I am a person who can't tell stories. Yesterday, a little thing made me pay attention to the ability of telling stories. I have a group named Gossip Queen, and several friends are twittering all kinds of information in it every day. Last night, my friend A said in the group, "I am stuck ..." Hahaha, we laughed and started to make suggestions.
It turns out that A has no material and needs a wonderful online taxi driver. We have contributed wonderful taxi experiences, but A is not satisfied.
at this moment, b sent a paragraph of text, and when we saw it, it was absolutely amazing! A thanked him with his fist and went to work.
B described her taxi experience like this:
After reading B's taxi experience, I lamented, "Isn't this just a word?" If it were me, it would be "I met a novice driver in a taxi, and he didn't even know the traffic lights." But when I talk about it like this, it's really plain!
You tell the same story the same way, and he tells the same thing. Whether it is good or not is very learned.
Writing a story is the same as telling a story. If you tell it, you can write it. Those stories that won a full house, hundreds of thousands of stories that sucked powder, are partly due to the wonderful stories themselves, but the author's brushwork is more important.
This is because no matter how wonderful the story is, it will be meaningless if it is told in a bland way, and it needs the author's careful and ingenious processing. How to process it? This is inseparable from the skill of writing stories.
Paula emmanuel mounier, an American writer, wrote a book, How to Write the Story of Arresting People, to talk about the skills of writing stories. You may not have heard of Paula emmanuel mounier, but if you have read this book, you can be sure that he is a good storyteller, because How to Write the Story of Arresting People not only tells you all the skills of writing stories, but also involves many unwritten rules of the publishing industry. If we can master a few skills and apply them skillfully, our story will shine immediately.
Paula emmanuel mounier is a famous American writer and journalist. She has worked in Gannett, Disney, F&; M and other media giants, and later worked as a senior literary agent and content planner. He said that a good story should be able to be read in one breath and be willing to watch it all night, making people afraid of the arrival of the last page and looking forward to the next one. It really hit the nail on the head.
If writing a story is likened to cooking, a best-selling novel is a delicious food, and How to Write a Story of Arresting People reveals the techniques and secrets of gourmet cooking.
This book is divided into three parts. The first part tells us how to design the theme, characters and scenes, just like the ingredients of food, how to choose and how to match them better. The second part is about the design of story outline and writing context, explaining the usage of three-act structure and other common story structures in detail; This part is equivalent to kitchen utensils and tableware for cooking delicious food; The third part is how to write the story in a string, so that the author can start waving a shovel and dancing spoon like a chef.
There is another hidden line in How to Write the Story of Arresting People, which is to instruct novice Xiaobai how to write a good story. From the beginning to conceive the theme, plot, scene and characters, to design the story in the middle, and finally to write it slowly, how to do each step, how to make the story brilliant, what to do if it can't be written, and how to deal with it better are all clearly stated.
For example, in the three-act structure, Paula emmanuel mounier thinks that for beginners, 61 scenes in a story are better. These 61 scenes should be distributed in the three-act structure at 15+31+15, that is, 15 scenes are used to pave the way for the beginning of the story, 31 scenes tell the best part of the story and 15 scenes end.
if the space is long, it should be increased in equal proportion, and the number of scenes in three acts should basically be kept at 1:2:1, otherwise it is easy to make the mistake of weak beginning or hasty ending.
learning something is easy at first sight, but useless once it is done. There are so many skills in How to Write the Story of Arresting People from beginning to end that it is not easy to skillfully apply them overnight, but there are many skills that can be used in writing long stories and short stories, such as the following three tips: X meets Y, there is a trouble, and use the problem skillfully.
when x meets y, it means that two completely unfamiliar subjects meet, such as people, problems, environment and so on, to see what kind of sparks they can collide with. This design is very creative and attractive.
The well-known The Avengers is actually to let different Marvel Comics protagonists meet, that is, the upgraded version of X meets Y; For example, the core design of the first phase of CCTV's hit variety "China in Classics" is that a modern scholar meets an ancient scholar Fu Sheng and helps Fu Sheng to come to the modern era, which is very penetrating in time and space.
We can use the technique of X meeting Y when we conceive the theme of the story. For example, Napoleon met Sun Bin. Napoleon was a military genius and a failed hero. If our Sun Bin could be Napoleon's teacher, what wonderful story would happen that shocked Europe?
In addition to conceiving the theme of the story, we can also use this technique when writing a paragraph, which will leave suspense and make people wonder what will happen next.
For example, I have a short story that begins like this: An old lady lived a hard but happy life until she picked up a piece of meat by the roadside.
This is how X meets Y. The old lady meets meat. What happened next? Do you want to know? This shows the charm of this technique.
"But there is a trouble" is to set up obstacles. When we conceive a story, if the protagonist achieves his goal smoothly, it will be plain. If there are obstacles, the story is the process in which the protagonist conquers obstacles to achieve his goal. The stronger the protagonist's will, the more difficult it is to overcome the obstacles and the more exciting the story will be.
for example, imagine a novel: she wants a baby, but there is a trouble. She is not married. Is it the feeling of a hot show in minutes?
The technique of "But there is a trouble" can be used not only to conceive stories, but also to write stories. For example, a child is walking in the street. He is hungry, but she has no money to eat. Does it make people wonder what will happen next?
the skill of "but there is a trouble" is to give the theme of the story, set insurmountable and seemingly impossible obstacles for the protagonist, and make the story twists and turns.
To write a story is to constantly reveal problems, but to create problems at the same time, readers are willing to burn the midnight oil when they are attracted by the problems.
There are three types of questions used in story writing: dominant questions, big story questions and short story questions.
The question of dominance is about the big plot in the whole story. For example, in A Dream of Red Mansions, did Lin Daiyu and Jia Baoyu get together? This is one of the big problems of dominance.
The big story problem is a problem that appears in big scenes. For example, what is the situation of each level in The Journey to the West? How did the four of them get there? This is the big problem.
The problem of short stories is a problem in small scenes. For example, in The Journey to the West, every time the Monkey King walks in clouds to move reinforcements, we will think, who should we go to? Can you get it? This is a small problem.
A good story will skillfully combine the dominant questions, big questions and small questions to attract readers to keep reading.
I have to say that Paula emmanuel mounier's "How to Write the Story of Arresting People" is really good. If I were to talk about the experience of getting a car on Qiqi. com now, I wouldn't be as dull as I was at the beginning, but I would say, "I hurried to the hospital in the middle of the night. When I took a taxi, I just listened to the driver's philosophy and contracted me for a year." Isn't that wonderful?
The story is still the same story. Without skill, it will be plain. If you tell it skillfully, the story will be wonderful! Many times, it's not that our life is too boring, but that we lack a way to reinvent ordinary stories. Familiar with writing skills, we can also write good stories, make others think of good stories that they read in one breath, make others afraid of reading good stories, and make others look forward to good stories of sequels.
wujie school