Mercy! Mercy! That Dang Nabed PERCY!

Coming Up with a Story Line

Coming Up with a Story Line

A good story begins at the good part. Everybody’s life has some good parts but they don’t happen with a high degree of frequency. Most of what we do is repetitive and routine, day in day out the same oh same oh.

Then something happens that is life changing, an event jerks a person out of the rut…. That groove they have settled into and catapults them into a situation that is new and overwhelming. When you write a story, this is where the writer needs to begin…at the good part.

In a stage play, a novel or a short story or whatever, the good part needs to come at the beginning where that life changing moment is introduced. Don‘t wait until the middle or the end. In flash fiction the window of opportunity might be a thousand words….In a short story maybe five times that… but regardless of the form there isn’t room for a whole lot so focus on the essential thread of the story line.

In my one act play class defining the central thread of the story comes first. Then the ingredients are worked into the tapestry. Finally all the other little threads get woven in. You don’t just start out weaving with only the vaguest notions of what you want the composition to look like. Now don’t confuse this with exploratory writing to see if the central thread is going to work or indeed to discover what that central thread is. I can’t emphasize enough the importance of a good story line. It is worth the time to find one that is worth your time and effort.

Many of you know I have an automotive interest in rehabilitating old cars and trucks… I am not into “Restorations.” because that is a whole different ball games….If you pick up any magazine like “Hot Rod” for example you will see an amazing number of ugly vehicles that have been beautifully restored. This is analogous to an author writing a beautiful story with a crappy story line.

At WDC I go to a student’s port hoping to find something they have written that has a potentially viable story line. If I see something I file it away for when they invariably come to me with the old snivel… “oh Percy, I’m having so much trouble finding something to write about.” But I’m ready for that one, lurking in the weeds ready to spring out and pounce….“ I give them the old….”Well Lucy, I really liked your story on Bozo the Clown…I thing that has dramatic potential.“ Of course the story Bozo the Clown has dramatic potential, any story has dramatic potential, look at some of Shakespheres anemic story lines. A master story teller can take a sows ear and turn it into a silk purse, given the talent and understanding of the ingrediencts necessary for the telling of a good tale. However, why start with a “ho hum” story when you can start with something that has real merit to begin with. Dust off a classic or a fairy tale if nothing else. Think of what you could do if you came up with the idea for the…“Gift of the Magi.“ How cool is that? She has her hair cut off to buy her husband a watch chain, and her husband sells his watch to buy her a set of combs… That is the bare bones of a story line thread that is a real zinger.

So where do you get these great ideas. Well you can think them up or you can take them from what you’ve written, or you can steal them from what you read. I don’t mean plagiarize, I mean borrow… By borrow I mean take the seminal germ of an idea and grow it in a new and different way.