THE BASICS OF STORY PLANNING - Introduction

THE BASICS OF STORY PLANNING - introduction

"THE BASICS OF STORY PLANNING" is based in a screenwriting seminar by Dany Campo, A writer of cinema and advertising, analyst of scripts for movie producers and also independent producers and finally a scriptwriting teacher in various colleges and on his Youtube channel, and also by a seminar I gave in the writing Discord server “Whisper Of Words”.

This seminar will focus on the basics of story planning and the elements that conforms it.

Now, how can this help you improve your writing? Aren't these too obvious? Well, it's no secret that these things are known to most but not for everyone, and it's so easy to make a mistake in one of the essential elements that can it make your work hard to understand or less attractive to spectators in search of a juicy story. Which is why I believe it's important to master the basic knowledge to understand your work, since these elements are what your story is truly about

Two thousand years ago, there was a man called Aristotle, whom you've probably already heard of, who asked himself some the questions we are making ourselves today: Why are there stories that endure time and others that are forgotten? Why are people attracted to these that are still remembered today?

To find the answers to these questions, he did a field research, studying the stories that had endured time until then, two thousand years ago. THE POETICS was product of this investigation, one of the first essays about narrative.  He discovered that many of these stories had a series of  common elements that can be resumed in the following.

There was a character, whom he called hero, with a goal and a dream.

The hero  does things to reach his dream.

And on the way to achieve his goal, difficulties, obstacles appear which then created a conflict for the hero and the spectator. This conflict was what defined the center of the story.

To briefly explain this theory, the first act serves to understand the protagonist and the goals he wanted to accomplish, the second act has to do with what they do to face the obstacles that's on their way and finally, the third act in which they overcomes the obstacles, the protagonist goes towards the culmination of his journey and the "achievement" of their goal.

A clear division of the story. The approach/statement, the development and the outcome.  A clue to this theory in proportion is that the second act is the double of the first and the last. It means that while the 1st and 3rd act could be 25%, the middle act will be 50%. It is important to note that these measurements will not be always exact as they just are a reference.

Now, other forms to tell a story have appeared throughout history such as the Dramatica Act Structure, Michael Hauge's "Six Stage Plot Structure", John Truby's "Twenty-two Building Blocks" and Freytag's Pyramid "Five-Act Structure"; but so far, this has been the most rentable and effective way to tell a story as it has been demonstrated for thousands of years and is still being used today. But of course, it also depends on the writer rather than just the theory alone.

The three-act theory was constantly reformulated as the time went on, especially when the industry of cinema came to be, and it ended in a quote which will help us to build everything and the most important of this seminar.

Do not forget it.

Someone wants something with intensity and finds obstacles to get it.

This quote alone resumes the core of a story and its respective elements that facilitates story planning for both plotters and pantsers. To have a better understanding of the key sentence of this seminar, it could be explained like the following:

A protagonist is someone who does things to achieve his goal for a reason; the conflict is when we face two options: a bad one and a worst one. And finally, once the conflict is overcomed and a solution is found, it must be put on practice and achieve the goal, leading to the conclusion of the story.

As I established previously, there are other methods to plan a story but this is one of the most basic and known ways to do so, and thus, you are not obliged to strictly follow a certain method.

"It depends on the storyteller who needs to know how to apply the knowledge they have acquired rather than just the theory itself."

The upcoming posts will explain in detail all the elements contained in the quote: the protagonist, the goal, the motivation, the conflict and the ending; the 5 basic elements in story planning.

RUN KID RUN

Title: Run Kid Run

Summary: Dutch and Hosea are trying to teach John how to read but he runs off after they got frustrated and Arthur goes deep into the woods looking for John.

Word count: 2298

Notes: mild cursing | brief scene despicting an almost hanging | feedback is appreciated!!!

Tags: @onlytherocksliveforever

Happy late Christmas and Happy new year! I’m sorry I’m so late, this took me forever; I’ve been giving it a long thought and decided to comply to your second item in your wish list!

2) i love DUMB ASS John Marston and his better looking brother Arthur; give me a slice of life with the two of them pre-canon, or a story about them helping the other thru a tough time.

I’ve decided to combine both ideas and so this story came to be.

When Arthur was twenty-three, he saw a boy—dirty, savage and with a look in his eyes that had given up on living. This boy was with a rope in his neck, ready to be hanged. Dark gray with no reflection but death itself; no tears, no regret. Dead Eyes that held onto dear life with a fierceness reflected in his fists.

Next to the boy, an unnamed man spoke words of dead wisdom and nonsense which to the eyes of Arthur was meaningless.

“We have come to see the of law enacted. We will not sit idly by as people take the law into their own hands!”

Heavy kind of bullshit that Arthur didn’t enjoy a bit.

The crowd of the town roared loudly in excitement and agreement. For them, it was only entertainment, a show that made Arthur’s gut churn with anger. He tilted his hat lower and turned around, ready to move on. However, Dutch’s hand landed on his shoulder and stopped him.

“He looks like you did, a while ago,” Dutch said with a smirk before the gun in his hip shot the rope on the boy’s neck.

“He doesn’t.”

The boy’s shine returned in a glimpse that Arthur caught with both his eyes and heart. A will to fight and survive, to get the hell out of the mess that was about to start.

“What the hell Dutch?!”

“He was not meant to. Not yet.”

A sense of relief in his chest appeared with a long deep breath. He was glad for the boy that had gotten a chance to live, what was Dutch and Hosea thinking when they brought him into camp?

Arthur got wounded in the dirty fight they had in town for freeing the boy and he was resting in his tent, with Susan on his side cleaning his injuries. When Dutch and Hosea walked in, he asked: “What took ya’ so long?” with a warm grin that quickly faded into disbelief.

The boy stood between the two men, pouting his lips, frowning and crossing his arms as means to make himself more intimidating. The way Dutch smiled, looked and treated him with his gentle gestures and Hosea had given his jacket to protect him from the chilling breeze of that night was so familiar to Arthur; he had been in that place after all. What was that boy doing in camp? Similar to himself in the past, why did they needed to bring someone as intense and dumb as him? Wasn’t one dumb enough? He wondered.

“What’s your name, kid?” Arthur asked after he noticed Dutch’s gaze on him.

The boy stood silent.

“Come on boy, tell him.” Dutch crouched to his side and whispered words to him that Arthur wasn’t able to hear.

He remained silent.

When Arthur was twenty-four, he met the boy. A month had passed from his rescue and Arthur’s birthday quickly arrived with the cold and mean air of winter. There was no snow landscape yet, the skies had become dark and gray like the boy’s eyes and the fallen leaves

“John Marston,” the boy said with a mean streak that left Arthur with a bad taste in his tongue.

“Arthur Morgan.” He extended his hand to greet but John had already abandoned and left him with the words unsaid in his lips.

Arthur sighed and placed his hands on his gun belt; he could see John’s silhouette far away, hiding somewhere where he thought no one could see him, and grinned. A part of him still refused to acknowledge John, prouder than a bull and wilder than a cougar in a midnight sky, and another part of him found itself in that boy who slept with a knife under his pillow.

“John, come here!” Dutch called the next morning.

Arthur was laying in comfortably in his bed, with his worn-out leather hat covering his eyes, thinking about what to draw in his journal. A bird? A flower? An herb? His imagination was as dull as dishwater and his brain couldn’t tell skunks from house cats. Boredom was partly guilty of the dullness, too.

“John, come on.” From his closed tent, Arthur saw how Hosea’s figure grabbed John’s arm and took him somewhere beyond the reach of their shadow. A loud growl, from the boy, echoed through the whole camp that Arthur scoff. The boy was that stubborn?

The blue-eyed man closed his journal, stood up from his bed and walked out of his tent to do the chores of the day. As he chopped wood, he could see Dutch and Hosea, with John between them, sitting together in one of the round tables near the food station with a book in hand. This was going to be fun to see, Arthur thought.

“Okay, let’s try this again,” Dutch said firmly. “Read this part here.”

“No,” John scowled.

“Why not? It’s not that hard if you try. Here. The king in his…” Hosea slowly talked

John went silent.

“Boy,” Dutch lowly growled.

Arthur swung his axe over the log and splat it in half. When he was putting the wood aside, he peeked at John. The boy had his arms crossed, frowning and giving the book in the table a deadly gaze. Did he hate reading that much? Arthur laughed to himself and got caught by Hosea who looked at him with disapproval. Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit. He tried to slowly walk away, feigning ignorance, but the older man approached quicker than he predicted and grabbed him by the shoulder.

“Arthur.” Hosea squeezed hard the shoulder blade and grinned in a way that created grimace in Arthur’s expression, “wanna’ join us? I thought I could show you the new book I got!”

Arthur grunted.

Just great. He knew Hosea’s way of scolding Arthur and thinking about it annoyed him, however, he didn’t expect to see Dutch vexed, red-faced and squeezing the book with both his hands, yelling to John.

On the other hand, Hosea was perplexed. He dragged his hands over his now tired face and sighed.

“He wasn’t this troublesome!” Dutch said to Hosea, referring obviously to Arthur.

Something in that statement made Arthur chest puff in pride. Oh boy, he really liked that. Even if he refused to acknowledge this feeling to everyone else, he liked it when Dutch or Hosea praised him.

Arthur remembered the days when Dutch and Hosea were teaching him to read. Hot summer days, mosquitoes everywhere and that smell he couldn’t forget, berries and lemon, which brought his mind ten years back, when he was a thin, small and young boy. He grinned to the loveable thought and looked at Dutch fighting with John.

“Dutch, what’re ya doin’!? Don’t ya’ grab him like that and rub his head!”

“I know he can do it, but he’s not even trying!”

Something Arthur knew is that Dutch would take as “true” whatever he assumed; and hardly took back his words—standing for what he believed, a true blessing for the wise and a curse for the ignorant. Later on, Arthur didn’t know which of those Dutch was. A true mystery until the very end.

“Dutch, calm down, you’re gonna scare ‘im…”

“But I know he can—"

“Shut up, you pair of dimwits!” Susan yelled from afar as she sewed one of Arthur’s shirt.

And before any of them could say any further word, John slammed his hands against the table and ran away into the woods that surrounded the camp.

“Get back here, boy!”

What a mess. When Arthur saw no signs of Dutch calming down or Hosea backing down, he decided to look out for the now goner.

“John! Where are ya’!?” Arthur yelled as he stomped over some broken sticks. Definitively John.

“Ya’ damn bastard, dontchu’ ever get tired?” he whispered to himself, wondering as he furrowed his brows and rushed his pace.

As he walked deeper into the woods, the stars that normally would be faded under sunlight, had come out without any shame, telling Arthur to hurry. The breeze got colder and the sky darker and even if he found clues of where he could have gone to, the boy sure knew how to keep out of sight. He was going nuts; what the hell was the kid running from?! He had nothing to run from and nowhere to go, what was he thinking?

“John!” He called once more before he heard a gasp to his side.

The moment he turned his head, he saw a terrified boy who had fallen into the ground. Unlike the first time he saw him, fierceness shone in his eyes despite of the fear that his thin body could not hide—however, that didn’t mean it wasn’t agile. He quickly got up into his feet and started running towards the glowing moon.

“Oh no, you ain’t!”

He could hear John’s broken breathing and how he gasped for the air he didn’t have; it broke Arthur’s heart.

“Watchu’ running from, kid?!”

Arthur got closer with every step he took and grabbed without any restrains John’s wrist to stop him, quite brusque for his liking but there was nothing he could do. Those iron eyes gazed at him with the loathe and anger he deserved which left a sour flavor in his mouth. John struggled to free himself from Arthur’s grip but it only got stronger.

“Lemme ask you again, kid. Watchu’ running from?”

John struggled again and Arthur grabbed his other wrist. He took a deep breathe and closed his eyes for a moment. Was it this hard for everyone else to deal with him? Being a kid in the streets wasn’t easy, it roughens you up in a way that shatters what you truly are, breaking and eventually rotting every corner in your mind. But he was no kid in the streets no more, he could finally begin living and not just survive.

“He wanted to kill me,” John replied in a quick low whisper.

Arthur raised a brow. “Dutch was shootin’ his mouth off and by now Hosea and Susan must have given ‘im a black eye for that.” He tried to sound reassuring.

“Let go!” John fought with all his strengths to free himself; Arthur tightened his grip.

“Listen to me, kid. You got nothing to run from; here you got a bed, food and people who want ya’—”

“Dead…” John interrupted.

“Let me finish! Goddamit—as I was saying. None of ‘em want ya’ to be a goner.”

“How can I trust you? They all said I was an idiot, useless. They all hate me and they’ll kill me. It’s better if I’m gone.”

“We’re family.” Arthur meant it. He had found a part of himself in the little black-haired boy that wanted to keep running; running to never look back, from all the things he didn’t deserve.

“We ain’t.”

“Listen to me you little piece of…! You became part of us the very moment Dutch cut that rope on your neck and brought you into the camp.”

“Still; that doesn’t mean I can trust you guys. You’re outlaws.”

John wasn’t buying a single bit of what Arthur was saying. Shit. At this rate he was gonna run off by himself and God knows what would happen to him.

“They took me in when I was your age.” John’s eyes widened in curiosity; “I… well, my momma died when I was real young and my daddy… let’s say I wish he did too. They taught me how to read and Hosea taught me how to draw.”

Despite of the nervousness inside him, Arthur took the journal out of his satchel and gave it to John without letting go of one of his wrists. He eagerly flipped through the pages and stopped to look at some of the drawings it contained; some of the graphite stuck into his fingers, but it didn’t stop him from eyeing with detail each illustration.

“Why didn’t ya’ read? Back then, when Dutch and Hosea asked you to.”

There was a long pregnant pause. “I did—read it, I mean. I, uh, wasn’t sure to er, say it out loud.”

“Really?” Arthur smiled from ear to ear. “See? You’re smart, John! Ya’ ain’t that bad, there’s potential.”

John blushed at Arthur’s praise and kept looking at the drawings until he reached the last one, that page that had remained blank for the whole day.

“They are family to me. Family is everything; I’d die for it.” His voice didn’t shake even once.

John closed the journal and gave Arthur a gaze full of admiration that Arthur wasn’t worthy of. He could be one nasty son-of-a-bitch, rash to anger and emotions; unfamiliar to giving inspirational speeches like Dutch would do or smooth-talking like Hosea the Conman.

“And I will…” he stuttered, “I, uh…”

“You what.”

“I won’t let them kill ya’; just in case.”

A mischievous grin appeared in John’s face. “That won’t stop me tho.”

Arthur had let his guard down. John escaped from his grip and started to run the fastest he could. Where the hell was he going to and, most importantly, where the heck had he gotten all that damn energy from?

“Cuz’ I’ll kill ya’ myself, you little piece of shit!”

“Thank you, brother” John screamed in the distance.

“You ain’t got the right to be my brother!” Yet, he wanted to say but kept it to himself.

That day, when Arthur was twenty-four, his family grew by one member. Even if mocked him every now and then and behaved like assholes, it was the most important thing to Arthur. It was everything he had—not like money or gold; those two could go straight to hell unless Dutch and Hosea gave the word.

It’s totally okay, thank you so much!!! I love it. John with pink shirt was something i didn’t know i needed until showed it to me.

Happy Saint Valentine’s day!

i'm very late, but hey, @daintykeith ! i'm your @rdr-secret-cupid ! i'm sorry that it isn't writing like you requested, but i tried my best with this! hope you enjoy it!

Hi, so I know that you are writing 'Love Gun' in a language that is not your first. Do you publish in both or just English? What drew you to focus on MacCready as a companion and how did you come up with the concept for Bluebird, your 'f!sole'?

Howdy!

I'm writing and publishing it only in English. This is because I want to familiarize with this language in a way that is not only translation— you see, a language has its quirks and things that, when it's seen from other languages' perspective it couldn't make sense. Slang and metaphors are unique according to the language and this remarks the reason why I'm writing in English.

For your second question, at first I was interested in Deacon and in fact, Love Gun was originally planned to have him as the protagonist! It fitted many of the ideas I had and some of those remain in the actual version, but I struggled to make it work. After days and days of uncertainty, I found an old picture I had on my phone about an old playthrough where MacCready was my companion. My mind exploded. Then, after I played FO4 once more and watched a lot of YT videos about companions reactions, I realized he was the one and only. Someone resilent, professional and yet kind, funny and with a lame taste in fashion was a perfect target.

And lastly, Bluebird. Oh my, she was so fun to imagine. As I said previously, this story was first planned as a Deacon x fem!ss and she was completely different to how she now is. I was inspired by this fic (which name I can't remember and God, I'm still looking for the name) where fem!SS was a foreigner, Swedish I think, and had moved to America with her husband to America. She struggled to talk with Deacon and others and the times she forgot how to say a word and her thick accent had driven me insane— in a good way ofc. I had fallen in love with that concept and wanted to play with it. MacCready was more similar to Sole Survivor than I had thought and that was essential to develop his arc in Love Gun.

Bluebird was originally planned to be a scientist! But after some research in AO3, I discarded it because it was overused! I wanted to come up with something different on its own way and after some research, the Bluebird we know came to be. However, the last thing I came up was her pseudonym. I wanted something memorable and tbh, I wanted it to be related with the word "bird" in honor to an ol' WIP of mine called "Songbird". After giving it a lot of thought with WORD opened in my laptop, the name Bluebird came up between some of the suggestions I had and fell in love with it as soon as it was written.

Thank you so much for asking, blossom! Have a nice day, take care (人*´∀｀)｡*ﾟ+

Rosemary Sinclair, another OC of mine (*´ω｀*) + version with horns because I liked it lmao - - #blackandwhite #sketchingart #portrait #practice #practiceart #NewOC #photoshop #digitalartist #dibujodigital #dibujo #retrato #práctica #blancoynegro https://www.instagram.com/p/CJ96NEZJxLr/?igshid=9vpj63hswutd

Creative Writing

Creative Writing. Creating worlds with our fingers and bringing characters to life with just our imagination.

However, creative writing it’s not a term everyone is familiarized with—so let’s see what this is about. According to the Cambridge Dictionary, the definition of Creative Writing is:

“The activity of writing stories, poetry, etc., or the stories, poems, etc. that are written.”

Now, how does creative writing differ from other types of writing?

The most remarkable difference lies in the content.

Creative writing could also be broadly defined as the pursuit of artistic ends through the written word—like fiction, non-fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction, prose poem and memoir. However, it does not include any writing that goes inside the bounds of a normal professional writing like academic, journalistic or technical forms of literature.

In other words, this is the kind of writing that explores the imagination and creativity of a writer. But creative writing is so much more than we may actually think.

The possibilities for the form that a writing and its message may take are infinite. And so can be your writing. As a creative writer, it’s important to develop your own toolbox of strategies, skills and styles that are going to define your writing and make it stand out.

However, learning to write is not formulaic, like Larry Brooks establishes in the first pages of his book Story Engineering, and so is the process of writing in general. It’s not like learning how to build a machine or how to use a specific tool like a screwdriver. There are many books that explain and help you to write a book, for example, Stephen King’s On Writing or Lisa Cron’s Story Genius, but this is a process that’s learnt through practice, success and failure.

An analogy for this process can be learning how to cook. When you learn for the first time how to cook, it could have been through three possible ways: you were taught by someone else, learnt it from a book recipe or just mixed the ingredients together in an attempt to make something from memory. Your first tries aren’t going to be the best ones (unless you’re really lucky or meticulous) and that’s something to be expected, but with practice you can make it taste fine! But then, there’s a phase when you try to make it taste different, you experiment with other ingredients and have your own homemade recipe.

Creative writing is to show emotions, to show emotions or to tell a story. Citing again the Cambridge Dictionary, a story is defined as: “a description, either true or imagined, of a connected series of events.”

But there are vast ways to define what is a story.

“Story is character. Story is conflict.Story is narrative tension. Story is thematic resonance. Story is plot.” (Larry Books, Story Engineering)

“A story is first of all a chain of events that begins at one place and ends at another “without any essential interruption.” (Randall Jarrell)

Writing is not an easy task that’s done in a day or in a few weeks. It takes dedication and effort. But it’s something everyone can do if they propose it to themselves. The reasons to write are so diverse; they go from simple enjoyment to do it for money! But it’s important to know what you are doing.

The most important things you could take into account if you are going to start creative writing are:

Motivation (or why)

Why do you want to write? For fun? To put into words the dream you had last night? Or do you want to make money with your creativity?

Of course there can be so much into motivation, but the thing lies in knowing the reason why you want to do it. Writing is a way to convey or feelings and dreams, it’s a place where we have total control on, but think it thoroughly. 

Literary Genre(s) (or what)

Do you want to write a novel, a poem, or a memoir? Romance, drama or historical fiction? 

There are so many things you could write about. This point is closely related to the previous one, and it’s important to have it clear as day, because both will motivate you to write!

Visualize yourself (imagine)

Do you see yourself writing? Sitting in front of a desk or laying in your bed with the computer? Visualizing yourself it’s part of the process; imagining yourself doing it before actually doing it. 

It’s never too early nor too late to start learning and writing! Its always up to you when or how to begin.

A/N: I hope this post helped you! Please, reblog, kudo or comment if you can! It motivates me to keep writing articles. Thank you! (❁´◡`❁)