On Writing: The Art of Story Blog

1.  An Essay Isn’t a Story

I’m often asked, “Can the villain be an idea?”  Nice question often asked by intellectuals and the answer is no.  The point of writing a story is to create characters who represent ideas and to have those characters act out the ideas for which they stand.  In a story, stuff happens to the main character, and as a result, the main character changes.  Without this change, there is no story.   

 2.  A “Perfect” Main Character

We love our main characters, don’t we?  We identify with them.  They express our point of view on the world.  So it’s hard for us to give them a flaw.  We want to think of them as perfect.  Trouble is, perfect human beings (aside from being oxymoronic) are not very likable.  When we see that a character is flawed, and makes mistakes—even big ones—we like them more.  Because they’re human.  Like us.

3.  An “Unlikable” Main Character 

My Disney executive friends always insisted that the main character be “likable.”  They would often complain that our main character in a script was “unlikable.”  So what makes a character likable?  What might be likable for some is not so for others, right?  Here’s a good rule of thumb.  Make sure your main character cares about someone other than himself.  (At least, if you’re writing a “Scrooge” type of hero, make it clear he has the capacity to care about someone other than himself.)

 4.  Starting with the Backstory

When you write a life story, you don’t have to start the day your protagonist is born.  When you write a sweeping historical saga, you don’t have to start at the beginning.  Backstory needs to be doled out in very small bites.  In the film “Casablanca,” for example, screenwriting twins the Epstein brothers hold back what happened in Paris until we can hardly stand it anymore.  They didn’t start the story when Ilsa first meets her husband, or even her lover.  They start it much later, when the three characters come together in crisis.    

5.  Passive Verbs

Think in terms of scenes when you write your story.  What do you want your reader to see?  To hear?  What happens? Every writer has heard the maxim, “show, don’t tell.”  Fix this by writing a scene using only active verbs.   

 6.  Bad Men and Good Women

OK this pet peeve of mine isn’t the only cliche in the book, but it’s become the flavor of the month.  Too often, the women in the story are good and the men in the story are bad.  To be fair, I admit that many women writers work from what they imagine to be their own experience.  I personally question their perception.  In life, some of the meanest villains are women.  And so it is in story.  Balance your characters so that you show an understanding and appreciation for both sexes.   

 7.  Relying on Dialogue and Description to Build and Express Character

In life, we define ourselves not by what we think or say, but what we do.  And so it is in story.  The things a character does define him as a character.  Focus on the actions you character takes.  That’s why, when you’re writing your outline.  You need to see the main character move the story forward.  Sure, stuff happens to us, but it’s what we do about it that makes the difference. 

 8.  Low Stakes

Story can be defined as a test for the main character.  He has to overcome the obstacles in his way in order to get his due at the end of the story.  What is the prize?  What are the stakes?  Money?  Fame?  (see Mistake #10, “ A Story without Love”)   

9.  A Main Character Who Doesn’t Change

Story is about transformation itself.  A character makes a profound change in his outlook as a result of the events in the story.  Therefore, if you take me on a long journey and everything is pretty much the same at the end of the story as it is in the beginning, you’ve wasted my time.  As Alvin Toffler said, “Change is not merely necessary to life, change is life.” 

  10.  A Story Without Love

Life is about love.  Always, always, it comes down to the same thing.  We’re only as good as the love we’re able to share with another.  So you might think you’re not writing a love story, but you probably are.  Don’t avoid it.  Give your main character a love interest.  At the end of the day, if your heroine overcomes all the obstacles in her way, what better reward than to get the guy?