How to Start a Story

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Now, you have some story ideas.  Let's create.

First, take one idea and tell me the basic story in one sentence. Something like:

A shy girl decides to become a superstar model.

Okay, here's our story idea. Next step, create the main character. They're the most important part of the story. Here, we have a shy girl as our main character. We don't want her to be dry and flat. We're going to flesh out three things: 

1. Her main goal

2. How she plans to reach that goal

3. What she's willing to sacrifice

Now, let's give our main character a name. I'm going to call her Ruby, because a gem name seems good for a superstar. All gems gotta shine, right?

(The MC's name might change during drafts. It's okay.)

I use Nameberry.com sometimes for inspiration. I highly recommend it. 

So we have a name, let's write out her goals. 

Ruby: Shy girl who wants to be a superstar model. Her boyfriend publicly dumped her for a foreign model, so Ruby has decided to get the ultimate revenge by becoming famous. There is a model audition in Los Angeles in a few months. Ruby has decided to drop out of college - gasp! - and pour everything into this audition. 

Alright, so we have the main character. Yay! And we have the three things:

#1 - Her goal: To get revenge on her ex-boyfriend by becoming a model

#2 - Her plan: To got to an audition in a few months

#3 - Her sacrifice: College

Now, let's add some other main characters

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Now, let's add some other main characters. Here's the important thing: they have to create obstacles for the main character. Even the BFF needs to mess things up every once in awhile with their own goals.

Tarah: Ruby's best friend. Natural celebrity material. Decides to help Ruby become a model, however, she later wants the modeling job for herself, because it will pay for college. (And no one in her family has ever been to college.)

Sam: Childhood friend of Tarah and Ruby. Photography major. Has always had a crush on Ruby, but doesn't like her modeling goals. (He works with tons of models, you know.) The more fake friends Ruby gets, the more he fades into the background. And the more fake Ruby gets, the more he wants to walk away from her.

These two extra characters alone cause a lot of conflict. There are a lot of risks and questions now: Will Tarah steal the modeling job from Ruby? What will happen to their friendship if she does? Will Ruby ever notice Sam? Or will Sam get annoyed with her new goals and walk away?

Woo-hoo! A story is born!

(I mean, I prefer stories with some death threats or fight scenes in it, but that's what the main villain is for. More on that character later.)

I think this is the strongest way to get started with a story. This is called a character-driven story. Characters are the reason we fall in love with stories, and creating them is both the most important and probably the most complicated. 

I'll be honest - I didn't do a lot of character development for my main character in T7P, mainly because that story was an experiment and I didn't expect much out of it. I tried to do more with MoRI, and now that I'm rewriting T7P for publication, my main focus is making sure the characters are deep and conflicted. 

Because all of us are deep and conflicted. That's what we're drawn to.

In my next post, I'll tell you what you should know about your characters in order to make them come to life. (And it's not name, age, job, and hobbies...)

Exercise #1: Look through your list of ideas that you made

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Exercise #1: Look through your list of ideas that you made. You should have 5 or 6 ideas, right? I want you to pick one and create the main character. Write down their goal, how they plan to reach that goal, and what they're willing to sacrifice to get it. 

Exercise #2: Now that you have an MC with a goal, think of external obstacles that can get in their way. (Don't worry about their weaknesses now. Let's think outside problems.) Write a list. It doesn't have to be a good list. Just write a list. 

Take some of those obstacles and attach them to a new character: a best friend, a parent, a classmate, a teacher, an enemy, a sibling, a fairy, a dragon, a ninja, whatever. Pick a character. 

Exercise #3: Pick one more idea. Repeat Exercise #1 and #2. The best way to get better is to keep practicing. 


Question: Who are your favorite fictional characters? 

Mine are: 

Shane from the Spirit Animals series (dark kind of sexy) 

Darcy from Pride and Prejudice (isn't he a mess?)

Lord Henry from Picture of Dorian Gray (I love characters that play with other character's minds)

Leo from the Percy Jackson & the Olympians series (I like his wit)

Comment below!  



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