This site exposes this lie and the countless others that have suppressed writers for generations.
If the subject of writing stories seems confusing and difficult - it's not your fault.
The following is a broad overview of the subject. As the site develops, each of the line items will be turned into a link connecting to one or more articles discussing that concept in detail.
Consider the following a sort of, "table of contents" for the subject as it will be discussed on this site.
To understand this subject the best place to start is with the product.
- Product
What is the product that we fiction writers produce? What product do we exchange with our readers?
- Story
Fiction writers produce stories because that's what our readers are buying - a story.
- Why do we tell stories, what's the purpose?
Stories are how we make sense out of life and how a culture defines itself. Stories are how we attempt to understand where we've come from, who we are, and where we're going.
- What is a story - exactly?
Definition: story - a narration, consisting of an introduction leading either to an event (or two causally related incidents, culminating in an event) and ending with a conclusion of the premise of the narration.
- What the reader wants
All the buying public wants is: a good story, well told.
- Familiarity
Our familiarity with the product is the problem. It gets in the way of our actually studying the subject of writing fiction, as a subject.
We've been reading, watching, and hearing stories our whole lives. So we start off as writers thinking we know what they are.
But reading fiction is vastly different than writing fiction. The trick is to replace familiarity with certainty and guess-work with expertise. Good fiction is simple, once we know how. But that's the trick, isn't it - learning how to create good story's and telling them well.
- How do we learn to write effective fiction?
Any subject to be learned must be systematized. The student can't learn and the teacher can't teach a non-system. To be understood, any subject must be sorted into its components and organized into a hierarchy of functions, relationships and dependencies.
Simply put, it's like understanding the engine of a car. We must not only know what each component is, and what it does, but we must understand how each of these pieces work with all the others to make the wheels turn and propel us down the road. And to understand that we also have to understand (at least in broad general terms) the laws of physics as they apply to the workings of engines.
So too it is with learning to write fiction. There are laws of storytelling like there are laws of physics. There are component parts to a story like there are component parts to an engine. And then there is how the laws apply and how the components interact to take our reader on an emotional and intellectual ride down the road of our story.
To the degree that we understand stories and storytelling -- like a mechanic understands car engines -- we can tune, adjust, repair, rebuild and even build them from scratch.
But if we don’t understand stories like a mechanic understands car engines, when it doesn't run right or we can't get it started - all we can do is kick the tires and call a tow-truck. And the readers of our stories won't hesitate to call the tow-truck and rent some other story.
So, if we are going to build and sell our books, then we must become story mechanics.
To improve our ability to create stories and tell them well we need to learn a lot more (dare I say everything) about what they are, how they work, and what they do.
- Where do we start?
There are two major subdivisions to the subject of writing fiction -
A.) creating a good story and B.) telling it well.
- Good story
To understand what constitutes a "good story" we have to look at purpose. What is the reader buying and why are they buying it?
Entertainment is too shallow an answer. People only buy solutions to their problems.
And stories solve two problems for the reader: relief from boredom, and distraction from his/her problems. That's what the reader is buying - relief from his life or problems. They could use booze, drugs, a movie or a rollercoaster ride. Any of those things could provide some "relief" but some of these solutions are more beneficial than others.
To the degree our story solves the reader's problem, it's a good story.
- Well told
What makes a story "well told"? What is "telling well"?
Again we have to look at purpose. To achieve "relief", the telling of the story (and the story itself) must catch and hold the attention of the reader long enough for him/her to experience enough relief that they feel satisfied.
A story must also provide an emotional and intellectual experience. This is part of how it catches and holds the readers attention. It engages their attention on an emotional and intellectual level - some of each. Emotional and intellectual are the two ends of a gradient scale. Each story could be placed at some point on the scale between total emotional and total intellectual.
No story can be written that is all one and nothing of the other.
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- How do we proceed?
- Writing fiction is a subject - like any other
First we must understand that fiction is a subject like any other subject. There is something to know and it can be known.
Any subject is easy once we understand it. The problem is getting to that point of understanding.
- Organize to understand
This subject of writing fiction must be organized before it can be studied and it must be studied before it can be understood.
- What do we need to know?
There are things that we need to know. And there are things that we don't need to know to understand a subject.
In the category of "need to know" are these subjects: nomenclature, tools, resources, structures, sequences, and techniques -- in about that order of importance.
- Nomenclature
Words are best understood as a hierarchy of related concepts. The words of a subject are related to each other like the leaves on a tree. An important part of any word's meaning is its relationship with other words of the subject.
There is a nomenclature associated with the writing of fiction and we must understand all those words.
- Tools
This is a long list starting with words, grammar, spelling and punctuation, all the way up to and including human nature, history, geology, geography, physics, etc.
- Resources
The ability to observe, research, think about, and evaluate information is undoubtedly the writer's greatest single resource.
- Structure
There are only two basic story structures.
- Long story: introduction, first incident, second incident, event, conclusion
- Short story: introduction, event, conclusion
- Sequence
The story creation sequence is simple, if we don't skip any steps.
- Conception
Story conception is just getting an idea that can be turned into a premise.
- Design
Designing a story is simply working out the general idea of the major components that make up any story such as: premise, antagonist, protagonist, objective, problem, duration, location, time, motivation, consequences, and outcome.
Design also includes decisions regarding the genre, target audience, and word length.
And from there the design would move on to the major actions of the introduction, first incident, second incident, event and conclusion, and the smaller actions leading up to and away from each of these.
- Story Composition
Composition is what most people think of as "writing". But there are two steps before composition; otherwise one would not know what they were writing about, why they were writing about it or the point they were trying to make with their narrative.
- Story Editing
Good editing starts broad and works down into the details. Does the story work? Is it doing what it was intended it to do? Does it illustrate the intended premise? And working down to things like: Is each scene pulling its weight? Does the dialogue work? Is the tension right? etc.
- Techniques
Techniques are often referred to as systems, or methodologies. There are techniques for conceiving, designing, composing and editing. For example, some of the techniques of composition are: prose, poetry, exposition, dialogue, suspense, mock-ups, scenes, person, viewpoint, etc.
- General Principles
Only to the degree that we can systematize and structure the data that comprises the subject we can master the subject.
Each component of the subject must be understood, not only in and of itself, but in relation to the whole.
This subject is ancient and it's gathered a lot of false information over the centuries. So, we must be able to sort out and discard the false information while learning the correct information. That means; we must be able to tell the difference between what works and what doesn't.
- Inspiration
Inspiration has nothing to do with it. Writing is work and if you want to write, then you have to consistently and diligently write. If your solution is to wait for inspiration you might as well play the lottery. There is a better chance of winning.
- The Muse
The muse is a myth. She doesn't exist. The only real muse is our own consistent hard work and a desire to succeed.
- The "born writer"
Writers are not born -- they are made by study and practice. The only problem is knowing, what and how to study and practice.
- "It just flowed from my pen, keyboard, etc."
Because it came easy doesn't make the story or the telling of it any good. The average self-published book sells only 10 copies.
This will destroy the self-publishing industry if they don’t get a handle on it. Self-publishing is fine and I highly recommend it. But the author must get the services of a professional editor - or suffer the embarrassment of a book that no one will buy, let alone read.
- Self-publishing is the answer
Every book must sell itself. No amount of marketing money or effort can compensate for a lousy story, poorly told. Self-published books have an even worse rate of failure than the publishing industry as a whole.
The two biggest problems for self-publishing writers is that they attempt to skip the "editing" step necessary to ensure that they have a good story, well told. And they don’t know how to (or even that they need to) "sell" their book; presuming of course that they have a good book that can be sold in the first place.
- The publisher will sell my book
Publishers only manufacture a manuscript into a book that can be sold, and make it available to bookstores. Bookstores only display books for sale. There's a huge difference between "taking orders" and "selling". It's up to the author to actually promote, market and sell his books.
- The experts know all about it
This is the idea that the professionals in the publishing and movie businesses have it all figured out.
The sad truth is that 75% of all new books and movies fail to even earn back their cost of production. Given only a 25% success rate, we would have to conclude that the experts aren't very expert at understanding what the public wants, how to produce it or even how to recognize it when they see it.
- I need a degree in literature
This is true only if you want a job as an editor, or writing for newspapers or magazines. No one else cares about your education of lack thereof. All anyone wants, or cares about, is a good story, well told. Higher education has little history of graduating successful fiction writers.
- I don’t have time to write
People feel they lack time if they don’t know what to do, and/or they don’t know how to manage the time they have. When one understands what they are doing and how to do it, it's easy to "find the time".
- "If you want to send a message, call western union."
This quote is attributed to a famous Hollywood studio head who ruled his industry in the 50s. But it will be observed that the "classics" that survive from that era all have a "message" - the rest are long forgotten.
A story must have a premise or it's not a story. It might be something else but it's not a "story".
- It's who you know
No one cares who you are or who you know. The very best that "knowing people" will get any writer is a foot in the door to show what you got. But if you haven’t got a good story, well told, they'll boot you and your book right back out that door.
As I mentioned earlier, the "experts" in the publishing and movie businesses are so poor at picking winners they might just give your story a shot - if you know the right people. But if it's a lousy story, poorly told - that will be your last shot. Therefore "knowing the right people" is not a substitute for being able to produce a good, well told story.
- I'm to young, old, inexperienced, etc.
These are just excuses for a lack of knowledge or determination.
- I need an agent, publisher, etc.
What you need first and foremost is a good story, well told. Then you need to know how to sell your manuscript or book like any business person would sell a product. If you can do the above, everything else will take care of itself.
- I'll just make it up as I go
It's inconceivable that anyone who has every read even one novel, could believe for a moment that the story was "just made up" as the writer went along.
- There is too much competition
Quite the contrary. The reading and movie public are starving for more good stories, well told. They consume by the truckload the best they can find - and that isn't very good and it isn't nearly enough. Why do you think Hollywood is making movies from comic books and old sitcoms - and then sequels, and sequels of the sequels?
There are two reasons. Half the time they wouldn't know a good story if it hit them on the head. And the other half of the time they're shooting the best material they can find which isn't very good but they can't find enough good stuff to keep the wheels turning.
- It's about the art, it's not about making money
One can work at writing fiction as a hobby, or a business. Only working it like a business will put bread on the table or pay the utility bill. If one can't make a living at it, it's only because they haven't learned how to consistently and efficiently produce and sell good, well-told stories.
If one can't make a living at it, then it's hard to do enough of it, to get good enough, by trial and error to make a living. Yes, it's a catch-22. The trick is to systematize the subject so that you can write good fiction quickly and consistently. With a systematic approach to the subject, one could get good enough in their spare time. Good artists starve to death because they don’t have a system and they don’t operate their "art" like a business.
There are three components to any business; establishment, operations and sales. Artists routinely starve because they neglect establishment, focus only on operations (making the art) and rely on others to do the selling. When they give up the selling part, they give up 75% or more of the profit necessary to survive, let alone stay in business - and that's why they starve or are told, "Don’t give up your day job."
- I don’t want to write formula fiction
Systematizing the subject is not the same as reducing writing a novel to a paint-by-numbers formula; although a number of "popular" authors have done that. I won't mention any names but it seems that all they do with each new book is change the location and the names of the characters. It's the same story they wrote the last time. Although this is one solution for consistently producing a salable novel, there are other, better ways.
Their formula approach probably developed because they accidently hit upon something that worked, and not knowing why, they elected to just keep doing more of the same.
But if one truly understands storytelling as a subject, and bases each story on a premise, there are an unlimited number of different stories one can tell -- even allowing for the fact that all stories have the same basic structure.
- I get "writers block"
Writers block is only a symptom of not following a system from story conception, through story design before starting the composition phase. This leaves the writer trying to do at least three things all at the same time - in his head. That would "block" anyone about anything.
