How to make your characters more complex | Create Great Stories

Return to course: Writing Fiction Stories – Semester 1

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Writing Fiction Stories - Semester 1

Grades

Why should you create fiction stories?
Motivations for writing your stories
Enjoy this course! (An overview of the course and structure)
Assignments and Grading
Dictating or typing your stories (especially if you have dyslexia or dysgraphia)
Activity: Read three or more short stories
Guidelines, not rules
What is a story?
What is not (an interesting) story
What distinguishes a short story
What makes for an engaging short story
A story is not a lecture sandwich
Generating ideas for stories
Ideas into story potentials
Commercial genre fiction vs literary fiction
Activity: Devise a few story ideas

Recap and Reflection: Your First Steps as a Storyteller
(Optional) Christian Writing Supplement for Writing Fiction

Who, What, When, Where, How, and Why
The difference between the story and the story's components
Characters
Plot
Setting
Dialogue
Lousy first drafts
Revising your story
Critical Thinking: Revising (problem solving)

Activity: Write and revise a short story

Editing your story for grammar and punctuation
Examples of common grammar problems and how to change them
Examples of common punctuation problems and how to change them

Write and revise a story

(Optional) Christian Writing Supplement for Story Components and Revising

The essence of story: Goals, Motivation, and Conflict
Goal
Motivation
Conflict
Stakes — What Happens If They Fail?
Opposition — Building a Strong Antagonist
Escalating the Struggle — The Rising Action
Critical Thinking: Evaluating Evidence (details that “prove” emotion/stakes)
Activity: GMC in Action

Write and revise a GMC-based story

Recap & Reflection — The Beating Heart of Storytelling
(Optional) Christian Writing Supplement: Goals, Motivation, and Conflict

From where do story ideas arise?
How original does my story have to be?
Use this site's story prompts to activate your imagination
Using Genres to instigate stories
Generate a story premise from conflict
Writing to figure out the story
Critical Thinking: Brainstorming & Story Ideas
Activity: generate ideas for a new story

Write a story based on your newly generated ideas

Recap and Reflection: Celebrating Your New Story-Generating Powers
(Optional) Christian Writing Supplement: The Gift of Imagination and the Creator Who Gave It

The differing Points of View
The narrator of the story may be different from the protagonist
Point of View and Perspective
Activity: Read a story told from different Points of View and Perspectives
First Person
Third Person Omniscient
Third Person Limited
Third Person Objective
Second Person
Epistolary
Choosing a Point of View
Critical Thinking: Drafting (perspective shifts)

Activity: One Scene, Six Ways

Write a story from two different Points of View

Recap & Reflection: Seeing Through Every Lens
(Optional) Christian Writing Supplement: Seeing Through the Eyes of Story
The Movie Frozen and the Power of Point of View

Your character must be active and strong
Your readers must relate to (though not necessarily like) your characters
The Protagonist
The Antagonist
The Sidekick
Using a sidekick in your stories
Other Characters
How to make your characters more complex
Character transformation
Critical Thinking: Character & Conflict Creation
Activity: Build Your Cast and Discover Your Story

Write a Character-based story

Recap and Reflection: Characters as keys to a great story
(Optional) Christian Writing Supplement: Characters and the Work of the Heart

The Shape of a story - What Plot really is
The Inciting Incident - Launch your story!
Rising Action - How to build momentum without rushing
Stakes and Consequences - Why the plot matters
Turning points and Escalation - When the story changes direction
Climax - The moment the character must choose
Resolution - What the story leaves behind
The waves of plot during the story
The Narrative Arc (Plot Diagram) - Mapping the journey
Critical Thinking: Plotting / Outlining (cause and effect)
Activity: Shape your story before you write it by using plot points

Write and revise a plot-driven story

(Optional) Christian Writing Supplement — Plot and God’s Story in Us
Developing plot points
Exposition, Rising Action, Climax, Falling Action, and Resolution

Activity: Shape your story before you write it using Plot Points

Reflect on your story and your progress

Write a story with all you've learned
Critical Thinking: Endings (comparing alternatives)

Revise your story with all you've learned

Celebrate the difference in your story-telling ability

How to make your characters more complex

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