Situation: A dramatic situation is unstable. It will not stay as it is, and it has at least two possible outcomes, one desirable and one undesirable.

In a plotted story, the situation contains the germ of conflict, leading to change.

In an unplotted or circular story, the situation at the end is the same as at the beginning, but the reader understands it better.

If you start your story with a situation in mind, look for a character who has a stake in the outcome.

A story will often pass through multiple intermediate situations, some of them unexpected, on the way from beginning to end.

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Natural series and dramatic series:

The natural series of events is the mundane things that happen as we go about our lives. We need to mention them occasionally in fiction to fill in the pauses between dramatic events and give a sense of reality.

The dramatic series of events makes up a story. Real life seldom provides these (or we wouldn’t need fiction). A natural series will not naturally become a dramatic series.

Coincidences commonly happen in the natural series, but should be kept out of the dramatic series, because despite happening all the time in real life, they’re implausible in fiction.

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Damon Knight on structure:

Structure is there to draw the reader into the story, keep them reading, and satisfy them at the end. “Whatever in a work of art is not used, is doing harm.” (C.S. Lewis.)

If tension falls to zero anywhere before the end, the story will probably fail.

Plot is one way of organising a story – not the only one. In the “lean-to” story, the structure leans against our expectations of how things work, for example.

Physical movement through different spaces is another structure, economical because it also provides setting and background at the same time.

A group of people anticipate an arrival, then there’s conflict, then a resolution. That’s a structure.

Beginners often have “tunnel vision” – they look down the story from the beginning, hoping to reach the end, but can’t see (or create) the structure until they look at the tunnel from the side.

To fix:

– Vivid image. If you started with one, look for one at the end. You may need one in the middle as well.

– What else is nearby?

– Who else is nearby? What’s their relationship with the main character?

– What happened before the story started that’s important to how it unfolds? Does the character have a secret?

– What does the story mean? Does the ending support that?

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Story form (Damon Knight):

Stories need coherence, balance, and proportion. The parts must fit together, must balance by contrast of opposites, and must be at the correct scale to work together.

Some story forms:

Inwards spiral: begins far from its central mystery and gradually approaches.

Plot skeleton: a straight course with a series of obstacles. Hard to do at short lengths.

Braid: two characters or plot lines keep intersecting and diverging until they meet and resolve together at the end. More common in novels.

Target: the story with the obvious and inevitable ending.

Circular: the end takes us back to the beginning.

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Story building: It’s like a stack of boxes, says Damon Knight. From base to apex:

Impetus: Why do you want to write this story? What inside you is trying to get out?

Idea

Materials – characters, background, setting, etc.

Form

Surface – what the reader sees, the sentences and words.

If your story isn’t working, find the earliest level where it fails, and fix that.

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“In a story we expect a quality of completion, of roundedness, which sets it apart from a sketch, an incident, or an anecdote.”

After some examples of sketch, incident and anecdote, Knight demonstrates how each could become a story, and summarizes: a story requires an emotional relationship between at least two people, and an impediment to a satisfactory conclusion.

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“Over a period of time you may find your stories saying again and again something you didn’t know you intended to say. It is just as well not to worry about this, because it will happen whether you do or not.”

– Damon Knight, Creating Short Fiction

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So you have a vague idea for a story. How do you get from there to an actual story? Here’s Damon Knight (Creating Short Fiction):

1. Particularize. A particular character, in a particular place, feeling a particular way about a particular situation. Someone who you understand, and for whom you feel affection.

2. Complicate. Introduce another character, event, or circumstance that makes the outcome less certain and therefore more interesting.

Having at least two characters will protect the main character from excessive navel-gazing and give them something to push against (even if the two are allies). Three characters are even better.

3. Criticize. Why did this happen? How is it that here this, but there that? What led to this change? What leads on from it?

4. Research. Don’t learn everything you can. Learn everything you need. Then think about it.

5. Constrain. The more you know about the specifics of your story, the more things there are that can’t happen – which is good, because that guides you to what can happen.

You can start from any of the four of: character, setting, situation, emotion. But you need all four to write your story.

Think of four things that can happen next. Reject them all and think of a fifth one that’s less obvious. If it doesn’t move you forward towards having all four elements, try another, or adjust the elements you already have until they work together.

Don’t make characters to serve only one story purpose. They need to have their own background and their own past, and be the kind of people who will do what you want naturally and inevitably – but who also have other dimensions to them.

In the middle of the four elements you will find theme. Don’t start there. 

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“Love and understanding are the missing ingredients in most slushpile stories. If you don’t understand your character, you can’t make her believable, and if you don’t care about her, the reader won’t either.”

– Damon Knight, Creating Short Fiction

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