Talk:Story Building

From Storieswiki.org

I personally believe the following elements are more useful when attempting to build a longer story, like, those in excess of 4000-5000 words. A flash story is another ball game

I have not been properly trained in creative writing. However from my miserable experience, and from reading advises from successful authors, I believe building a story involves many elements. I would like to see a collabative effort to come up with how to build a story.

Anyway, the initial elements I can come up with are as follows: --Bingain 23:25, 29 Jun 2005 (EDT)

I like to write without having any idea who the characters are or what they're doing or why. I know a lot of people don't do it this way, and I'm not recommending it as better or worse, and it isn't bragging, believe me. It's probably the clumsiest way to do it; you end up writing yourself into a lot of corners and it can be seriously brain consuming to get them out of it. You end up with a very crowded morgue but very little writer's block. If I have any observations about story building in that fashion it's this:

Let your characters talk. What they say will often surprise you and many times will lead uncover the underlying them and create plot points you hadn't considered.

Motivate your characters often! Every chance you get and we're talking subtlety here, not the obvious external motivations, but the internal ones. Your characters need to have thoughts and feelings and express them in the narrative where possible, that way when you've written yourself into a corner on page 30 you can go back to page 12 and find the door. It keeps your characters real and vulnerable too.

Remember it is not always necessary to describe every person to the smallest detail. It is perfectly alright in many situations to use a minimalist approach when describing persons and places. Use those descriptives which are necessary to develop the characters or plot, but don't go overboard. "Reading is better than television, reason #56: I can imagine a character looking the way I want him to...instead of the way someone in central casting does." Give your readers some freedom of imagination. Some will not appreciate the extra work, but most won't mind.

The last thing I'll say is when it comes to dialogue do not waste lines on anything that doesn't further the story. Use it to enhance your characters and if possible, reveal plot information at the same time. Exposition is the enemy of good storytelling, but without it there is usually no story to tell. So use your characters wherever possible to make it interesting. And give your characters something to do while they talk. Move their hands, give them some coffee, make the phone ring, or the wind blow hair into their eyes. Life is happening all the time, even in alternative universes.

--rache 01:24, 13 Sep 2005 (EDT)

Good, lets get the discussion going then. My thoughts are a bit different to yours but I would be interested to hear your response.

--Foxy

Ok. But why such fantasy? A story doesn't have to involve the best looking or the richest, it is more about feeling. How the people in it interact with each other, what they feel etc

I would also be interested to hear how other people feel.

--Foxy 16:53, 25 Jun 2005 (EDT)

I agree with Foxy that a story has to be appealing to the author first. After all, we aren't making money by writing stories here, so we basically write for joy and satisfaction.

I often have a delemma and I suppose many have it as well. I have written many stories--unfinished stories. I did it when I had the ideas so appealing I had to write. I couldn't finish them because I didn't know how to. Quite often, when I later write another story, I would use part of these unfinished stories and incorporate the 'ideas' into the new stories and then I scrap the old story. It actually works pretty well.

--Bingain 17:58, 25 Jun 2005 (EDT)

I tend to work without a net, that is, story starts with little except a main character and perhaps one solid scene or vignette. So I guess mine are more character driven -- at least the main ones!

This quick start might explain my rather large dead file as some of these stories quickly run out of steam.

That's why this is a fun site: changes to stories by other authors mean I have to adapt my story line to fit - this exercise should help me avoid writers block on my 'regular' stories.

--WarLord 01:46, 27 Jun 2005 (EDT)

I think that we all do that though. Things go into the 'hopper' to be retrieved at a later date. Maybe only part of the original story will be used but at least it surfaces again. --Foxy 04:46, 26 Jun 2005 (EDT)

Yep - my dead file is large and every so often a story is pulled out as an idea germinates. I guess it's part of the process. Some of those um deaders are coming here.

--WarLord 01:36, 27 Jun 2005 (EDT)