Category Archives: Story Development
Write Your Novel Step by Step (Step 2)
Step 2: How to Come Up with Ideas
Raw creativity is all about coming up with ideas from scratch – in other words, making something from nothing. But when ideas won’t come, we are suffering from the all-too-familiar “writer’s block.”
Though creative blocks aren’t exclusive to writers, (i.e. a batting slump or derivative music), writers have to be more continuously creative, moment to moment, in a way not many other professions require.
Even more common are the less extreme cases wherein ideas come like molasses. Sure, you make progress, but the pace of it is so excruciatingly slow! Worse, the more you try to force it along, the more the pace declines.
If you’ve ever suffered through a creative bottleneck or a complete shut down, fear no more! Here in Step 2 of How To Write Your Novel we’ll provide you with a whole toolkit of surefire techniques for banishing creative blocks and slowdowns once and for all.
To begin with, there are two causes of writer’s block which, when remedied, open the valve to full creative flow: One, a mental obstacle to creativity and two, a lack of fresh input.
In the first case it is as if a mechanism in the mind has seized up – not unlike a stuck gear. Other mental processes may be working just fine, but the place that generates the particular kinds of ideas you need won’t budge.
This is, in fact, the way half of all cases of writer’s block feel while they are occurring: as if something in your mind that used to work has frozen in place, put up a moat, or become impenetrably dark.
The second type of writer’s block feels like a great emptiness, as if the mind is a desert in which nothing can grow – the mental equivalent of a blank piece of paper and you’re fresh out of mental pencils.
In this version of the writer’s block issue, the mind’s machine is running just fine – like a windmill in a favorable breeze. Problem is, there’s no grain for the mill to grind.
We’re going to explore these one at a time, then bring our conclusions together into a single methodology for putting writer’s block behind you once and for all.
Writer’s Block Type One: The Seized-Up Mind
To understand how to break-up this kind of mental log jam, we first must understand how it happens in the first place.
Creativity is half intellect and half passion. Each is a separate mechanism and, left to its own devices, functions quite fine. But our minds mesh the two together, one driving the other, then the other way ’round, all in the hopes of reaching a consensus. When it works, we spout brilliance. But when the results of these two parallel processes are in conflict or contradiction, and when repeated attempt to resolve that differential fail, the force of both processes collide like two meshed gears trying to move in opposite directions, and the flow of ideas grinds to a halt.
The solution to this problem, surprisingly, is stupidly simple: Don’t use both processes together. Now what could I possibly mean by that? It’s like this….
Use your passion to generate ideas and your logic to analyze them. In other words, give yourself a temporary mental lobotomy and let each process work on its own, one at a time, alternating between the two rather than trying to force them to work together simultaneously.
Here’s how it works….
Partially paraphrased from the earlier article,
“The Creativity Two-Step“
When you find yourself stuck at some point in a project, as counter-intuitive as this may sound, shut off your creativity completely – it’s not getting anywhere anyway. Just put on pause any efforts to come up with solutions and new ideas for a bit. You’ll come back to that later. For now, you need to stop beating your head against a wall and clear your mind.
A lot of writers have learned to “just walk away” from their story for a while, but that doesn’t really work. Usually, the creative block is still there whenever you return to try again. Sure, the idea behind taking a break is that you’ll think about other things, get new mental patterns going, and come at the problem from a new direction that bypasses the mental obstacle. Unfortunately, this does not work all that often or all that well.
We’re going to try something else instead. Once you’ve stopped “working” on the problem creatively, you need to shift from that passionate state into a logical one and immediately approach the problem analytically without missing a beat. In other words, you’re going to shift gears, rather than shut off the engine.
To do this, try to stop looking at your story as the author and try looking at it as if you were a reader or part of the audience. This helps you take a more objective view of whatever you’ve written or developed so far and makes it easier to stop being overly passionate about your own work and adopt a more analytical perspective.
Once you are thinking analytically, re-read through your material and scan for holes and inconsistencies, just like an audience would. If you really were the reader rather than the writer, you’d have no idea about what you intend to do – just what’s actually presented on the page.
Since it is a work in progress, there’s going to be a lot of material missing. But rather than try to fill it creatively, just describe what isn’t there. Do this in the form of analytical questions.
For example, if you wrote “A Marshall in an Old West border town struggles with a cutthroat gang that is bleeding the town dry.” and then got stuck, you might come up with a list of questions as follows:
1. How old is the Marshall?
2. How much experience does he have?
3. Is he a good shot?
4. How many men has he killed (if any)
5. How many people are in the gang?
6. Does it have a single leader?
7. Is the gang tight-knit?
8. What are they taking from the town?
9. How long have they been doing this?
Certainly, you could come up with an almost endless list of questions about what you don’t know about the embryonic story concisely described in that one little sentence. In fact, you might want to try this right now on your own story just to prove to yourself that it isn’t too hard to think of a whole variety of questions that spring from just about anything you might write.
It’s really pretty easy. After all, it is always a lot easier to criticize than to create, and if you remove yourself passionately from your story you can tear it to pieces just like your readers or audience will. But you don’t have to be that hard on yourself. And you don’t even have to creatively try to define what ought to go in a hole. Just read what you’ve written and ask questions the way you might if you were playing “Twenty Questions.”
Now for step two. We’re going to move past your creative block by using each question as a branching point for your next step of story development. To begin, its time to shut down your analytical side and re-start your passionate, creative side.
To do this, take each question, one at a time, and see how many different answers you can devise with absolutely no deference paid to whether your answers are logical or practical. Don’t allow yourself to even consider how each answer might fit in with what you’ve already written or what you have in mind. If you were to think about that you’d be trying to use logic at the same time as passion again and you’d grind to a halt once more.
So, just throw caution to the winds, pull out all the stops and write as many different answers to each question as you can.
Here’s an example:
Take the very first question, “How old is the Marshall?” You might come up with a list of answers similar to this:
1) How old is the Marshall?
a. 28
b. 56
c. 86
d. 17
e. 07
f. 35
While some of these answer may, at first blush, appear ridiculous or unusable, nothing could be farther from the truth. Fact is, most stories are pedestrian simply because they stick to the common, expected, tried and true elements. Writers often try to play it safe by toeing the line. But a story written in that manner has nothing about it that stands out and makes the story special and memorable. It becomes nothing but another bland, sausage-machine crank-out, with no personality at all.
Having come up with your answers, it is time to alternate back to logic again and ask questions about each one, just like we originally did with the first little snippet we analyzed. So, turn off the creativity again and put on your objective hat.
For an example, lets take answer “c” – the Marshall is 86 years old. What questions come immediately and easily to mind about an 86 year old Marshall?
Here’s some examples:
c. The Marshall is 86 years old.
1. How would an 86 year old become a Marshall?
2. Can he still see okay?
3. What physical maladies plague him?
4. Is he married?
5. What kind of gun does he use?
6. Does he have the respect of the town?
Again, there must be a hundred questions you could ask right away about an 86 year old Marshall.
Now, switch off the logic and switch on the creativity again. For example,
5. What kind of gun does he use?
a) He uses an ancient musket, can barely lift it, but is a crack shot and miraculously hits whatever he aims at.
b) He uses an ancient musket and can’t hit the broad side of a barn. But somehow, his oddball shots ricochet off so many things, he gets the job done anyway, just not as he planned.
c) He used a Gattling gun attached to his walker.
d) He doesn’t use a gun at all. In 63 years with the Texas Rangers, he never needed one and doesn’t need one now.
e) He uses a sawed off shotgun, but needs his deputy to pull the trigger for him as he aims.
f) He uses a whip.
g) He uses a knife, but can’t throw it past 5 feet anymore.
As you’ve no doubt figured out by now, you could go back and forth like this forever, branching wider and wider with each series. On top of that, you could go back to your questions from the first branch point and follow each one just as far into detail or farther. For example, question 2, “How much experience does he have” could easily have several interesting answers, each of which could lead to more questions.
The best part of this system is that you spiral into minutia of little details when you keep branching off, you just come up with more and more quality material of the first order with which to flesh out your story.
Also, though we have focused initially on the Marshall, you might have focused on the plot or the theme as well. And if you develop those areas of your story using the same technique is doesn’t take long before you have more material than you’ll every be able to use in a story.
Branch by branch you develop your story’s world. When you finally come up for air (or lunch) you’ll find that you’ve completely side stepped your writer’s block simply by employing your logic and your passion in alternating sequence, rather than at the same time.
That may be all well and good, say you, but what if I can’t come up with any ideas at all? What if I have Writer’s Block Type Two – The Empty Mind?
Well, I hate to leave you hanging, but there’s only so much we can cram into one newsletter, so you’ll just have to wait for the next issue when we will continue with:
Step 2: How to Come Up with Ideas:
Part Two, The Empty Mind
Click here to read our latest issue
Remember:
This step by step approach is based on our best-selling
StoryWeaver Story Development Software:
StoryWeaver Story Development Software – $29.95Our Bestseller! By far, our most popular product, outselling all of our other products combined! StoryWeaver takes you step by step through the entire process–from initial inspiration to completed novel or screenplay. At just $29.95, StoryWeaver is affordable for any writer. (Details) |
How to Write Your Novel or Screenplay Step by Step
Let’s not kid ourselves. It’s not really possible to write a novel (or screenplay) step by step because that’s not how the creative mind works. Rather, we come to a story with a whole bag of bits and pieces of ideas, some complete, some half-baked. But, we can describe in step by step terms our own creative processes by which we assemble those ideas into a finished book or script.
To begin with, the ideas we have are from all across the board: a snippet of dialog, a setting, a bit of action, a type of personality for a character (even though we don’t yet have any idea if it’s a protagonist or antagonist or even if it is the Main Character).
You see, inspiration – the desire to write a story and an idea of what it will be about – comes from the subjects that interest us. But stories themselves come from the structure that holds them together. And that is the age-old author’s dilemma: “How do I turn my interests and motivations into a finished novel that makes sense?”
When embarking on a new writing project, it often seems as if the whole process is summed up in that old saying, “You can’t get there from here.” And for many writers, once the novel is written, they can’t really see how they did it, or more aptly, “You can’t get here from there.”
Yet, there is hope. There is an approach you can take that works with your Muse, rather than against her. And, it is a real step-by-step method that will actually take you from concept to completion of your novel or script.
So what is this miraculous “silver bullet” for banishing writer’s block and dancing merrily down the garden path to a finished novel? Simple. Rather than focusing on the needs of the story, focus on the needs of the author.
No matter what kind of author you are, no matter what kind of novel you want to write, you share the same sequence of creative steps with all other authors everywhere. Just like the stages of grief or Freud’s psycho-sexual stage, there is a common order to the creative process which drives us all.
This process can be divided into four Creative Stages: In order, 1 – Inspiration, 2 – Development, 3 – Exposition, 4 – Storytelling. Let me define each a little more fully.
1. Inspiration
Inspiration comes to us all, sometimes through great effort; other times unbidden. From the outside, it appears as if a person plucks an idea out of the ether, creating something from nothing. But in truth, every inspiration is just the synthesis of some combination of new and previous experiences.
Many inspirations aren’t worth pursuing. But, occasionally, a worthwhile concept pops into our heads that’s just too appealing to toss away. These little visions can be single grains of sand that require lots of time and effort to develop into a pearl. Or, they may be fragments, glimpses really, of something larger for which we do not yet see the full extent, scope, or shape. The most impressive of these little mental feats are those rare ideas which thrust themselves upon our conscious minds completely developed already, like a snap-shot of the whole shebang in a single big bang moment of creation, right out the head of Zeus, as it were, mature upon birth.
There’s many ways to help bring inspiration about, and I’ll be writing about those in articles to come. But for now, here are some links to previous articles I’ve penned on the subject:
Finding Your Creative Time, Finding Inspiration for Writing, and Writing from the Passionate Self.
For your convenience, I’ve also compiled all my best articles on finding inspiration into a twenty page booklet called The Case of the Missing Muse, available as a PDF Download and also in Kindle Book format on Amazon.com.
2. Development
As obvious as it may be, it bears repeating: You can’t develop an inspiration you haven’t had yet. And just as important: Inspiration doesn’t stop just because you move into Development.
You see, these four stages the creative process don’t follow each other one after the next. Rather, they are layered, like a layer cake or the floors of a building under construction.
No matter what the story, you have to start with Inspiration – there’s no way around it. Once you have that inspiration you can start adding depth and detail to it until it fleshes out in a fully developed story concept, or at least a part of one.
But even while you are developing one part or aspect of your story – perhaps because you are developing one part – new inspirations start popping up all along the way. The very act of enriching a previous inspiration add more concepts and new perspectives into the mix. Those bounce around in your head, run into each other, and merge and blend to create whole new inspirations.
So just because you have all your basic ideas worked out, don’t shut your mind to Inspiration just because you have started Development. It may turn out your best ideas are yet to come!
What’s more, you don’t have to wait until you have your whole story worked out to start developing the parts you have. There’s no reason why you can’t figure out the arc of one of your characters before you even know who the other characters are or what the plot is about.
It is more like weaving than building timeline. You follow one thread until inspiration runs dry, then pick up another and run with it for a while. And even these don’t have to be in story sequential order. You can jump to the end to dabble with a surprise conclusion to your plot, for example. You might not yet have any idea how you are going to get your characters there, but you know what kind of twist you want. So, just go for it. You can always rewrite later if you get in a bind.
You know, a lot of writers worry that if they don’t have everything figured out in advance, they may have to get rid of a lot of work they had already done that just doesn’t fit with the way the story turns out to be.
Hey, words are cheap. If you are any kind of an author at all, you’ve got an endless supply of them. It pays to remember that writing a novel almost always takes a long time. You’re going to spend hundreds of hours tooling it together. Don’t cry over a few hours or even dozens of hours that have to get ripped out later. It is all part of the process of finding your story.
Keep in mind the salesman’s creed: If you get nineteen doors slammed in your face before you make a $20 sale on the twentieth call, well then you made $1 each time you knocked on a door. Same with writing. It doesn’t matter how much work you have to throw away. By following each inspiration as far as it will go, even if that material is never used, it was a necessary step to get you to the material you WILL use.
We’ll get into this a lot deeper in articles to come, but for now, here’s some links to a few techniques that will help you during the development process:
Creating Characters from Plot, The Creativity Two-Step, and Avoiding the Genre Trap.
Just a quick reminder that our StoryWeaver Story Development Software is designed to help guide you through all four stages of the creative process.
3. Exposition
Okay. So you had some inspirations and you’ve done some development. Perhaps you’ve even worked out your entire story and everything in it. You know your story up one side and down the other. But – your readers don’t. Exposition is the process of working out how and when you are going to reveal everything you know about your story as it plays out over time.
Perhaps the most common mistake made in Exposition is knowing your story so well that you forget to share that knowledge with your readers. It is so easy to leave out a critical piece of information because it is so important it never occurs to you to see if you actually conveyed it.
But exposition is much more than that; it is an art form in its own right. Intentionally holding back on information to create assumptions or misunderstandings can help set your readers up for jaw-dropping shockers. Putting information out of sequential order in flashbacks and flash forwards can force your readers to have to reevaluate characters and plot . This makes the “read” an active endeavor rather than just a passive experience.
There are two basic ways to approach Exposition: 1 – Work out an Exposition Plan in advance so that you know how and when each key bit of information will unfold. 2 – Just go ahead and write the story and then go back to make sure you put everything in that ought to be there.
The first approach works well when you want to keep the readers guessing, as in mysteries or conspiracy stories. The second approach is better if you are the kind of writer who likes to go with the flow and not feel too constrained while writing.
If you elect not to have an Exposition Plan in advance, here’s a tip that will still ensure all the crucial bits of information made it into your story: Before you write in fine literary prose, write a shopping list of all the elements of your story you want your readers to know. Describe your characters, plot, theme, and genre all in terse, concise terms.
Then, when you have written your story, refer to your list and find each element in the story as written, checking it off the list when you find the actual place at which you’ve conveyed that information. If any of these character and plot points doesn’t get checked off your list, you’ve gotten so wrapped up in the storytelling you forgot to put them in and need to find a place to insert that information as gracefully and dramatically as possible.
As before, Exposition is layered on top of Development and Inspiration. So, even while you are working out how to unfold your story, that very process may inspire whole new concepts to include the your novel and also suggest new details that can enrich the ones you’ve already got.
Here’s some links to some of the best techniques for solid exposition:
Introducing Characters – First Impressions, Blowing the Story Bubble, and Genre- Act by Act.
One of the best tools for working out an exposition plan is the new Outline 4D program from Write Brothers.
4. Storytelling
Finally, we arrive at the last stage of story development. This is the part where you actually put words on paper that you intend your readers to see. (Keep in mind that for a screenplay, your readers are not the movie-goers but the cast and crew who will interpret your words and present them to the audience on your behalf).
Now there’s no right or wrong way to tell a story, but there are more and less effective and involving ways. Of all four of the stages, this is the one most dependent on natural ability. Let me say a few words about that:
You are only as good as you own talent – get over it!
Most cases of writers block occur not because authors don’t have any ideas but because they don’t think the ideas and/or the way they expressed them is good enough.
Hey, we all want to be celebrated in our own time – the toast of the town, the person everyone wants to know. Dickens was a rock star of his age – revered by scholars and applauded by his fans, especially when he went on tour throughout England doing “one-man-show” performances based on readings from his “greatest hits” and acting out all the characters himself.
Not everyone can be Dickens. Hardly anyone can be Dickens. In fact, only Dickens could be Dickens and only Shakespeare could be Shakespeare. I’m sorry but that’s the way it is.
Some folks, like the aforementioned, are notable for many fine literary works. Others, like Mary Shelly, Margaret Mitchell, and Ralph Ellison really only had one superb novel in them. (Ellison might have had two but his entire manuscript burned up in a house fire and he had to reconstruct it from memory).
Fact is, if you aren’t good or lucky enough to be a Dickens or a Shakespeare, you’ve go two choices: 1 – labor over one single work all of your life until it is as perfect as you can make it. 2 – Write a lot of books (or screenplays) and hope one of them turns out to be great.
It really depends on whether you are writing to ensure how you will be remembered, or writing because you want to share something with people today.
Either way, there’s still only one cardinal rule in the art of storytelling: Never bore your audience! Someone once said, “They won’t remember what you said and they won’t remember what you did. They’ll remember how you made them feel.”
To be sure, there are all kinds of tips, tricks and techniques you can use to improve and hone your storytelling skills. Just don’t get hung up on whatever level of ability you’ve go. Rather, make the most of it. After all, the more you write, the better your writing will become.
Here’s a link on storytelling that can help grease the wheels of self expression:
Naturally, the less that gets in the way of your writing process, the more smoothly it can proceed. When you write novels or screenplays, consider Movie Magic Screenwriter. It is not just for scripts, but automatically formats your novel, script, or stage play while you write.
Character Affiliations and Beliefs
Characters do not live by structure alone. Background information and personal attributes are needed to turn these avatars of dramatic purpose into living, breathing, human beings (or whatever).
For example:
Mark Twain once said, “I could never join a club that would have the likes of me as a member.” To what kind of clubs does this character belong? What is its faith, creed, or manifesto? Is it a card-carrying member of…, a supporter of…, the founder of…? And just because it is a member, associate, or sympathizer doesn’t mean it believes any of it. One may be judged by one’s friends, and where there’s smoke there’s fire, but also where there’s smoke there’s smoke, and you can’t judge a book by it’s cover.
Try to separate your characters’ affiliations from their beliefs. They may go hand in hand, or they may be quite divergent, born of convenience, necessity, family ties, or any of the other oddities that make for strange bedfellows.
No character is an island. What you work out here will create bridges to other individuals.
Excerpted from
Dramatica Story Development Software
Writing a Character Description
Your character description should be a thumbnail sketch of its personality and physical traits.
Note:
There are some mental and physical traits that are part of the dramatic structure of a story and others that are merely added to enhance audience interest. This is not a function of the trait itself, but of how it is employed.
For example, if a character speaks with an accent, it might just be an attribute from where he or she was born, or it might be an affectation of pretense. A character might simply have a big nose, or he might be Cyrano de Bergerac, in which case the size of his proboscis has a major function in the plot, triggering and driving forward key events.
Examples:
In Star Wars (Luke): A whiny farm boy, athletic, somewhat attractive, who dreams of excitement and glory. Now if he can only get out of his familial responsibilities and join the Rebellion.
In The Glass Menagerie (Laura): “A childhood illness has left (Laura) crippled, one leg slightly shorter than the other, and held in a brace….Stemming from this, Laura’s separation (from reality) increases till she is like a piece of her own glass collection; too exquisitely fragile to move from the shelf.”
Excerpted from
Dramatica Story Development Software
Writing an Initial Thematic Synopsis
Some see theme as a premise, such as Greed leads to self-destruction. Others see theme as an area of exploration such as man’s inhumanity to man. Both of these aspects of theme, and more, will need to be explored for your story to have a strong emotional throughline. Therefore, before you begin writing your story, take time to simply describe the issues you would like your story to examine thematically. This thematic synopsis can serve as a guide to keep your story’s message on track.
To this end, you may want to consider these thematic points:
The premise approach to theme usually tries to illustrate the results which grow from human imperfections. To prove its point, a thematic argument must be made over the course of the story to show that the stated outcome is unavoidable if one does not shed oneself of a negative attribute.
Conversely, a premise can just as easily seek to prove that a good trait leads to a favorable outcome, such as Compassion leads to true happiness. More complex themes may even propose that Compassion leads to self-destruction, or that Greed leads to true happiness, creating mixed feelings in the audience. Of course, all of this is tempered by the manner in which the material is presented: as comedy or drama, for example.
Exploration themes tend to be less linear, seeking to examine a positive or negative trait in a number of manifestations such that the audience ultimately arrives at an overall rating of that trait ranging somewhere along the scale from favorable to unfavorable. For example, one author might show that man’s inhumanity to man is an inherent evil. Another author might put forth that man’s inhumanity to man is a necessary evil that allows for progress of the species. Yet another author might propose that man’s inhumanity to man is a good thing because only through physical and emotional violence is the human spirit truly alive.
No matter how popular or unpopular a thematic value may be with an audience, a story always gains in depth and power from a fully developed theme.
Though you will eventually want to add detail and nuance fo your theme, for your initial thematic synopsis, simply describe the central message or thematic topic of your story, and how you want the audience to feel about it.
Example: Star Wars seeks to prove that if we keep a noble heart and trust in ourselves, we will ultimately triumph over any opposition, no matter how outmatched we appear to be.
Excerpted from
Dramatica Pro Story Development Software
Writing an Initial Plot Synopsis
Plot refers to the sequence of events which transpire in your story. Before you begin developing your story, it helps to create a brief outline of any ideas you may have already worked out for your plot.
Plots can be simple or complex. There can be a single plot to a story or any number of sub-plots. Some stories even have two or more independent plots which run in parallel, never affecting each other but providing a sense of contrast for the audience.
Try not to be overly literary or descriptive at this point. Even if you have already developed intricate details, when writing an initial plot synopsis you only need enough information to identify the key events which link together to advance your story. This information will serve as a guide down the line to ensure your overall story stays on track.
EXAMPLE: Star Wars
Orphaned Luke Skywalker who works on his uncle’s farm chases a runaway robot helper into the desert where he encounters a retired warrior with mystic powers, Obi Wan Kenobi. The robot has a hidden message that leads Luke and Obi on a race across the galaxy to get important information to rebel fighters against the Evil Empire.
Along the way, they join forces with an unruly transport pilot who gives them passage off the planet. The Empire tries to stop them in a big laser gun battle, but they escape.
Later, they get captured by Darth Vader aboard a huge space station with a weapon which can destroy whole planets. There, they rescue Princess Leia, a leader of the Rebels, who joins them in their race to get the information into the right hands. Again, they escape except for Obi Wan, who is killed (though his spirit lives on to guide Luke.)
Eventually, they hook up with the Rebels and hand over the information which shows how to destroy the space station weapon. Luke gets his chance to be a fighter pilot when he joins the rebels, and they all blast into space to do battle with the space station which has tracked them down.
In the end, Luke (guided by Obi’s spirit) learns to rely on his own skills and single-handedly destroys the weapon just when all hope seems lost. He comes back a hero and a legendary warrior in his own right.
Excerpted from
Dramatica Pro Story Development Software
Writing an Initial Character Synopsis
When you are about to begin developing your story, you may already have some ideas about the characters you want to explore. Creating a brief initial character synopsis can help you pin down the list of people you’ve been considering to populate your story and to act as a reference as story development continues.
Some of your characters may play a role in the dramatic structure of your story, perhaps affecting plot and theme as well. Other characters might be included for entertainment value only and have no tangible impact on the course of the overall story. Either way, it helps to briefly describe them before you begin writing.
Try not to be overly literary or descriptive in your initial synopsis. You only need enough information to identify your characters by name, basic personality type, and traits and attributes, such as their job, a physical ability or disability and their relationships to other character as you currently see them.
EXAMPLE: Star Wars
Luke Skywalker is a farm boy with dreams of becoming a hot shot space fighter pilot in the rebellion against the evil Empire.
Obi Wan Kenobi is a former Jedi Knight who befriends Luke and teaches him warrior skills. He is an old man now, but still has strong powers, especially of the mystic sort.
Princess Leia is a leader in the rebellion. She’s a real take-charge lady. Perhaps a love interest for Luke.
Uncle Owen. Luke’s somewhat authoritarian Uncle and guardian.
The Alien Band: A group of musicians from all over the galaxy who play weird music in a local bar.
Excerpted from
Dramatica Pro Story Development Software
Writing a Story Synopsis
What inspires a story may be a setting, an intriguing situation, a clever bit of dialog, or even a title. As development proceeds, this jumping-off point functions as the grain of sand that ultimately becomes a pearl.
To keep your eye on what inspired you to write a story in the first place, it helps to create a brief synopsis before you begin. Try to describe your story as if you were writing a short blurb for a television listing. This will set a touch point for your ongoing development.
Example:
Star Wars
: It is a time of rebellion. The evil Empire has most of the galaxy under its control except for a handful of rebels. However, with the Empire’s new weapon, even that last holdout may be destroyed. The Rebels must find a way to destroy the Death Star. Star Wars is also the story of a farm boy destined to become a hero.
Excerpted from
Dramatica Pro Story Development Software
Choosing Your Story’s Title
What’s in a name? Having at least a working title will help you start your story, even if you ultimately change the title.
The title of your story may or may not have dramatic significance. In some cases, the meaning of the title may become apparent only during the course or even at the end of a story. There have even been stories in which the final understanding of the message is only achieved when the title becomes the last piece in the puzzle.
Example:
Imagine all the other titles Star Wars might have had. In fact, it was originally titled Adventures of the Starkiller, Episode One of the Star Wars, then Adventures of Luke Starkiller, then The Journal Of The Whills. You can immediately feel the impact of a change in title on your impression of the story.
Consider the value of other example titles such as The Verdict; (which refers to the story’s climax), Alien; (refers to the subject matter), and The Silence of the Lambs ;(refers to the Main Character’s personal problems).
Excerpted from
Dramatica Pro Story Development Software