5 storytelling tips for beginners

[Mirrowdothack]

Hello guys,
I'm Mirrowdothack. I'm wrting stories for about 15 year now and with this little entry I'd like to help beginners to improve their storytellings skills. (First: I'm not a native speake so I'm sorry for each spelling and grmmar mistake)

In this first entry I'd like to post some common "mistakes" beginners tend to make. "Mistake" isn't the right word to use, since it's not a real mistake but as you go on reading you'll understand what I'm talking about:

1. What's my story about?:
This seemed to sound strange in the first place but there are actually people who wouldn't be able to answer this. They have a pretty nice idea and start to write (this is a bad idea but it may cause you trouble a a certain point). You may lose control about your story since you don't know how the story will end. To know the beginning and the end of a story is important in order to write the stuff between. So, think about the following:
- Who's story am I going to tell? Who's the hero?
- What will happen to him and why?
- Will my hero change? If so: How? What needs to happend so that he/she can change?
- What's my hero's goal? Why is he participating in this adventure? Will he/she archive this goal?
It will help you to write a short summary of your story (about 3-5 sentences). If you can't do that you should probably think about your story one more time.

2. Too many characters:
I love to create characters so I totally understand why you want to have al of your favourite OCs in your story but before you put them all in think about this:
- You will need a protagonist: It's best to focus on one hero in your first story. The one the story is all about. You may have several important characters but they are not the hero. The hero is the person the reader follows on his journey. He/She has to deal with a certain confict. He/She will learn something and change as the story goes on. So, for your first projects focus on that very person because the story is all about him or her.
- For the other characters: Think about whether or not they are NEEDED for the story. Does the hero has to get involved with them or is there another way to get a certain piece of information or a special item etc. ?
Too many characters may be confuse the reader. The supporting characters should support the story and the hero. If they are not doing this they're not needed.
- A villain/antagonist: You may think this is a very important person but the villain can be left out if it fits the story: For example the hero's villain could be himself, a thought, nature, etc... but this really depends on the story you're going to write.

3. 1000x conflicts
The heart of a story is the hero's conflict. For your first story it's best not to overdo it. Let the hero have one big problem and explain why it's a problem. For example: A boy loves a girl... OK, but what exacetly is the problem: Is he too shy? Is there a rival? Is she ignoring him? Does her father keep her away from the hero? This example also shows you that for some conflics a "villain" is needed: like the father or the rival
- You should be able to descript the hero's conflic in one/two sentence(s)^^
- For your first project: Use a simple conflict. It's a good idea to use a common problem so that the reader can emphasize with it hero^^
- Most of the time the main conflicts evolves. It becomes stronger. The hero falls in love, a rival appears ... the rivals becomes a supper villain and wants to destroy the univer... the usual stuff ^^ (the peak of the evolution is the climax of your story)^^

4. The mary-sue-hero
This is another common "mistake". I know we all love our characters and we want them to be super aweseome, but somethins people tend to overdo it. Most of the time this result in "mary-sue"-character, a hero which is adored by all others character in the story. He/She can do anything and has no weaknesses. Well and that's the problem: People tend to be imperfect. And your character needs at least one weakness in order to let him/her appear like a human beeing. No one likes "perfect characters" because this reminds us of our imperfection. So, give your hero a weakness. Best: Give him a weakness he/she has to overcome the the climax of your story: If the hero is pretty shy he/she will have to overcome this in order to achieve his/her goal. In that way the weakness is needed and supports the story.

5. coincidence
As I've mention above the conflic of a story evolves, so does the story. A story is a construction of things that happen and things that causes them to happen. Try to avoide coincidence because at some point of your story the reader won't buy them anymore. In old dramas everything that happend was responsible toe the end.
Think about your story's struction: What needs to happend when and why should it happend? Does the hero causes a special event himself? Did the villain something? Why did the hero met the girl? Why is the villain a bad guy? Give things reasons? Don't jus tlet them happen. One thing causes another one.
It's ok if there are some coincidences but don't overdo it.

to sum up things:
- try to sumarize the plot of your story in about 3-5 sentences
- focus on the main chacter and his/her problem
- only characters that are needed should be in the story
- avoid a mary-sue-character
- avoid coincidences

OK, that's it for today.
I hope this was helpfull. If you have any questions, please feel free to ask me anything. If you have troubles with your story and feel like asking for help, let me know. I see what I can do^^

Thanky for reading,
cu µirrow

[OokamiKasumi]

VERY good advice. ♥

[KiloTango]

Generally good stuff, but I'm going to disagree with/qualify a couple of these.

"There is only ever one hero and one goal": Not true, but it's harder to balance if you don't do that. A rock solid ensemble piece can be great, it just involves you having to juggle multiple fully developed stories. Or even in more simple things you still want your major players to have an arc. Who's the hero in Game of Thrones? They're rarer but you do get good stories that are actually multiple stories woven together.

I'd also argue that if you're doing games with romance routes you have to run 2 important ones in parallel: The POV's arc, and the arc of the person he or she gets involved with. Not considering one or the other strongly enough will make half of the relationship flat and uninteresting.

It's also worth saying that 'protagonist' and 'point of view' characters don't always have to be the same character.

The same with the 'one conflict' thing, it very much depends on the genre of story you are writing. Too much will make things confused, but having multiple conflicts, even better when they can end up clashing with each other, can also be effective. Again it's something that takes skill to juggle and can lead to plot bloat, but it doesn't always mean things are bad.

A major qualification on coincidences: Aside for the odd fated meeting kind of thing to start a plot... coincidences that make your character's life harder are great, coincidences that make it EASIER, not so much.

I subscribe very much to the idea “The writer’s job is to get the main character up a tree, and then once they are up there, throw rocks at them” (Vladimir Nabokov). Give the coincidences and deus-ex-machinas to the antagonists. If the heroes have them, it will feel cheap. (Unless of course you want something anti-climactic. But then you want to make sure that it carries the theme of the story.)

[Mirrowdothack]

OK, let's discuss your ideas^^

"There is only ever one hero and one goal": Not true, but it's harder to balance if you don't do that. A rock solid ensemble piece can be great, it just involves you having to juggle multiple fully developed stories. Or even in more simple things you still want your major players to have an arc. Who's the hero in Game of Thrones? They're rarer but you do get good stories that are actually multiple stories woven together.

You're "right" about the Games of Thrones show. This show featured many important character, but each is following their own story in which they are the hero. Those stories will enventually come together, I guess *haven't read the book or watched season 3 yet, so I don't know if it already happend.
For each of thoses stories there is only one hero. You may have several important characters surround him/her, but those aren't THE hero. For example: In Naruto or Dragon Ball there are several important characters but just one hero the story focuses on: Naruto, Son Goku. In The Matrix it's the same: Many importen people like Trinity or Morpeus but in the end it's Neo's story. Same goes for Final Fantasy X: It's a story about Tidus. It's the same with Games of Thrones, but this show combines many stories, in which there is only one hero per story.
I think it's better for a beginner to start with one hero, otherwise you may found yourself in trouble. (But I agree that there are show dealing with more than one hero) *I'm going to note this in the first post*.

I'd also argue that if you're doing games with romance routes you have to run 2 important ones in parallel: The POV's arc, and the arc of the person he or she gets involved with. Not considering one or the other strongly enough will make half of the relationship flat and uninteresting.

This is a question of style. Of course the PoV can differ. You can follow several characters but in a love story you don't necessarily need to follow both the hero and his/her love interest (It may be harder but it's possible). By "focus" I'm not talking about that the writer will always be limited by the hero's point of view. But as you said:

It's also worth saying that 'protagonist' and 'point of view' characters don't always have to be the same character.

The same with the 'one conflict' thing, it very much depends on the genre of story you are writing. Too much will make things confused, but having multiple conflicts, even better when they can end up clashing with each other, can also be effective. Again it's something that takes skill to juggle and can lead to plot bloat, but it doesn't always mean things are bad.

Again, I did not say that there is only one conflict. Most of the time the hero starts with one which evolves, become harder to solve etc. And of course if there are other important characters those may have their own problems, too. Focusing on one conlict is a tip I'd like to give to beginners, but of course there can be more.

A major qualification on coincidences: Aside for the odd fated meeting kind of thing to start a plot... coincidences that make your character's life harder are great, coincidences that make it EASIER, not so much.
I subscribe very much to the idea “The writer’s job is to get the main character up a tree, and then once they are up there, throw rocks at them” (Vladimir Nabokov). Give the coincidences and deus-ex-machinas to the antagonists. If the heroes have them, it will feel cheap. (Unless of course you want something anti-climactic. But then you want to make sure that it carries the theme of the story.)

I'm not against coincidences in gerneral, but sometimes it just felt like the writer is forcing an event. For example: Why does a loser protagonist becomes the world's saviour when there are several people around him who could achieve this goal much eaiser. There needs to be something that is responsible for the loser to become the hero. Same goes for a hero's death at the end of the story: I guess we can both agree that a hero's death at the end of a story, which could have been avoided felt like betrayal. For example: I don't like the way they put Captain America into the ice. There was not real presure the would have justified his "death". The death minor characters can be a coincidence, but the hero's one shouldn't.
So, when I'm talking about avoiding coincidences I was adressing to those kind of important decisions, which should have a cause.
"Coincidences" can make things easier but used to often it felt "cheap" and like "cheating", like the writer wasn't thinking about their story etc.^^

[KiloTango]

GoT isn't the only example of strong multi-POV, multi-arced stories, just the biggest and most popular one I could think of. More commonly you get quite a few novels with maybe 2 or 3 POVs that'll eventually run into each other but both will be as worthy of the 'hero' label as the other, which is why I question that one.

Having like 8+ POVs ala GoT is too much for a beginner, but 2 can be really effective. Take Ever17 and Remember11. Is Takeshi or Kid the hero in Ever17? Is Cocoro or Satoru the hero for Remember11? Especially the latter where the most key part of the story is the interplay between Cocoro and Satoru.

Obviously if you're telling like a straight shoneny story the chances are you're going to want a simpler, more focused narrative though, yeah. But there's plenty of other ways you can go.

I think you're right about coincidences, a sense of cause and effect is so important to getting your reader to really engage. But sometimes I think it's okay to have to hero get kicked in the head by a stroke of really bad luck if it makes the story more interesting for it to go that way. The wrong person walking in at the wrong time, or your hero walking into the wrong situation and getting tangled up out of chance can be great... Getting your hero out of trouble by sheer luck can get old fast though (it can be okay occasionally, especially if you're writing an underdog who would have been doomed otherwise, but do it too much and you'll lose all sense of threat and it'll seem like they have plot armour).

I guess saying 'if it makes the protagonist's life harder then it is okay' was simplifying... what I really meant was 'if it makes the story more interesting (while not totally removing the protagonist's agency obvs) then it is okay'

I think you're right about sudden unfair hero deaths feeling like a betrayal... on the flipside though, if you WANT your reader to feel betrayed then that can be fine. But it needs to make sense in the context of the story, either setting wise or thematically (see: something really out of the blue derailing things in a story where the theme is to do with things being out of control of futile or whatever, can be very fitting. But if that's not your theme then it'll come off flat and weird and piss off your readers. Like, there's a really coincidence thing that happens in No Country For Old Men but because it fits the tone and message of the movie you really don't mind. Likewise GoT and Attack on Titan's continuing unfair-a-thons, that's built in as part of their worlds.)

(Re:Capatain America though, Cap has to go in the ice because usually his stories start with him coming OUT of the ice, it's a really major bit of his lore so they couldn't really skip it. It'd be like not blowing up Krypton or not killing Uncle Ben or the Waynes.)

I'm not ragging on you, btw, I think you make very good points. This is just an area that really interests me so I felt like exploring some of this a bit more if that's okay.

[Mirrowdothack]

I'm not ragging on you, btw, I think you make very good points. This is just an area that really interests me so I felt like exploring some of this a bit more if that's okay.

I feel the same way. I really like to talk about this topic since it's pretty interessting^^

I don't know Ever17 and Remember11 so I can't really say something about it, but I know sometimes it's really hard to tell, who is the hero and who is "second" hero. Switching the POV can be interessting, most likely it is very interessting but it also depends on the genre and if it fits the story.

About coincidences: Causing "unfair" event like in GoT or AoT is a major part of the story but I would called most of it a coincidence: Jeffrey, for example, is a bastard. He wants to demostrate his power, which is why he's doing so many terrible things. In AoT most of the titans are after food, which is there reason to threaten people. If you have see the anime than you probably know that:

Annie has some reasons for her action, too, although we don't know them yet.

If you have read the manga, you know that:

the first attack on Erens "village" was not a coincidence. Bertolt and Reiner did it on purpose.

An example for a nice mixture of coincidences and causes (as well as the change of POV) is the movie 11:14 *which is pretty cool and very well done. I totally recommend this movie.^^

There are five little stories within this movie. Each of thoses stories featured its own hero and in each part you get more information about an "accident" and how it happened. Each action within one part causes things to happen in another part. The coincidences is that those things happen about around the same time so that they can influence the other stories.

Another good example is Memento or The Sixth Sense. Everything that happens results in the end of each movie.
In Memento:

A coincidence is that the initials of the Leonard's friend are the same as the murderer of his wife. Another coincidence is that Leonard has an anterograde amnesia

In The Sixth Sense:

It's a coincidence Cole never really noticed that he's been "ignored" by everybody except the kid, which can see dead people.

There are several more examples in movies like this. And those are coincidence that feel "natural". Of course if you're doing comedy you "will have more freedom with using coincidences". As you said it depends on the story and its genre, I guess.

About : Capatain America: I know it's an important thing that he was frozen. I'm not against this part I just don't like the way they did it. In the movie Caps love interest *I forgot hr name* said there was plenty of time to find another way. So I was wondering, why they haven found one or why the story haven't created more pressure so that Cap had no other way. I know they wanted him to die the heroic way but it felt like: "OMG we have to get him into that ice... damn how are we suppose to do it now that the movie is nearly complete, well let's ... "
Maybe Cap way able to initial the self destruction and had to jump of the plane right into the ice water. Or anything like this. He could have been traped inside the plane as well *although this would be strange since his power should allow him to break down the door and escape*
This is why I didn't like it *it was ok, but it felt like something was missing: some pressure. Maybe the villain could have threatend Peggy know I remember it XD* telling Cap that he had to do something to save her *like Sherlock was threatend by Moriaty in Sherlock BBC. Or the villain could have simply through Cap into the water *which of course would be kinda lame XD
For me: Something was missing. Maybe they should left out Peggy sentends about still having time, then it would bug me that hard XD

[cuttlefish]

Thank you for posting this. I admit, I'm facing one of the problems in that list

[ThisIsNoName]

About : Capatain America: I know it's an important thing that he was frozen. I'm not against this part I just don't like the way they did it. In the movie Caps love interest *I forgot hr name* said there was plenty of time to find another way. So I was wondering, why they haven found one or why the story haven't created more pressure so that Cap had no other way. I know they wanted him to die the heroic way but it felt like: "OMG we have to get him into that ice... damn how are we suppose to do it now that the movie is nearly complete, well let's ... "
Maybe Cap way able to initial the self destruction and had to jump of the plane right into the ice water. Or anything like this. He could have been traped inside the plane as well *although this would be strange since his power should allow him to break down the door and escape*
This is why I didn't like it *it was ok, but it felt like something was missing: some pressure. Maybe the villain could have threatend Peggy know I remember it XD* telling Cap that he had to do something to save her *like Sherlock was threatend by Moriaty in Sherlock BBC. Or the villain could have simply through Cap into the water *which of course would be kinda lame XD
For me: Something was missing. Maybe they should left out Peggy sentends about still having time, then it would bug me that hard XD

I think you're missing the point. Captain America/Steve Rogers didn't crash the plane because it was his only option. He did it because it was the right thing to do.
Throughout the story, Steve is constantly taking action where others stood back. The whole point of the story is that even though anyone else could have taken the serum, and anyone else could have gone through the training, only Steve can be Captain America. Not because of his strength, but because of his will to take action regardless of the odds.

Cap/Steve steering the plane into the ocean is the ultimate fulfillment of his character. The reason Peggy says they have more time is to make it clear that there (theoretically) are other, easier options. He doesn't let himself become a victim of his environment. He would have crashed the plane whether he was Captain America, National Hero of Justice, or just some unknown kid from Brooklyn.

[Taleweaver]

Guys, too much Captain America, too little storytelling tips for beginners.

Back to topic, plz.

[Mirrowdothack]

OK, to sum up things:

Your story needs to be believeable. Of course you may not always be abel to get everybody to love your work, its characters or endings, but that's OK since people like diffenrent kind of things. The most important thing is, that you should actually think about what you're are doing and why.

• Why does the hero meet a special person? - Is it a rival, a love interest, does that person provides special information, ...
  Why is that event happing? - to make it harder for the hero to archive his goal? to support him? to make him feel bad? ...
  What the peak of my story? Where do all those events etc. lead to?
  What needs to happend so that my hero will archieve/not archive his/her goal?
  Why is this stuff happening to the hero?
  What makes him special?
  Why is this story about him?
  Why does he need to change? *if he should change, of course
  ...
  Again: coincidences is ok, but it should still have a purpose^^

Keep asking yourself about your story, your intents etc. If you can't answer yourself it may be worth to think about your story, about your characters, events ...
You don't need to explain everything in your story (which allows the reader to fill the gasp with his/her own thought^^), but as the writer you should be able to answer the most important questions.
If you don't have the answer right now, that's ok, too.
Sometimes I come up with an idea and don't know why something happens in my story but it still feel right to put it in. Then I start to think about it and why it feels fitting. But this is my personal way to write and as long as you haven't publish your story *excluding beta, etc.* you are always free to change, add, remove things^^ (of course you can still do things like when you're publishing your work online in chapters etc. but this may confuse your readers since they would refer to different versions and may miss an important change).

(One last word about cap. am., since I don't want to ignore what had been said and it would be kind of rude to to so: For me this endings was missing something. But that's just my kind of taste^^)

[KiloTango]

Throwing a few more cents on this (cause I think we're mostly on the same page but I've got some other thoughts)

- When you think 'what is the story about', that's not always the same as 'what happens in the plot'. Sometimes the themes of a story are just, if not more, important as what actually happens. And often you won't truly know what the heart of your story is till you get to the end. So draft, draft, draft and then come back and refine to point stuff where it needs to go to get across what you want to say. (For example, Blade Runner's plot is about a cop hunting down some androids. But it's story is actually about what it means to be human. Fate Stay Night's plot is about a crazy war between mages, but you can argue it's also about growing up and weather you can reconcile heroic idealism with reality as an adult (also with Saber's story, what it means to be a king). And so on and so on.)

- 'Zero drafts' are your friend. Don't be afraid to write a terrible clunky draft that nobody ever sees. Do that, get it out of your system, and then redraft it into something good enough to count as a 'first draft'. It's much better to end up cutting and rewriting a bunch when you've got to the end, than it is to be forever re-editing your first chapter until it is perfect... especially as the chances are when you get to the end and you've been living in your story and characters longer you may realise a better opening than that one you agonised over.

- Never be afraid to cut out something you worked hard on if it doesn't actually make the project better to leave it in. But keep it in a file somewhere because you never know where that idea might work better elsewhere.

- Remember you're not writing a novel. You're writing a VN/KN. By which I mean, know when it's time to let the visuals and music do the heavy lifting. Sometimes words on a black background are the perfect way to get something across. Sometimes enough will be said through the other parts that you want to make sure you add to the atmosphere rather than repeating what the reader can already see and hear. You have some interesting narrative tools at your disposal, remember to consider them while you're doing your script and it'll all come together much more tightly.

- Make people care, make people think, make people laugh. If you're not doing at least one of those things, you need to work on your characters, theme, plot etc. And the first one is key. Sometimes being very clever/thought-provoking, or very funny, can excuse having characters we don't care about... But it won't be as strong as if people care about what is happening in the story and want to know what will happen in the story. Be it through mystery, likeable characters or whatever, if you don't have these hooks, your story will fall flat.

- Contrast can be incredibly useful but make sure not to shoot yourself in the foot. A well timed wry joke in a tense scene can show a lot about a character, and contrasting happy stuff before things go wrong can make a tragedy all the sadder (and help stop the reader from giving up on anything nice ever happening in your story), but get too over the top and it will be jarring. Super silly (especially meta or referential) jokes can kill seriousness in something, and massive horror in the middle of something nice can be very jarring so only do it if that is effect you intend. Sometimes you need a mix of tones to stop things being unrelentingly dark though, so just be mindful about how sharply you swing between things.

(Umineko gets away with meta gags in a serious scene occasionally, primarily the 'death flags' thing, but only because it is a story ABOUT genre tropes and what it means to be mystery/fantasy etc... so it is thematically consistent. If you're not doing that, be careful with things like that)

[Mirrowdothack]

KT's notes are pretty good.^^

In addition to point 4 and 5:

- In a VN/KN try not to tell but to show: If you have a background images you don't need to descript everything the reader can seen on this picture, except there is something very important in it you'r refering to: like a sepcial item the hero finds.
If the hero is sad, you don't need to write: "X was very sad". Show him/her with an sad expression, add some sad music, maybe use bg which fits the atmosphere. You can also adress to his feelings by using special "color themes". If a part of you story is depressing you could let it take place in the hero's old, rotten house. The main color of this scene might be blue etc. There are several ways to "show" things to the reader and avoid telling him things in an overall narrator dialog.^^

- Make the reader "care/symphazize/emphasize" with the hero is acutally really important, in order to make the reader willing to follow him. It can also be very effective if you make the reader dislike your hero. But there should always be something, why the reader wants to join him on his quest. In Death Note: For me Light Yagami was a real bastard, but he was a damn brilliant one XD. I "adored" his genius although I hated him as a human beeing. Samse goes for the vilain btw. You can make him/her more human by giving him a reason for his action: maybe he/she is simply crazy but them make him/her really insane, something the reader will remember. But maybe he has to do it for his family. Maybe he was force to do something evil? Again: just think about your characters. Maybe you come up with something interessting. Of course there are some clichee villain-background-stories but if it's fitting your story: why not. In Collateral: The villlain is a hitman, that's his job in order to survive. To sum it up: Make you characters believeable.

-----

Edit:
Please remember that those are just some helpfull thought. You're not bound to anything. There are no rules when it comes to tell a story, so feel free to experiment and try out something. As long as it works and fits the story, your intent, genre, style etc. everything is fine^^

[Taleweaver]

KT In Death Note: For me Light Yagami was a real bastard, but he was a damn brilliant one XD. I "adored" his genius although I hated him as a human beeing...

To sum it up: Make you characters believeable.

Um, so to you, Death Note's Light was a believable character? A teenage super-genius whose goal it is to eradicate crime by killing criminals while effortlessly dodging all attempts by the police and another super-genius teenager to identify him?

Actually, both L and Yagami Light were fantastic examples why characters absolutely don't need to be believable to be considered good and/or memorable. Literature is full of examples of characters with crazy superhuman ability in a certain skill (Sherlock Homes and deduction, Hannibal Lecter and psychological manipulation...) The important part is that is has to be entertaining to watch them do their thing, especially if what they are doing could fail.

If you're sympathetic towards Light's reasons and motivations, you want to see him succeed. If you think he's a bastard, you want to see him fail. In any case, you're certainly interested in how things will work out for him, which is why you continue to read.

Love-or-hate-characters don't have to be realistic. They just have to make sure they somehow make the audience choose sides for or against them to hook them.

[KiloTango]

Re: Light Yagami and 'Believable Characters'... Believable and realistic are not the same thing. What you need in fiction is for characters to act in accordance with the rules you've set out for them. Those don't have to be ones in real life. Light is believable in that everything he does, fits his character and motivations. Yes, he's a massive asshole, and you'd hope nobody would be like that in real life but he's consistent with his own character and that's the key part.

Also him him there's a kernel of 'truth': lots of people I think have at some point idly wished a minor element of what drives him, he is just his ideals taken to an uncomfortable extreme and recognising that little disliked part of yourself is part of what makes him and so many other interesting villains so engaging.

[Taleweaver]

A character should have believable motivations, yes. But that's different from the character himself being a believable figure, even within the scope of his own world.

Take, for example, Q from the Star Trek TNG universe. In a traditional society-based sci-fi context, he's a total fantasy figure, a literal god, much like Zeus was a god to the ancient Greeks. In a world where science and technobabble explain everything, he's a total anachronism, and his powers remain absolutely unexplained. Still, he's easily one of the best-loved characters from the entire series (partially because of John DeLancie's wonderful portrayal of him) because it's entertaining to watch him mess with the orderly, scientifically-explainable world around him.