Some tips from the Editor-in-chief of the Reader’s Digest
Tag: writing
The clues to a great story
Just watched American filmmaker Andrew Stanton’s TED Talk on the clues to a great story.
Incisive and worth a watch. Here are his main points:
- Stories should make a promise to the reader: this story will lead somewhere that is worth your time.
- Make the reader work for their reward – we are born problem solvers who are compelled to deduce – the well-organised absence of information in a story is designed to draw the audience/reader in.
- Structure the story to make the audience put things together – elements the storyteller provides and the order you place them in are crucial to engage the audience and hold their attention.
- Make the reader care – draw them into the story and encourage them to invest in the narrative by making them put things together to hold their attention
- All well-drawn characters should have spine which drives their choices – this acts as their motor, propelling them in positive or negative directions according to their temperament. This is the engine that drives them and the story.
- Change is fundamental to telling a good story – avoid statics scenarios. Drama is built on dynamism and change.
- “Drama is anticipation mingled with uncertainty” – playwright William Archer – succinctly defines the core of fiction.
- make the reader want to know what happens next
- create tensions and construct anticipation in the story to hold the reader’s attention
- the story should build short and long-term tensions to make the reader want to know how it will all conclude in the end
- constructed honest conflicts with truth that create doubt about what the outcome might be – will the main character find what he is looking for ? Will it all turn out OK in the end ?
- Liking your main character is important – the reader will want to follow the story of a character they like and want to see overcome and succeed.
- find out what drives a character and describe the story of how they take the wheel and steer the story in their own direction
- stories should have an overarching theme – a grand lineage which underpins the narrative, a guideline, a constant, a roadmap. A strong theme always runs through a good story.
- Can the storyteller evoke wonder in your story which promotes a sense of affirmation of being alive in the reader?
- use what you know and draw from it – use well-chosen words that evoke sound, sight, taste, touch, and smell to draw in the reader.