Secrets to Writing Better stories

 

Secrets to Writing Better stories

Every one thinks that writing is as easy as a piece of cake, unfortunately, those who think that have never written an article, or even a book to know or understand how difficult it can be to string words together that make sense and tell a story at the same time. Writing a story is the hardest thing of all. To come up with characters with good names, a back story and a goal within the story is really the hardest of all, besides the overall story itself. Then you have to string out that story with an antagonist and a protagonist that reaches 120,000 words to fill the pages of a book. If your really good you can write the movie script to tell the story which is only about 100 pages long. Either way, the concept of telling the story is the pinnacle of writing first and foremost and that can take up to a few years, or only a few months, depending on how good you are as a writer.  I’ve written several books in my career, my first one took 6 months to concept, research and write, but my second book took me over a year to write, and I had to travel to a war zone in order to write that book. My third book took a year and a half to write and it was decided to be the first in a series. A series I started to design but then got busy with life and medical issues that caused me to put it on the back burner. 

No matter what happens in life, if you want to be a writer, always be in the presence and be on the look out for ideas for character characteristics, plots and potential storylines. This is why I always have my writers journal with me to jot down ideas, comments, sayings, and potential story concept ideas.  However, there are various secrets to being a better storyteller, so let’s explore them this week.

First of all, have a dedicated location to write. Whether it be your kitchen or dining room table, or a desk in the corner of your living room always sit at one of them each night and write something, even if it’s only a paragraph. Maybe it might be the outline to a story in that paragraph, or how about just describing one of your characters in biography format. But the main thing to write is what your story is going to be about. Will it be a murder mystery, a cop and robbers’ story, or how about terrorism and intrigue or a historical novel? Don’t think about the plot or the ending, just sit down and write a quick short story. Consider yourself a historian who has discovered a long-lost town filled with wonderful characters all waiting for someone to write down their story. Be that historian, write down their story and dig deep into each character and let them guide you.

Key objective in this stage of writing is to create the biography of your antagonist and protagonist. The protagonist is the key to your story after all. What problem does he or she have that needs to be solved and in what hot water did they just find themselves in that will compromise their solving their problem or problems. Your antagonist has to be really cruel and ultimate enemy of your protagonist. Your antagonist has to seriously want to object to your protagonists solving his or her problem. The decisions your protagonist needs to make at some point in the story should help her or him get out of the mess they need to get out of or solve their problem once and for all. You will also need to develop your protagonist’s friend who allows your reader to see past their rough and tactless side and see their vulnerable side that has been suppressed due to their problem.

You as a writer must also learn the art of creating suspense and drama in your stories that gives the reader a level of stepping stones to follow until the end of your story. Does she get the man in the end, or does she lose him over something stupid? Don’t over share information, remember you must write a minimum of 120,000 words to fill a novel so don’t give away too much too fast, but feel free to use logic in your writing in order to tell your story with interest. 

Remember you have to show it, don’t tell it. So, what does that saying, mean? It means you have to have strong descriptions of the surroundings, the room, the scene of your characters interacting with each other, plus dynamic dialogue between your characters in order to tell the story properly. As the writer you know the voice of your character better than anyone, therefore, you should be able to know if the voice is strained or off-putting when you’re crafting the dialogue, plus the voice of the narrator of the story who is describing the scene. Be mindful of that when writing. Here is a hint on how to make this more understandable, go rent a DVD for a genre that you want to write about and watch it, not for entertainment purposes but for technical camera filming, plot points and dialogue. Don’t be afraid to stop the movie at some point and write notes. If you like the direction, note who directed it, who was in charge of camera shots, photography, scriptwriters, etc. When I watch any movie, I watch it three times, first time for the entertainment factor. If I like that aspect, I will watch it a second time to see how they filmed it and are there any bloopers that they missed, and then the third time is for plot points, dialogue and relationships between characters. If there is a book about the movie, I will see if they have it out on audiobook and listen to it before I watch the movie to see how close the scriptwriter was in depicting the book to script format. Each of these ideas helps you understand the process even more so that you can learn to be better writers, scriptwriters and storytellers.

If you are interrupted from your writing for a few days, it’s always a good idea to go back and reread what you wrote and familiarize yourself again with the story you’ve created. At this same time, you can edit the concept to ensure it makes sense. This will also allow your characters to remind you where they were in the story and then it will become easier to continue with where you left off without any hiccups in your characters voice.  Your story will also begin to gel in your mind and take on a life of its own, just allow your fingers or pen to take your characters directions in order to tell their story.