I’ll be talking through things you need to include to write Chapter One of your book, and hopefully leaving you feeling empowered to make that step. The world needs more stories, let’s make yours one of them.
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Murphy’s Law is when anything that can go wrong, does go wrong. It’s associated with people who are very unlucky, or how the toast always lands butter side down. Murphy’s Law is also an excellent tool to use when you’re writing your story.
If you want to write books for children or young adults, killing your character’s parents is a common trope you might want to replicate. I’m writing about why it happens, the impact on your story, how to do it yourself, and alternatives that work to the same effect.
When you’re planning your story, one of the first jobs is to establish who your Protagonist and Antagonist are. Your Protagonist is your main character, the person who you are travelling with. They want something and are motivated to get it. Your Antagonist is the person who wants the opposite, and is motivated to stop them. I’ll be writing about the balance between them in strength, ability, and determination.
Your story will follow your Protagonist, your main character, on their journey to try and get something they want or need in their lives. The stakes of your story are how much your character will suffer if they fail. The higher the stakes, the tenser and more dramatic your story will be.
In reality, your characters exist solely to serve your story. They were born the moment they first appeared on the page, and they will die at The End. That is their entire world. However, your characters need to feel to your audience like they live and breathe in a world far beyond your pages. They need to be complete people, people who your audience can believe in. If your audience doesn’t believe in your characters, they won’t believe in your story.
Your story, be it fantasy, action, or romantic comedy, is about a character going in pursuit of what they want. They want something, they go out to get it, and things get in their way. The story resolves when they either have it, or have accept they won’t get to. But to make your story really powerful, you need to think about what they have to give up during that journey.
World Building is the technique of telling your readers what world your story is set in, whether the laws of nature match ours, whether there is magical lore they need to understand, and how the society functions. World Building is essential for most stories, other wise your readers won’t understand how your characters function throughout the story, but it can be done badly. I’ll write about how to World Build effectively, and mistakes to avoid.
The rate at which your plot moves forwards is referred to as the “pace” of your story. If your story has too slow a pace, it can be boring, whereas if the pace is too fast then it’s unclear what’s happening and why. You need to find a balance between moving forwards at the right pace, whilst still taking time to explain what is happening and why.
The stories that stick with you, make you think long and hard after they’re over, will often blur those lines between good and evil, and show the rich complexity of life. I’ll be explaining how and why we blur those lines in stories.