Category Archives: Story Development

Story Development Tip: “Non-Causality”

Interest in your story can be amped up by creating a difference between what an audience is led to expect and what actually happens. A prime example occurs in the Laurel and Hardy film, The Music Box. Stan and Ollie are piano movers. The setup is their efforts to get a piano up a quarter mile flight of stairs to a hillside house. Every time they get to the top, one way or another it slides down to the bottom again through a series of misadventures – Murphy’s Law to the extreme!

Finally, they get it up there only to discover the address is on the second floor! So, they rig a block and tackle and begin to hoist the piano up to the second floor window. As before with the stairs, the winch strains, the rope frays, the piano sways. And just when they get the piano up to the window, they simply push it inside without incident.  Almost invariably, the audience members break into raucous laughter when they realize they have been set-up and duped.

Try applying this technique to your story by creating a series of causal relationships that aren’t really absolute, and then breaking that causality for comic or dramatic or ironic effect.

Write your novel or screenplay step by step with our StoryWeaver software…

Story Development Tip: Message Reversals

Here’s a tip that can fascinate your readers or audience by setting them up to believe one thing, only to provide additional information that had been withheld and changes their loyalties once revealed.

This technique can be seen very clearly in a Twilight Zone episode entitled, Invaders, in which Agnes Moorhead plays a lady alone on a farm besieged by aliens from another world. The aliens in question are only six inches tall, wear odd space suits and attack the simple country woman with space age weapons. Nearly defeated, she finally musters the strength to overcome the little demons, and smashes their miniature flying saucer. On its side we see the American Flag, the letters U.S.A. and hear the last broadcast of the landing team saying they have been slaughtered by a giant. Structure-wise, nothing changed, but our sympathies sure did, which was the purpose of the piece.

While this example was a message reversal at a story-wide scale, you can easily apply the technique to individual scenes, to a conversation, or even to a single moment. For instance, imagine looking up to see a woman yanking a child by the arm in a very rough fashion. Child abuse, you think, until you see the car coming around the corner that would have hit him if she hadn’t pulled him out of the way. Structure is the same (the child was treated roughly) but the reason turns out to be different than expected, shifting our sympathies once again.

Write your novel or screenplay step by step with our StoryWeaver software…

The Four Faces of Narrative

The word “narrative” is bandied about today as a catch all for stories, both fictional and in the real world.  But what does it really mean?  In fact, “narrative” means four distinctly different things that share the same root.

The four faces of narrative can be thought of as Creative Writing, Story Development, Story Structure and Narrative Science.  These labels describe a spectrum that runs from the passion of self-expression at one side to the logic of self-awareness at the other.  Let’s briefly stare into the face of each….

Creative Writing

As human beings, we are all driven by the desire to share our passions and understandings with others.  We want them to empathize with our feelings and follow our logic: to know who we are and to see the world from our points of view.

While these drives are true for any means of communication, creative writing is the process of expressing ourselves through words.  What we create might range from a simple emotional juxtaposition of words intended only to represent what is in the heart (the written equivalent of modern art) to a highly structured story with a fully developed argument and a clearly defined point.

Regardless of the balance between passion and point, this first face of narrative is the Muse itself.

Story Development

Most written communication does not flow onto the page devoid of consideration.  Rather, the words come forth at times, and at other times one gives thought to how the concepts expressed are hanging together and where they might best lead next.

When an author, be it a personal diarist or successful screenwriter, cogitates either in advance of writing, during the process, or after the fact in order to improve the work in another draft, he or she is wearing the face of Story Development.

Story Structure

Unless wordplay is random, unless there is no intent involved, then the face of Story Structure rears its head.  And the head, not the heart is where it belongs.  Story Structure describes the underlying mechanics of a story, the cogs and processes that lead an audience down a path and bring them to embrace (or at least understand) a message about life and the best way to lead it.

Story structure exists because those cogs and processes provide all the essential techniques and points of view that we, as humans, use in our own minds and in our associations with others to identify problems, refine our understanding of them, and seek to discover the solutions that will resolve them.

Narrative Science

If we look beyond the conventions of story structure to ask why these same cogs and processes appear repeatedly in narrative after narrative, we discover that story structure is a model of the mind itself.  Every character, plot point, thematic issue or genre mood is a facet of our own minds, isolated in nature and made tangible so that we might better understand ourselves.

At the most basic level, narrative science allows us to understand human psychology, both of individuals and how when we come together toward a common problem, we self-organize into group minds in which each individual comes to specialize in once aspect of our narrative selves in order to bring the greatest clarity to the group as a whole.  In essence, when we gave into the face of narrative science, we stare into a mirror.

Though I might conclude this brief introduction to the four faces of narrative with some grand intellectual framework, my own Muse calls at the moment.  And so I rather bring this to a close with a short bit of my own creative writing, pertinent to the subject:

In Verse

by Melanie Anne Phillips

If you could look into infinity,
all you’d see was the back of your head.

And if you were living forever,
you’d clearly be nothing but dead.

But if you step out of the universe,
where time is the flip-side of space,

You could be everywhere,
though you’d never been there,
and you’d stare,
right back into your face.

Developing Your Theme

wp602ef169_06Write Your Novel Step by Step

Go to Table of Contents

Steps 58 – 61

Developing Your Theme

~ Step 58 ~

Counterpoint

For every human quality, there is the opposite quality.  For example, greed is balanced    by generosity, denial is balanced by acceptance, and living in fantasy is balanced    by remaining grounded in fact.

What is the counterpoint to the message issue you selected?  List it and write a    brief description of how it is opposite to your message issue.

~ Step 59 ~

Counterpoint Illustrations

The Main Character will usually only exhibit the thematic topic, not the counterpoint,    as the story’s message revolves around whether the main character changes his ways    or not.

In contrast, the counterpoint must be equally represented through your other characters    to avoid making a one-sided moral argument.  It is the comparison between the two    that develops a thematic conflict that holds your readers’ interest.

For this step, list as many scenarios as you can easily devise in which other characters    employ the counterpoint quality.  Later, we’ll work them into a balanced thematic    argument.

~ Step 60 ~

Thematic Conclusion

At the end of the story, there is usually one moment at which the author makes his    or her own statement about which is the better side of the thematic conflict.

This moment should not be an attempt to prove which is better, as the proof has been    already created by the balance between them in the ongoing examples over the course    of the story.  Rather, this is the time the author confirms the conclusions the audience    has drawn for itself by showing how those characters who favored one side of the    conflict ultimately fare against the characters who favored the other.

Referring to your story synopsis and what you have developed already for your theme,    devise an event or situation for the end of your story that will provide a conclusion    to the thematic conflict by confirming whether the message or counterpoint came out    on top.

~ Step 61 ~

Revised Synopsis

Time to blend your enhanced thematic argument into your evolving novel.  For this    step, revise your existing story synopsis to incorporate the material you have recently    developed for your counterpoint and thematic conclusion.

 

 

Protagonist Personal

wp602ef169_06Write Your Novel Step by Step

Go to Table of Contents

Step 49

Protagonist Personal

Characters have dramatic functions, but the reader or audience needs to identify with them as real people.  A necessary but difficult task is to intertwine the personal and structural aspects of each character so that they blend seamlessly together and become interdependent in a unified person.

For your protagonist, what personal qualities or previous experiences have led them to become a protagonist in this particular story, the Prime Mover in the effort to achieve the goal?  Conversely, if your character by nature is wishy-washy, how does that affect their efforts when called upon by story circumstances to function as a protagonist?

By integrating all aspects of a character together, it will seem to be driven by real motivations, enacted in a truly human manner.

To further refine your protagonist, refer to the material you developed for that character including personal goal and moral issue.  If your protagonist is also your Main Character, consider what you developed there as well.

For this step, write a brief description of your protagonist’s overall nature, incorporating all of this material.

 

Identifying Your Antagonist

wp602ef169_06Write Your Novel Step by Step

Go to Table of Contents

Step 48

Identifying Your Antagonist

While the protagonist attempts to accomplish the goal, the antagonist seeks to thwart that effort, either preventing the achievement or by achieving it himself.

These efforts have nothing to do with whether the antagonist is a good guy or a bad guy. 　For example, in most James Bond films, the Villain is the protagonist, for it is he who initiates a plan, thereby driving the plot. 　Structurally, James Bond himself is an antagonist, since he tries to return things to the status quo.

So, who we cheer for and our moral prerogatives are really not involved in this choice.

Referring to your cast of characters, your plot synopsis and the refinement of your protagonist you wrote in the last step, pick one of your existing characters as your antagonist and describe how he, she, or it is focused on preventing the protagonist from achieving the story goal.

In the off chance that none of your characters can easily fulfill the role of antagonist, return to the character development steps and create a new character specifically for this task.

 

Does your plot end in Success or Failure?

wp602ef169_06Write Your Novel Step by Step

Go to Table of Contents

Step 44

Success or Failure?

A story without a clear indication of success or failure is a failure of a story.  You need to work out exactly how your readers will know the goal is achieved or not.

This might seem obvious in an action story, but may be much more difficult in a story about character growth.

Success and Failure don’t have to be binary choices; they can be matters of degree.  For example, the effort to bring back a treasure may fail, but the adventurers discover one large ruby that fell into their pack.  Or, someone seeking true love might find love but with someone who is rather annoying.

Whether either of these examples is a partial success or a partial failure depends largely on how you portray the characters’ attitudes to the imperfect achievement.

In this step, state whether your story ends in success or failure, and how that is measured.

Story Consequences

wp602ef169_06Write Your Novel Step by Step

Go to Table of Contents

Step 43

Story Consequences

A goal is what the characters chase, but what chases the characters?  The consequence doubles the dramatic tension in a story by providing a negative result if the goal is not achieved.

Consequences may be emotional or logistic, but the more intense they are, the greater the tension.  Often it provides greater depth if there are emotional consequences when there is an external goal, and external consequences if there is an emotional goal.

Your novel might be about avoiding the consequences or it might begin with the consequences already in place, and the goal is intended to end them.

If the consequences are intense enough, it can help provide motivation for characters that have no specific personal goals.

In this step, describe the consequences that will occur if the characters in your story fail to achieve the story’s goal.

Plot Requirements

wp602ef169_06Write Your Novel Step by Step

Go to Table of Contents

Step 42

Plot Requirements

The success or failure in achieving the goal is an important but short moment at the end of the story.  So how is interest maintained over the course of the story?  By the progress of the quest toward the goal.  This progress is measured by how many of the requirements have been met and how many remain.

Requirements can be logistic, such as needing to obtain five lost rubies that fit in the idol and unlock the door to the treasure.  Or, they can be passionate, such as needing to perform  enough selfless acts to win the heart of the princess.

The important thing is that the requirements are clear enough to be easily understood and measurable enough to be “marked off the list” as the story progresses.

In this step, list the requirements that need to be met in order for the story’s overall goal to be achieved.

Developing Your Story’s Goal

wp602ef169_06Write Your Novel Step by Step

Go to Table of Contents

Step 40

Developing Your Story’s Goal

Some novice writers become so wrapped up in interesting events and bits of action that they forget to have a central unifying goal that gives purpose to all the other events that take place. This creates a plot without a core.

But determining your story’s goal can be difficult, especially if your story is character oriented, and not really about a Grand Quest.

For example, in the movie “Four Weddings and a Funeral,” all the characters are struggling with their relationships and not working toward an apparent common purpose. There is a goal, however, and it is to find happiness in a relationship.

This type of goal is called a “Collective Goal” since it is not about trying to achieve the same thing, but the same kind of thing.

So don’t try to force some external, singular purpose on your story if it isn’t appropriate. But do find the common purpose in which all your characters share a critical interest.

Referring to your story synopsis, have you included a Goal in which all the characters are involved?

If so, describe it below in as much detail as readily comes to mind.

If not, consider your subject matter and the activities in which your characters engage. What singular achievement would affect them all for better or worse?