Now, draw out your story

We find it helpful, once you’ve identified the story and its various assets, to start to conceptualize the story and draw it out to make sure that you are hitting all the areas of the narrative arc.
Elements in your story should be:

• Introduction: Set the scene for your story. Introduce the characters and the world in which the story takes place. You may utilize the plot schema to help with this world creation.
• Inciting Event: Following the introduction something happens that leads to the rising action. Here’s where emotions and the antagonist can be helpful.
• Moment of Uncertainty: The rising action leads to the climax of the story (a moment of uncertainty). It is this moment of uncertainty, and the purposeful inclusion of it, that makes stories compelling and interesting. If we don’t know what’s going to happen, we become more engaged with the story.
• Falling Action and Resolution: Following the top of the arc, that moment of uncertainty, is the falling action. It may not be as suspenseful or intense as the rising action, but is still important to the story. It is a crucial part of the story to help resolve the story and can still contain elements of conflict or suspense. Falling action helps us more fully understand characters in the story and the choices made after the crucial moment of uncertainty and leading to the resolution. The resolution is where the story and the problems of the protagonists are solved.

PREV Is this story helpful or harmful?

NEXT Bonus: Six Stories for Everyone