Search Our Store:
 




 

 

Writing Tips for
Story Structure & Storytelling

by Melanie Anne Phillips
Creator StoryWeaver, Co-Creator Dramatica

Genre First Impressions

Receive Melanie's Writing Tip Newsletter

Your story's genre is its overall personality. As with the people that you meet, first impressions are very important. In act one, you introduce your story to your reader/audience. The selection of elements you choose to initially employ will set the mood for all that follows. They can also be misleading, and you can use this to your advantage.

You may be working with a standard genre, or trying something new. But it often helps involve your reader/audience if you start with the familiar. In this way, those experiencing your story are eased out of the real world and into the one you have constructed. So, in the first act, you many want to establish a few touch points the reader/audience can hang its hat on.

As we get to know people a little better, our initial impression of the "type" of person they are begins to slowly alter, making them a little more of an individual and a little less of a stereotype. To this end, as the first act progresses, you may want to hint at a few attributes or elements of your story's personality that begin to drift from the norm.

By the end of the first act, you should have dropped enough elements to give your story a general personality type and also to indicate that a deeper personality waits to be revealed.

As a side note, this deeper personality may in fact be the true personality of your story, hidden behind the first impressions.

Copyright Melanie Anne Phillips

The Top 10  Most Popular Articles

Be a Story Weaver - NOT a Story Mechanic!

How to Create Great Characters!

Heroes & Villains

Dramatica Basics

Conflict Can Limit Your Characters

Subplots

Writing From A Character's Point Of View

Psychoanalyze Your Story

Constructive Criticisms

Writing Characters Of The Opposite Sex

 

Our Most Popular Products

StoryWeaver Story Development Software

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)


Movie Magic Screenwriter

is one of two industry standard word processing screenplay formatters, the other being Final Draft.  Each of these programs offers a complete suite of screenwriting tools to make your next script a breeze to write.  (Details


Dramatica Pro

Unlike any other story development product, Dramatica Pro uses a patented Story Engine to interactively help you build a structure, find and fix dramatica holes and inconsistencies.  (Details)


12 Hour Writing Course on DVD

This intense program features 12 hours of video documenting the entire college-level course in creative writing given by Melanie Anne Phillips, creator of StoryWeaver and co-creator of Dramatica.  Just $19.95  (Details)

More