Archive - MacAllen's Theater GUide

Crafting a Story

If you ask any professional to describe what its like to perform their daily tasks, most intelligent people will come up with some sort of analogy or metaphor. For example:

Assembly line worker: “You ever see ‘I Love Lucy’ when she starts working in a chocolate factory? Its like that except I get to do it every day.”

Politicians: “You get into to it to help people, but in the end you mostly help yourself.”

Engineers: “Engineering is like being a philosopher, but actually making something.”

Anyway, you get the general idea. Here’s mine for writing:

Crafting a story is a lot like sculpting a statue in marble. You begin with a rough block taken right from the quarry. Then you do a first draft, and the block is no longer a block, but sort of looks like statue, but no one can tell what it is. Then you do another draft, chipping away at some of the marble, smoothing out the surfaces, adding details. This is like doing a second draft of a story; you take away the words you don’t need, add details where you want to, and smooth it all out.

The Process

Everyone who wants to write needs to find a process. Just like sex, not everyone is going to want to do it the same way. For me, my preferred method is spewing out a story in a few days and letting it sit in the time out area for a while. Then a few days later I’ll come back and edit and re-write parts of it. Then another few months will go by. Finally I will do another set of re-writes and edits. Only then will I consider myself as having a ‘complete’ story.

I like spitting out as much as possible in a short amount of time because it maintains the same voice and sentiment at the end of the story as I used when I started. Obviously if you write a two or three thousand words in a day or two, there are going to be mistakes, and not just spelling. So after a few days I’ll edit what I’ve written, often re-writing small sections. But then like a good wine, the story must sit undisturbed. Its very easy to be so engrossed in a story that as the author, you forget to include necessary information for your readers. After six months though, if your story is missing some key facts, you won’t remember either. This is the process I usually use, though I have been known to work on a story or two for two or three weeks straight.

Characters

Dynamic and interesting characters are the single most important part of any short story. A good character will have a story to tell, just by existing. To this end, it can be beneficial to write either a character brief or a story about for your characters before beginning an actual story. Several characters of mine have developed from ideas I had for the character in other stories. The first plot lines were week and failed to fully develop, but then I drew on these stories for creating the characterization in other stories.

When I create a character, I draw on people I know, including myself, and exaggerate certain qualities or traits. Then from there, I ask myself, how would this person handle a given situation. Often times though, it becomes necessary to create a character that as an author you know very little about. For instance, if I was creating a Ranch Hand, I know very little about ranching. But that does not mean I can’t develop a complex character based on emotional experiences and histories of what I do know. The key to fabricating a character is through being specific, and knowing you are correct. Consider that your character is going for an interview; you must be able answer every question that would or that might come up in such an interview.

Audience

One tip of advice I read someplace suggested that as an author, you should imagine who you are writing for. The point of this exercise is to put in perspective the reader, removing the author’s subjective point of view. For instance, the author suggested, write as if your sister or your girlfriend will be the reader, including the facts that they would need to know to enjoy the story, rather than relying on the writer’s own cognition.

I disagree with this anecdote. Instead, I say write for yourself, your own story. Certainly as a writer you must be aware of a reader’s ignorance to the knowledge you as a writer have. After all, in the case of fiction, only the author really knows what is happening in the character’s world. An author can’t expect the reader to draw on anything beyond what is actually written down. Never assume anything about your reader.

Conclusions

These are just some observations I have made through the processes of writing and through helping friends workshop their own writing.