How To Write A Story
Your story “continuity” is making sure that from one scene to another, nothing changes about the people or the environment they’re in, that wasn’t intended to change and tracked by the writer. In film and TV errors, continuity errors can happen due to wardrobes changing suddenly, placement of props on the set, or weather, but I’ll be focusing specifically on the written word because as a writer the story continuity is your responsibility to control.
The resurrection of characters that have died can be a dramatic game changer that enhances your story, however, if used too easily and without careful construction, it can have the opposite effect. Your audience can be left feeling like all the tension has been sapped away because if characters die it doesn’t really mean anything.
If you are writing in the fantasy, urban fantasy, paranormal, or sci-fi genres, you’re going to be writing scenarios for your characters that are, technically, unbelievable. In reality, people don’t believe that the White House is going to be blown up by aliens or that witches and wizards are being trained in magic in a big school, yet we are able to believe it in the story because of how it’s written.
Your genre is the concept that your audience is going to buy into when they choose to read your book or watch your film. When you market your story, you’re marketing it to the audience that wants that concept, and then you have to follow through on the promise to deliver it. But you have to know what your genre is, what the rules are for that genre, and how to still be original within it.
“Pantsing” comes from the expression “fly by the seat of your pants.” If means to be making your story up as you go, and finding out what’s going to happen along the way. “Plotting” is where before you start writing, you work out who you characters are, key events in the story, what page count you’re aiming for etc in advance, and then you follow that plan as you work.
Writing effective and interesting prose is something we all have to work on to be good writers. Too much and it’s boring and tedious, too little and it’s too sparse and you don’t feel like you know the characters feelings or the environment they’re in well enough.
The Death Of A Mentor is a technique used in story to motivate the Protagonist, by killing the person who has taught them to do what it is they do.
Your first act is setting up what they want, the second act is where they start to pursue it, and the third act is where they’ve learned what they need to learn to go about getting it. Your midpoint comes at a point where your story pivots into a new setting or a new scenario.
If you’re a reader who loves certain writers and is heavily inspired by them, how do you prevent those writers influencing your work so heavily you lose your own unique voice.
To explain how and why you use Narrative Triplets in your writing, I am referencing the film Spider-Man Into The Spiderverse, so this post does contain SPOILERS if you’ve not seen that film. I’ll cover key moments in the film and how these Narrative Triplets make the entire plot stronger.