Point of View (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narrator) that you choose. Throughout your entire story, it is important that you remain consistent with your PoV. If you stray from the current PoV, be sure to somehow let your reader know the reason. Make certain that it appears deliberate, because a simple mistake such as changing PoV at random can make a reader cringe.
The First Person PoV is perhaps the easiest to use. With the first person PoV, you only need to be thinking about the feelings of one character. And, obviously, you would use the word "I" when describing things seen, and feelings. I choose the Omniscient PoV which allows the reader to see into each character's thoughts, and look at past experiences shared by them.
Formatting is also an important part of any successful work of writing. You should decide early on how you want your story to look, concerning spacing issues and quotes. It is customary that in a single paragraph, only one character should be speaking at a time. Even though you think it may seem pointless to create a new paragraph each time someone new speaks, it still makes your story seem planned, and well-written.
Also, formatting could mean using different effects to show things such as time passing, or different plots being introduced. I prefer any one of the following formats for representing a new section of text:
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
* * * * * * * * * *
++++++++++++
Finally, before you begin writing your story, decide which Tense you plan to use. I feel that the easiest tense to use is the past tense, which tells the story, sometime after it occurred. Mixing tenses is not a good thing to do. Once again, it is one of the things that can make or break a good piece of writing. For example, which of the following sentences makes more sense: "Hakey Wake looked into the cupboard, and pulls out a handful of lemons, which were looking kind of suspicious. He decided to puts them back in, and saves them for later."
OR... "Hakey Wake looked into the cupboard, and pulled out a handful of lemons, which looked suspicious. He thought it best to put them back in the cupboard and save them for later."
It is essential that everything works out to be one piece of art, rather than a mess of randomness and non-understandable text.
Writing Your First Chapter:
Now that you have a basic idea of what your story is going to be like, it's time to begin writing. Many times when we begin a new work of fiction, it's really easy to want to do too much at once; we want to get straight into the storyline, and don't want to waste any time. However, I would like to encourage everyone: Do NOT be fearful of making a long introduction. The introduction for your story is very important to its success.
You should somehow attempt to get the readers' attention very early on in the storyline. Grab their attention early on, by giving them hints regarding what your story is going to be about. It's wise to give lots of incite into who your main character is. This way, we feel connected to the story early on.
Also remember, you should like to end your first chapter leaving the reader wanting to know more, seducing to them to come back for Chapter 2.
Continuing Your Story:
Make sure that your story is constantly moving towards something. If you're story sits still in one place for too long, it will become stagnant, and lose reader support.
Also, a successful story can sometimes depend upon description. For example, you decide which is more appealing: "He got a sandwich, and ate it."
OR... "Kablamooie grabbed a bologna sandwich from the tray, since the only other choice was ham. Besides, he had always like bologna more than ham, anyway."
See how drastically the story changes when a little bit of background is added? Not only do we know that he ate a sandwich, we know his preference, which also gives the reader incite into what kind of person he is. Description is essential to writing a story. If we had no description, our stories would become dull and listless. Adding a colorful, descriptive word can change the entire feeling of our story: "The ball..."
OR... "The red, bouncing ball..."
See how adding a couple of simple words can change the attitude of the story? As a reader, the ball in the first sentence is much-less appealing than the ball in the second sentence. In addition, it seems to make the reader feel like the writer actually cares about what he/she is writing, because they take the time to write out a little more information.
The Suspense:
Rising action is one effect that can essentially create suspense. As your story is progressing, it is crucial to have action leading upwards. Another way to incorporate rising action, is the classic cliffhanger, which leaves the reader with an unanswered question at the completion of a chapter. Their curiosity is piqued, and they feel a responsibility to come back and find out what happens next. Suspense is one of the most important things to be used in a story.
The Climax:
Everything in your story has been creating suspense and questions up to this point; now everything is finally going to come together. In the climax of your story, something needs to happen, to show the reader what they have been waiting for the entire time they have been reading.
For those of you that are familiar with "RWP HS", you can relate this to the recent explosion. The five chapters before it led up to ensured blast. The explosion itself was the climax for that particular portion of the story. As for the next few chapters, they will be responsible for creating new points of rising action, and denouement...
The Denouement:
Falling action, or denouement (day-noo-MAW), is what pulls everything together. The climax, the highest opint in your story has just come to an end, and finally everything is beginning to make sense. Make sure as the denouement unfolds, you complete every opened plot-hole. By the time the falling action has been completed, nearly all questions should be answered, and awaiting the conclusion.
The Conclusion:
It is basically up to you, when and how you complete your story. I would suggest steering away from cliche endings, including, "...happily ever after..." Also, it's never a good idea to end a story with rapid-fire saying like, "...they all died." It gives no sense of completion, in that our story has been ended abruptly, and we have no gratification as a reader. After reading a story for a good deal of time, the reader deserves a decent ending, giving incite into what the characters will do after the story ends. Afterall, just because the story is over, doesn't mean that the characters' lives are over, right?
Parting Words:
I truly hope that you've taken at least one thing helpful from this short seminar of sorts. Many people have been writing stories lately, and it is always a shame to see good ideas go to waste, only because interest drops off, or because the author doesn't feel like completing it. I hope that this thread will encourage those of you who are interested in writing, to keep on going!
If you have any questions concerning writing a story or anything that you may not understand above, please feel free to send me a Private Message, or an eMail. Happy writing!
[Generic Plot Diagram] (http://www.cast.org/teachingeverystudent/toolkits/images/TMP_plotdiagram_large.jpg)
Before starting your story, there are several things to be taken into account. First of all, ask yourself several questions about your story's Concept. Is your story's concept too narrow? Does it allow for plot twists and multiple storylines to take effect? If you make the plans for your story too narrow, you won't have any room to grow outward, and into new territory once your first storyline has been completed/accomplished. However, if your plot is too broad, your readers may get confused and lost early-on. They might not feel welcome into the story if they don't have the comfort of knowing the concept from the beginning. Finding the perfect medium is essential to the shelf-life of your story.
After choosing the right concept for your story, it's time to start creating your Characters. It is important that your story has a protagonist (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protagonist), in order to function properly. In all likelihood, your main character will need to be likable. If your readers can't feel compassion for the main character, why should they continue reading? It is also important that your story includes some kind of antagonist (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antagonist), which provides trouble for your main character. The antagonist doesn't need to be a single person; it can be a larger force, or perhaps a company.
The next essential part of getting started concerns the Point of View (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narrator) that you choose. Throughout your entire story, it is important that you remain consistent with your PoV. If you stray from the current PoV, be sure to somehow let your reader know the reason. Make certain that it appears deliberate, because a simple mistake such as changing PoV at random can make a reader cringe.
The First Person PoV is perhaps the easiest to use. With the first person PoV, you only need to be thinking about the feelings of one character. And, obviously, you would use the word "I" when describing things seen, and feelings. I choose the Omniscient PoV which allows the reader to see into each character's thoughts, and look at past experiences shared by them.
Formatting is also an important part of any successful work of writing. You should decide early on how you want your story to look, concerning spacing issues and quotes. It is customary that in a single paragraph, only one character should be speaking at a time. Even though you think it may seem pointless to create a new paragraph each time someone new speaks, it still makes your story seem planned, and well-written.
Also, formatting could mean using different effects to show things such as time passing, or different plots being introduced. I prefer any one of the following formats for representing a new section of text:
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
* * * * * * * * * *
++++++++++++
Finally, before you begin writing your story, decide which Tense you plan to use. I feel that the easiest tense to use is the past tense, which tells the story, sometime after it occurred. Mixing tenses is not a good thing to do. Once again, it is one of the things that can make or break a good piece of writing. For example, which of the following sentences makes more sense: "Hakey Wake looked into the cupboard, and pulls out a handful of lemons, which were looking kind of suspicious. He decided to puts them back in, and saves them for later."
OR... "Hakey Wake looked into the cupboard, and pulled out a handful of lemons, which looked suspicious. He thought it best to put them back in the cupboard and save them for later."
It is essential that everything works out to be one piece of art, rather than a mess of randomness and non-understandable text.
Writing Your First Chapter:
Now that you have a basic idea of what your story is going to be like, it's time to begin writing. Many times when we begin a new work of fiction, it's really easy to want to do too much at once; we want to get straight into the storyline, and don't want to waste any time. However, I would like to encourage everyone: Do NOT be fearful of making a long introduction. The introduction for your story is very important to its success.
You should somehow attempt to get the readers' attention very early on in the storyline. Grab their attention early on, by giving them hints regarding what your story is going to be about. It's wise to give lots of incite into who your main character is. This way, we feel connected to the story early on.
Also remember, you should like to end your first chapter leaving the reader wanting to know more, seducing to them to come back for Chapter 2.
Continuing Your Story:
Make sure that your story is constantly moving towards something. If you're story sits still in one place for too long, it will become stagnant, and lose reader support.
Also, a successful story can sometimes depend upon description. For example, you decide which is more appealing: "He got a sandwich, and ate it."
OR... "Kablamooie grabbed a bologna sandwich from the tray, since the only other choice was ham. Besides, he had always like bologna more than ham, anyway."
See how drastically the story changes when a little bit of background is added? Not only do we know that he ate a sandwich, we know his preference, which also gives the reader incite into what kind of person he is. Description is essential to writing a story. If we had no description, our stories would become dull and listless. Adding a colorful, descriptive word can change the entire feeling of our story: "The ball..."
OR... "The red, bouncing ball..."
See how adding a couple of simple words can change the attitude of the story? As a reader, the ball in the first sentence is much-less appealing than the ball in the second sentence. In addition, it seems to make the reader feel like the writer actually cares about what he/she is writing, because they take the time to write out a little more information.
The Suspense:
Rising action is one effect that can essentially create suspense. As your story is progressing, it is crucial to have action leading upwards. Another way to incorporate rising action, is the classic cliffhanger, which leaves the reader with an unanswered question at the completion of a chapter. Their curiosity is piqued, and they feel a responsibility to come back and find out what happens next. Suspense is one of the most important things to be used in a story.
The Climax:
Everything in your story has been creating suspense and questions up to this point; now everything is finally going to come together. In the climax of your story, something needs to happen, to show the reader what they have been waiting for the entire time they have been reading.
For those of you that are familiar with "RWP HS", you can relate this to the recent explosion. The five chapters before it led up to ensured blast. The explosion itself was the climax for that particular portion of the story. As for the next few chapters, they will be responsible for creating new points of rising action, and denouement...
The Denouement:
Falling action, or denouement (day-noo-MAW), is what pulls everything together. The climax, the highest opint in your story has just come to an end, and finally everything is beginning to make sense. Make sure as the denouement unfolds, you complete every opened plot-hole. By the time the falling action has been completed, nearly all questions should be answered, and awaiting the conclusion.
The Conclusion:
It is basically up to you, when and how you complete your story. I would suggest steering away from cliche endings, including, "...happily ever after..." Also, it's never a good idea to end a story with rapid-fire saying like, "...they all died." It gives no sense of completion, in that our story has been ended abruptly, and we have no gratification as a reader. After reading a story for a good deal of time, the reader deserves a decent ending, giving incite into what the characters will do after the story ends. Afterall, just because the story is over, doesn't mean that the characters' lives are over, right?
Parting Words:
I truly hope that you've taken at least one thing helpful from this short seminar of sorts. Many people have been writing stories lately, and it is always a shame to see good ideas go to waste, only because interest drops off, or because the author doesn't feel like completing it. I hope that this thread will encourage those of you who are interested in writing, to keep on going!
If you have any questions concerning writing a story or anything that you may not understand above, please feel free to send me a Private Message, or an eMail. Happy writing!
[Generic Plot Diagram] (http://www.cast.org/teachingeverystudent/toolkits/images/TMP_plotdiagram_large.jpg)