BACK TO BASICS: 5 Elements of a Story

I've been wanting to get back to the basics for some time now. When you're neck deep in edits or revisions or a second or third draft, or even outlining your next story, it's easy to get caught up in the complexities of writing. It's easy to get distracted by the beat sheets, and what everyone else is doing, and what you feel like you're doing wrong, and the filler words, and god, whatever the hell else we writers fret over.

So I really want to focus on going back to the most basic aspects of writing a novel, the essential parts that make up every, single story out there. Dig in, kiddies. Take out your handy-dandy notebooks.  Let's start with the main elements of a story and some tips for incorporating them well!

5 Main Elements of a Story

1. Storyworld
-This is the world in which your story takes place. It encompasses the setting (including both place and time) and focuses on specific aspects that create the climate and catalyst for the plot of your story.

-Natural World

-Cultural Groups

-Backdrop for Conflict - 

political/religious/cultural/personal

^This is key. You must have a status quo (the way things are) and a weak point that makes that status quo ripe for change. Here's a sample of how this might work:

Scenario: Cultural Change/Rebellion. Status Quo: Life as it's always been. Weak Point: Repressive rulers, emboldened rebels, new ideas in a stagnant situation.

2. Characters

-Characters must--MUST--be three-dimensional. See this post on how to create them.

-Every character should have a distinct voice. You should be able to remove dialogue tags and still know who is speaking.

-Fill out the following for each character: (it will help define their motivations)

---Values:
---Ambition:
---Story Goal: (every character should have their own story goal, since EVERY character, in their own mind, is the hero of their OWN version of your story.)

3. Plot (Structure)

-First, establish the story question for your manuscript. That is, a very simple question that defines the major, overarching conflict of the story. For example, the story question for STAR WARS is "Will Luke and the Rebel Alliance succeed in destroying the Death Star?" 

-Try to use a three act structure: a set up, a sequence of major disasters, and an ending. The disasters must escalate each time.
Act I. Takes up 1/4 of the story and ends in a major disaster that makes the main character fully commit to the story.
Act II. Takes up 2/4 and 3/4. Each ends with a worse disaster.
Act III. Takes up the last 4/4. Includes the climax/resolution. Answers the story question.

-Every scene/chapter must be forward moving and have specific purpose. There can be NO superfluous moments. Every single scene must drive the plot forward. Ask yourself often, "If I remove this scene/character/dialogue/chapter, will if affect the plot at all?" If the answer is yes, scrap it/don't put it in there!

4. Theme

-Theme is typically the moral of the story. It's the main idea that ties everything together. It's the underlying message from the author that lurks on every page, but isn't actually visible. It's usually an expression of opinion concerning a universal reality of the human condition or society.   

5. Style

-Style is what makes you unique as a writer. It is the point of view, the tense, the tone, and the narrator you choose. But it is also the grammar, the sentence lengths, the word choices, the imagery used, and the flow of your story. And that's just to name a few.

Okay, not quite what I meant, but this guy DOES have style. 

Beautiful Books: Introduce Your NaNoWriMo Novel

So excited to be taking part in another glorious link-up from these ladies! Come, join us in this celebration of new creative life! 

1. What inspired the idea for your novel, and how long have you had the idea? 

APOTHECARIUM, like all my stories, started counter-intuitively, with the title. I was sitting with my SO talking about the fantasy he was reading and for some reason the word came to mind. I remember saying, "That would make a great book title." This was a few months ago, and it's been only in the last few weeks that I've come up with a story to go with the title!

2. Describe what your novel is about!

Because I refuse to let queries bite me on me arse anymore, I've decided to write them before I even start writing! It's actually been a great practice so far and I find having the query already written helps to keep me focused. Here 'tis:

Ever since seventeen-year-old Sofia was little, Baba Nina has seen her future in the tea leaves at the bottom of her cup. It is always the same: "Your name shall be known throughout the Kingdom." Sofia didn't think much of her grandmother's prophecies, until she is recruited as an apprentice apothecary at the world-renowned Apothecarium. As her skills quickly surpass Master Volet's, suddenly Baba's predictions seem to be coming true.

But for a much different reason.

When word of her famous concoctions reach royal ears, Sofia is summoned to the capital of Balka to administer one of her potions to the ailing King Madin. But when he ends up poisoned instead of cured, Sofia is accused of attempted assassination and treason.

Scheduled to be executed, Sofia’s only chance at redemption is to find the plants needed for a remedy that does not yet exist. One that only she can create. To save the king and the Apothecarium, and to keep her head firmly attached to her neck, Sofia must journey to find the ingredients for the cure and figure out who framed her.

3. What is your book’s aesthetic? Use words or photos or whatever you like!

Apothecary jars. Dried herbs. Mossy forest floors. The light at dawn and dusk. Watercolors. ALL THE WATERCOLORS! Think Studio Ghibli.

4. Introduce us to each of your characters!

Top left: Ru. Top right: Sofia. Bottom left: Master Vi Volet. Bottom right: Prince Edin. 

Sofia Lulena (MC): 17-year-old apothecary-in-training. Ever since she was little she has been able to "speak" with plants to learn their secrets and what properties they hold. Sometimes they'll tell her how to make a remedy for a cold. Or a drink that increases fertility. Or, on a moonlit night, a tasteless poison that could kill twenty men with just a drop. She's led a sheltered life in her village and is overwhelmed by the enormity of the world at first, but dives in headfirst to follow her destiny.

Know-it-all. Cocky. Hardworking. Empathetic. Stubborn. Naive.

Master Volet: World-renowned apothecary and owner of the Apothecarium. Older than he looks. Said to know the recipe for a potion that grants eternal youth.  

Transgender. Eccentric. Haughty. Vain. Compassionate. Wise.

Prince Edin: (pronounced like "eden") Sole heir to the Balkan throne, 19-year-old Prince Edin is the spitting image of King Madin and has the love of the Balkan people, rich and poor alike. Many would rather see him on the throne than his father. Skilled fighter and much more intelligent and strategic than he lets on.

Light-hearted. Competent. Generous. Charismatic. Driven. Unyielding. Flirtatious.

Ru (short for Ruinous, the name the king gave him): Prince Edin's 18-year-old half-brother. Illegitimate son of Queen Adolise and a Vatani man she refuses to reveal. Because of his Vatani blood, he was able to learn magic and acts as the Queen's personal guard-mage. Has no love for the king, who unsuccessfully tried to cut out Bast's golden, Vatani eye when he was an infant. The attempt left him with a scar and the King's eternal disdain for being a reminder of his wife's affair with Balka's enemy. 

Temperamental. Blunt. Calculating. Sarcastic. Loyal. Courageous. Just. 

5. How do you prepare to write? (Outline, research, stocking up on chocolate, howling, etc.?)

Character bios and world building. I live for it. This is my favorite part. You know the Sims games? I would spend hours creating my Sims and building their houses (rosebud for the win) and then play for 5 minutes and peace out. It's kind of like that. Pinterest is my prep-partner. 

6. What are you most looking forward to about this novel?

The character relationships, the settings, and the plot twists. All are so clear in my mind. And the romance. I'm really excited about the romance. *girlish giggle* 

7. List 3 things about your novel’s setting.

It's going to be colorful with varying landscapes and cityscapes. It's set in a time when technology is new and just starting to change how a society functions (for better and worse). It's set in a world split three ways (represented by each country): a dependence on science, a reliance on magic, and a coexistence with nature.   

8. What’s your character’s goal and who (or what) stands in the way?

Sofia's goal is to become a famous apothecary. A plot to kill the king that gets pinned on her and all the obstacles on her journey to clear her name stand in her way.

9. How does your protagonist change by the end of the novel?

I'm not totally sure yet. She'll definitely learn some humility. She's been riding the high horse of her grandmother's prediction of fame and she will need that knock in the head from reality. She'll learn to trust in herself instead of a prophecy, in her abilities instead of the words of others. 

10. What are your book’s themes? How do you want readers to feel when the story is over?

I think the biggest themes will explore the expectations of our destinies, man's relationship with nature, not judging people based on your assumptions of them, and the importance of believing in yourself. There will definitely be some man vs nature themes too (that's a given for anything I write!). Right now, I'm hoping the overall feel of the book will leave readers with a sense of hope and magic and the desire to pursue their own destinies.

I'M SO EXCITED ABOUT THIS STORY!! 
*cuddles story notebook*  

September in Review

This September marked the 27th anniversary of my Uterus Independence Day. And literally a week later I found two gray hairs. Sunnuva bitc--.... le sigh. 2016 continues to be the dumpster fire of the century, but, on the bright side, I READ SOME BOOKS! I PLAYED SOME GAMES! I SAW SOME MOVIES! Here's my September in review:

Siege and Storm, Ruin and Rising by Leigh Bardugo. 4/10.

I can honestly say I didn't like a single character in this trilogy (except for the one character I wasn't SUPPOSED to like: the Darkling. He was arguably the only character with any kind of depth or complexity)... Alina was, until the very end, a weak and boring protagonist. Most of the characters were very flat and repetitive, serving no real purpose other than to distract us from how much Alina and Mal suck. 

I really don't want to be this harsh, but I felt horribly insulted by these last two books. After such an investment, that I was left with a lackluster ending that felt more like Bardugo had just given up on the series because she must've known wasn't up to par, was like a smack in the face. And how any editor would've let them pass without heavy revisions to give the stories a more solid plot and more dynamic characters, is beyond me, because it had SO. MUCH. POTENTIAL!

I LOVED the world that Bardugo created, I just didn't like the characters she put in or the story we followed within it. It's as simple as that I suppose!  

But I still am astounded by the change in quality from the Grisha Trilogy to Six of Crows. Had I read the Grishas first, I don't know that I would've even given SoC a chance! But I'm so glad I did, and I don't completely regret reading the Grisha Trilogy, just probably won't ever read it again. 

An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir. 6/10

I've been meaning to read this for AGES! I follow Sabaa on Twitter and she just seems like such an exemplary example of our species, so I really wanted to read her book. Plus, dat hype train. I wanted on.
And while I DID enjoy the book, I had quite a few issues with it (I'M SORRY, I REALLY AM! I have every bit of confidence that the sequel will find its stride much better though!).

But I'll start with the good first.

Tension.
Sabaa did a FANTASTIC job of building tension throughout--of genuinely making you worry about the safety of the characters (both for the characters themselves and then what they might do to others to achieve their goals). You never feel safe with them and that's really a hard feat to achieve.

The Bad Guys. 
I probably enjoyed the baddies most of all. The Commandant especially. She was so horrendously evil, but you really wondered what made her that way. And her job might've been torturing people and training killers, but DAMN, she was good at it. #BossBitch

The writing. 
No one can say this book wasn't well written. It was. Sabaa has a wonderful style of writing that is both concise and fluid. While she does a lot of telling instead of showing, I still found myself making mental notes of some of her narrative habits and tricks.

The ending. 
OH IT REALLY PICKED UP HERE. SO GOOD. I got to that last chunk of the book and flew through. The pacing and stakes were spot-freaking-on. Much intense. So wow.

Okay, now the bad.
The world building. 
Maybe this is my own fault. When I saw "fantasy" I assumed there would be loads of world building and a wonderfully vibrant story world I could sink my teeth into. This was not the case. A more apt description of the book would me Roman-esque Dystopian. I think then I could've let the lackluster world building slide. I had such a hard time visualizing the book. There was really a lot of telling vs showing and I think that really colored the whole story in gray-tones rather then full-color.

The characters. 
When we first met Laia I kind of assumed she was like, 12. I really struggled throughout the book to believe she was competent or capable enough to do the things she did. There's also a very sudden and rapid growth in her character, but without any real emotional catalyst. In a split second she went from meek and unsure and clumsy to I AIN'T 'FRAID A NO COMMADANT without any REAL trigger for it. There was no "moment." And I really needed that. She felt incredibly out of character by the end of the book without any believable experiences that would've necessitated such a sudden change in her. But she was still okay. I still worried for her life and didn't want her to die, so that's something at least!
Elias started out SO well. This guy genuinely torn between his heart and his duty, something you could REALLY feel at first. But he seemed to quickly lose depth when he started sexualizing every girl he met. His best friend, who he should have had either the utmost respect for or genuine feelings, he instead sexualized and took advantage of.

The romance.
It felt out of place and totally unnecessary. I don't know that it would've changed a damn thing if you scrapped the romance altogether. You could still have every bit of the plot with genuine friendships and moral codes, rather than "Oh he/she's hot, so I'm going to do this."

And, for me, it really undermined Helene's character. And that was the biggest betrayal of all. She started out as this fierce woman, I LOVED HER, but she was very quickly reduced to this sad little girl pining after her best friend. She quickly crumpled emotionally and became much more some pouty teenager and love-struck puppy than the badass soldier she was built up to be by Elias and other characters. As one woman among hundreds of men, she surely would've needed an iron will and ovaries of steel. I was expecting GI Jane and I got sad-sap Sarah. But again, I still held my breath when she was in danger, hopelessly cheering for her.

 All in all, I did enjoy the book. I will absolutely read the sequel. I think it had a potential it didn't quite live up to by being "troped" into the expected formula of YA. But it was a solid read and I think Sabaa will only get better from here.

Far Cry 4: 5/10. Such a solid five. Still fun for about half an hour and then you get to the usual Far Cry humdrum. I'm starting to get sick of the sheer amount of repetitive droll that my 100% completion compulsion is putting me through. Do we really need to pick up all those masks? Do we really need to do all those side quests? YES, DAMN IT, BUT I DON'T WANT TO (but I have to). It's literally just a carbon copy of all the other Far Cry games. When are they going to let me play a female protag?? When do I get to see some man junk instead of lady bits? Hey, Ubisoft, your sexism is really starting to show. 

~Be mindful of the the things that precious time is spent on.~