The Crafts of Story and Writing
Sharing some specialized skills I acquired from 25 years as an author
How I learned the Craft
I wrote long hours and when I’d inevitably collide with a piece of the craft of story, I’d stop writing, grab a pen, snatch up the top sheet of a pile of scrap paper on my desk, scribble down my discovery on it in large, untidy scrawl, then toss it into a cardboard box under my desk and continue writing before I lost the drift of the story. As the pile in the box stacked up, I acquired the craft.
Words and Ideas
The basic tools of story are words and ideas. Read lots of books. Get words and ideas from them. Make words your own by looking them up in a dictionary. Build a powerful vocabulary. Watch documentaries. Live life. Accumulate enough knowledge to gain a perceptive viewpoint. Express it with the words you have acquired.
“The Greatest tool of the writer is the imagination of the reader.”
Tony Williams
Material
You need a compelling subject as the basis of your story. You then collect the material that goes with it. This is research. You collect up everything that will form the substance, life, color and reality of your story.
“You have done enough research when you have done too much.’”
Raymond Chandler
Structure
Assemble your material into a strong structure.
Once I read a book of film reviews and the main complaint was, “Good idea, but runs out of gas.”
Fix this with a strong structure along the lines of:
Prologue brief opening sets atmosphere
Act 1 Establish setting, characters and situation
Act 2 Develop characters and situation
Act 3 Accelerate the pace of story
Act 4 Complicate matters - the plot thickens
Act 5 Resolution build to climax and release
Epilogue quickly tie up loose ends
Mystery
A story is wrapped around a mystery. You leak out the information a bit at a time, in a way that hints at the main mystery or mysteries, without revealing them. You torture the reader by holding back key information as long as possible, building tension and suspense, so keeping them reading.
“Make ‘em laugh, make ‘em cry, but make ‘em wait.”
Dorothy Parker
Narrative
When you have put the pieces of your story together, you take it down the river of narrative. This is the fun part, where you throw all your energy and creativity at it, driving the story forward, doing everything you can to make it interesting and entertaining, filling and delighting the imagination.
“The writer works hard to make it easy for the reader.”
Doctor Johnson