Why Story Craft Is the Secret Ingredient to Great Writing

Mastering the art of story can bring your writing to the next level.

I’ve taken more writing courses in my life than I can shake a stick at, from informal community classes to completing a Master’s degree in creative writing. Throughout my experience, instructors taught me to build sentences, remember quippy writing adages, and appreciate great writers. I learned how to not clutch my pearls when someone criticized my work, and how to not bend and snap under every piece of advice. I learned form, dialogue, symbolism, metaphor, and how to be pleasant and constructive toward people whose writing made me cringe a little.

But one key writing element always escaped me: how the heck do you create a good story? You know, the kind that grabs a reader by the scruff and tugs them along helplessly until they reach its breathless conclusion? I’m not just talking about thrillers, here. I’m talking real page-turners that are shining fonts of both story and quality. For some reason, that was the one topic my writing instructors avoided like coronavirus.

Scoring Gold

To be fair, what makes a story good is truly in the eye of the beholder. Look over the Goodreads reviews for any title and you’ll find a heap of both delighted and disgusted readers. You’ll wonder if these people are even reading the same book.

But then, inexplicably, out of the woodwork come iconic stories like Star Wars, Harry Potter, Forrest Gump, or Titanic, and suddenly the masses are gushing in unison about their greatness. How do these stories rise above the mobs of dissatisfied consumers? How do they become so beloved?

Let’s not beat around the bush: it’s not easy to score gold, and no advice I give will guarantee it. But without a well-crafted story, these runaway successes would have already been forgotten. Good story craft is the common denominator in any successful book, film, or television series. It is the final linchpin in making your prose stand out.

So, what’s the secret? While there is no magic bullet for success, any good story contains five key elements.

1. Strong characters

No story can evolve without fully dimensional and relatable characters. Harry Potter was a loveable underdog with a good heart, who grew into his own heroism with inner strength and the love of his friends. Hermione was a fierce and intelligent tangly-haired outsider. Ron was overshadowed by his arguably cooler siblings and he struggled to be seen. Even Voldemort was raised to feel powerless, and coveted power to rescue him from his own wounds. Not that we can excuse his general nastiness, but there it is.

Without strong character, any plot will stagnate and begin to stink. No matter how taut your writing, forgettable characters create forgettable stories.

If you’re trying to build a story, start by knowing your characters. Give them an easily identifiable and core need, and boil that need down to its most human form. For example, a baker who solves mysteries may be trying to make sense of a world that made her feel unsafe as a child. Or maybe a cutthroat millionaire goes through lovers like water because they all pale to the one love he lost in pursuit of money.

Even the most cranky among us can relate to human mistakes and lived experiences. Make these integral to your plot, and your story will come alive.

2. A tight plot

You’ve probably read a book at some point and thought, “It started out good, but then it dissolved into a hot mess.” This feeling usually arises when a story wasn’t well planned. Planning out your story before you write will help focus your plot and prevent dangling threads. It will also help you see your themes and characters from a bird’s-eye view, so you can keep them moving along a focused path toward your ending.

A plot is the roadmap in your work that brings a reader from point A to point B. Some writers like to experiment with form and eschew plot entirely, which is fine if you’re well-seasoned and have mastered your craft. Otherwise, you should avoid trying to go off-road if you’re still learning to drive.

If you have a story idea — even if it’s just a short story — try writing a quick description of what happens in each scene. Then go back and tinker with your outline until it feels sturdy enough to build on.

Here’s an example of an outline using the opening scene of William Golding’s Lord of the Flies.

A group of British schoolboys is marooned on a deserted tropical island following a plane crash during a wartime evacuation. As two of the boys, Piggy and Ralph, explore the pristine beach, they discover a conch shell. Ralph blows into it to summon the other boys who survived, and the shell becomes a symbol of authority and order. The boys, initially well-behaved and organized, gather around the conch as Ralph is elected their leader.

This example shows how a quick outline can cover the contents of several pages of prose. If you were writing this story, you would now have direction on how you want to craft this scene.

3. A relatable emotional arc

If you strip the emotions out of a story, you’ll be left with nothing more than a wooden news report. While this is great for remaining neutral in the quagmire of political commentary, it does nothing for creative work.

Humans need emotional connection to relate to any form of art, from films to novels to kindergarten finger paintings. Emotional doesn’t mean your work needs to be tragic or depressing. It just needs to center around core human emotions and common conflicts.

The emotional arc should come from your story’s cast. Ideally, your main character and each of your most prominent secondary characters should have some kind of emotional journey, even if it’s simply the relief of finding their cell phone in the couch cushions and realizing they are not completely loony.

If you want some ideas about emotional arcs, watch any of Pixar’s best films.

In Ratatouille, Remy the rat embraces his passion for food and learns that abundance comes from contributing his talents to the world.

In Coco, Miguel navigates the tough complexities of family, and learns that he can love them and his music at the same time.

In Finding Nemo, Nemo learns courage through self-reliance, Marlin learns that a controlling nature is a product of fear, and Dory learns how it feels to belong.

There are plenty of other tropes at play in these stories, but we connect to these characters because of emotional arcs we’ve all experienced IRL.

4. Unique setting

An interesting setting can serve almost the same function as a character, and can ground your reader more deeply in your story. Think of the sprawling island of unfriendly dinosaurs in Jurassic Park; the sweaty desert planet full of political strife, sandworms, and druggy spice in Dune; or the delicious glamour of old Hollywood in The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo.

Setting doesn’t need to be fantastical or strange to be interesting, nor does your story need a singular setting. When you think of Sleepless In Seattle, for example, you might think of Tom Hanks in his floating water-front home, or his and Meg Ryan’s starry wind-blown night atop the Empire State Building.

5. Conflict, conflict, and more conflict

Probably the most important part of story is conflict. You can’t even have a story without conflict. Watch any film and you’ll notice each scene is a series of constant conflicts that jump between dialog and action. Read any story and you’ll see that conflict is the main plot driver.

In the opening of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Fellowship of the Ring, Bilbo is celebrating his eleventy-first birthday and doesn’t want to be at his own party. Conflict.

In George Orwell’s novel 1984, the first line, “It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen,” establishes an immediate sense that something unusual is going on. Conflict.

In the series Stranger Things, the first episode opens with a monster’s grisly killing spree, then shifts to a group of geeky boys arguing over Dungeons and Dragons. Conflict and conflict.

Keep in mind that conflict doesn’t need to be intense to be effective. Even a character who is heading to a party and doesn’t want to leave the house is conflict. A character who knows another character is lying is conflict.

Conflict creates action, and action drives story. Without conflict, your story will quickly drift away into Snoozeville.

Joining the threads

To build a great story, start with characters. Imbue them with a specific need and devise an emotional arc that will fulfill that need. Drop them into a situation that is in direct conflict with their needs. Continue using conflict until the character’s needs are met. Set it all up in a unique or interesting setting. Now sketch out your story using these principles, then edit and revise your outline. Keep practicing this until you develop a solid story that you’re excited to write.

Easy, right? Well, not really. But practice using these elements, and you’ll soon find yourself upping your story game.

Now get out there and get scribbling.