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Stories may differ in message, content and characters, but each one is required to have these 16 different elements. This is the checklist that will equip you to write either a story or article - keep it for future reference.
- Every story has to have a theme. It is the thread that runs seamlessly throughout, beginning to end, developing a theme.
- And it will have a plot, which will generally be found in the middle climax, or possibly in a series of events.
- All stories have an arc. This is the gradual increase of momentum that builds and builds to the center climax, and then resolves.
- Whether a story moves fast or slow, it will have some rate of speed. Every story will have pacing.
- Whether you do it consciously or unconsciously, you will always have some sort of outlining to a story.
- The resolutions will be at the end of the story, tying up loose ends.
- If you don't hook your reader in the first or second paragraph, you won't have a reader for very long.
- Every story has a point of view; it may be first, second, third person limited or third person omniscient. The latest reports say editors are looking for third person limited.
- Stories always center around the problems that characters have, and how they resolve those problems.
- And, as you know, stories have dialog. It's tricky to write believable dialog. If you can eavesdrop, you can learn to write great dialog.
- The characters in your story will always have physical descriptions, emotional and psychological hoopla, etc.
- It would be a challenge to write a story without some degree of research. Always count on research, as every story and article will call for it to some degree.
- There will be a timeline in every tale that you weave. There is no definite timeframe except what you set in your own story - you can skip years in one sentence if you want to.
- All stories call for settings – and if you're really good at writing, but if you are really good at writing, you can call them imagery.
- And whether you like it or not, every story has verbiage. For every 2,500 words you write, you can edit out 300-500.
- Perhaps every story doesn't have Show, Don't Tell, but the ones written by advanced writers will have it. If I told you what show, don't tell is, I would only be telling and not showing since this article is too long already. I'll save that for later.
By including all of these things in your story, you know it will be complete.
