Five Steps to Make your Story Come to Life
Have you ever tried writing something you thought sounded dramatic or powerful in your head only for it to fizzle out once you put words on the page? Maybe it’s an idea for a scene-stealing sidekick or maybe you came up with the *perfect* way to show your protagonist’s dark side.
You sit down in your writing habitat, crack your knuckles to warm up for a steady stream of words to flow . . . and then, pffffttt.
It just doesn’t sound anything like it did in your head. Where’s the drama? The heart-pounding action? The tear-jerking emotion? It’s nowhere to be found.
This blog post talks about why your story might feel bland and four steps to help you write a story that won’t lose its power when you take it from your imagination to the page.
Let’s hop to it!
Why a Story Can Feel Bland
Something gets lost in the translation from your imagination to the page. In your head, you don’t have to find the words to describe the setting or a character’s facial expressions or the action sequence of a fight. It plays out in your head like a movie trailer.
But to get all that juicy stuff on the page, you have to think about how to weave in detail, dialogue, and tension into the action sequence or exposition. There are decisions to be made about when description is best so it doesn’t slow down the story, or how to intersperse character emotion throughout a conversation, or how to unveil a surprise twist.
More often than not, you’ll need a few rounds of writing before you can get a written piece to look, sound, or feel like the visual in your head. This is good news! It means that just because you can’t get it the way you want it the first time doesn’t mean you’re a crummy writer or that your ideas are crummy.
It just means you gotta keep writing.
NARRATIVE VIEWPOINT
Let’s start with narrative viewpoint and chat a minute about that movie trailer comment I made. When we see a movie trailer for real, either on the television or in the theater, the lens we’re looking through is omniscient. We see things through the perspective of an all-knowing narrator. As though someone is outside all of the action with a camera, capturing each bit of conversation, character interaction, and action sequence.
Not only are we able to see what the protagonist and their sidekicks are up to, but we might get to see what the antagonist is up to. We could also be given a behind-the scenes glimpse of impending danger or some other kind of dramatic situation—all to heighten viewer excitement.
Most novels this day and age aren’t told with an omniscient viewpoint. They’re also not generally told through the viewpoint of the author. However, that’s what’s going on in your head when you imagine things for your story. The “lens” is held by you, and you’re watching your ideas play out on the field of your mind. In a sense, this is omniscient because you (the author) are all-knowing.
You need to shift the lens from your perspective to the perspective of one of your characters. That character won’t always see, hear, or know the exact same things that you see, hear, and know about the story. That’s part of the reason why you can’t simply duplicate those scenes in your head onto the page.
It’s possible you might see scenes through the eyes of one of your characters. That happens to me quite a bit. If this is you, too, then hurrah, you have one less step to worry about. Just make sure you’ve picked the correct character to deliver the scene, as we’ll talk about in step 1.
STEP 1: Choose your viewpoint(s)
Decide who is telling your story. You may have one viewpoint character or several. If you have multiple POV characters, then you need to decide which character will relay which scenes and/or exposition.
If you decide your story will be told from an omniscient viewpoint (all-knowing narrator), then you’ll need to make some decisions. Who is that omniscient narrator? Why are they handling the delivery of the story? Why do you think they’d be the best choice?
With each scene or image that’s playing out in your head that you want to put on the page, assign a viewpoint character.
For example, maybe you have this great idea for a bar brawl. Your protagonist is in the thick of the fight, as well as a couple of other important characters. In your head, you see everything happening, including what’s happening to all your characters.
Now, to get that scene onto the page, you have to shift the camera lens from you (the author) to a character. Who will you choose?
Couple of guidelines to follow here:
It’s not ideal to give all of your characters a viewpoint in your story. Your protagonist is a given. Any other character who gets to share their take on any situation needs to deserve such an honor. Choose wisely.
Only one viewpoint per scene is optimal. Hearing the observations and thoughts from four different characters in one scene is way too confusing.
Who has the most at stake in the scene you’re considering? Who has the most to lose or gain? That’s your strongest viewpoint character.
When you make that shift, you need to remember that the character won’t see the action the same way you did, because, well, they’re in the action. You weren’t. So you have to put yourself in that character’s shoes. What does it feel like to get punched? Is the character distracted because his best friend is also in the fight, but they just had heart surgery a few weeks ago? Does he consider cracking an empty beer bottle over his assailant’s head?
Every single detail, thought, observation, emotion has to come from your POV character. Even though you might see a second attacker coming up behind your character, he won’t—so write what happens next through your character’s perspective.
STEP 2: Find your hook
A scene playing out in your head might have its own momentum, its own rhythm. You’re personally invested because, well, it’s your ideas. How are we going to get an outsider to love your ideas, too?
The hook. What detail or question in that particular visual that’s rolling through your mind will be the most captivating and intriguing to a reader? This is your entry point when you begin to write it down.
It’s best to kick off scenes with a hook of some kind so you can reel in your reader. (I certainly don’t mean you need to set the hook in your opening sentence. But it’s got to be early, otherwise your reader will wander. Once the hook is set, you can layer in details that add to the tension, intrigue, stakes, or emotion.)
Again, in your imagination, you’ll have knowledge of a bunch of details such as background information and setting layout and character histories—which may or may not be pertinent to the scene you’re about to write. You, as the author, need to have all this information so that you can write a realistic scene, but your reader doesn’t.
Sometimes you won’t know which details matter to the reader until you’re going through the revision stage. That’s just part of the process. Write what feels good to you, knowing you’ll be swinging back to refine it.
Step 3: Start broad, then narrow down
It’s entirely possible the scene came to you fully formed, or you may have tinkered with it in your imagination to get it just right. Either way, the process of putting visuals into words is much more technical and requires a solid grasp of basic writing skills.
Work on the major storytelling elements first. Point of view, character, location, time, and conflict are the big hitters. These elements are the foundation of the passage or scene you’re writing. You’ll be adding a bunch of stuff to this foundation, so it’s got to be strong. If any one of these elements isn’t strong enough, you risk having a flat passage that doesn’t ping the reader’s curiosity or interest. Don’t rush this step—I know it’s not as sexy as writing a fight sequence or a lover’s quarrel, but if the foundation isn’t solid, the whole scene will fall apart.
Step 4. Construct + refine
Writing any passage is a multi-layered, multi-phase process. Anyone who tells you that you can write a marvelous passage in one go is conning you. I’ve got a bridge to sell you, too.
After you build the passage with the bones of the big-picture elements, you’re ready to fill it in with all the other material as needed: dialogue, character emotions, setting details, action-reaction sequences, description, tone and mood, to name a few.
You’ll have to make some decisions about length of the passage and where it might fit in the greater order of scenes and exposition. How does this scene work in your overall plot progression? You’ll also need to decide how the scene will unfold for your reader. Will it end with a cliffhanger? What’s your plan for scene transition? How much of the background information or setting layout will actually be written and how much of it is only for your own use?
If you don’t know some of this stuff right away, then just write around it and come back later.
STEP 5: Devil is in the details
Every detail you see in your mind’s eye doesn’t necessarily have to be written into a scene for your reader.
So how to figure out what belongs and what can be scrapped?
Is it important to mention your antagonist’s jeans are torn? Possibly. Every detail you put on the page should support or serve the story in some way. If the torn jeans don’t give us any insight to the character’s personality, behavior, habits, or have anything to do with the plot [a piece of denim was found at the crime scene, for example], then it’s a meaningless detail that does nothing but eat up valuable word count real estate.
Once you decide which details you’re including, the next challenge is to figure out how best to write ‘em. You can see what your characters are wearing, feel a character’s angst, smell the cigarette smoke, and hear the crowd cheer on the bar brawl. But how do you turn those images into words so your readers see, hear, smell, and feel what you do?
You want to show the broken glass on the floor and the pissed-off drunk, not tell about it. On the other hand, you want to summarize backstory or any information that slows down the action and gets in the way of emotion. This involves using robust, energetic words, carefully structured sentences, and a strategic blending of informative and descriptive writing.
Imagining a story and all its little nooks and crannies can be a heady experience. The storytelling elements come together so easily and so fluidly—a far cry from what it’s like to physically write a story. Making the transition can be tricky but not impossible. Persevere, keep that imagination on 24/7, and continually work your writing muscles. You’ll eventually learn how to write a story that comes to life on the page.