By William Dietrich
Sounds
simple, doesn’t it? We tell jokes, pluck incidents to illuminate how our day
went, or confide memories to friends.
Yet
many aspiring writers are excellent stylists struggling to determine what their
book is about, and thus tell a gripping story. Life meanders. Stories have
beginnings and ends.
Another
difference between reality and story is that a story has to make sense. Even a
fantasy novel needs internal logic to prevent the reader from feeling cheated. Game of Thrones has consistent rules, not wild magic.
I’ve
spent a career as a journalist, nonfiction writer, and novelist, and the
necessity of storytelling runs through all these.
My Ethan Gage series has a fictional American on quests during the
Napoleonic wars. It’s Ethan outsmarting a dangerous world.
When I struggled recently with an essay on the North Cascades
Mountains, it didn’t work until I told myself, ‘Tell a story, dummy.’ A
personal one about a climb and avalanche introduced the broader topic.
So
here are storytelling tips.
What
is the problem, and what is the solution? A newspaper story, for example, can
be primarily a “problem” bad news story, or a “solution” good news story, but
both poles are almost always implied. Problem: war. Solution: victory, or
negotiation, or surrender, etc.
I
recently read Cheryl Strayed’s nonfiction book Wild. Problem:
I’m messed up. Solution: Find myself by hiking the Pacific Crest Trail.
Or
Michael Connelly’s mystery, The Black Box. Problem: A
20-year-old cold case. Solution: Look at things in a new way to realize the
protectors could have been the perpetrators.
Next,
what is my protagonist’s desire? It might be love, power, fortune, fame, or
saving the world, but the writer must make their hero want something they
initially can’t have. In The Barbed Crown, Ethan at various
times wants love, family, treasure, or triumph, but Napoleon stands in his way.
What
are the obstacles to your hero’s desire? There’s nothing more boring than a
happy vacation story. What we like are vacation, wedding, or workplace stories
of disaster. Every comic strip revolves around obstacles. Do you have enough?
Insert
tension. Many dreams are about anxiety. So are good stories. Star-crossed
lovers, ticking time bombs, impossible deadlines, messages gone awry, missed
flights, ruined survival food, and implacable weather works again and again
because we like to be anxious. The greater the tension, the greater the
reader’s relief and satisfaction at the end.
Finally,
surprise us. Complex characters are less predictable. Gone Girl changed
my expectations again and again – and I loved being fooled.
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William Dietrich is the author of a dozen novels, including
the bestselling Ethan Gage series of Napoleonic adventures that have sold into
30 languages. He has written several nonfiction books about the Pacific
Northwest and was a career journalist, sharing a Pulitzer at the Seattle Times
for coverage of the Exxon Valdez oil spill. He has taught writing at the
university level. Research for my
novels has taken me to the Arctic, Antarctic, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Australia,
Sicily, Greece, Paris, Britain, Hungary, Tibet...hey, someone's got to do it.
I've traveled on a sailboat in the South Pacific, landed on an aircraft
carrier, flown in a B-52, visited the South Pole, and been terrified flying
with the Blue Angels. He was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard, won National Science
Foundation fellowships to Antarctica, and speak frequently on environmental
issues. I've covered Congress, the eruption of Mount St. Helens, the
environment, science, social issues - even the military. He is married, with
two grown children and lives in a house looking out at the San Juan Islands.
Connecting with readers is one of life's biggest thrills. Website: www.williamdietrich.com
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