Nolafus
Aspiring something
- 5,724
- Posts
- 12
- Years
- Lost in thought... again
- Seen Mar 4, 2018
Before I begin, I would just like to thank everyone for expressing their interest in this. Being completely honest, I'm quite nervous about this. I was looking through the sign up thread and thinking, "Oh crap, these people actually want to learn something." So, this is basically going to be a test run. I'd love your honest feedback about this, if you have any, so don't be afraid to message me about stuff. This is for you after all, and if there's any way I can improve, let me know.
This week is meant to just be an introduction, so I'm teaching a possible new way to look at things, rather than something completely new. Don't worry, I'll get to more stuff starting next week, but for now, here's an introduction!
Today, I'll be covering what a story exactly is. From character backgrounds, to figuring out which words to use, there's a lot more that's going on in stories than meets the eye. As a writer, you're going to have to face all of these things. Knowing what a story is will help lay the foundation down, so that I can help you build off of that in the next few weeks. We'll start off with the literal translation, since that's probably the easiest.
Every story that has ever been written is a bunch of scenes strung together in a timeline that's supposed to form some kind of plot. That's it, just a bunch of events strung together. It's your job as the storyteller to write this. It sounds simple, but deceivingly so. The hard part comes with forming the events themselves. Which characters shall I use? What shall I put them through? What will this add to the overall plot? What's the goal of this scene?
Those are some basic questions you should be able to answer for each scene. Sometimes the answers come easy, and sometimes the answers can be hard to reach. Either way, they must be answered. Those questions can apply to other things as well, such as the entire story. The entire story is an event in itself. Think of a fractal. You know, those complicated shapes we learned about in geometry that have a never ending, repeating pattern. For the sake of an example, let's think of a tree. The entire story is the trunk, the part of the tree that is condensed into one big branch. As we travel up the tree, or deeper into the story, we see that the big branch splits off into more branches, just like how the big story can be broken up into two, maybe three, big events. As we travel farther up, we see that the branches split off again, and again, and again. Hopefully you're starting to get the picture. Each event can be broken down into more events, and then those events can be broken down further.
The point I'm trying to make is that, as the writer, it's your job to make these. You're creating this fractal of events, and you have to bring them down into one idea, the trunk of your story. It's actually quite an amazing process. You don't really realize you're doing it until you take a moment to step back and really look at what your work. In other words, it's a natural part of writing a story. The part you have to think about is what events actually make it into your story, and how you're going to link them together. That's the job of the writer. It might seem like an overwhelming task once you start picking events, but that just leads into our next section, the meaning.
Just like with events, every story has a meaning. Harry Potter taught us that if there's a will, there's a way. It may not be obvious at first, but once you start writing out an idea and starting to flesh it out, it should become apparent. Now, not every story has some deep, philosophical meaning behind it. Some stories are just meant to entertain people, and that's fine. It might seem like your story is one of those, but if you really think about it, I guarantee that those types of stories are in the minority.
Once you start tossing around an idea, events will pop up in your mind. In fact, you'll most likely think up of a lot more events than you could possibly use. A lot of these events will contradict each other. So, it's your job as the writer to decide which one you will use. If you want your story to work, you have to decide on a meaning, or theme, you're constantly trying to get at. Once you have that meaning down, it's a lot easier to filter out the events that don't promote that.
I say you want to find a meaning, because it will help your story stay on a linear path. Writing a story is a lot of hard work, and can quickly become overwhelming if you just start writing willy nilly. I speak from personal experience that it's a lot easier to write something out if you have a plan and don't have to hold a bunch of themes down and tie them together with an ending that probably won't make much sense.
So, I just took the long route of saying all a story is, is a string of events that follow a certain theme. No matter how long a story is, or how complicated it may seem, it can always be broken down into different events, with a main message running throughout. Try taking a moment and reflect back on a book you have read. What do you think the message was? What were some of the events, and what are some of the events that made up that event?
As a homework assignment (optional, of course), I would like you to think of a story idea, and possibly identify a message the story is trying to get across. Since the story will be a concept at this point, there's not much to critique, so I don't really need to see these. Instead, why not post your idea in the comments and see what other people have come up with? I would really recommend thinking of a story as later on, I'll be asking you to create characters, make scenes, and various things that would be so much easier if you already had a way to tie them together. Plus, it would be pretty cool to come out of this with a story idea that's pretty much fleshed out already.
Now that we have laid the foundation down for creative writing, we're ready for the next lesson. Unfortunately, I'm not, so be sure to come back next Monday for lesson number two, and be sure to contribute to the discussion below, you never know what else you might learn!
This week is meant to just be an introduction, so I'm teaching a possible new way to look at things, rather than something completely new. Don't worry, I'll get to more stuff starting next week, but for now, here's an introduction!
What is a story?
Today, I'll be covering what a story exactly is. From character backgrounds, to figuring out which words to use, there's a lot more that's going on in stories than meets the eye. As a writer, you're going to have to face all of these things. Knowing what a story is will help lay the foundation down, so that I can help you build off of that in the next few weeks. We'll start off with the literal translation, since that's probably the easiest.
Every story that has ever been written is a bunch of scenes strung together in a timeline that's supposed to form some kind of plot. That's it, just a bunch of events strung together. It's your job as the storyteller to write this. It sounds simple, but deceivingly so. The hard part comes with forming the events themselves. Which characters shall I use? What shall I put them through? What will this add to the overall plot? What's the goal of this scene?
Those are some basic questions you should be able to answer for each scene. Sometimes the answers come easy, and sometimes the answers can be hard to reach. Either way, they must be answered. Those questions can apply to other things as well, such as the entire story. The entire story is an event in itself. Think of a fractal. You know, those complicated shapes we learned about in geometry that have a never ending, repeating pattern. For the sake of an example, let's think of a tree. The entire story is the trunk, the part of the tree that is condensed into one big branch. As we travel up the tree, or deeper into the story, we see that the big branch splits off into more branches, just like how the big story can be broken up into two, maybe three, big events. As we travel farther up, we see that the branches split off again, and again, and again. Hopefully you're starting to get the picture. Each event can be broken down into more events, and then those events can be broken down further.
The point I'm trying to make is that, as the writer, it's your job to make these. You're creating this fractal of events, and you have to bring them down into one idea, the trunk of your story. It's actually quite an amazing process. You don't really realize you're doing it until you take a moment to step back and really look at what your work. In other words, it's a natural part of writing a story. The part you have to think about is what events actually make it into your story, and how you're going to link them together. That's the job of the writer. It might seem like an overwhelming task once you start picking events, but that just leads into our next section, the meaning.
Just like with events, every story has a meaning. Harry Potter taught us that if there's a will, there's a way. It may not be obvious at first, but once you start writing out an idea and starting to flesh it out, it should become apparent. Now, not every story has some deep, philosophical meaning behind it. Some stories are just meant to entertain people, and that's fine. It might seem like your story is one of those, but if you really think about it, I guarantee that those types of stories are in the minority.
Once you start tossing around an idea, events will pop up in your mind. In fact, you'll most likely think up of a lot more events than you could possibly use. A lot of these events will contradict each other. So, it's your job as the writer to decide which one you will use. If you want your story to work, you have to decide on a meaning, or theme, you're constantly trying to get at. Once you have that meaning down, it's a lot easier to filter out the events that don't promote that.
I say you want to find a meaning, because it will help your story stay on a linear path. Writing a story is a lot of hard work, and can quickly become overwhelming if you just start writing willy nilly. I speak from personal experience that it's a lot easier to write something out if you have a plan and don't have to hold a bunch of themes down and tie them together with an ending that probably won't make much sense.
So, I just took the long route of saying all a story is, is a string of events that follow a certain theme. No matter how long a story is, or how complicated it may seem, it can always be broken down into different events, with a main message running throughout. Try taking a moment and reflect back on a book you have read. What do you think the message was? What were some of the events, and what are some of the events that made up that event?
As a homework assignment (optional, of course), I would like you to think of a story idea, and possibly identify a message the story is trying to get across. Since the story will be a concept at this point, there's not much to critique, so I don't really need to see these. Instead, why not post your idea in the comments and see what other people have come up with? I would really recommend thinking of a story as later on, I'll be asking you to create characters, make scenes, and various things that would be so much easier if you already had a way to tie them together. Plus, it would be pretty cool to come out of this with a story idea that's pretty much fleshed out already.
Now that we have laid the foundation down for creative writing, we're ready for the next lesson. Unfortunately, I'm not, so be sure to come back next Monday for lesson number two, and be sure to contribute to the discussion below, you never know what else you might learn!
