Friday, September 30, 2016

What makes a Good Story?

People love to hear a good story, but what makes a story great? Over time, established classics are soon considered overrated. Some people try to claim they are great because they were the first to try something. However, others will claim that more recent stories do it better or say the old is boring because it has been copied so often. This is actually one reason why I published Shining when I did. I noticed that even though I wrote that story before so many modern fantasies started to become popular, if I wait longer, people will be tired before I have a chance to publish. In fact, I anticipate it's already too late.

However, even if a story does tread along similar lines as other stories, it can still make a name for itself. Critics will point out that Star Wars offered nothing new but instead was a tribute to many ideas such as Akira Kurosawa. Japanese Role-Playing Games have a stigma of being the same story again and again, but occasionally a game will have a great fanbase because the story was well done. I told someone I downloaded one game even though I haven't had time to play it because critics said the dialogue was well-done and the world is very fleshed out.

Some people like stories that make fun of tropes. However, I feel like those only work for a short period of time. I don't know, but I hope Shining's method of examining ideas rather than just making fun of them will be more charming, even if only to a few people.

Now if only one person in the world thinks a story is great, does that make it great? I would like to think so. When I think about it, what makes a story great is how it connects to the audience. In the case of a book, this is even more so as the reader is essentially the director. He must imagine the scenes and cast the characters. I wrote one story and imagined how the character would speak. I gave the story to someone else to read and was given a completely different interpretation, but they still loved the story. As an author, I can give guidance like a scriptwriter, but it's the director who makes the picture. If the reader can turn a script into something fantastic in his head, then I did my job well.

J. D. Nyle

Friday, September 9, 2016

Planning a Story

When you start to write a book, there are a few approaches you can take. You can write as you go, plan it all out ahead of time, or a mixture of the two. Generally, my practice had been write as you go and let the plot develop itself. Shining followed that approach as well in which only a few chapters were predetermined. For the next novel, however, I'm thinking I'm going to lean more towards the planned route.

The first route is certainly one that seems faster. It also allows you to freely use ideas and actually start writing. The issue is that without guidance, the story and pacing becomes chaotic. Also, if you can't think of anything, then you have a Writer's Block which means you won't write at all either. It might be good for exercises, but not the ideal for writing a novel.

When writing a novel, the book needs some sort of flow. This means that not only does it have great scenes, it needs to build up to the scenes naturally. While it seems counter intuitive to think that planning something is more natural than free writing, there is truth to it.

In order to get the full benefit of free writing to be natural, you need to have complete understanding of the characters. When you write multiple novels with the same characters, this can happen quite well. However, when starting with new characters, like I'm doing, that's not possible. Unless you have the backgrounds and their characteristics established, you will end up backtracking and rewriting far longer than is good. If you backtrack a lot, then you can lose sight of what is still present in your novel. resulting in confusing your reader.

When I started the new novel, I had a lot of things planned, but not enough as I have come to realize. The main characters I had a good idea for, but I neglected the secondary characters. The result is they were essentially nothing but names. While it is important to develop your main character, fleshing out the secondary characters is important as well. They need to have a history, philosophy, relationships, and goals.

The result is simple. For a good story, you need to do a lot of planning, especially if you don't want to rewrite it multiple times. For me, finding the time to write it once will be difficult enough. However, once all the elements are gathered, it should hopefully be as natural as free flow.

J. D. Nyle