Working late tonight on the opening for my new book on narrative. Here’s the text, then back to bed;
Introduction
Narrative isn’t anything mysterious. It is, simply, a description of our attempt to solve a particular problem. At the end of the narrative, the author passes judgment on our efforts, declaring that we chose a wise path or a poor one.
Because our problem-solving process relies on a standard set of considerations, the same story points appear again and again in different narratives. Because each problem is unique, these story points come into play in different orders and at different points in the process.
For a story about a given problem to ring true, the narrative must include all the story points we would use in real life problem solving, explored in the order we would bring them to bear.
For a story to ignite our passion, the author must clothe the narrative in the trappings of storytelling style.
In a sense every narrative is a genome comprised of the same components, arranged to create a viable entity. This structure give the story its identity and storytelling provides its personality.
This book identifies the elements of narrative structure and describes how they are derived from and can also be applied to our own human nature.
Welcome to StoryWeaver – your step by step path to a completed novel, screenplay, or other narrative manuscript.
StoryWeaver is so named because it employs a technique for drawing story threads from your original concept much as a weaver might draw thread from wool. Step by step you grow and clarify your story as you twist the threads into a yarn, spin that yarn, and eventually weave it into the tapestry of your story.
Whether you already have a story you wish to improve or are just starting out with no more than a concept, StoryWeaver will help you grow your story, adding power to your plot, passion to your characters, humanity to your theme and richness to your genre.
StoryWeaver isn’t a web site, an organizational tool, or a series of fill-in-the-blank questions, but a sophisticated story development program. It runs on our servers and is accessed through your web browser, so you can use it on any internet connected device. As you work with your story, you can move seamlessly from laptop, to tablet, to smart phone, and from Windows to Mac, iOS, Android, or Chrome so you can follow your Muse wherever she leads.
Click below to try StoryWeaver risk-free for 90 days!
Though many writers use these terms interchangeably, they refer to two different kinds of functions in your story’s structure.
The Protagonist is the driver behind the effort to achieve the story’s goal.
The Main Character grapples with a personal issue of morality, philosophy, or point of view.
Often these two functions are given to the same character in your story. When they are both combined into one individual, it forms the basis of the stereotypical “hero” who not only must achieve the goal, but must also resolve a personal issue.
But, these functions can be given to two separate characters, such as in both the book and movie version of To Kill A Mockingbird in which the protagonist is Atticus, the righteous lawyer in a 1930s southern town who seeks to get a fair trial for a black man accused of rape.
But, the main character is Atticus’ young daughter, Scout. No only do we see the story unfold through her eyes, but she has to grow to rid herself of her own bias against the mentally impaired man who lives next door, Boo Radley.
She sees him as a boogey man – someone out to hurt children. But in fact, Boo is protective of the children and prevents the antagonist of the story from harming the children.
The structure is stronger since Atticus never has to question his beliefs in equal protection under the law and can therefore fight for his goal wholeheartedly. But with Scout’s prejudice against Boo without ever having met him, we learn how easy it is for even the most good-natured and innocent of us to harbor bias and prejudice while never seeing it in ourselves.
When fleshing out your characters, have each one write a short autobiography in their own voice about their lives prior to the beginning of the story, touching on key turning points, memories of special events – both cheerful and tragic, and of the people who meant/mean the most to them.
What are their biggest disappointments, narrowest escapes, greatest triumphs, deepest regrets?
Have them tell you, the author, about their hobbies, religious and political views, hopes, and dreams.
And finally, have your character each write about how the people and events in your story appear to and affect them, from their unique point of view and position in your story.
In this way, your character development will become more organic and more informed.
Keep in mind, however, that our sense of our own selves is usually quite different from how others see us. So, it is a good idea to make sure each character writes about the others in terms of whether they trust them, what they think is their greatest strength, most detrimental weakness, and must fun/frustrating trait. This will not only illuminate how each character sees the others, but how the others see them.
And finally, when you actually sit down to write your characters, don’t just approach them from your author’s view as to what you need/want them to do in the plot, but stand in their shoes and try to understand why they do these things. Is it easy or hard for them to do what they do, compatible or contrary to their nature, and what personal costs or benefits will their actions bring them?
In the end, never forget that we are each the main character or our own personal story, even when we are playing a subordinate role in a larger story involving many others.
Read more writing tips at Storymind.com, the Creative Writing Tips web site.
When fleshing out your characters, have each one write a short autobiography in their own voice about their lives prior to the beginning of the story, touching on key turning points, memories of special events – both cheerful and tragic, and of the people who meant/mean the most to them.
What are their biggest disappointments, narrowest escapes, greatest triumphs, deepest regrets?
Have them tell you, the author, about their hobbies, religious and political views, hopes, and dreams.
And finally, have your character each write about how the people and events in your story appear to and affect them, from their unique point of view and position in your story.
In this way, your character development will become more organic and more informed.
Keep in mind, however, that our sense of our own selves is usually quite different from how others see us. So, it is a good idea to make sure each character writes about the others in terms of whether they trust them, what they think is their greatest strength, most detrimental weakness, and must fun/frustrating trait. This will not only illuminate how each character sees the others, but how the others see them.
And finally, when you actually sit down to write your characters, don’t just approach them from your author’s view as to what you need/want them to do in the plot, but stand in their shoes and try to understand why they do these things. Is it easy or hard for them to do what they do, compatible or contrary to their nature, and what personal costs or benefits will their actions bring them?
In the end, never forget that we are each the main character or our own personal story, even when we are playing a subordinate role in a larger story involving many others.
Read more writing tips at Storymind.com, the Creative Writing Tips web site.
Story structure is built on fours, not on twos. Though it may seem like conflict is created between two opposing forces, there are two other forces at play as well.
Consider a dramatic circuit consisting of four elements: Potential, Resistance, Current, and Power – just like an electrical circuit.
Every scene has all four elements and if one is missing, the circuit is incomplete and the story won’t flow.
But there’s more to it than that. These four elements have a relationship that we see in many areas of life.
Here are some other sets of four that create the same kind of internal mechanism:
Earth, Water, Wind, Fire
Noun, Verb, Adjective, Adverb
Red, Blue, Green, Brightness
Universe, Physics, Mind, Psychology
Mass, Energy, Space, Time
Characters, Plot, Theme, Genre
Motivation, Method, Evaluation, Purpose
As you can see, each group of four has a very similar feel. And the last item in each set seems a little out of place compared to the other three.
There’s an important psychological reason for that, but it would require going way too deep for this post. For now, just know that stories reflect how we think, and we think in four dimensions because we perceive four dimensions. So, it is no surprise that story structure is also based on fours, because that is the way we fully explore a topic in fiction or in life.
Each day we post another step in the StoryWeaver method. Follow along to develop your novel step by step or jump ahead with the StoryWeaver app on our web site at Storymind.com
Today’s Step: The Four Stages of Story Development
Writers often begin the story development process by thinking about what their story needs: a main character/protagonist/hero, a solid theme, a riveting plot and, of course, to meet all the touch points of their genre.
Because this is just the beginning of the process, they usually don’t have much of that worked out yet. And so, they are faced with the daunting task of figuring out their story’s world, who’s in it, what happens to them, and what it all means before they even write a word. This can throw a writer into creative gridlock right out of the gate and can get so frustrating that the Muse completely deserts them.
Fortunately, there’s a better way. Rather than asking what the story needs, we can turn it around and ask what the author needs. What is the most comfortable sequence of activities that will lead a writer from concept to completion of their novel or screenplay?
As varied a lot as we writers are, there are certain fundamental phases we all go through when coming to our stories. In fact, we can arrange the entire creative process into four distinct stages:
Inspiration
Development
Exposition
Storytelling
The Inspiration Stage begins the moment we have an idea for a story. This might be an overall concept (computer geeks are transported to the old west), a plot twist (a detective discovers he is investigating his own murder), a character situation (Ponce de Leon still lives today), a thematic topic (fracking), a character study (an aging rock star who is losing his licks) a line of dialog (“Just cuz somthin’s free don’t mean you didn’t buy it.”), a title (Too Old To Die Young) or any other creative notion that makes you think, that’s a good idea for a story!
What gets the hair on your writerly tail to stand up isn’t important. Whatever it is, you are in the Inspiration Stage and it lasts as long as new ideas flow like spring runoff. You might add characters, specific events in your plot or even write a chapter or two. A very lucky writer never gets out of this stage and just keeps on going until the novel is completely written and sent out for publication.
Alas, for most of us, the Muse vanishes somewhere along the line, and we find ourselves staring at the all-too-familiar blank page wondering where to go from here. Where we go is to Stage Two: Development.
In the Development Stage we stand back and take a long critical look at our story so far. We now have quite a few ideas and there are likely sections that are ready to write, or perhaps you’ve already written some. But there may be other areas that are a bit lean or even downright sketchy, hanging by only the thinnest of story threads.
What’s needed now is to grow each of those ideas to add more substance. So, story point by story point we add richness and detail until every notion we generated in Inspiration has become a fully developed concept. What’s there looks good, but what about what isn’t there?
Even though each idea is now fully formed, in between them may be story holes, both small and gaping, and breaks in logic when what happens first makes no sense in connection to what happens later. Then there might be characters that don’t ring true, unresolved conflicts, and expressed emotions that seem to come out of nowhere.
And so, the work begins – filling the space between your ideas and trying to make them all fit in the same story. By the end of the development stage, you’ll have added detail and richness to your story and added all the pieces needed to fill the gaps.
Eventually (thank Providence) you’ll have fully developed your ideas and plugged all the leaks. But what you have now is more like a box of snarled threads than a fabric. The pieces are all there but they aren’t yet working together. You realize you need to integrate your individual ideas so they can work in concert. You also realize you have quite unawares stumbled into Stage Three: Exposition.
Exposition isn’t just about revealing story points to your readers or audience. It is even more about pulling all of those threads together so they become a yarn.
Here you will consider how one story point affects another, and how plot impacts character impacts theme impacts genre. Stories are holistic, and every piece should inform all the rest and, conversely, be informed by all the rest. In this way, your story becomes organic and transcends the pieces from which it is made.
And when you have all that figured out, you are ready to begin the final stage: Storytelling.
Storytelling is more than word play and style. It is also about deciding how to weave the threads of your story as it unfolds. Scene by scene or chapter by chapter you’ll lay out the arcs of your characters and their relationships with one another, you’ll carry your plot through twists and turns, you’ll subtly build your theme into a powerful message, and you’ll grow your genre into a unique reader or audience experience.
And lastly, before we send our creation out into the world, we writers shift and substitute and polish until (almost regretfully) we let it go, just like a parent bundling up a child for the first day of school. StoryWeaver can’t help you find the resolve to write “The End,” but as Da Vinci is credited with saying, “Art is never finished, only abandoned.”
Drop by tomorrow for the next step or jump ahead with our StoryWeaver app at Storymind.com
Each day we post another step in the StoryWeaver method. Follow along to develop your novel step by step or jump ahead with the StoryWeaver app on our web site at Storymind.com
Today’s Step: The Four Stages of Story Development
Writers often begin the story development process by thinking about what their story needs: a main character/protagonist/hero, a solid theme, a riveting plot and, of course, to meet all the touch points of their genre.
Because this is just the beginning of the process, they usually don’t have much of that worked out yet. And so, they are faced with the daunting task of figuring out their story’s world, who’s in it, what happens to them, and what it all means before they even write a word. This can throw a writer into creative gridlock right out of the gate and can get so frustrating that the Muse completely deserts them.
Fortunately, there’s a better way. Rather than asking what the story needs, we can turn it around and ask what the author needs. What is the most comfortable sequence of activities that will lead a writer from concept to completion of their novel or screenplay?
As varied a lot as we writers are, there are certain fundamental phases we all go through when coming to our stories. In fact, we can arrange the entire creative process into four distinct stages:
Inspiration
Development
Exposition
Storytelling
The Inspiration Stage begins the moment we have an idea for a story. This might be an overall concept (computer geeks are transported to the old west), a plot twist (a detective discovers he is investigating his own murder), a character situation (Ponce de Leon still lives today), a thematic topic (fracking), a character study (an aging rock star who is losing his licks) a line of dialog (“Just cuz somthin’s free don’t mean you didn’t buy it.”), a title (Too Old To Die Young) or any other creative notion that makes you think, that’s a good idea for a story!
What gets the hair on your writerly tail to stand up isn’t important. Whatever it is, you are in the Inspiration Stage and it lasts as long as new ideas flow like spring runoff. You might add characters, specific events in your plot or even write a chapter or two. A very lucky writer never gets out of this stage and just keeps on going until the novel is completely written and sent out for publication.
Alas, for most of us, the Muse vanishes somewhere along the line, and we find ourselves staring at the all-too-familiar blank page wondering where to go from here. Where we go is to Stage Two: Development.
In the Development Stage we stand back and take a long critical look at our story so far. We now have quite a few ideas and there are likely sections that are ready to write, or perhaps you’ve already written some. But there may be other areas that are a bit lean or even downright sketchy, hanging by only the thinnest of story threads.
What’s needed now is to grow each of those ideas to add more substance. So, story point by story point we add richness and detail until every notion we generated in Inspiration has become a fully developed concept. What’s there looks good, but what about what isn’t there?
Even though each idea is now fully formed, in between them may be story holes, both small and gaping, and breaks in logic when what happens first makes no sense in connection to what happens later. Then there might be characters that don’t ring true, unresolved conflicts, and expressed emotions that seem to come out of nowhere.
And so, the work begins – filling the space between your ideas and trying to make them all fit in the same story. By the end of the development stage, you’ll have added detail and richness to your story and added all the pieces needed to fill the gaps.
Eventually (thank Providence) you’ll have fully developed your ideas and plugged all the leaks. But what you have now is more like a box of snarled threads than a fabric. The pieces are all there but they aren’t yet working together. You realize you need to integrate your individual ideas so they can work in concert. You also realize you have quite unawares stumbled into Stage Three: Exposition.
Exposition isn’t just about revealing story points to your readers or audience. It is even more about pulling all of those threads together so they become a yarn.
Here you will consider how one story point affects another, and how plot impacts character impacts theme impacts genre. Stories are holistic, and every piece should inform all the rest and, conversely, be informed by all the rest. In this way, your story becomes organic and transcends the pieces from which it is made.
And when you have all that figured out, you are ready to begin the final stage: Storytelling.
Storytelling is more than word play and style. It is also about deciding how to weave the threads of your story as it unfolds. Scene by scene or chapter by chapter you’ll lay out the arcs of your characters and their relationships with one another, you’ll carry your plot through twists and turns, you’ll subtly build your theme into a powerful message, and you’ll grow your genre into a unique reader or audience experience.
And lastly, before we send our creation out into the world, we writers shift and substitute and polish until (almost regretfully) we let it go, just like a parent bundling up a child for the first day of school. StoryWeaver can’t help you find the resolve to write “The End,” but as Da Vinci is credited with saying, “Art is never finished, only abandoned.”
Drop by tomorrow for the next step or jump ahead with our StoryWeaver app at Storymind.com
Each day we post another step in the StoryWeaver process. Follow along to develop your novel step by step or jump ahead with the StoryWeaver app on our web site at Storymind.com
Today’s Step: Introduction to the StoryWeaver Process
For most authors, the hardest part of writing is the raw invention needed to come up with an intriguing plot, compelling characters, a meaningful theme, and an involving genre. Once you have that all worked out, the actual writing is the fun part.
StoryWeaver employs an inspired new technique that starts with your original story concept and draws story threads from it, twisting them to add texture, spinning them into yarns to add context, then weaving them into the fabric of your story. And it does this step by step so you always know what to do now and then what to do next.
There are four stages in StoryWeaver’s story creation path, and you can see them as the top-level categories in the navigation menu to the right (or just below this text on smaller screens).
They are:
Inspiration
Development
Exposition
Storytelling
The Inspiration Stage helps you draw new story threads for your plot, characters, theme and genre from your original concept.
The Development Stage twists those threads to deepen and expand your ideas into greater detail.
The Exposition Stage helps you spin your ideas together into a full bodied yarn.
The Storytelling Stage weaves everything that happens in your story as it unfolds over time.
By the end of the path, you’ll have a completed story, fully developed and expertly told.
Drop by tomorrow for the next step or jump ahead with our StoryWeaver app at Storymind.com
You must be logged in to post a comment.