Here’s a problem I come up against a lot: great atmosphere, little story.
It’s when the writing student has a great sense of character, dialogue, and setting but there’s not much happening in terms of a story. The reader reads but they are going nowhere.
How to help?
Even the smallest children understand that good stories always have a beginning, a middle, and an end. The trick is always to hook the reader from the start. Kathy Caprino, a Senior Contributor at Forbes, says,
“We don’t start a story with: “I am going to tell you a story about the summer that I found out I wasn’t as timid as I thought.” What we publish instead is: “As I hung over the cliff, clinging to the exposed root of a windswept tree, I realized that I was braver than I thought...”
Another important point is…what’s the point? Why is the student telling this story in the first place? What is it that they want to get across?
Which brings me to the final issue: what’s the problem? Often, the crux of the issue is that students are displaying great skills at the big three — character, dialogue, and setting — but have not identified why they are using these skills. When they can show the ultimate problem that the protagonist is about to solve – what every Bildungsroman, or hero’s journey is about – they have a real story.
For more on storytelling and how to engage readers: