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Six Elements of Fiction

Mare Kuntz · 2003-02-22T10:15:49

Hmm. Forum too quiet... must start an interesting thread or two... Okay, there are 6 basic elements of fiction: character, character dynamic, worldbuilding, plot, theme, and register. Most writers are strong in some elements and weak in others, because people of different temperaments think about life more in terms of one or two elements and less in terms of the others. EDIT: definitions Character - A character is the author's mental simulation of a person, which the author then tries to communicate through either first-person narration (written as if the character were doing the thinking and speaking), close third narration (written as if the narrator shared all the character's biases and current mood), or description via other characters' dialogue (Ron said, "Snape's a greasy git!"). A character consists of an archetype overlaid with individuating details. Characters ought to behave consistently (well, as consistently as any human does...). Dynamic characters are those who are changed in some large way by the events of the story, and static characters are those who remain the same throughout the story. Characters are described as being either 3-dimensional or 2 dimensional (aka flat, stereotyped). Usually, main characters should be 3-dimensional and secondary characters more 2-dimensional. The upper limit of main characters in a work of fiction, no matter how epic, seems to be about 8. Character Dynamic (sunandshadow's favorite element! ) - Character dynamic is the relationship between any two or more characters. Standard dynamics include mentor-student, parent-child, lover-beloved, rival-rival, victor-defeated, master-slave, manipulator-manipulated, etc. The ones with more than two characters are like a love triangle, a hierarchy, etc. Often the dynamic between the main characters will shift throughout the story, and when it settles into an equilibrium state this signals that the story may now acceptably end. In other words, no one will complain, "Hey! Where's the rest of the story?! This doesn't feel like the end!" Worldbuilding - Your English teacher might have called this setting, but we science fiction and fantasy writers have to create whole cultures and planets, not just pick a setting on Earth. So worldbuilding is always two-pronged: cultural, and physical. Your physical worldbuilding should basically explore the question: "What if the world were different in X particular way?" e.g. What if my world were a space station? What if my world had magic? What if my world had really high gravity? Your cultural worldbuilding, on the other hand asks "What if...?" questions about psychology, sociology, and history. What if there were a high-technology society where slavery were legal? What if we could program people's minds? What if species Y had the instinct to build nests? What if suddenly there were no women? As with characters cultures should be consistent in either a static or dynamic way throughout the course of the story. Plot - A plot is a series of conceptually linked events that occur over time. TIME is the key word here - plot is where stories get their 4-th dimensional aspect from, the thing that makes them more complex than, say, a painting. Plot events may be of the following types: random physical event (e.g. an earthquake, a part breaking down in a spaceship), character reaction (e.g. he called me something unprintable so I fragged him), or character resolution to action (e.g. I vow to set foot on the Moon before I die). The vast majority of plot events in the average story, however, are character reactions - big complicated chains of character reactions, like dropping a ping-pong ball into a box of loaded mousetraps with more ping-pong balls balanced on them. One common way of describing plot is that an initial incident destabalizes an equilibrium situation, then everything fluctuates wildly until a new equilibrium situation is reached. (I really hope you've all had some chemistry classes, it makes this much easier to understand.) All plots have six stages as described in Freytag's pyramid and other similar theories. (This is described in another of my threads so I won't go into it here.) Stories that start In Medias Res may skip the first few parts or present them as backstory or flashbacks. Theme - this is a moral/ethical issue explored in a story. short stories may have only one theme, whereas novels and computer games usually have at least three. Themes can usually be stated in a vs. format (e.g. honesty vs. diplomacy, being a good cooperative citizen vs. having individuality and integrity, the unrequited lover vs. the uncooperative beloved, etc.). Register - This one's fairly well defined below, right? Basically you choose your individual words and sentence structure to convey a certain atmosphere, a certain palette of emotions and not other incongrous ones, a certain level of formality that subconsciously cues the audience what kind of story their reading and what to expect from it. Did that help, I hope? END EDIT Okay, here's what I want you to do. I want you to say what you think is the most important thing you've learned about each element, and what is a question you have about each element. Okay? Good. Go! [edited by - sunandshadow on February 8, 2003 9:38:44 PM]

Writing for Games Game Design

Started by sunandshadow February 08, 2003 02:03 AM

19 comments, last by sunandshadow 21 years, 4 months ago

ahw

264

February 22, 2003 10:15 AM

sunandshadow :

ah yes

The 36 dramatic situations. How on Earth did I ever forget to metion that one ? ah well...

on the other hand, reading what kind of books you like, and give that I am reading the last one at the moment, I couldnt help but think that you would really enjoy reading Laurell K. Hamilton ''s Anita Blake novels. They are told from the first person, and the girl herself, who is a necromancer/vampire executioner is having more than a few problems to deal with in her busy life, not the least being dating an alpha werewolf and a vampire prince (well, not in the first books, that is.) The whole beauty of this series is to see her slow descent and acceptance of what and who she is, while trying not becoming a true monster (as in, a sociopath).
There is sex (not really in the first books, though, as the heroin is a true believer of no sex before marriage), there is violence, quite a lot in fact, lots of weird monsters, and a never ending amount of powers and weird stuff happening all around her (not mentioning the fact that, as a vampire specialist and necromancer, she works for the preternatural police unit). Did I mention that this was an alternate universe were monsters really exists, vampires are recognised by law, etc ? Yeah, pretty cool stuff

Just go and read the reviews on Amazon, but I think the style would fit your description

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Six Elements of Fiction

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🎉 Celebrating 25 Years of GameDev.net! 🎉

Six Elements of Fiction

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