literature

9 Steps for Adding Genuine Depth to Your Story

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Literature Text

9 Steps for Adding Genuine Depth to Your Story

(Or Ridding Your Story of Pseudo-depth)


When writing a story, one of the most important aspects to the writer will be the themes. In other words, the message you want to tell the world through your characters, plot, and struggles. However, even stories with a good message often fail on a number of levels, or else try to be deep but come off sounding ridiculous. Today, I'm going to talk about how to create genuine depth in the themes, characters, and dialogue of your story, without turning it into a sermon.


Step 1: Focus on the story and perfect it, long before you worry about the themes.

This is the single greatest failing of most stories with messages. The writer is so focused on them, that they forget the medium altogether. And as important as you think a message is, it is worthless if devoid of a concrete story. So craft your story around something tangible and solid—something that would be wonderful if there were no message whatsoever.


Step 2: Identify the themes in your story.

When your completed draft is ready for editing, you'll want to go through your story, and circle/segregate every monologue (both spoken and thought), major confrontation, and epiphany reached by your characters. These will most likely be the places where your themes show up prominently. If you are having trouble identifying the themes, find the lessons that your characters learned, and what the natural consequences of their actions were.


Step 3: Identify in one sentence what your character is saying, learning, or teaching in that segment.

Identifying your moral, theme, or message, and being able to say them in one sentence is the first step in making sure that each theme is concrete, and not some vague tangle of thoughts. If you cannot do this, edit that segment until it makes enough sense so that you can.


Step 4: Note that the consequences of actions may provide themes that you don't want.

If you are writing a romantic story, you may inadvertently make your character's world magically perfect after they get the girl or guy of their dreams. Whether you want it or not, this creates a natural theme of its own—that getting a romantic partner will fix your life and make it perfect. Which is, of course, untrue. Always make sure that consequences within a story line up with reality, and teach a lesson that is truly worth noting.


Step 5: Make sure that your themes are true on a literal level.

Make sure that the themes are literally true, at least in the world you are writing in. If your intended moral is that “true love conquers all,” you must take into account the falseness of the statement. True love does not conquer AIDS, cancer, death, or a great number of other things. Otherwise, your story will be perceived as shallow, and will not resonate with the reality that your readers live in.


Step 6: Remember that universal themes with realistic evidence are the most powerful.

If you want a genuinely good theme, make sure that it applies to all people. For example, the theme that if you work hard, you will succeed in life, may only apply to first-world countries with laws against slavery. Teaching that hard and noble work is better than laziness, however, may resonate as being more universal, and thereby more profound.


Step 7: Know that the simpler and more basic your themes, the better.

If you are having difficulty coming up with a profound theme, remember that simplicity is better. Life is hard—that is a solid and meaningful theme that has inspired some of the best works of literature. Kindness towards one another will make the world a better place—is another simple but true message that is not contrived, or riddled with holes and fake promises. Don't try to promise a happily ever after, absolute justice or fairness, or external reward for goodness; and don't try to imitate Hollywood's attempts at blowing their audience's mind with thickly veiled stupidity.


Step 8: Show, don't tell.

The single most important rule is to show the themes, don't tell them. Your narrator and characters may discuss an obvious dilemma or themes, but this should be for the purpose of getting your audience to begin chewing on those thoughts. The actions of your characters, and the consequences of those actions will be what ultimately portray the theme. Note the effectiveness of Romeo and Juliet's deaths as a model for teaching the harms of racism and hatred, versus two friends of different color talking about good it is to not be racist.


Step 9: Don't demonize opposition to your themes—embrace them.

The last step is to imagine how people would disagree with your themes. This role will often be portrayed through the antagonist or villain. Do not demonize them in the story, if you want your theme to contain genuine power. Show what events would have led your antagonist to the opposite conclusion, embrace the problems, and try to deal with them respectfully and with strength. Otherwise, your audience may perceive you to be naive, or unable to take criticism—imposing the same problems on the themes in your story.


Feel free to comment with other suggested resources. Any questions about writing? Things you want me to discuss? Comment or send me a message and I will be glad to reply or feature my response in a later article. If you enjoy my reviews, please feel free to share my articles with friends, add it to your favorites, become a watcher on my page, or send send a llama my way!


Originally posted at www.facebook.com/JosephBlakePa… (Feel free to “Like” and subscribe)

And: josephblakeparker.wix.com/theb…


When writing a story, one of the most important aspects to the writer will be the themes. In other words, the message you want to tell the world through your characters, plot, and struggles. However, even stories with a good message often fail on a number of levels, or else try to be deep but come off sounding ridiculous. Today, I'm going to talk about how to create genuine depth in the themes, characters, and dialogue of your story, without turning it into a sermon.  

Feel free to comment with other suggested resources. Any questions about writing? Things you want me to discuss? Comment or send me a message and I will be glad to reply or feature my response in a later article. If you enjoy my reviews, please feel free to share my articles with friends, add it to your favorites, become a watcher on my page, or send send a llama my way!


Originally posted at www.facebook.com/JosephBlakePa… (Feel free to “Like” and subscribe)

And: josephblakeparker.wix.com/theb…


© 2015 - 2024 DesdemonaDeBlake
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I just joined DA. I know how to get picture images uploaded. But- someone- I'm beggig - how do I get my haikus , monologues, and commentaries posted under "LITERATURE" as labled above "9 Steps for Adding Genuine Depth..."