How do you make up stories ?

March 8, 2008 1:43 AM

How do you make up stories ? My kids love me making up stories (and then repeating them ad-infinitum !) but doing so has set me thinking about the process of creating fiction.

I know that many stories have a structure of setup / tension-creation / resolution-of-tension but what are other structures that form a basis for many works of fiction ?

What are commonly-used structures that are either deliberately used - or may commonly be recognised - in stories, plays, screenplays etc ?

posted by southof40 to writing & language (9 comments total)

I'll get ya started ...
posted by RavinDave at 2:06 AM on March 8

It's easy to think of a story if you use the 5 part structure.

Opening - think of characters, setting, and a reason for them to go on a mission.

Build Up - the characters on their way there

Dilemma - an obstacle gets in the way

Reaction - how they deal with it

Resolution - tie up all the loose ends - what did they learn?
posted by mooreeasyvibe at 4:47 AM on March 8 [1 favorite]

Robert Silverberg wrote that almost every story ever told follows the structure that mooreeasyvide describes.^^

I also vaguely remember a Science Fiction author recipe:

1- draw 3 (or more) columns
2- in the first one, write a name describing a character (person, animal, ghost, alien, etc.)
3- in the second one, write some place or medium in which this character lives
4- in the third one, write a verb of what this character is uniquely suited to do
5- pick one in each column at random
6- tell a story about it
7- success!
posted by bru at 5:37 AM on March 8

MDINAFWBHIAEBS (My dad is not a fiction writer but he is an excellent bull shitter)...

His stories got famous (at least regionally) when my brother was young. He'd say "Why is XXXX like XXXX." My dad got frustrated one day and thus began the "Well, it's funny you should ask..." series of stories.

These are sort of a mix of colloquial "legend" sorts of stories, local "color", and drawing from regional fears (ghosts and ghoulies) and superstitions. The interesting thing is that he's from deeeeep south Louisiana and we're in the mountains of Appalachia.

One such example that lives in infamy---I shouldn't even post it here, I fully intend to publish it some day: "Why do signs say 35 m.p.h.?" "Well, it's funny you should ask...did you ever notice those holes in the road that don't seem to be there for any reason? Well, back in the depression, FDR needed to feed the hungry americans, so he had scientists make a superchicken. They stand about 6 feet tall and weigh upwards of 300 lbs. Thing was, they had to cross them with all sorts of different critters to make them that big. Worst part was, they got mean. They'd get in packs....anyway, story continues. Culminates that when workers are patching those potholes, they're actually putting out chicken feed so that they can capture those chickens, especially in curves. The signs? That tells the capturers how many Mean Peckin Hens they can expect to catch in that area.
posted by TomMelee at 6:32 AM on March 8 [3 favorites]

The first thing I tell my students is start with a character. Then give him something he wants (money, respect of his peers, a campfire) and keep it from him for as long as you can.

Here are two good books:

John Gardner: The Art of Fiction: Notes on Craft for Young Writers

Janet Burroway: Writing Fiction: A Guide to Narrative Craft

bru's three column tool looks like it might be fun.
posted by notyou at 8:08 AM on March 8 [1 favorite]

The secret to writing good love stories or romances: take two people destined to be together... and keep them apart as long as possible.
posted by dobbs at 8:53 AM on March 8

Someone posted an awesome AskMe answer a couple of years ago to the effect of a story writing algorithm, follow the steps:
Decide how the story starts
Decide how the story ends
Decide what happens in the middle
Decide what happens between the beginning and the middle
Decide what happens between the middle and the end
Decide what happens between the beginning and the middle of the middle beginning....

Anyway, made sense at the time -- I know this only answers the mechanics of writing a story, not the rising tension kind of angle.
posted by Rumple at 9:51 AM on March 8 [1 favorite]

In the 1945 Writer’s Yearbook, John Nanovic described his Triple-O method of plotting: Object, Obstacles, Outcome. Your protagonist wants something (object). There are speed bumps that slow him down in his quest (obstacles). What he goes through and whether he succeeds is the outcome, which gives you the climax and resolution of the story.
posted by bryon at 4:36 PM on March 8

The Thirty-Six Dramatic Situations are a good place to start.
posted by obiwanwasabi at 5:19 PM on March 10