This is the first post in a three-post series to give you a feel for how the 27 Essential Principles of Story as a whole. The series includes 1) Ten Essential Principles of Plot; 2) Nine Essential Principles of Character and 3) Eight Essential Principles of Setting, Dialogue and Theme.
In the first two posts in our series covered the big dogs – Plot and Character. Next we’ll cover everything else you need to write colorful and meaningful stories. You don’t need a fancy degree. And you damn sure don’t need to spend a fortune. You just need to master the fundamentals.
Two Essential Principles of Setting
The first is Link inextricably to your setting. This means your world is so fully realized — the architecture, landscape, politics, culture, economy — that the story couldn’t take place anywhere else without being radically altered. This is especially true of your characters. Vito Corleone can not come from the Shire anymore than Frodo Baggins could be from Sicily.
The second is Exceed expectations. For this one we’re using the broadest definition of the word “setting.” What we’re interested in here is where the Story is set in the minds of your readers/audience. By this, we mean your story’s genre.
Audiences/readers come to stories with expectations based on the storyteller, title, poster art, cover design, word-of-mouth, cast, etc. When you tell a Story you make a promise to deliver a certain kind of experience. If it’s a horror you promise to scare the shit out of people, a romance to move their hearts, a comedy to make them laugh their asses off, etc.
So you need to deliver what your audience/readers expect but do it in a way that exceeds their expectations. For example, in the comedy film, The Hangover, you expect something ridiculous to happen when the four guys, “The Wolfpack” get to Vegas. But your expectations are exceeded when they wake up with no memory of the night before and a tiger, chicken and a baby in their hotel room. And one guy missing.
Two Essential Principles of Dialogue
Before we get into Dialogue, note that none of these principles exist in vacuum. For example, when you Escalate risk (the 5th principle) and Write characters to the top of their intelligence (the 14th principle) this impacts your dialogue. Weak dialogue is a symptom of poor structure and under-developed character, not a problem in itself.
The first Essential Principle of Dialogue is Craft actionable dialogue. Characters talk because they need something from the person they’re talking to. They need money, attention, respect, love, a job, snack, a shot of ass, or they may just want to menace someone. By “actionable” we mean the dialogue is what actors call “playing an action” — as in the subtext, the intention of the spoken words is to frighten, seduce, delight, etc.
The second is Hide meaning. This is the old, “show don’t tell.” Characters don’t come right out and express their truest feelings. We either don’t know what we feel or need or mean. And when we do we lack the courage to say it. A son fails to tell his dying father he loves him. Watching people struggle to express what they need is engaging and reveals character.
Four Essential Principles of Theme
When some numb-nuts you just met tells you a story, you quickly ask yourself, “What’s the point?” If you sense that the person has something meaningful to say, their story will hold your interest. If not, it’s painful. The point of a story is what we refer to as the Theme.
Story’s have a subject — what the story is about. For example, a story may be about Violence. But the theme is the storyteller’s take on that subject. For example, Violence destroys a child’s spirit.
You may write to express an idea as the Russian novelist, Fyodor Dostoevsky did. Or you may write to discover an idea, like the playwright August Wilson. But at some point, if your goal is to write a well-crafted Story, you must express your take on your subject. This not to say there’s anything remotely wrong with more experimental, poetic forms. They’re just a different beast.
The First Essential Principle of theme is Hunt big game. By hunt big game, we mean you set out to explore the experiences that define you, the subjects you’re passionate about, that you can’t stop thinking about, that are critically important to you. Most great writers return to a core idea throughout their careers. Anton Chekhov often returned to the subject of Truth, and theme of our inability to know it, his short stories.
The Second Essential Principle of Theme is Amplify your theme. By this we mean use every part of the animal — filling your story with visual and spoken references that highlight your core idea. For example, in the The Sopranos’ episode, College mobster Tony Soprano’s mafia life clashes with his family life on a trip to visit colleges with his daughter in New England. The episode ends with Tony seated in a hallway with a quote engraved on a wall that reads, “No man can wear one face to himself and another to the multitudes without finally becoming bewildered as to which may be true.” The writers made explicitly clear exactly what the episode is about.
The Third Essential Principle of Theme is Attack your theme. In essence, a well-told story is an argument. If the story ends one way it means one thing, another it means another. If you can articulate the argument against your theme, your theme will have more resonance.
The Fourth Essential Principles of Theme is Transcend thought. Let’s imagine Classic Dramatic Structure as a realm. On the border of this realm is another realm that is poetry, or more expressionistic, experimental narrative forms. Here, at the border, there’s enough structure to derive meaning, yet there may be gaps in the characters’ personalities and the story may enter heightened or dream-like states that both make sense and yet, defy easy explanation.
For example, David Lynch’s film, Blue Velvet is both a classic mystery and coming-of-age story. Its core idea is that the world is an inexplicably weird place, both beautiful and terrifying. But it the film drifts in and out of reality and things happen that can’t be simply or clearly defined.
The point of this final principle, the 27th in my book, is to leave room for mystery. Since our minds can’t process all that is happening, the last principle is a reminder to be humble, to write with humility and respect for the task at hand: exploring reality as we experience it in our own unique way.
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