We don’t do newspaper journalism. We tell a story as a story, a narrative, something with themes and character development, a narrative line with rising and falling action—all those things you learned in English class about how people tell stories to each other. We tell deeply researched, extremely factual stories so that we never use a pyramid style, because people don’t tell stories to each other in that [expletive deleted] style—they interest each other. --John Mecklin, editor, NY Times’ SF Weekly

• To hear lawyers at the Dallas law firm of Baron & Budd tell it, they are frontline warriors in a battle against callous corporations whose product, asbestos, claimed the lives and health of thousands of working men. But the first casualty of war is truth, and at Baron & Budd, one of the city's most successful law firms, the truth, if not killed outright, is sometimes missing in action.

Writing for Story

An Amarillo teen who was convicted of manslaughter for intentionally driving his Cadillac over a 19-year-old punk rocker initially told police the victim had slipped on the ice and fallen under his car. (Suggests he’ll revise his story later; suspense.)

It lasted, at most, two or three seconds--enough time to send a million impulses that ripped through her mind like neural buckshot

Four Elements in StoryTelling:

Narration

Setting

Plot

Characterization

Narration is...

...the way the story gets told--the voice of the storyteller, point of view, tone, and techniques.

Choose a point of view:

First person

Third person limited

Third person multiple

Third person omniscient

  Imagine three singers—Bono, Willie Nelson, and Janis Joplin—singing "Itsy-Bitsy Spider"… The plot doesn’t change from singer to singer; we know that persistent little arachnid will get washed out the spout yet eventually triumph over adversity. The style is determined by the singer’s tone of voice… The writer has to do the same thing to establish style—but with words.

Examples of Point of View in Scripture

"He awoke and behold! A woman was lying at this feet!" (Ruth 3:8)

We are never told if Bathsheba had any responsibility. We’re supposed to totally see the sin from David’s point of view (2 Sam. 11).

Then Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him until daybreak (Gen 32:24).

Judah could not dislodge the Jebusites, who were living in Jerusalem; to this day the Jebusites live there with the people of Judah (Josh. 15:63).

Choose a tense

• Rare = Present tense.
• Angela’s Ashes – totally in present tense.
• Won the Pulitzer Prize.
• Most in the past tense.

Voice

• Qualities of voice in addition to point of view:
• Distinctive words
• Length of a character's thoughts and speeches.
• How words, sentences, ideas are arranged.
• How character emotion is communicated.
•  

Setting

What is setting?

Your setting provides the narrative with the "world."

Setting includes cosmic depictions of...

• Time - past or present

• Space - scope

• The universe - Star Wars

• Town – Friends

• One house – Home Improvement

• Culture - Reality, fantasy

• Geography - Tahiti, third world, Narnia

• The rules – Can rabbits talk?

•  Moby Dick - the sea
• The Hobbit - journey motif
• Chronicles of Narnia - Narnia, earth
• Flannery O’Connor - the South
• Gospel of Mark - Israel under the Romans
• Francine Rivers - Redeeming Love Hosea retold in Gold Rush California
• Jane Austen - small country estates
• Midsummer Night’s Dream - fantasy world

Use setting to communicate more than the place itself :

• Jezebel kills Jezreel vineyard owner
• Years later dogs eat her in Jezreel.
• Peter denies the Lord by a fire.
• Where is Jesus when he restores Peter?
• Bethel key historical place, spiritual pilgrimages.
• God says through Amos, "Don’t seek me in Bethel."
• Elisha raised the Shunnemite woman’s "only son" at Shunem.
• Jesus raised the widow of Nain’s "only son" at Nain, on the other side of the mountain from Shunem.
• Similarities in miracle and location show that a prophet better than Elijah and Elisha has come.

Look for symbolic potential the place where you set your story

Look for symbolic potential in the details

• Jolly person eats jelly beans
• Risk taker teeters on one leg of chair

What’s hanging on the walls?

• What scents in the air?
• Whose photos on the desk?
• Pets? Goldfish? Does he take his dog to work?
• What gestures, mannerisms?
• Was she happy; did he high five?

Use Five Senses

Plot

Aristotle in Poetics: Plot is fixed sequence with a beginning, middle and end.

Plot = most important part of story

Beginning - Intro characters, intro conflict

Middle - Conflict escalates.

Midpoint turning point

End: Climax and closing scene

 

You don’t have a story until something goes wrong.

A pregnant woman disappears

A transplant patient gets the wrong organs

Miners get trapped

A king gets tempted

A brother gets sold

Plot

The events: Actions or happenings that bring about change.

Their order, turning points, breakthroughs, development and resolution

How events arranged

How events connected

What events reveal

 

Provide the reader with an emotional experience.

Sidney Sheldon: "Take a group of interesting characters and put them in harrowing situations. I try to end each chapter with a cliffhanger, so the reader must turn just one more page to find out what happens next."

Suspense keeps a reader turning the page, saying endlessly, "Just one more chapter and then I’ll go to sleep."

Conflict

Conflict is the struggle of forces vying to prevail. --Robert Tannehill

Conflict reveals the core values and beliefs of a narrative.

Conflict names the overall goal and then identifies the forces that help or hinder it.

Types of conflict

With another person--relational

• Luke vs. Darth Vader
• Kramer vs. Kramer
• Peter’s denial/restoration

With nature

• Old Man and the Sea
• The Perfect Storm
• Earthquake
• Volcano

With a deadline

• Die Hard, (sales of any kind)

With the supernatural, aliens

• Close Encounters of the Third Kind
• The X-Files
• The Garden of Eden

With value systems

• Babette’s Feast
• Jonah

Conflicts in the mind; inner turmoil

• The Testament - alcoholism, purposelessness
• Runaway Bride
• A Beautiful Mind

Conflicts with Society

• Schlindler’s List
• Beloved

A plot needs lots of conflict

Each key conflict has...

• origin
• escalation
• resolution
• consequences
• points of view
• something at stake
• unique characterization

Keep ’em guessing

The reader loves a surprise, and respects being outsmarted.

Keep conflict going up and down, up and down

Problem, problem solved, problem, problem solved

When resolving the conflict...

Plant enough clues that they say, "I should have seen it coming." Plant few enough that you don’t give it away.

What conflicts do you experience (are inherent in)...

Conflict/resolution

Characterization

Who are your characters?

their drives and motives

Every time a character steps on stage, he wants something. What?

    how they relate to each other

Husband brings wife coffee in bed

Husband constantly interrupts

  how you disclose them in the plot

  how will they change

Develop your characters

Character arc essential.

Either changes drastically

True Lies

Or remains steadfast

Erin Brockavich

Better to show than tell what character is like.

Haman sought to destroy all the Jews (Esther 3:6)

 Motivation is what makes characters both believable and interesting.

• What made Maria leave the children?
• What drives Frodo to take the journey?
• What made Esther risk her neck?
• Every action needs a motivation
• People identify with emotion

Passion: What motivates your characters?

• Anger over a past injustice?
• Fear due to past abandonment?
• Longing to cure disease
• Deadline!

Reveal characters

• Give evil character some good motivation
• Give good character a key weakness

  Peter spirited but impulsive

  Moses humble but angry

Write believable characters

Few main characters in the Bible portrayed without faults:

Joseph, Ruth, Esther, Daniel, Jesus

But consider how unpredictable Jesus is...

Avoid Christianese

Give Christian characters flaws.

Otherwise, least interesting.

Round vs. flat

Round = unpredictable, complex

Flat = predictable

Let characters communicate truth in some way other than via the pulpit or the pastor.

Most CBA writers are acutely aware of the problems inherent in gratuitous sex, violence and profanity. But few Christian authors are equally concerned about gratuitous religion. --Penelope Stokes

Keep the action moving

Move drama ahead with character description rather than stopping the action.

No: George was a nervous, dark-haired man with long fingers.

Yes: George had worked up the courage to talk to his boss. Now he stood in her doorway running long fingers through his dark hair to keep them from trembling.

Use it to drive the plot forward.

Sentence fragments

Don’t pause a lot to describe.

Use dashes for interrupting--

Ellipses for minds training off...

Most communication is non verbal.

Instead of "I don’t know" --he shrugged

Instead of "I like the idea" --thumbs up

Instead of "They were happy" --they danced

Nix dialogue tags when possible

Don’t feel you have to nix, "he said, she said." But work to avoid giving the speaker a dialogue tag (e.g., Ruth 3:18)

Romeo and Juliet converse.

Instead of "Why do you ask? Romeo wanted to know.

Say "Why do you ask, Juliet?"

"You played beautifully." She smiled up at him.

Use "beats" rather than lots of dialogue tags.

Mary jerked upright. "I’m leaving now."

"Why this time?" Her mother’s tone demanded an answer.

"Because I’m... hungry."

"Right. You just ate."

"So?"

Determine point of view

Decide the setting

Do extensive characterization

Plot

Hesitate...

...to name minor characters (see Ruth 4:1, paloni almoni)

...to use extensive flashback

...to use extensive forecasting

instead use foreshadowing

Use Christian themes well

Avoid preachers as sole truth bearers, lengthy church scenes, Four Spir. Laws

Avoid Christianese

Go for subtle but clear

E.g., Little Women Christmas

Show, Don’t Tell
Let the reader discover

Replace "he felt happy" with signs that show happiness--he smiled, he laughed, he cheered.

Instead of saying "She’s rude," say "She belched, she swore, she gestured in traffic."

Is it good? 

When God finished creating
the world...

He pronounced the setting "good."

When he finished making characters, he described them as "very good."

Recommended Books

Writing and Selling the Christian Novel (P. Stokes)

Self-Editing For Fiction Writers (Browne/King)

Writing for Story (J. Franklin)

Contact us for more info