{"id":2149,"date":"2019-11-19T09:00:20","date_gmt":"2019-11-19T14:00:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shanafigueroa.com\/blog\/?p=2149"},"modified":"2019-11-11T18:30:16","modified_gmt":"2019-11-11T23:30:16","slug":"breaking-down-what-a-story-actually-isand-what-it-isnt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shanafigueroa.com\/blog\/breaking-down-what-a-story-actually-isand-what-it-isnt\/","title":{"rendered":"Breaking Down What a Story Actually Is\u2026And What It Isn\u2019t"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>[This blog was originally published in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nightowlreviews.com\/v5\/Blog\/Articles\/You-ve-Got-A-Lot-Of-Words-But-Whats-The-Point-by-Shana-Figueroa\">Night Owl Reviews<\/a>]<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"aligncenter is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.shanafigueroa.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/But-youre-a-horse-672x1024.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1420\" width=\"336\" height=\"512\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.shanafigueroa.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/But-youre-a-horse-672x1024.jpg 672w, http:\/\/www.shanafigueroa.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/But-youre-a-horse-197x300.jpg 197w, http:\/\/www.shanafigueroa.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/But-youre-a-horse.jpg 688w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 336px) 100vw, 336px\" \/><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>No writing workshop is complete without a definition of a\nstory explained to the audience of aspiring authors. They come in flavors from\nsimple to complicated, though I prefer the simple ones. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>A plot is not a\nstory!<\/strong>A plot is a series of\nevents that forms an overarching narrative with a beginning, middle, and end. A\nplot is stuff that happens. A story is stuff that happens <strong>for a reason<\/strong>,which is\nprovided by the characters. At its very basic elements, a story is \u201cplot plus\ncharacters.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Here\u2019s the definition of a story I\u2019ve found most useful:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<p><strong>\u201cA story is about\nsomeone who wants something and what they\u2019re willing to go through to get it.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Let\u2019s break this down:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>\u201cA story is about someone\u2026\u201d<ul><li>A story focuses on a person or small group of\npeople whose conflict(s) provide the engine of the plot. It\u2019s not any\nparticular event that\u2019s important, it\u2019s the event\u2019s impact on the characters\nthat matters.<\/li><\/ul><\/li><li>\u201c\u2026who wants something\u2026\u201d<ul><li>In a story, characters don\u2019t drift aimlessly\nwith no goals or desires. They all want something, whether physical or\nephemeral or both, and their desire drives the story. The conflict is whatever\nis keeping them from getting what they want. The stronger the desire, the more\ncompelling the story.<\/li><\/ul><\/li><li>\u201c\u2026and what they\u2019re willing to go through to get\nit.\u201d<ul><li>Notice the phrase is \u201cwilling to go through\u201d and\nnot \u201cstuff that happens to them.\u201d They aren\u2019t just given the thing they want;\nthey have to work for it. Heroes don\u2019t want things that are easy to attain;\notherwise, it would be a pretty lame story. Nobody wants to read about a strong,\nconfident guy who desires to go out on a date with his crush, so he spends a\nfew minutes psyching himself up and asks her out, she says yes, they fall in\nlove, and live happily ever after. That obstacle (his fear) is way too easily overcome.\nBut suppose he had crippling social anxiety to the point where he couldn\u2019t\nleave his house\u2026now we\u2019re getting closer to compelling territory. Even if a\ngoal seems simple\u2014find love, get home for the holidays, join the circus\u2014it has\nto be <strong>hard<\/strong> to be compelling. Your\ncharacters have to <strong>struggle<\/strong>, which\nmeans you, as the author, need to torture them. They must walk through their\nown versions of Hell and come out the other end victorious\u2026or not, depending on\nwhat kind of story you\u2019re telling.<\/li><\/ul><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nAt the end of the day, ask yourself this: <strong>who<\/strong> is your main character, <strong>what<\/strong> does he or she want more than\nanything in the world, and <strong>why<\/strong> do\nthey want it? That\u2019s the core of your story!\n\n\n\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[This blog was originally published in Night Owl Reviews] No writing workshop is complete without a definition of a story explained to the audience of aspiring authors. They come in flavors from simple to complicated, though I prefer the simple ones. A plot is not a story!A plot is a series of events that forms &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.shanafigueroa.com\/blog\/breaking-down-what-a-story-actually-isand-what-it-isnt\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Breaking Down What a Story Actually Is\u2026And What It Isn\u2019t&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[494,497],"tags":[474],"class_list":["post-2149","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-craft","category-plot","tag-definition-of-story"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9Vyi8-yF","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shanafigueroa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2149","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shanafigueroa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shanafigueroa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shanafigueroa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shanafigueroa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2149"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.shanafigueroa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2149\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2151,"href":"http:\/\/www.shanafigueroa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2149\/revisions\/2151"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shanafigueroa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shanafigueroa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2149"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shanafigueroa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}