Pearls, Nuggets and Excerpts… the Series, Part 6

For the story to emerge… before it can work… certain principles and criteria apply.

The fundamental truths about what causes a story to work aren’t optional or random, any more than sutures and staples are optional in a surgical procedure, or wings are less than compulsory in the design of an airplane.

Successful genre-centric writers never write from an intention to marginalize the principles of dramatic tension and vicarious experience and emotional resonance to offer up a manifesto about the meaning of life, or a biographical slice of life from a fictional character. Rather, they write to tell a story that resonates on both a dramatic and thematic level.

And yet, too many newer writers, without intention, end up circumnavigating those principles by allowing the story to emerge organically, before they possess the requisite instincts to make that approach viable.

Certainly, with the right instincts, a story might eventually emerge simply by confronting the blank page. But in essence this approach is, for the newer writer without those developed story instincts, the search for a story idea or premise, rather than the drafting of a novel that meets the criteria for a story that works.

Truth is, even when organic story development is your preference, there’s a higher road available, one that allows you to create in context to specific criteria at both the idea stage and within the story execution process. That better approach is an informed story instinct, the kind proven authors apply, rather than the in-development kind that explains why only 4 percent of submitted stories end up in a bookstore.

An under-recognized truth is that the road to efficacy begins at the idea stage. From there, guided by criteria and fueled by the inherent allure of the idea that meets them, it extends into the premise, which then fuels an unspooling sequence of expositional scenes and transitions, some of them essential structural milestones. All of these elements of the story are embedded with expectations and standards, which are germane not only at the submission level (agents, acquisition editors, and online readers as they shop for new reads) but at the story execution level that precedes submission, as well.

These become a checklist for the inherent potential
of your story idea.

Readers of genre fiction are expecting a certain flavor of vicarious experience. A lover to be met. A far off land to discover. An alien dimension to explore. A culture to navigate. A wrong to avenge.

Your readers will expect to meet a hero that they can relate to, even if that character is nothing like them. More than anything, they will relate to what the story asks or demands of the hero (which is why anti-hero stories can work). They are drawn to the hero being summoned down a story path with an immediate goal—to run, to survive, to seek clarity, to fight back, to save someone, to conquer darkness and save the day for all.

Relating to your hero needs to translate into rooting for your hero along the treacherous dramatic path that you, the author, have put before that character.

The common context here is that there is a goal to pursue. There must be obstacles along the path of that quest, including, but not limited to, an antagonistic force, usually in the form of a villain. There will be twists and turns. There will be inner issues the hero must deal with. There will be a second level in play within the narrative (known as a B-story, often a romantic arc for the hero) that eventually connects the hero to the primary story arc. There will be drama, conflict, confrontation, small successes, and major setbacks.

There will be surprises and twists, as new information enters the story in the right places — which accurately implies that, indeed, there are wrong places to inject major changes to a story — with the confident that comes from knowing, rather than guessing or hoping. There will be confrontation that leads to resolution, after which the hero goes forward with the consequences of what has been done. If, that is, he survives, which is not a criterion at all.

Of course, this is Story 101.

These excerpts are taken from my new craft book, “Great Stories Don’t Write Themselves.” Feel free to share with your writer friends, directly or via social media.

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