See my tweets on TWITTER for additional input.

The twist must make sense, be interesting, be unexpected … how do you do it?

Think jokes … what makes a joke funny ?

How do you do it? No recipe … unfortunately. Of there were a recipe … what would the effect of that be?

You have (perhaps) written an original story … now come up with an original ending. How?

Look at stories you love and admire. What is special about them?

Think NEW – (and yet everything has been done before?) True, but a different MIX of the story ingredients can literally produce an infinity of stories.

The MAIN ROAD to write creatively is to write and write and write (without judging) – just fill the pages … and then go back and look for story patterns. If you are a reader you will know all about story patterns – look for those patterns in your own writing and distill them from all the other ideas into a clear story pattern which readers, who don’t know you, will be able to read and enjoy.

Remember – if you have to EXPLAIN a story, it isn’t finished yet! A story must tell its own story by BEING a story.

Look at your own life and those around you. Are you the hero, the sinner, the saint or the victim? There are stories in archetypes – do your own research!

Our “ordinary” lives are full of story moments – true? Look for yourself!

See my tweets on TWITTER for additional input.

Conflict is a necessary part of every story. So much for world peace ….?

Why is that so? Because everything changes all the time in our world – NOTHING stays exactly the same unless it is dead. Life equals change.

See my tweets on TWITTER for additional input.

There is no such thing as a recipe for stories, but each story has to have certain ingredients:

1) A character/characters

2) A setting/settings

3) Conflict

4) Movement (or lack of movement? – Waiting for Godot- where nothing happens and the story is in the non-happening of action?)

5) A solution (ending)

When you write a story, you have to make sure that all the ingredients are present. You must use words in such a way that they invoke PICTURES in the readers’ imagination.

See my tweets on TWITTER for additional input.

The setting forms an integral part of the story …

Think about the forest in the fairy tales …

Think Dune …

Think Star Trek …

Does you character feel comfortable in the setting …

Is he so used to his surroundings that he didn’t notice …

The setting brings an atmosphere to the story … What kind of atmosphere?

Remember: you have to use words in such a way that they make a PICTURE of the setting in the imagination of the reader.

See my tweets on TWITTER for additional input.

Every story has to have a character/ characters. True?

Every character has an face/body etc. True?

Every character is somebody … even if he is a nobody … True?

Every character (just like us) has to be doing something (even if he is doing nothing …)

Every character must be SOMEWHERE! (even if he is in the void – he is still somewhere!)

WHERE your character is = the setting of the first (opening scene) of the story.

Every story must have a character/characters and a setting!

See my tweets on TWITTER for additional input.

Where will you find a character?

In the mall/bus/at work/in the mirror/family?

They are everywhere?

A character is necessary for a story – is it true?

We often say: He/she is a real character! What does that mean?

Character has to be distinctive in some way. True?

If you choose a boring character … you will have to ad some other kind of spark – otherwise the story will be boring … True?

See my tweets on TWITTER for additional input.

Write a story.

Why?

Because it is fun to try.

A story can be written in 140 characters a day – any story is written word by word – you just add all the words into sentences, into paragraphs and pages etc.

Stories consist of little story-scenes and when you put your little story-scenes together it becomes a story. You can see this more clearly in films than in books – but actually books work in exactly the same way – except that the visuals have to be imagined by the reader.

In fact – our lives are like stories too – bit long and boring stories sometimes with occasional action or drama …

And recognising our life stories, can bring about the possibility of change.

We live by stories, we also live in them. One way or another we are living the stories planted in us early or along the way, or are also living the stories we planted – knowingly or unknowingly – in ourselves. We live stories that either give our lives meaning or negate it with meaninglessness. If we change the stories we live by, quite possibly we change our lives.
Ben Okri in A Way of Being Free

More about all this – later …