Essential to Life

Every book has things that are essential building blocks to make it work. A book about a blade of grass still has a character and a setting. Though baring any magical intervention, that blade of grass is inanimate and therefore won’t have goals and it certainly won’t get into any conflicts with the other blades of grass around it. In that case, you’d be missing some essential bits of the story.

Theme: the spirit of your story. What makes up your story? Is it the ambition to get ahead or a thirst for revenge, maybe an epic quest that tells a coming of age story? Whatever it is, think it through and make certain it’s clear in your mind. These certainly aren’t all the themes, there are many more that could be the basis of your story.

Characters: who are they? Your characters don’t have to be larger than life, but they need to face challenges that force them to step outside their comfort zone. Things that help them move toward whatever their goal is. That character needs opposition as well, someone who attempts to thwart their efforts. Even if the quest, whatever it is, is a group effort there needs to be a main character through whose eyes the readers can live the story.

Setting: where and when does your story take place? Think about your setting, from the places your characters hang out, work, live, shop, to what time period they live in. If you can’t show the readers your world then they lose out on a piece of your characters’ lives and it might make the book less interesting to them.

Conflict: your story needs some sort of conflict, but not mundane little issues. If your roommates are arguing about who takes the trash out it will get solved rather quickly. One of them will get sick of the trash piling up and take on the task. There must be some stakes in the game for the conflict to work in the story. Opposite goals that conflict continuously so a resolution can’t be quickly found. Whatever the consequences are of the conflict they must be significant. Loss of a loved one, broken dreams, shattered hearts. Even life and death or the end of the world.

Genre: The list of genres goes on and on, it’s quite extensive. If you tell yourself you aren’t writing any specific genre you’re lying to yourself. Every story fits into a genre somehow. The trick is knowing your genre. Do some research, find books and authors in that genre, and study them. There are rules for genres, you may not need to follow all of them and perhaps you can bend them a bit, but you should know them.

Outer Journey (goal): Your characters need a goal to shoot for throughout the story. What is it they want and how will they go about obtaining it?

Inner Journey: What is it your characters will have to overcome or accomplish to achieve their goals? What are the results if they can’t deal with the emotions caused by the pursuit of their goals?

Know it all: This doesn’t mean act as if you know everything there is to know, simply that you should have some expertise with the subject you’re working with. The book could be based on your own life experiences, but you can also obtain knowledge through research, or speaking with an expert.

No matter how you go about writing your book do your research. Not everything works for everyone and writers have been breaking the rules of writing for as long as those rules have existed. Not every rule should be broken, but you can certainly push the boundaries. Know your subject, your genre, your characters, your settings, write an outline if that works for you, just don’t jump into everything blindly. Think things through and know what it is you’re getting into.