Stories

Writing a story from beginning to end is a complex task that people approach in varying ways. Some are guided by their characters or by instinct. However, it is possible for you to take charge of your plot and steer it in your intended direction from the opening sentence to the final paragraph. Even if you’re a pantser. Here’s how:

The first thing to keep in mind is that while structure, story and plot are all related to one another, they are not the same thing. Structure is something that can be shared by hundreds, thousands or even millions of stories, but the stories themselves can be very different. This is why most movie screenplays can follow a similar three-act structure regardless of genre or story, and it is also why the scholar Joseph Campbell was able to identify a number of similar key structural points in different myths from all over the world.

The novelist and critic E.M. Forster differentiated plot and story by defining story as simply a recounting of the events and plot as more concerned with cause and effect – how one event leads to another. This definition can help you discern a common weakness in plots. That weakness is the causal relationship. In other words, in order to have a strong plot, incidents must cause other incidents to happen. Therefore, plot incorporates the elements of story, but it must also demonstrate why the things in the story happen.

The classic example that Forster gives is that the king died and then the queen died is story while the king died and then the queen died of grief is plot.

Story 1

MoTiVaTiOn

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Where does it come from?

Contrary to popular belief, Lorem Ipsum is not simply random text. It has roots in a piece of classical Latin literature from 45 BC, making it over 2000 years old. Richard McClintock, a Latin professor at Hampden-Sydney College in Virginia, looked up one of the more obscure Latin words, consectetur, from a Lorem Ipsum passage, and going through the cites of the word in classical literature, discovered the undoubtable source. Lorem Ipsum comes from sections 1.10.32 and 1.10.33 of "de Finibus Bonorum et Malorum" (The Extremes of Good and Evil) by Cicero, written in 45 BC. This book is a treatise on the theory of ethics, very popular during the Renaissance. The first line of Lorem Ipsum, "Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet..", comes from a line in section 1.10.32.

The standard chunk of Lorem Ipsum used since the 1500s is reproduced below for those interested. Sections 1.10.32 and 1.10.33 from "de Finibus Bonorum et Malorum" by Cicero are also reproduced in their exact original form, accompanied by English versions from the 1914 translation by H. Rackham.