Category Archives: Storytelling

Tell Strong Stories – How to Write a Great Main Character

Storytelling, ,

Tell strong stories. That’s what every writer longs to do. What are strong stories anyway? To conquer an audience and make it your own you must tell a story that moves them. A story that moves them emotionally. Emotional Power is the impact your story must have.

The key to an emotionally moving storytelling is Character. The success of your story hangs on the strength of the main character you create and the way you employ that character as a storyteller. If your goal is to Tell Strong Stories your main character must move the narrative forward emotionally.

Why is your main character so important? Because your protagonist’s story is what connects you with the reader. You draw the reader in and make her care. That’s how you hook a reader. Mastering the art of the narrative hook is essential to writing a successful story.

You set that hook by creating a story in which the reader cannot help but become emotionally involved. First and foremost you do this by creating a character with whom the reader cannot help but become emotionally involved.

Which means that the reader must care about what happens to your character. The reader must begin to behave as if the Protagonist of your story were a real-life person they know personally. Your character’s defeats are the reader’s defeats. Your character’s triumphs are the reader’s triumphs.

When you make your readers feel this connection you have them hooked. And they will stay hooked from beginning to end.

[For example, I was hooked by both Rick and Ilsa in the film Casablanca and wanted both of them to triumph. The conclusion turned out to be more complicated than that, which hooked me deeper still. Those screenwriters knew how to Tell Strong Stories.]

Here’s how to begin creating characters as real as Rick and Ilsa.

#1. First, the character must hook you. You as author must be as emotionally involved with your character as you want the reader to be.

#2. Which requires that you as author must know your character intimately. You must know your characters – especially your main character heroine or hero – from the Inside Out. Which means you must understand as deeply as you possibly can what it’s like to be your protagonist.

Why do you need to know so much about your protagonist? In practical terms, you must know enough to keep your readers reading. You need to know a lot about a character to make her sufficiently complex to carry the weight of your story from the beginning to the end of a book.

You must know enough about this character to bring him to life on the page and make the reader care about him.

[For example, Charles Dickens brought Ebenezer Scrooge to life on the page in A Christmas Carol, and made us care what happened to him as well. Dickens knew Scrooge from the Inside Out.]

Here’s an exercise for getting to know your character from the Inside Out. Project yourself into your main character. Become your main character in your imagination. Then ask yourself the following five questions about that character.

#1. What does my main character want in this story? Is this desire significant enough to make a reader also want this thing for my character? Is this desire significant enough to make a reader want it for my character all the way through the length of an entire book? Or at some point does this desire pale into “Who cares?” territory for the reader?

#2. How much does my main character want this thing? Is this the most crucial need my character has ever experienced? Have I effectively communicated my character’s sense of urgency? How in specific scenes, action and dialogue can I turn up the story heat on the intensity of my main character’s desire?

#3. Why does my main character want this thing? Are her reasons – her motivations – admirable? Are these motivations logical in this story situation? Are her motivations believable to the extent that a reader will accept them as legitimate enough to motivate an intelligent, independent protagonist throughout the entire length of my story? Will a reader not only believe these motives but also adopt them on behalf of my character and root for her to achieve her desires?

#4. What does my main character not want? Is my character running away from something? If so, what is it and why is he on the run from it? Is my character avoiding something? If so, what is he avoiding and why? What is my character afraid of? Why is my character afraid of this thing?

[Here’s another way to Tell Strong Stories in terms of drama, intensity and power. Make sure every character fears something. Especially your main character. For example, what does Scarlett O’Hara fear in Margaret Mitchell’s Gone with the Wind?]

#5. What’s at stake for my main character in this story situation? What will happen if she fails to achieve what she wants or needs? Are those consequences dreadful enough to make a reader dread them as well? Who in my story besides my main character could also be adversely affected? How in specific scenes, action and dialogue can I intensify these stakes by making the potential consequences more devastating, pervasive and far-reaching? In order to Tell Strong Stories you must raise the stakes as high as your story will allow.

Brainstorm every possible response to each of these questions. Always push yourself beyond the first, most obvious possibility toward less expected, more original ones. The farther reaches of our imaginations are the place from which we Tell Strong Stories.

Alice Orr – https://www.aliceorrbooks.com

– R|R –

Amanda Miller Bryce is the main character of the strong story that is Alice’s new novel A Time of Fear & Loving – Riverton Road Romantic Suspense Book 5. Meet Amanda HERE. You can find all of Alice’s books HERE.

What readers are saying about A Time of Fear & Loving. “I never want an Alice Orr book to end.” “Alice Orr is the queen of ramped-up stakes and page-turning suspense.” “Warning. Don’t read before bed. You won’t want to sleep.” “The tension in this novel is through the roof.”
“A budding romance that sizzles in the background until it ignites with passion.”
“The best one yet, Alice!”

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Scrooged Stories Redeem Our Writing

Storytelling, ,

Scrooged Stories are the writer’s ideal holiday gift, because they come with Scrooged storytelling and the Bountiful Writing that can result from opening this particular package all the way into your creative heart.

The result for Charles Dickens was his fabulous and fabled A Christmas Carol which has turned out to be one of the best known and most popular stories in the English language.

You can wrap some of that and gift it to me anytime, and I don’t believe I know a single writer, or reader either, who wouldn’t feel the same. Scrooged Stories are pay dirt and pop chart dirt too. So, what can Charles and Ebenezer teach us about how to get a dusting of that magic on our own storytelling shoes?

I imagine most of us are familiar with the narrative theme, “How the Mighty Have Fallen.” Some of us, including me, have even written those stories. A Christmas Carol, the ultimate among Scrooged Stories, moves beyond the downfall scenario to “How the Mighty Have Fallen Then Been Dragged Back Up Again.” In other words, Scrooged Stories are about Redemption. The best Scrooged Stories are about Dramatic Redemption. Dramatic, because of the depth of the depravity pit into which the central character has plunged himself, usually before we encounter him. Scrooged Stories are, after all, mainly about the Scrooge.

Our prototype, Ebenezer’s personal human depravity has to do with compassion. He doesn’t have any, not any we can readily discern from his perpetually scowling face and stingy, heartless behavior. Worse still, he is pleased to be exactly what he is and regards the caring world as, in a word, a humbug. Redeeming this dude won’t be easy. But then, that’s what makes Scrooged Stories so reader appealing. The more irredeemable the character is, the more dramatic the story will be. And drama, along with power and intensity, is the wellspring of that pop chart pay dirt I mentioned.

Thus, Ebenezer is the poster boy for those of us who would like to produce Scrooged Stories of our own. He is a deep-down mean, unrepentant character who disdains charity and scoffs at charitable folk, betrays his beloved sister’s wishes by disowning her only son, and all but freezes poor Bob Cratchett out of his threadbare office. Such an extreme character portrayal demands an extreme plot, and well-crafted Scrooged Stories do not disappoint.

Dickens thickens his extreme plot with a ghost. Not a happy, harmless Casper, but a chain-clanking, shrieking, ominous and terrifying horror named Marley, who is dead set (pun intended) upon rattling Ebenezer out of his complacency , into awareness of the doom he inevitable faces, if he doesn’t change his ways.

Thus, the quintessential exemplar of Scrooge Stories presents us, and Ebenezer, with his story goal. He must change. Which is also his story problem, or internal conflict, if you prefer. He does not want to change. He is absolutely committed to his bad old self. Dickens will have to dredge up some mega-dramatic means to so much as capture Ebenezer’s attention, much less motivate him toward metamorphosis.

At which point, my particular favorite of Scrooged Stories gives us more ghosts because, besides being a Redemption Story, A Christmas Carol is a ghost story too. Our heartless (supposedly) hero (sort of) is forced to experience and, even more soul-quaking, to witness what these phantasms have to show him about himself. His past retreat from human feeling. His present cold, solitary, disconnected state and how it affects others. The dark, dire future consequences that await him if he fails to change.

Meanwhile, this Father Christmas of Scrooged Stories, rackets us, and its host of readers, relentlessly forward through Ebenezer’s tumultuous adventures at whirlwind pace, all the way to the most foreboding possibility possible. The grave. We are set up big time for the payoff and the pay dirt. The Redemption of Ebenezer Scrooge.

Once again, Scrooged Stories don’t let us down. We are showered with a bounty of glorious gifts, the most bounteous of which may be the key insight into what make this story as popular as it is. The dramatic contrast of its final act from its initial one. Joy, giddiness, laughter so unrepressed we might think it would break Ebenezer’s stony face. And it does. Which brings us to the most satisfying payoff of all. Magnanimous deeds. Ebenezer scatters goodness, light, and even life in every direction.

Because Scrooged Stories are, at their essence and at their endings, all about satisfaction. A wild, careening ride from the depth of depraved darkness to the light of salvation. The satisfaction of the main character’s life versus death problem. Satisfaction of his hard-won goal. Satisfaction of the author’s goal as well, in the form of many satisfied readers.

Scrooged Stories are the gift Charles Dickens gives us, at the holidays and throughout the year. Each story element brightly wrapped and ready to be transformed by way of your unique imagination into your own Tale of Redemption. Your own addition to the ever-popular pantheon of Scrooged Stories. To which I say, “God Bless Us Every One.”
Alice Orr – https://www.aliceorrbooks.com.

– R|R –

A Time of Fear & LovingAlice’s new novel, including a Scrooge of her own, is A Time of Fear & Loving – Riverton Road Romantic Suspense Book 5. Available HERE. You can find all of Alice’s books HERE.

What readers are saying about A Time of Fear & Loving. “Alice Orr is the queen of ramped-up stakes and page-turning suspense.”
“Warning. Don’t read before bed. You won’t want to sleep.”
“The tension in this novel was through the roof.”
“A budding romance that sizzles in the background until it ignites with passion.”
“I never want an Alice Orr book to end.”
“The best one yet, Alice!”

http://facebook.com/aliceorrwriter/
http://twitter.com/AliceOrrBooks/
http://goodreads.com/aliceorr/
http://pinterest.com/aliceorrwriter/

TAGS – Character Development, Plotting, Dramatic Storytelling

 

 

Giving Thankfuls – Gratitude Season Is Still Here

Storytelling, ,

Giving Thankfuls began when our grandchildren were with us every weekend at our yellow house on Vashon Island. We would hold hands before eating and go around the dining table, which was dinged and battered from years of active kid use. The chairs had been rocked back and forth with vigor so many times that Grandpa Jonathan finally implanted bolts to hold them somewhat intact. At that well-used table, each of us in turn would name what we were thankful for that day. The grandkids always started with thanks for being with us. Jonathan and I always started with thanks for being with them, filled with joy and chair-rocking energy as they were. We’d end with a rousing “Amen,” which our grandson once told us was like hitting “Send” on a computer keyboard. In that happy way, Giving Thankfuls became our mealtime tradition.

The children are older now, and we’re all back on the east coast, where the family originated. Granddaughter is in college, blessedly nearby, and takes Giving Thankfuls for granted when breaking bread with us. Grandson is a high schooler in Massachusetts and no longer rocks his chair at dinnertime, but is still into Giving Thankfuls. Jonathan and I are a twosome most of the time, but haven’t stopped holding hands and Giving Thankfuls. Including non-reverent entries, mostly from me, like “I’m thankful for Jonathan not forgetting to do such-and-such.” We’ve been married forty-five years, and he is a husband after all.

Every holiday season, I have lots of reasons for Giving Thankfuls. Up front among them are memories, like those I’ve shared here about family, and about blazing, battling and being in love through those forty-five years I mentioned. We are a stormy couple for sure. None of you who know me well will doubt the probability of that. I do not go gentle into anything, sometimes to my credit, sometimes not. I am, nonetheless, at this stage of my life, Giving Thankfuls for having grown to appreciate myself, however imperfect a character I may be.

Speaking of characters, every morning finds me Giving Thankfuls for the gift of storytelling, which probably comes from Grandma, where most of the good in me was born. She told stories aloud. I write mine down. The abiding spirit is definitely connected. Being a storyteller has put me in the amazing company of other storytellers. I love that company for its generosity, its wonderful wit, its endless ingenuity. I’ve found role models and helpmates there, friends too, both professional and personal. I cannot imagine another community I would rather inhabit.

Except maybe our church community at the hundred-fifty-year-old parish five blocks from where we live. Jonathan and I, and granddaughter too, were there yesterday peeling potatoes, preparing stuffing and setting tables for today’s Thanksgiving feast. We love the diversity of our congregation. Many nationalities, many different first languages, all worshiping as one. Our diversity will be well-represented at today’s meal, along with that of our neighborhood at large, all of whom are invited to join us. There’s bound to be an abundance of Giving Thankfuls too.

We also have dear friends across the country for whom we are continually Giving Thankfuls. Consider yourself among them. So, dear friends, what would you mention when you are Giving Thankfuls? Please share those mentions with us in the Comments to this post. And, most important, have a totally joyful Thanksgiving.

P.S. The guy in the photo is Jonathan, and I have no idea why he’s peeking into the turkey’s you-know-what. Should I worry about that?  Alice Orr – www.aliceorrbooks.com.

– R|R –

Alice’s new novel, for which she’s Giving Thankfuls, is A Time of Fear & Loving – Riverton Road Romantic Suspense Book 5. Available HERE. You can find all of Alice’s books HERE.

What readers are saying about A Time of Fear & Loving. “Alice Orr is the queen of ramped-up stakes and page-turning suspense.” “Warning. Don’t read before bed. You won’t want to sleep.” “The tension in this novel was through the roof.” “A budding romance that sizzles in the background until it ignites with passion.” “I never want an Alice Orr book to end.” “The best one yet, Alice!”

http://facebook.com/aliceorrwriter/
http://twitter.com/AliceOrrBooks/
http://goodreads.com/aliceorr/
http://pinterest.com/aliceorrwriter/

Tags: Grandma, Helpmates, Colleagues, Storytelling