Lessons from my own story…extracted by my mom

I went to my mom with my story and what I got was not a happy reader but someone who irritated me because for every sentence she read, she would start nit-picking and teaching me stuff. Well, I did not like it at the time and just wanted her to continue reading, which she didn’t by the way, after a few paragraphs. But what she told me all the while did really make sense. In her special not so delightful way, she taught me a lot of things about storytelling. Here are the lessons I received.

My writing…

It was a beautiful day in Fantastic City. Cash and Nico went to Zoey’s candy shop for some…well…candy. Suddenly, I just teleported in, and so did Bunny, the True creator.

My Mom’s reaction…

Who is this Cash and Nico? Zoey, I and Bunny?

Her lesson…

You just don’t drop in characters but you show their personalities. Because it is the personality that makes a person stand out from the crowd. In any situation different people would behave in different ways just because their personalities differ.

Our Conversations…

She asked me who is Cash and the personality so I said, ‘He is a person who likes to play pranks’

She said, ‘I did not ask you what he likes but what is his personality’

I replied, ‘Ok, he is silly, little dumb, so dumb that he can’t even calculate 2+2 and he likes to play pranks with people’

She explained, ‘I will not know that he is dumb without you showing me. So how can you do that?”

After giving it a thought when I could not come up with the idea of a dumb move, she gave me an example…

Her example…

Cash, while eating his big tasty candy, laughs so hard that the candy falls. His hands get dirty and he wipes his hands in his t-shirt.

Now, that shows that the boy is very clumsy and silly.

‘But he is not clumsy, he is just dumb’, I said

She continued…

Cash goes to the shopkeeper and asks her the price of one candy. The shopkeeper, Zoey says, 5 bucks and then Cash asks her, ‘How much for two’. Zoey looks at Cash, remembering how dumb he is at math. ‘Its 15 bucks’ and tries to hide her giggle. Cash, satisfied with the calculation, hands her over the money and leaves with the candy’.

Now, let me not take you through all the conversations of 2 hours but simply give you the lessons that were discussed:

You already got the first lesson

Lesson#1

Show the personality of the character without directly telling mostly at the starting of the story so when you show the reactions of the characters in action scene, the personality is remembered and reader can easily relate and believe in what you show.

Lesson#2

Never include more than 3 characters in one scene because it could be very confusing for the reader as an average human can’t remember more than 3 things effectively at a time.

Lesson#3

Before starting any scene, you must do context setting and also show the setting because the setting will provide you with props to use to make your scene come live. For example, a boy scared of darkness could be sitting on the couch and watching TV. This is a setting. Now, if the lights go off and the boy is scared, you can show the boy using the props. A couch would have cushions that he would use to hide as if they are providing him the protection of a mother.

Lesson#4

You don’t tell that a character is surprised or scared. You don’t just tell emotions but you show them through actions.

Lesson#5

Any big and new thing you want to show in your story can’t just be stated but should be given enough drama to show the magic of like. Like the concept of teleporting. You have to show it like a big bang.

Lesson#6

A story is not just about a set of events, actions, and dialogue but it is about human emotions, settings, things around you, context…you need to include all that if you want to give your reader an immersive experience.

Lesson#7

When talking about characters, you need to understand their personality and then show their emotions through actions, reactions, behaviour, body language, and expression. You need to show how they feel. But you cannot do that without understanding how they feel. Do you even know what your body feels when you are angry? Your mind goes blank and can’t think, you feel the tingling in your hands and legs such that they feel high energy to just start acting. What do you feel? What will your character feel? Show that!

Lesson #8

You can’t just sit around a corner and write great stories. You need to observe people talk, walk, act, and connect with them to know how they would behave to learn and that can become an opportunity for you to understand humans and use the information when you are writing stories.

Lesson #9

First, you understand the personality of your character and give it out in your story before you make your character do something major. The scenes that are not directly connected with your story events or are uneventful such as a visit to a candy shop is your window of opportunity to do that. In the candy shop, you could make Cash do something to show his personality as a dumb boy.

Lesson #10

Think about another character you have seen or read about in other stories or a real person you know if that is the kind of personality you are assuming for your character. This will make it easy for you to figure out how the character should behave because you already have experienced the character act. Try to do some exercises of writing about characters of different personalities in similar situations and facing similar emotions to understand the differences better.