THE JOY OF STORY
John M. Daniel’s Blog
March 26, 2016
Greetings!
Welcome to The Joy of Story, my weekly blog in which I chat about writing,
publishing, and enjoying stories of all kinds. This week I’ve chosen to review four
essential ingredients of truly great stories. And even if you don’t aspire to
true greatness when you write stories (for that matter, why aren’t you aspiring to true greatness?)
these ingredients will help you have more fun while you’re writing, more pride
when you’ve written, and more pleasure for your readers.
Bear
in mind these aren’t the only ingredients you’ll need to make your stories as
good as they can be. But they are among the top ten, and they’re high on the
list.
1.
Stories need plot, and plot means change. Something has to happen to someone in
the story. That character, or those characters, will be different in the end
from how they started out because of what’s happened to them in the course of
the plot. Quite often that change is the consequence of a choice, although
sometimes the change is a matter of unavoidable circumstance. Either way, the
change is what makes a story a story.
2.
Stories need conflict. Without a conflict, the piece of writing is not a story,
but a simple sketch. Conflict is especially important in stories about
relationship. The story of a couple in love only works when the couple must
resolve, or fail to resolve, conflict.
3.
Stories need to be important. Write something that matters. Even when you’re
writing a fluffy story for entertainment value only, make it about some crucial
aspect of the human condition. Make it meaningful. Write about love and death.
A tall order? Maybe, but I assure you you’re up to it. One of the reasons
you’re a writer is to discover truth and then to impart that truth to readers.
4.
Okay, I hear you. You’re saying, “John, get off that high horse.” Right.
Lighten up. Got it. A story has to have some sort of entertainment value. It
must make the reader or the listener weep or laugh. If the story’s preachy and
dry your audience will put it aside with a shrug. So make your stories
enjoyable, even if you’re writing about heavy stuff. Hint: entertainment has a
lot to do with style. Style is a whole new topic for another time.
Meanwhile
remember, practice, and use the four essential ingredients listed above, and
your stories will be well on the road. If you want an example of a novel that
full of plot, conflict, importance, and yes, entertainment—in spades—read Susan
Altstatt’s brilliant novel Belshangles. That’s
the book I’m promoting whole-heartedly this week. You’ll find more information
about this debut novel below.
§§§
Calling all authors—
I
feature a guest author the third Saturday (and week following) of each month.
If you’re interested in posting an essay on my blog—it’s also a chance to
promote a published book—email me directly at jmd@danielpublishing.com. Please
consider this a good promotion opportunity.
§§§
Call for submissions: Your 99-Word Stories
The deadline for April’s 99-word
story submissions is April 1 (no foolin’). The stories will appear on my blog
post for April 9 and will remain on the blog during the following week.
note: this 99-word story feature is a game, not a contest.
Obey the rules and I’ll include your story. I may edit the story to make it
stronger, and it’s understood that you will submit to my editing willingly.
That’s an unwritten rule.
Rules
for the 99-word story feature are as follows:
1. Your story must be 99 words long, exactly.
2. One story per writer, per month.
3. The story must be a story. That means it needs plot
(something or somebody has to change), characters, and conflict.
4. The story must be inspired by the prompt I assign.
5. The deadline: the first of the month. Stories will appear on
this blog the second Saturday of the month.
6. I will copy edit the story. The author of the story retains
all rights.
7. Email me your story (in
the body of your email, or as a Word attachment) to: jmd@danielpublishing.com
THIS MONTH’S
PROMPT FOR NEXT MONTH’S 99-WORD STORY: “Spring can really hang you up the
most.” In case you’re wondering, this prompt is taken from a torch song by the
same name, written by Fran Landesman and Tommy Wolf. The song title is in turn
inspired by T. S. Eliot’s line from The
Wasteland, “April is the cruelest month.” What did Eliot mean by that? You
tell me. NO, you show me in a 99-word
story!
§§§
And now, as promised:
Recently published by
Daniel & Daniel, Publishers, Inc.
Belshanagles
a novel by
Susan
Altstatt
978-1-56474-578-1
240
pages, trade paperback, $15.95
Order
from your local independent bookstore
or direct from the publisher:
800-662-8351.
Also
available from Amazon and other on-line booksellers.
The
day after his concert tour closes in San Francisco, Tommi Rhymer, frontman of
the English band Belshangles, comes to in a wilderness cabin. He has no clue
where he is, or how he got there.
In
the loft above him lies fifteen-year-old Miranda “Andy” Falconer. Her perfect
day at the Belshangles concert went horribly wrong when her idol passed out in
the alley behind his San Francisco hotel, in a state of undress with two
under-age girls. But she knows rescuing him to her parents’ Sierra cabin was
the right thing to do. What she doesn’t know are the physical and emotional
effects of cold turkey withdrawal.
Now
Andy’s on her own in the deep woods, faced with a sick, furious, potentially
violent man. She’ll need physical and spiritual resources she never knew she
had to care for, outwit, and eventually outrun Tommi, before sanity and sense
of humor return, and he recognizes the chance she’s offered him to put his life
in order.
Belshangles is a bittersweet
love story, a tale of imprisonment and conflict, redemption and growth.
Susan
Altstatt has degrees in theater from Stanford and UCLA,
where she attended as a Wilson Fellow and won a Goldwyn award for playwriting.
She has since been acclaimed as a painter of the California wild lands. Belshangles
is her first novel, and the first book of a trilogy. It was a semi-finalist in
the 2014 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Awards competition. She lives in Los Altos
Hills, California.
§§§
That’s
it for this week and this month of March. Thank you for tuning in. Next month,
April, is National Poetry Month. It also brings us rain and taxes. Let’s make a
point of writing and telling stories inspired by weather and finance, and even
in our prose, let’s inject a little poetry.
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