The Fundamental Components for a Good Story


A good story isn’t down to just one magical ingredient, but instead it’s part of a whole cluster of ingredients that come together to make a story work well.  But how do you capture all those essential components? What are they?  And how do you make an average story into a great story?

A Good Premise

If a story is to work, the premise needs to be solid. Many stories fail to make an impression because the premise isn’t strong enough. From initial story ideas to a fully-fledged novel, the story needs to make sense - it needs to be logical rather than contrived. Many stories sound good, but on paper, they’re weak because the premise is flawed.

Story ideas need to be strong in order to hold the whole story together. And if writers really want to stand out, the idea needs to be original.  If you have a strong premise, then you’ll have a strong story.

Tight Plot

Just as important as a solid premise, a tight plot can make or break a novel. That means the plot needs to be logical – it must make sense.  Almost all new writers fail to do this – their stories start well but then go in strange directions or they become absurd and often difficult to follow. They lose that sense of logic and so readers find it hard to suspend their disbelief.

A plot must be believable; otherwise readers just won’t invest in the story. Not only that, but it should be water tight. There is no room for glaring plot flaws and silly mistakes, because if you don’t spot them, your reader will. 

Great Characters

Enough can’t be said about believable, likeable main characters.  The reader wants to relate to your protagonist, to empathise and become emotionally involved with them on their journey. After all, the main character carries the story, so it’s important to get characterisation right.

Main characters need to be a real as any person. If not, then readers won’t feel any connection to them. They must be relatable, especially where emotions are concerned, which is why authors create a sense of immediacy, so that they immerse the reader.

A Great Opening

A strong opening line – the hook – is what pulls the reader into the story. The strength of that, and the writing, will invite the reader to read more of your work.

A book without a good opening will fall flat, and often writers make the mistake of writing long, boring prologues or they forget to start their story right at the moment their main character’s life changes and instead narrate for two or three pages before anything interesting happens.

Make your opening line count.

Escalation of Crisis and Conflict

This is the basis of the story; the very thing that sets everything in motion and pushes your main character on a collision course with the antagonist. These events become ever more tense, dramatic or dangerous as the conclusion draws near.

Stories wouldn’t work too well if the characters didn’t do much or achieve anything. That’s why we constantly escalate drama and conflict by placing the main character in danger, by pushing them into seemingly impossible corners, by making their lives difficult and giving them impossible dilemmas. Just when they (and the reader) think everything is okay, we escalate again. Every time you up the stakes and increase the danger, you add tension, drama, atmosphere, and even excitement, to the story.

Conflict is so important that stories wouldn’t exist without it. The more conflict you can create, the better the story will be.

A Grasp of Description

Visual description is essential. As the writer, you are describing the events to the reader, but if there is no description, what are you describing? Readers want to picture every scene, but they won’t be able to do that if you don’t give them anything to imagine, and many new writers fail this because they don’t have enough good description.

Every story is open to interpretation, so it’s vital that powerful or visual descriptions ensure the reader interprets the story in a way that lets them be part of the story, that they become involved and want the main character to achieve his or her goal.

A novel can have lots of description, but it needs to be the right description. Show, don’t tell. Whether your style is raw, gritty or poetic, make sure you describe the story. Don’t just tell it.

Change

It’s not just the story that changes. Your main character must change in some way, too, whether they learn a life lesson or whether they change their behaviour or attitude by the end of the story. The protagonist in on a journey the moment the story opens, so inevitably by the end of the story, so much will have happened that they will feel differently about the world and the people around them.

Characters evolve with the story. If they don’t, there’s something wrong.

Satisfying Conclusion

Hooking the reader with a great opening is one thing, but writers must also satisfy the reader with a sufficient ending that isn’t contrived, ridiculous (think any Hollywood action movie), or forced. 

The story conclusion should be logical and believable, while maintaining a sense of drama, conflict and tension. Don’t fob the reader off with an ill-thought out ending that leaves the reader scratching their heads.

The ending should tie up loose ends, relieve the main character of his or her crisis and provide a satisfying conclusion.  More importantly, it should lure the reader into wanting to read your next novel.

If you can pull all these ingredients together, you’ll end up with a strong story worth reading.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Chapter & Novel Lengths

Just how long should a chapter be? What’s the best length? And does a novel have to fit into a set amount of words? These are just two of the most common questions asked by writers.   They assume they have to work to a strict template of X amount of words and X amount of chapters, usually because most novels have around 30 or 40 chapters and around 80,000 words.   Novel Lengths Firstly, let’s dispel a few myths - novel lengths are dictated by the story itself, not the writer or the editor or a specific written formula.   Secondly, writers don’t have to fit their word count into generic set amounts.   Again, the story will dictate how long the novel will be. It’s also worth knowing the different types of novels that work well with different word counts.   Uncomplicated stories containing minimal characters tend to be short – usually around 20,000 to 60,000 words.   These are called novellas. Longer, more complex stories, which contain a handful of main characters and periphe
Read more

What Makes a Story Dark?

If you’re a horror writer or you love to write dark, psychological stories and thrillers, or moralistic tales, this is the one question that needs an answer. Wanting a dark story and writing one are two different things, so how do you actually make a story dark? To answer that you first have to understand what is meant by ‘dark’. We usually define ‘dark’ as quantifiable elements that we know and are familiar with, but it’s more than that. Dark doesn’t necessarily mean scary or gory with a crazy psychopath going around chopping people into bits. Instead we have to think of ‘dark ‘as anything outside our accepted rose-tinted reality. Dark is the underbelly of our society; it’s the handling of ideas, themes, social issues and behaviours that would be seen as morally unacceptable. It’s less about fictional monsters but more about the real monsters that lurk in the shadows, something that is underscored by our fears and anxieties. It’s the unknown, because the things we don’t know
Read more

Cadence in Writing

Following on from last week’s article about purple prose, cadence – something many writers haven’t heard of – is something that writers aspire to but don’t always manage it, yet it’s the fundamental difference between poetic language and over-indulgent, flowery prose. Cadence in writing is a sense of rhythm and pace, it lifts the narrative from the page and makes it dynamic; brings a certain tempo to the words and sentences; it’s what makes prose poetic, layered and fluid without it being extravagant. Cadence makes the writing visual and evocative, and to an extent, beautiful . It’s an important element in fiction writing, because without it, narrative certainly won’t be as effective. Writers don’t actively think about cadence – they simply want to write and get the words down. It’s not until later, while editing, that they realise that a sense of rhythm might be missing from their narrative. When poetic description works, it’s called cadence. When it doesn’t work, people ref
Read more