Tuesday 15 January 2013

Quality Story Structure Using Three Simple Elements

By Ron Wilson


The three components of a good story are orientation, complications and solutions. Each of them is present to serve the other, and together they form the premise for a good story design.

By no means is this an exhaustive list, but they are the 3 fundamental building blocks of all story writing. Without an orientation, complication and solution, a story wouldn't be a story, it would merely be a jumbled up mix of words an ideas thrown onto the page. All narratives work with these 3 components, and the reason all stories follow this structure, is because it works well!

The orientation to the book introduces the reader to what the story is going to unveil. It immerses the reader into the world of the character, allows them to see where that character is at, and focuses on things that might need to change.

The orientation tells about the weaknesses, or underlying unhappiness in the main character's life. The orientation outlines the weaknesses, or underlying unhappiness in the major character's life.

The complications and problems must become increasingly difficult for the character to overcome. They should apply increasing pressure on the character until eventually they are forced to transform and overcome their weaknesses when arriving at the ultimate struggle, or the climax of the story.

The solutions to the complications in the story should be planned and executed by the main character as the story progresses. However, each time a solution is found, another problem arises which seems to become bigger than the issue before. The most effective problems and solutions in good novels are the ones that provide the character with two problems simultaneously, and these problems can not be solved at the same time. They must be mutually distinctive.

Keep the 3 of these components in mind when preparing a manuscript, and the natural structure will form.




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