In English classes, students are taught the importance of having an outline before writing the story. Outlining is important for nonfiction presentation of facts, history, and news in general. But for storytelling? Not a good idea, because characters become molded plastic, forced to conform to what the author wants to happen, not what the character would naturally do.
What works best for readers and the most natural way for us to write takes us into the character, and we see what happens. True to life, one thing will lead to another as the main character survives the struggle, learns an important lesson, and is changed.
The danger is allowing your main character to wander aimlessly.
If the character in your story doesn’t seem to be going anywhere meaningful, having no apparent need or desire, readers will lose patience because they can’t enjoy the feeling of a purposeless life for very long.
Seven important elements of story are essential.
To hold a reader’s attention, we can get help from the SCOOP IT UP acronym. Instead of an outline, we just need to be sure we have the most crucial parts of story covered. Obviously, character would be one of them. Without a character to care about, we don’t have much of a story, but that’s not all. To reward readers with as much as what they get on the movie screen, we need a tight focus on all seven areas through each scene, chapter, and book. Without those building blocks, we deprive readers of the strong feeling for what’s happening now—and they won’t have much concern for what comes next. Here are the seven blocks that we will soon cover in greater depth:
- Situation . . . puts readers into the scene at a particular time and place.
- Character . . . pulls readers into the situation with a reason to care what happens.
- Objective . . . gives the story a sense of purpose, to move the action forward and make readers care what will happen next.
- Obstacles . . . put the outcome in doubt so readers will keep turning the pages to find out what tragedy or triumph will follow.
- Plight . . . reveals the great consequence of your character’s success or failure in reaching the objective.
- Insight & Transformation . . . shows the important lesson learned that results in a change in the character.
- Unresolved Problem . . . points to the next great concern.
For more information on how this process can work for you, consider Roaring Lambs’ new book by Frank Ball: Storytelling at Its Best (https://www.roaringlambs.org/store).
