Story writing techniques

(Prompted by a chat with friends. Because there's no One True Way to do it.)

• The meandering path: start with one character in one place, and go from there. It helps to have a rough idea of which way you're headed, but mostly you should let the story itself lead. Some people call that "writing by the seat of your pants", but I disagree. You have all the story so far to inform what happens next: that's plenty of structure. In fact a good story will come to life and start guiding you, making the task much easier than drafting a grand plan upfront.
• The onion method: start with one key scene in the middle, then add layers around it, figuring out how things got to that point and what happens next. Repeat until you have enough story.

This begs for a digression: you have enough story when there's a satisfying path from beginning to end. Remember that you can have a conclusion without closure, and closure without a conclusion. Guess which one is necessary and sufficient. As for the beginning, its most important role isn't so much to set things up, but to make the audience care. If they don't give a damn about the characters and their circumstances after a page or two at most, good luck winning them back later. Assuming they've stuck around. ( Read more... )