Writers in the Storm

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

The best stories are the ones that come alive in a reader's imagination. They pull the reader into the story world and sweep them away in the struggles and dreams of the characters. For us writers, envisioning our stories is the easy part, and the trick is getting what's in our heads onto the page. When we don't, we get a story that falls flat and dies—and who wants that?

One of the best ways to bring our tales to life is to show them, not tell them. Sadly, this is also one of the hardest things for new writers (and some experienced writers), to do. "Showing" is a moving target that varies by which point of view you use, the narrative distance, and even the genre. What works for a first-person literary journey might not work for a multiple third-person thriller.

Luckily, there are techniques that help you better show your scenes no matter what perspective or genre you write in.

1. Create a Strong Point of View

Point of view (POV) is the silver bullet of writing. If you master this, 95% of the common writing problems a writer faces will vanish. A solid point of view puts you (and your readers) firmly in a character's head, seeing the world through their eyes, and experiencing that world as they would naturally experience it.

This lets you to decide which details to use when describing, what actions the character would take, and what they'd think about as they struggle to solve their goals. Seeing the story through a character's eyes means you'll write it as that character sees it, not as you see it. It helps keep you from pulling away and describing (telling) the scene from afar.

For example, a solid point of view changes a detached, flat sentence into something alive and shown:

Weak POV: Sara was so upset that John forgot their anniversary that she threw a vase at him.

Strong POV: Sara heaved the vase at John's head. "Does twelve years mean nothing to you?"

The weak POV explains the situation—it tells what Sara did (throw the vase) and why she did it (she was upset). The strong POV shows how someone in this situation would act—it shows what Sara did (she threw the vase and voiced her unhappiness) and lets readers figure out how she feels by watching her actions.

Writing the scene from inside a character's head allows readers to watch the situation and guess why the characters are acting and how they feel about it all. It makes them part of the story, not a spectator on the sidelines getting a detailed play by play of the action.

Look at your current story—what point of view are you using? Do you have one POV character per scene? Do you show the scene through their eyes? Are you describing things that the POV character wouldn't know or be able to see (common in weak or unfocused POVs)?

Try picking a POV style you're comfortable with and writing the story with that POV. For new writers, it's much easier to pick one or two characters and write from their POVs only. Trying to show the entire story from multiple characters or an omnificent narrator is difficult to do until you get the hang of it.

If you're not sure which POV style you prefer, try writing a scene from both a third person and a first person perspective. Odds are one will feel more natural for you, and for the story itself.

2. Control Your Narrative Distance

Narrative distance is how close readers feel to the story. A close narrative distance makes them feel inside the narrator's head (such as in first person), while a far narrative distance makes them feel as though they're standing off to the side watching (such as in omniscient third person). A closer narrative distance feels more immediate and intimate, as though the story is happening in the moment as the reader reads it. The farther the narrative distance, the more detached and impersonal the story feels.

Where you put your narrator determines how close readers feel to your story. If you're inside the head of a character seeing the world through their eyes, readers will feel a part of the narrative. If you're explaining the story from a distance, readers will be kept at a distance and not connect to the characters the same way.

For example:

Far narrative distance: It's over, Bob thought, realizing she'd never forgive him for hurting her.

Close narrative distance: He sank to the floor, numb. It's over. She'll never forgive me for this.

Narrative distance is closely linked to point of view, as you can see by these examples. The farther the narrative distance, the more detached the point of view feels. The closer the distance, the more personal the POV. The two work in tandem to dramatize (show) the story.

Look at your current story—what narrative distance are you using?

Does it feel like the characters are living the story, or more like someone outside the story explaining what's going on? Does it jump around from close to far depending on what's happening?

Try revising for consistency. Pick a narrative distance you're comfortable with and keep everything in the story at that distance. Some red flag words that often mean you're telling more than showing include: realized, knew, decided, because, and felt. If you see a lot of these words in areas that also feel a little distant, odds are you're telling from a far narrative distance.

If you're not sure what narrative distance you prefer, try writing a scene from both a close and a far distance and see which one reads better, and which is easier for you to write. But remember—the goal isn't to tell readers everything and explain the scene, it's to show them enough details so they can figure out the what and why by observation.

3. Show What the Characters Do, Not What They Intend to Do

Once you have a solid understanding of point of view and narrative distance, you'll be able to show what the characters do and bring the story to life. Stories are about interesting people solving interesting problems in interesting ways. So, show what they do, not what they plan to do.

One of the most common "tells" is to explain motive. My favorite example is simple, yet something writers write every single day:

She reached over to pick up the cup.

Here, we see the action (she reached over) but then the reason why is explained (to pick up the cup). We never actually see her pick it up, because the action isn't described—just the intent to do it. To turn this from told to shown, we'd change one word:

She reached over and picked up the cup.

Now we see the action and can guess that she reached over to pick up the cup, because we see her reach and then pick up the cup.

While this is a small tell (and writers do it all the time), it's a great example of how easy it is to explain motive and not actually show the action in the scene. Some common red flag words for explaining motive include: to [verb], when, decided, because, in order to, and tried.

Not only will showing the action make scenes feel more immediate and alive, they'll keep readers invested in what's going on, because they won't be told everything ahead of time.

For example, if your character thinks, "All I need to do is sneak past the guards and slip out that window and I'll be able to escape," and then you show him sneaking across the room, you lose all the tension. Readers already know the goal (to get to the window and escape) and they assume it'll happen, because you just told them it would. There's no suspense and no reason to keep reading.

But if you just have the character start sneaking and working his way across the room while guards patrol mere feet away and readers aren't told why...then readers will wonder what he's up to and why he's risking getting caught. They'll keep reading to find out. Tension stays high and there's something they want to know—does he escape and how.

Look at your current story—how often are your characters thinking about what they plan to do instead of actually doing it?

Are they "deciding" to act? "Trying" to act? Moving to "do something" but are never shown physically doing it? Revising these simple explanations turn a flat scene with nothing happening into a scene with lots of action.

And don't forget—"action" doesn't mean the life-or-death explosion-heavy scenes from a summer blockbuster movie. Action is just characters physically doing something. If they're interacting with the external world then they're acting, and that keeps the story moving. If they're thinking and describing what they plan to do, they're internal and not doing anything at all.

Try reworking any scenes that feel too internal with the characters thinking and musing instead of acting. Look for ways to dramatize those plans

Showing and not telling is all about making it real for readers. Half the fun of reading is figuring out what's going on and why the characters are behaving as they do. The more we explain those reasons, the less reason readers have to read our stories. But when we show characters acting in intriguing ways and readers have to work to figure out why—they can't stop turning the pages.

For more on showing and not telling, check out my book, Understanding Show, Don't Tell (And Really Getting it), and learn what show, don't tell means, how to spot told prose in your writing, and why common advice on how to fix it doesn't always work.

What do you struggle with in your writing? What's keeping your scenes from coming alive?

About Janice

Janice Hardy is the award-winning author of the teen fantasy trilogy The Healing Wars, including The Shifter, Blue Fire, and Darkfall from Balzer+Bray/Harper Collins. She also writes the Grace Harper urban fantasy series for adults under the name, J.T. Hardy. When she's not writing fiction, she runs the popular writing site Fiction University, and has written multiple books on writing, including Understanding Show, Don't Tell (And Really Getting It), Plotting Your Novel: Ideas and Structure, and the Revising Your Novel: First Draft to Finished Draft series. Sign up for her newsletter and receive 25 ways to Strengthen Your Writing Right Now free.

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by Stefan Emunds

This is the fourth article of the article series The Yin and Yang Relationship Between Psychology and Storytelling. The first article covers reader investment and reader engagement. The second article explains how to create story experiences that feel real to life. The third article shows how to tap your readers' subconsciousness and engage them in your story.

This article dives into characters’ goals, motivations, wants, needs, and objects of desires. It also touches on the difference between sympathy and empathy and why that matters for storytelling.

Why Do Writers Need to Know Psychology?

Writers need to know psychology for four main reasons:

• Know how readers think and feel and use that knowledge to engage them.
• Understand the psychology of experiencing so they can create story experiences that have a real-to-life feel.
• Design characters with plausible traits, flaws, talents, motivations, etc.
• Know themselves — why they write, what they really want to write about, and how to get out of their own way.

The Eight Crafts of Writing

This article is written with the eight writing crafts in mind. The eight writing crafts are:

• Big Idea (aka theme)
• Genre
• Narrative
• Story Outline (aka plotting)
• Characterization
• World Building
• Scene Structure
• Prose (aka line-by-line writing)

Note: To avoid confusing readers, the author of these articles avoided the alternation of she and her and he and him. Instead, he uses the nonexclusive she and her to mean writer and reader.

Objects of Desire, Goals, Motivations, and Needs

Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water. — Kurt Vonnegut

I like Kurt’s advises on writing. They are simple and witty and go a long way. But if it comes to wants it’s a bit more complicated than that. Wants don’t exist in a vacuum. Characters also have needs, motivations, goals, and objects of desire.

Let’s have a look at what the difference between motivations, needs, goals, and objects of desire are and how they move stories forward.

Motivations

Motivations can be emotional, for example, a fear-flight response. Fear is the emotion and flight the motivation. Motivations can also be feely, like the motivation to find someone to love. If you want to know the difference between emotions and feelings, read this article.

You need to give your protagonist and antagonist strong motivations. If the protagonist just wants to get back onto her couch, she won’t embark on a life or sanity-threatening adventure. Strong motivations are love, hate, revenge, and the motivation to win and succeed.

The antagonist needs to have even stronger motivations because you need her to be mean and break rules.

Wounds

I’m sure you have heard this already: your protagonist needs a wound. Wounds boost empathy and empathy is the main story engager.

The protagonist’s wound gives rise to her motivation. Imagine a woman who was bullied by her mother as a child and suffers from an inferiority complex. The inferiority complex turned her into an approval seeker. Seeking approval is the motivation.

Objects of Desire

Desires give form to motivations. Hunger prompts the motivation to find food, which turns into the desire to buy a pizza or steal an apple. Looking for someone to love is a motivation, wanting a husband or a child is a desire.

Mind the difference between emotional and feely desires. Emotions want to eat pizza, but feelings want to have dinner at an Italian restaurant. Emotions want sex, feelings want a honeymoon.

It needs to be clear what characters want, because readers need to understand what drives the story. That’s where objects of desires come in.

Motivations are abstract and can’t trigger readers’ imaginations. The show, don’t tell rule applies: Don’t tell readers that a character is greedy, show how she is hoarding cash in the basement (cash is the object of desire).

Objects of desire move your story forward, but they may run out of steam after a chapter or two. To move your story from the inciting incident all the way to the climax, you need something more persistent. 

Goals

Most of our desires come and go, and we have little control over them. Goals are different. We pursue goals consciously and with intent.

Goals involve decision-making and planning. And we sacrifice for goals. To win a gold medal is a goal. Or to become an accomplished singer. Or to become the president of the United States.

The protagonist pursues the story goal from the inciting incident to the climax. On the way, she needs to overcome all kinds of adversity. To do that she needs an undying motivation and a clear goal.

Needs

Needs can be physical or mental, like the need to survive or the need to overcome a flaw.

Needs are usually subconscious. The needs of your story characters belong to your story’s subtext.

If you want to make your story characters more interesting, oppose their motivations with their needs.

Remember the woman who was bullied as a child? Let’s give her a name: Laura. Laura needs to become confident. But she ignores that need. Instead, she wants to make a career. She believes that this will allow her to gain her mother’s respect. And everybody else’s.

Laura’s Motivation, Objects of Desire, Goals, and Need

In real life, motivations, objects of desire, goals, and needs belong to people. But in stories, they should serve Story Outline and Genre. Let’s see how this plays out in Laura’s case.

As mentioned, Laura suffers from an inferiority complex. In this context, Laura’s mother is the antagonist.

Laura's Needs

Laura needs to get rid of her inferiority complex. She should do that by going to therapy and developing self-confidence.

Instead, Laura wants to enforce her mother’s respect by becoming a successful television writer. This is Laura’s original goal before the inciting incident. Turns out, Laura’s mother doesn’t think highly of television writers. Laura is frustrated.

One day, a TV host quits her job without warning. Laura replaces the TV host for one show. She does a good job, and the producer offers her the vacant position. This is the inciting incident.

Laura's Goals

Laura reacts to the inciting incident by formulating the story goal: to become a celebrity TV host. Her mother admires TV hosts, and Laura believes that now she has a real shot at her mother’s approval.

In this case, the inciting incident tempts Laura to go on an adventure. Protagonistic forces dominate and the overall mood is excitement. If antagonistic forces dominated, the inciting incident would disrupt Laura’s life. For instance, she could have lost her job and the story goal would be to find a new one.

Advanced Writer Tip: The protagonist’s motivation and story goal need to be on par. Weak motivations make stories melodramatic. If characters are over-motivated, the story becomes comical. It would be comical if Laura tried to overcome her inferiority complex by becoming a successful babysitter. And it would be melodramatic if Laura got an inferiority complex because she was bullied just once by a stranger.

Her heart set on the story goal, Laura climbs the hierarchy of the TV network and squashes collegial intrigues. But she hits a roadblock on the road to fame. The producer defies her illustrious TV host jobs because she lacks charisma. Her inferiority complex smothers her confidence, which smothers her charisma.

Laura's Goal at Midpoint

At the story’s midpoint, Laura retreats and faces her inner demon. She realizes that she needs to develop genuine self-confidence. Confidence is the key ability.

The story’s midpoint is an auspicious moment for revealing the protagonist’s wound. It makes the midpoint scene memorable and boosts empathy, which is the root story engager. You can read about all nine story engagers here. 

After acquiring the key ability, Laura modifies the story goal. She wants to confront her mother about the childhood bullying and tell her about her success as a TV host.

Laura visits her mother and demands her respect, but her mother just laughs at Laura and lists all of her failures and flaws. Laura realizes that her mother has never loved her and will never respect her, even if she would become a celebrity TV host. This throws Laura into an emotional pit of despair — the all-is-lost moment. Laura considers dropping out.

Laura's Goal at All-is-lost moment:

The all-is-lost moment is a dramatic device. For purely dramatic reasons, the protagonist should fail to vanquish the antagonist with the key ability and experience an all-is-lost moment. This serves as a contrast to the climax. After the all-is-lost moment, the protagonist should take on the antagonist in the climax against all odds.

Laura realizes that her mother has an even deeper inferiority complex than herself and made up for that by bullying Laura as a child. Laura rebounds. She goes through an internal transformation and gains genuine self-confidence.

The climax: She visits her mother a second time, cuts her down to size, drives to work, stomps into the producer’s office, and demands a prime-time TV host job with a charismatic speech.

Here is a picture of Laura’s motivations, objects of desire, goals, and needs:

Laura changed her goal three times. She abandoned her original goal for the story goal and adapted the story goal twice: after the midpoint and after the all-is-lost moment. This does not introduce inconsistency. We can reach a mountain top by taking the road, by climbing or by flying a helicopter.

On a side note, if a story goal is too lofty, you can break down the story goal into sub-goals. The sub-goals become scene and act goals.

A Word on the Antagonist’s Motivation, Objects of Desire, Goal, and Need

Ideally, the protagonist and antagonist mirror each other and offer complimentary answers to the story’s big idea or theme.

The protagonist’s and the antagonist’s motivations can be the same, e.g. to find someone to love. They can even have the same story goal, like seducing the same man.

The protagonist and antagonist may even have identical needs, e.g. to love unconditionally. While the protagonist will look inside and learn how to love unconditionally, the antagonist will look for other means to secure her love interest.

The protagonist and antagonist differ in the means they use. For the antagonist, the end justifies the means, the protagonist has principles. Protagonists arc, antagonists refuse to arc and take the easy way. The protagonist tells a prescriptive tale, the antagonist tells a cautionary tale.

Characterization

Once you decided on your character’s motivations, desires, goals, and needs, you still need to make them believable. You do that with Characterization. For Characterization you need to know psychology too. The next article of this series will dive into that.

I hope you enjoyed this article, and it helped you to fine-tune your protagonist’s motivations, objects of desire, goals, and needs.

Why don’t you share the motivation, object of desire, goal, and need of your WIP’s protagonist in the comments?

About Stefan

Stefan Emunds is the author of The Eight Crafts of Writing. He writes inspirational non-fiction and visionary fiction stories and runs an online inspiration and enlightenment workshop. Stefan was born in Germany and enjoyed two years backpacking in Australia, New Zealand, and South-East Asia in his early twenties. Prior to becoming a writer, he worked as a business development manager in Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. At the moment, he lives with his son in the Philippines.

by Sandy Vaile

Too often I see authors enthusiastically start writing a novel, only to run out of steam part way through. In fact, only 30% of people who start writing a novel will actually finish it. It’s heartbreaking when a fantastic concept languishes in the bottom drawer forever.

Why does this happen?

You could be writing a shiny, exciting idea that doesn’t have the substance to support an entire book. A lot of this hinges on the main character (and it doesn’t matter if you prefer to plot or discover your way into a story).

A story’s rock-solid foundation comes from knowing who the main character is and what their journey through the story looks like, especially their motivations and “why” everything happens, which provides readers with a deeper understanding of the story as a whole.

This clarity is what turns your awesome idea into something tangible and purposeful.

Today, I want to explore the very inception of a story and how we can shape those initial ideas into a tale we are passionate to tell.

Why Writing a “Shiny Idea” Can Lead to Disappointment  

Any author who has ever attempted to write a novel knows it’s no easy feat to get to “the end.” It’s even harder to shape those words into a compelling read.

When we jump into writing with nothing more than a brilliant idea, it can result in:

• Characters that aren’t well developed
• Fragmented situations that lead you down dead-end rabbit holes and
• Surface level conflict that doesn’t really disrupt the plot

The good news is, by following a few key steps, you can ensure your story has a solid foundation that will drive it through purposeful scenes, all the way to a satisfying conclusion.

There are a few things we need in order to go from an idea to a solid outline (or first draft): 

• Explore potential directions to take an idea.
• Give the idea wings by focusing all of those great ideas in one direction. 
• Build a structure durable enough to support an entire novel.  

The Inception of an “Idea”

The first kernel of an idea can come in many forms:

• An observation about society of a situation
• Current events that pique your curiosity
• A fascinating character who is keeping you awake at night
• A question you want answered
• A clever conflict or twist that intrigues you 
• An unforgettable personal experience
• Mythology, fairy tales or urban legends you’ve heard about
• Inspiring dreams
• Recurring themes in your life or
• An injustice you want to see resolved

To turn the potential of any of those kernels of ideas into a brilliant story, there are a few key aspects that create a solid structure from which to build the whole story around.

4 Must-Haves for a Successful Story

Figuring out the core elements below at some stage, could make it a stronger manuscript, and hopefully prevent a big messy pile of I don’t know what the heck they should do next. 😊

• A compelling main character who wants/needs something desperately enough to fight through thick and thin to get it.
• Something that makes the concept distinctive from all the other stories like it (and there will be many).
• Conflicts that will make the character’s journey difficult (both external and internal struggles).
• A central purpose to provide direction and purpose to every scene. (For a deeper exploration of what a story’s central purpose is, see Write a Better Fiction Story by Finding its Beating Heart.)

A story that lacks these basic elements may be difficult to sustain and less likely to keep readers engaged.

Example

My first book, “Inheriting Fear” started with this vague idea and story question:

• A woman has to figure out who wants to kill her and why.
• What if a woman who didn’t trust police was forced to work with a cop to save herself and people she cares for?

Ways to Turn an “Idea” Into a Compelling Story  

When we are caught up in the exhilaration of creation and opportunity, it buzzes about our imagination like the butterfly-inducing thrill of a first kiss. While jumping straight into writing the story is exciting, it can lead to a burst of activity followed by collapsing into a pile of Where do I go next?

Giving some thought to the main character’s journey and what is driving them, is a great way to transform a vague idea and into a tangible concept. There are countless directions their journey could take, but knowing what’s important to the story makes it so much easier to focus on the ones that both excite you and align with the story’s central purpose.

Now is the time to take a breath and savor the thrill of creation.

Exercise

Remember, during the early stages of a creative project (before writing and after the first draft), we are just throwing ideas at the wall and seeing which ones stick. As we write and edit, we can choose the ones that align best.

Jot down all the ideas that come to mind in relation to the kernel of an idea.

Here are some prompts to guide you. (I’m a huge fan of “What if?” questions when brainstorming.)

• Who are the main characters and what do each of them want?
• Why are they driven to want this goal?
• What internal belief/wound would make getting that goal difficult?
• What kinds of past events could show how the characters developed their internal belief/wound?
• What characteristics (positive and negative) do the main characters have?
• What situations could you put them in to organically show those characteristics?
• What things (events, situations, people) would make it difficult for them to reach their goal?
• How will these events support the underlying themes surrounding the story concept?
• Where might the story take place?

All of these things will help you gauge the potential of a story idea, by making sure it has the substance to become a fully-fledged book.

Give Your Story Idea Wings

After doing all of that groundwork, you should have a better feel for who your main character is, what they want, and why they want it. This is what provides a stable base to build a story on.

Check that your story premise aligns with that character’s journey and if not, tweak it.

Example

Building on the previous example of a vague idea, this is the story premise that came from it: 

• A reclusive motorbike-riding chef is stalked by an enemy from her past and forced to rely on a cocky detective to avoid becoming the next victim.

Now it’s time to give that “shiny idea” a chance to succeed by focusing all of the stuff from the brainstorming exercise in a single direction. The direct of the main character’s journey: from where they start to the goal they seek at the end.

Sort through all of your ideas and determine if they are aligned with the story premise and the main character’s goal. Any that aren’t aligned, don’t resonate with you or you simply don’t like, put aside. 

This should leave you with heaps of potential for when you outline or start writing.

Remember to...

...take your time and be patient when coming up with possibilities that fit with your vision for the story. You may even find its direction has nothing to do with the initial kernel of an idea, but this doesn’t matter because it will have morphed into a solid concept you can wrap your mind around and see endless possibilities for. 

You can be sure you have transformed a shiny idea into a solid story concept when you know who the main character is, what they want, and why they want it. The specifics of what’s going to make their journey difficult can evolve as you write, but those key details will keep the narrative on track.

Happy writing. 😊

What are your go-to tricks for turning your shiny ideas into solid story concepts? Are you a plotter or a pantser? What exercises or habits help you when you get stuck? Please share with us down in the comments!

Note: If you are stuck in a rut of writing novels you never finish, never submit or aren’t sure how to fix, then it’s your lucky day. I’m offering WITS readers a FREE masterclass, which reveals the real reasons few aspiring authors finish their novels (and how to avoid them).

Grab the Quit Procrastinating and Write a Publishable Novel masterclass here.

About  Sandy

Sandy Vaile is a motorbike-riding daredevil who isn’t content with a story unless there’s a courageous heroine and a dead body. She is an internationally published author, writing romantic-suspense for Simon & Schuster US, and experienced fiction coach, supporting aspiring authors to write novels they are proud to share with the world (and which get noticed by agents, publishers and readers), through coaching, courses and developmental editing.

Having a writing coach is like having an industry expert in your back pocket, to hold your hand through the writing process and act as a voice of reason when you’re standing on a ledge. Sandy’s exclusive Active Storytelling Method helps authors find the hidden gems in their manuscripts and make them shine.

Connect with Sandy Vaile on her website or social media.