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Rule 1: Function before Form

I have these basic seven rules that I use as a departure point when I'm teaching creative writing. I thought I had posted them here, but nope. So I'm going to give you one at a time. None of these are reality-altering statements, and all of them have been well established elsewhere, many times. This is just my take on the basics of solid storytelling, riffs on things you have heard before, if you've made any attempt to study the theory behind the art.

Rule 1.

Any satisfying story has three basic elements: conflict, crisis and resolution. This is true of stories on a screen or stage or on a page.

Notes:

I use the word satisfying in this particular sense: a satisfying story is one the reader finishes. Whether or not she likes it in the end, the reader was curious enough to stick with it until it was done. If she put it down after two chapters because she was bored, didn't like the characters, was irritated by the voice -- then that story was not satisfactory in the most basic way. So this is my lowest passing grade for any piece of storytelling.

And of course, satisfying is -- like everything else in art -- subjective.

Experimental fiction may play with voice and structure and do without conflict or crisis or resolution, and it may do those things successfully. But think of this: Picasso mastered the principals of perspective and drawing before he went on to abstraction.

October 15, 2005 02:02 PM

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Posted by: Simon at October 16, 2005 04:26 AM

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