concepts to story writing

[Shuuchi]

in the squishy-pink brains of most people, when the word "writing" pop up
the concept of pages after pages of inky text and extravagant words come to mind.

however, writing a story and reading a story is completely different. the bases of writing a story is probibly known to everyone who has gone to elementry
(for the kindergarden kids who are weeding this, don't get hypnotized by the pweety colors, stop and call an adult, the internet is a bwaaaaad pwace)



but just for the sake of posting this thread, i will jot down a quick list of what is needed to "build" a standard skeletal story:

-protagonist: the main character of the story, usually a human who will conquer the antagonist cool

-antagonist: the "bad guy" in the story, it can be a living being or a force or even the main character himself! eek

-conflict: the reason why the story is happening, without a conflict there is no story

-background: the time and place the story takes place in, heck, just look at how "onec upon a time, in a land far far away" worked for so many fairytales mrgreen

-rising action, climax, falling action, end: the skeleton of the story. however, one does not need to follow this structure indefinately! i have read stories where the climax and end are split up and forcefully spliced into the rest of the story, pretty neat eh~ 3nodding



a few things to take heed when writing:

-imagination: your story is yours and yours alone, do not be influenced by other writers like, omg, that story is so kewl! imma copy the writer's style of writing!...this may be a good idea if you are trying to get into drawing, but for writing, that is unnecessary, and if i am to put it bluntly, it would hinder the development of your imagination!

-words: the utilization of extravagant words are not needed to make a great story, i have a friend who wrote short stories a few years back. his imagination is incredible and when it hit paper, it exploded. but there is something most people dont know about...he can barely spell! this handicap prevents him from using big words and guess what, to me it actually made his stories better. they are simple to understand and the thoughts can still be transfered to the readers propertly. mrgreen



feel free to post questions or things i had forgotten to mention in this thread about misconceptions and myths to good writing and i will add them to the collection ninja

 

[RzDz]

i can't read all of this sweatdrop  

[J Fawkes]

RzDz

i can't read all of this sweatdrop

It really isn't that much ninja  

[Shuuchi]

eek post and add to the collection! dramallama  

[J Fawkes]

You mentioned it briefly already, but;

Spelling - It's important to anyone reading with a education higher than public school. I can't stress enough how important spelling is and how often it's overlooked in such words as "a lot" (not alot). Punctuation is just as important. Commas should not be used like heroin. Don't do it. Ever.

Character Structure - When you are making a story towards the Tolkien-approach, character structure is something that is NEEDED. When you make a character, you are in fact making a race or species. Think of the entire culture that individual comes from; Do they all have magical powers or is it just *said character*? Is this power genetic or granted? Everything must have it's place in your new world, and try to make it believable or you won't believe in your own story. It's because of the lack of faith some authors have in their own work that leads to writer's block.