Fundamentals of Storytelling for Films, Novels and Stage: Step By Step Guide on How To Write an Amazing Story

By Justin Whiting

Become a better writer and storyteller!

 

This guide will teach you the tricks that every screenwriter, playwright and novelist uses! Must have companion guide for every creative writer.

 

Great films, novels and plays all have one main thing in common - the fundamentals of storytelling.

 

Utilize the essential storytelling elements to create exciting, memorable and well written stories

 

This book will give you an in-depth guide into each of the essential elements and teach you how to use them. You will create a unique premise with intricate themes inside an original setting. Your characters will be fully developed and they will face exciting conflicts and antagonists. The traditional Three Act Structure will drive your story to an amazing climax. This book will also help you edit your stories and cultivate your own captivating author's voice. The step by step techniques will guide you from idea creation to completion!

 

Learn with examples from some of the best stories ever told!

 

In this book you will find hundreds of examples of modern films, stories and plays to help you fully understand the storytelling concepts and implement them into your stories. Each section has a variety of examples in case you aren't familiar with one.

 

The journey to a complete story is not always easy, but with the step by step approach in this book and your own creativity, you will be set up for success.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Justin Whiting
• Release date: Jun 16, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393387596

Book preview

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction      1

STARTING OFF     3

Concept

Premise

Theme

CHARACTERS     8

Character Arc

The Arc’s Purpose

Facing Risks, Gaining Qualities

Protagonist

Antagonist

Hero/Villain Combination

Antihero

Anti-villain

CONFLICT      26

Internal Conflict

External Conflict

Conflict Doesn't Have To Be Complicated

SETTING      32

Limiting The Scope

Building Before Writing

How To Write Your Setting

STORY STRUCTURE    38

Act 1

Set Up/Introduction

Inciting Incident

Lock In

Act 2

Rising Action

Midpoint

Plot Point 2

Act 3

Pre-Climax

Climax

Denouement

Subplots

WRITING     54

Finding Your Voice

Elements of Your Voice

Point Of View

Show, Don't Tell

Pacing

Traps To Avoid

Foreshadowing

EDITING     66

Peer Feedback

Editing Process

Last Steps

FINAL THOUGHTS    70   

INTRODUCTION

Great films, novels and plays all have one main thing in common - the fundamentals of storytelling. Whether it is a centuries-old classic novel, or a blockbuster movie playing at the local cineplex, they follow the same structure and use the same story elements. This book will give you an in-depth guide into each of the elements and teach you how to use them. Once you have the individual elements mastered, you will learn how to structure your story in a traditional story structure.

Completing a novel, screenplay or play is an arduous task and it can be overwhelming. Many writers struggle and often fail. This does not mean the author is a bad writer or the story isn’t good enough. This means that the story is lacking a proper structure and planning.

Have you ever found yourself struggling with figuring out what your character should do next, or not knowing how your character should react? Have you ever written pages and pages that don’t progress your plot or develop your characters? If so then most probably you were lacking structure for your story.

New writers often come up with the basic idea of a story and want to start writing immediately. Maybe they came up with an idea where a team of thieves join together to steal a famous painting. They get excited about a few fun moments and decide to start writing, but they quickly run into trouble. They don’t have all the elements to create a full story, and often these writers never make it past a few pages. These are the same writers that find phrases like structure, form, and plot a waste of time. Building a structure before you start writing will give you a path to follow and will help you along every step of the writer’s journey.

Understanding and using structural patterns when creating your story liberates you from falling into poor writing traps and keep you and your characters on track. Moreover, when you start to structure your story, you also can see more clearly what is the best way to tell it and how to transform it into a compelling and exciting story that will entertain your audience and keep them turning the pages.

Besides structure, you also need dynamic characters, a unique setting, and a captivating voice to tell your story. All of those things are equally important when looking for success. Characters are the very soul of your story, and they need to feel as real as possible inside a setting that challenges them to move forward and create the story you want. The voice you use to tell your story is the one that is going to define how all those activities will be perceived by your audience.

It might seem a little tricky, but don’t worry. By the end of this book, you will have mastered the fundamentals of storytelling and will be able to put them into action to keep your audience on the edge of their seat. Along the way, you will establish the purpose of your story as well as find your voice as a writer.

The journey to a complete story is not always easy, but with the fundamentals from this book, you will be set up for success.

STARTING OFF

Every story starts with a basic idea and grows from there, like a tree starting with a seed. This section will go through the initial steps to create your story; the concept, the premise and the theme.

Concept

Before you start writing, you need to have an idea of what you are going to write about. First thing you need to come up with the concept for your story. This is the basic idea of what will happen. For example, the concept of Titanic is a story of two people falling in love on the ship. Summarize whatever ideas you have in one quick blurb, and write that down.

Before you start getting into any details of your story, it is important to think about your genre and your audience. Who are you writing the story for? If you are writing a book for children, then you have to think about what they expect and what they will understand. It is the same for picking your genre, if you are writing a romantic story then there are certain expectations from an audience of a romance story. If your genre is not what you often read and your audience is a different demographic than you, try reading a few of the best selling books in that genre to get a feel for what is expected.

Now it is time to think a little deeper about the story you want to tell.

Premise

The premise is what makes takes your basic story idea and makes it unique. This is the twist that you will add to the story to make it unique. There are a million love stories, so what is it that makes the love story in Titanic different? The concept of Titanic is a basic love story, but the premise is how a poor man and a rich woman can meet and defy societal constraints to find love.

Normally you start with a very basic premise and then you develop it more and more, and eventually, this becomes the backbone of your story.

For example, the concept of Lord of the Rings is a Hobbit trying to destroy a ring. The premise involves the protagonist (Frodo), antagonist (Sauron), back story and specifics about the protagonist and

Reviews for Fundamentals of Storytelling for Films, Novels and Stage

[Jason Smith · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Great for screenwriters! Helped me develop characters and structure my plot.