001 Write what you believe in
What is it that you believe in?
Storytelling, is an outburst of our thoughts and passion. In the famous philosopher, Edmund Husserl’s words, it’s an objective association between the emotions and ideas that you are trying to deliver. Storytelling is not just an expression of yourself, but a conquer of the reader’s minds. You are pulling them into a world that you created, instead of politely forwarding an invitation. This, is storytelling.
This is why you have to believe in what you write. Every word of your story is you telling the readers: “Listen, this is how life is like.” Of course, you can tell a story about a gang on a path covered in blood, or the feud among the blue bloods, but please make sure you have done your homework on their life, and that you know their world. Every instant of your book should be a presentation of your passionable faith in your story, otherwise the readers will sniff your inconfidence out in a blink of an eye. You are showing your love in every way you can when you pursue the one in your life, no? Passion lose in the process of communication, which is why we need to show them as much as you can. Storytelling is the same. You have to know that readers are sensitive, when your story is heading to a made-to-believe reality that’s tedium and meaningless, they WILL leave you.
You also need to carefully weigh and consider the angle you want to take, the narrative perspective, the style and pace. It’s not an easy job. You need to love writing, and you need to embrace loneliness. But in the process of denying your writing and rebuild the story, you will be rewarded with experience and result that you might not see coming. You will get to know your own story better, and you will get to know, how to better conquer your readers.
Only in this way, your readers will open their hearts for your story. They will listen, and they will fall for you.
Only write, what you believe in.
002 Theme
You need a theme for you story. A theme, is the groundwork of any story. Stories will fall without it.
How could you find the right theme for you?
Creation is a process that can start at anytime and anywhere. Maybe your groundwork is something inspires you; maybe it’s just an idea you get in a shower, or a bizarre fantasy you have bearing with the boring life; or it’s a “what if” discussion you have with yourself when you watch the news. Don’t rush into building your groundwork. Take you time before you start your story and make sure that you know, what is it that you are trying to deliver. That, is your theme.
A theme is not a word, but a full sentence. For instance, “Love can be found anywhere and everywhere in life, so long as we conquer our ration and follows our instincion.” This, is a theme that you can build a lot of stories on: it can be a story about a desperate wife finding her true love in a one-night stand out of sorrow; it can be a story about a high IQ CEO changed from a cold bossy jerk to a loving partner after he falls in love with a special girl. So if you add the supernatural features to this theme, you will get a fantasy about “a tormenting love story of an alpha with a dying pack falling in love with a human girl who is bullied in school.”
There are a hundred different themes in a hundred best-sellings. Maybe you don’t like some of them, maybe they even look cliche to you, but ALL, all these themes would be structured around our own humanity that will get to you deep in your heart, so long as you are not a sociopath, that is.
There is no shallow or profound theme. It can be about love, or it can be about humanity. It can be a fight between right or wrong, or it can be a conflict between the power of the nature, and the persistence of human. You enter a fantasy world the moment you got ignited by the spart of an inspiration. All you need now is a suitable design, and the rest, is just building on the idea, and make it into an alive story.
Learn how to write a popular story here: https://academy.goodnovel.com/section
