Gay Ingram's Blog - Posts Tagged "problem"
A Few Notes on Story
A story, like an Oriental carpet, is a pattern and everything in it is supposed to contribute to the design. Ultimately, something should happen in your story; some difference should be made.
But real life is not perfectly ordered–real life is messily patterned, if patterned at all. Fiction that is too neatly patterned will not feel real.
A plot is nothing more than a recap of what your characters do. Plot arises out of opposing forces–forces that come out of the characters. The actions of the characters must have significance; what gives significance to actions is to take the characters toward some kind of resolution from whatever predicament they may be facing. Events happen to,and because of people/characters.
The people you are writing about cause things to happen. The action must follow from some knowledge imparted about the characters. Your character must do that specific “something” because it is the only thing they can do in a given situation, because of who they are rather than because that is what you, the author, wants them to do.
When plot problems occur and our characters refuse to do what we ask of them, it usually means the author is thinking about how the author would handle the problem, not how the character would. If you create characters that are strikingly different from each other will greatly eliminate plotting problems.
But real life is not perfectly ordered–real life is messily patterned, if patterned at all. Fiction that is too neatly patterned will not feel real.
A plot is nothing more than a recap of what your characters do. Plot arises out of opposing forces–forces that come out of the characters. The actions of the characters must have significance; what gives significance to actions is to take the characters toward some kind of resolution from whatever predicament they may be facing. Events happen to,and because of people/characters.
The people you are writing about cause things to happen. The action must follow from some knowledge imparted about the characters. Your character must do that specific “something” because it is the only thing they can do in a given situation, because of who they are rather than because that is what you, the author, wants them to do.
When plot problems occur and our characters refuse to do what we ask of them, it usually means the author is thinking about how the author would handle the problem, not how the character would. If you create characters that are strikingly different from each other will greatly eliminate plotting problems.
