beginning

• characters
  • character #1 name
    • type of character
    • character traits
    • main goal
• setting
  • where does the story take place?
  • time
  • what's the season(s) in which the story takes places
  • weather
    • catastrophic event
    • element
    • what are the environmental reactions?
  • sensory detail

middle

• challenge
  • what is the main challenge in your story?
  • other challenges
• motivations
• obstacles
  • what stands in the way of your character to accomplish her goal?

closing

• climax
  • how does your main character finally solve the/her problem?
• outcome
  • brief ending for your story

◇ additionally ◇

• world building checklist
• sample scripts
• anatomy of a comic script
• standard patterns in choice based games
• another listo user's compiled tips

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fiction writing made easy by savannah gilbo: the #1 myth that holds writers back

although readers do appreciate beautiful writing, the beautiful writing is not what keeps a reader engaged with the story and makes them want to find out what happens next. it's the actual story underneath those words or the meaning of the story that really hooks readers and brings those beautiful words to life.

lisa cron actually talks about this in her book story genius "it's like holding a conversation with someone when you have nothing to say." and no matter how beautiful the language is that you use, it's basically meaningless and it pretty much stops being beautiful and starts to become annoying when the other person starts having to use all of their mental energy trying to figure out what the heck you're talking about, or if there's even a point to anything you're saying.

so that's what it's like when you write something that's full of beautiful words but there's no story or there's no meaning underneath it.

that means that the first step we need to take when it comes to writing a novel is we need to unearth the story before we worry about the pretty writing. so what's the meaning behind everything you're writing? or why should the reader care about what you're writing? what do you have to say? and then once you know what your story's about, you need to figure out how to take that story and shape it into something thats going to take readers on some kind of emotional journey because you want to give them an emotional experience that they're coming to your story for.

and then only once you've done that do beautiful words or beautiful sentences actually matter. so that means you're going to need to give yourself permission to write a first draft that isn't full of pretty words. and the way to do this is to understand what a story really is.

after all an olympic athlete didnt become olympic overnight.

a story is about: how what happens extetrnally effects someone who's in pursuit of a difficult goal and how they change internally as a result.

readers like to follow the protags journey and her internal struggle as she faces the external events of the plot. bc they want to see how she reacts and how she deals with this kinda stuff and how she ultimately needs to change in order to accomplish her goals.

so that means you can't just think about the external plot events of your story but you also need to consider how those external events affect your character and how they force her to make an internal change.

a story works and it stays with us because of how it makes us feel.

lesson: great writing comes from great stories not the other way around.

3 things to remember:1st: story always comes first. not beautiful writing or sentences, and when you're writing your first draft or 2nd or 3rd. i want you to focus on creating a compelling story that shows how the external events of the plot, effect your protagonist, causing her to change internally as a result.

2nd: i want you to remember that your draft in progress or your little nugget of an idea is not comparable to someone's final draft or her published book. these are all separate things that represent individual parts of the process and they cant and really shouldnt be compared.

lastly: if you feel you need someone to give you permission to write a messy first draft then consider this your permission. go write a draft that doesnt have beautiful words or sentences or the perfect metaphors, and instead spend your time focusing on the story first. because that's what's gonna help you have the kind of lasting impact on readers that you're probably hoping for.