Story writing
Story writing essentials
A story is an account of incidents or events, either fictitious(not true) or non-fictitious(true).
Fiction – Fiction story describes imaginary events and people. It refers to something that is not true. It is not based on the true story. We learn things differently from fiction than from non-fiction.
Non-fiction – It refers to factual(true) stories focused on actual events and people. Examples include biographies, scientific, technical, or writings on art and literature.
Genre – It refers to the category or style of literary composition, like comedy, tragedy, romance, thriller, science fiction, fantasy, horror, drama, fairy tale, folklore, fable etc.
Genre = setting + plot + character.
E.g., Forest + kill + villain = Thriller.
Haunted house + possession + ghost = Horror.
What makes a story a story?
Let’s move on with the steps of how to write an awesome story.
Step 1: PLOT
Have a clear idea of the plot of the story. The plot should be designed in your mind before you begin to write.
You may choose the main character of the story, or a proverb or quotation that suits the story.
The reader should feel something for the characters. All the characters in your story should be realistic, memorable and interesting. Characters are the heart of any story and the depth of the character is important.
The place and time, i.e., when and where the action takes place is called the setting.
The time refers to the actual date and time or seasons, climate or an era.
The place can be anything ranging from a room in the house or outer space. It can be imaginary as well.
The beginning, middle and the end is the plot of the story. The plot is what actually happens in the story and the main structure of the story.
Story mountain is dividing the story into sections. It can be drawn for each character of the story to get a clear idea of what happens to the character at the beginning , middle and end of the story. This enables to have a clear idea of each character in the story and to avoid confusion later while writing the story.
Beginning – Introduction of main characters, sets a tone to the story.
Conflict – It gives an idea of things to come.
Climax – Where the tension arises and major action or turning point takes place.
Deflation – The tension falls and cleaning up process is done.
Resolution – The actual end of the story, maybe, happy or sad or sometimes left up to the readers. The conclusion is important. The whole story should be made up to it naturally, and then it should come up as a bit of surprise.
The main story line is referred to as the theme and it is the message(moral) of the story. The author writes the story to deliver the message (theme) to the readers.
E.g., forgiveness, love, patriotism, neglection, isolation, democracy, war, hatred, fear, parenting today, friendship, revenge, good vs evil, evolution, the future, etc.
The communication between two characters is called a dialogue. Dialogues help the characters move along the plot in a realistic way. Dialogues express feelings, thoughts and motives. It reveals important details and secrets.
It is important as it shows relationship and tension between characters and character traits. It sets the tone and atmosphere of the scene and helps advance or carry forward your storyline.
Step 2: OUTLINE
In case an outline is given, follow it and do not omit any point. Keep the order in which the points are given in the outline.
Connect to the points accordingly or else the whole story will be disconnected and jerky.
Example:
Lamb eating grass – wolf came near her – sheep started pleading – sheep asked to wait – let the grass digest – to taste better – asked to let her dance – asked the wolf to ring the bell – shepherd heard sound – saved the wolf.
This is the outline of the story. You can write an outline for your own story, before starting to write the complete story. This helps to have a clear idea of the framework or structure of the story. From the outline, write the complete story with proper dialogues and connectivity.
Step 3: COMPLETE STORY
The clever lamb.
One fine evening, near a hill, a lamb was eating fresh, sweet grass. She failed to notice that she was away from her flock of sheep. A wolf seeing this sheep alone planned his meal and started walking nearer to her. When she saw the wolf, she was shocked and immediately started to plead.
“Please don’t eat me. My stomach is full of grass. You can wait till the food digests so that my meat tastes much better”.
The foolish wolf believed her. The sheep wanted to buy more time so she said, “Allow me to dance so that the food gets digested fast”.
The wolf said, “Fine”.
As the sheep danced she got an idea.
“Dear wolf if you ring my bell louder I can dance faster”
The wolf rang the bell so hard the shepherd heard the sound and ran quickly. He seized out his stick, chased the wolf and saved the lamb.
Moral – Be quick witted and shrewd.
Story writing final pointers
– You can elongate or add in more dialogues and details to the above story as per your vast imagination. If you wish to elongate, make sure to hold the interest of your readers by making your story interesting.
– See that your composition is grammatical and idiomatic and in good simple English. Revise your work and if necessary rewrite it.
– Just make sure to connect the dots from the beginning till the end and not leave loose ends.
– Try your hands on writing a bunch of short stories initially. Then move on to long ones and finally I wish you write an awesome story book.
Happy writing….
