Tag: situation
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Of Silence, The Three-Act Structure and Death…
Dreams are but stories that possess a beginning, middle and end. Recognizing this Aristotle superimposed this organization of dreams–his three-act structure onto that of plays and stories to render them more comprehensible. Dreams, like stories and plays, hold drama, and their trajectory of plot often includes a dilemma, even if the problem is one of…
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Of Crises, Experience and Goals…
Surviving a crisis bestows special knowledge garnered and held by few. It also grants admittance into various orders of wisdom yielded by experience. Every novel or story a writer crafts tells the life of a certain crisis, and chronicles a central character’s survival of that crisis. The process of writing that novel flows out of…
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Of Cruise Ships, Planes, Ocean and Sky…
Traveling by ship, or cruising, starts with the point or process of embarkation, going onto the ship and finding our room. Your bags arrive soon after that. And within an hour or so the ship sets sail. Unlike with an airplane, where matters move at a faster pac
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Of Idiosyncracies, Formidable Personalities and Specifics
Describing an experience or person as bad or terrible will not suffice in fiction writing. Writing that the foster parents in a novel are mean or horrible does not flesh out the unique idiosyncrasies of their formidable personalities. Let us turn to the context of the orphan in a less than ideal foster home.
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Showing Up…
Should the protagonist not appear, in court when summoned, the judge renders a default in favor of the opposing character, whether they be defendant or plaintiff. The character has failed to present and/or make her or his case for a story. And so has the author. All forward motion of plot ceases. No story exists,…
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Premise
What’s the premise of your novel? Do you need one? Why would you not? Premise is the combination of character and situation. What if Person A is forced to confront Situation F?
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So You Want to Write a Story: How=Story
A story can be seen as answering six essential questions: Who, What, Where, When Why, and How? Who concerns the characters. What defines the current situation, problem or dilemma. Where describes the setting. When is the second part of the setting, time and period in history, either current, or some time in the past, or…