Have you ever read a story that stayed with you long after reading it? Perhaps you felt like part of the story. Maybe you felt as though you knew the characters. You became part of the story world, and it became part of you. Perhaps it’s been a few years since you read it, but it’s still part of you.
Have you ever wondered what goes into a story like that? How do authors create stories that readers get so wrapped up in?
The Six Elements of Great Storytelling
Authors of our favorite stories give special attention to The Six Elements of Great Storytelling. The Six Elements of Great Storytelling are must-have ingredients for a memorable story. They are:
- The Hook
- Plot and Pacing
- Characterization
- Setting
- Voice
- Prose
The Hook
The hook occurs early, usually in the first line or paragraph. A great hook introduces characters and presents a critical moment or unusual situation. Often, it establishes a visual image in the reader’s imagination. It creates curiosity and inspires questions.
An example of a hook that does all of this comes from Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White:
“Where’s Papa going with that ax?” said Fern to her mother as they were setting the table for breakfast.
“Out to the hoghouse,” replied Mrs. Arable. “Some pigs were born last night.”
That hook sets the mind racing with questions. Why does Papa have an ax? How does the birth of pigs connect to Papa and the ax? What’s so urgent that it can’t wait until after breakfast?
Plot and Pacing
The plot is what happens. It’s a sequence of events connected by cause and effect. In Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief, author Rick Riordan develops Percy’s everyday life in which weird things happen to him at boarding school. Then, on summer vacation with his mother, Percy is attacked by a minotaur and believes his mother to be dead. This event causes Percy to seek the protection of Camp Half Blood, where he also trains for the quest for Zeus’s lightning rod. The order of these events is crucial to the story.
Pacing is how fast the story unfolds. Riordan reveals Percy’s everyday life slowly, allowing the reader time to understand the world in which Percy lives. However, when the minotaur attacks, Riordan uses short, punchy dialogue and brief descriptions of the action so that the scene unfolds quickly. A slower pace allows readers to absorb information and recover from the action. Faster pacing maintains interest and keeps the story moving.
Characterization
Characterization helps the reader know the characters. It may also reveal clues about the story. For example, J.K. Rowling uses characterization in the opening of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.
“Mr. and Mrs. Dursley of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much.”
This information tells the kind of people the Dursleys are but also hints immediately that this story will take a turn that is not normal.
Characterization can be done directly, by telling, and indirectly by showing. Rowling uses direct characterization in her first line when she tells the reader the Dursleys are “perfectly normal.” Indirect shows what the character is like through the character’s speech, thoughts, actions, appearance, and effect on others. For instance, Mr. Dursley is described as “a big, beefy man, looking somewhat like a walrus, with hardly any neck, and a large mustache.”
Setting
Setting establishes where and when the story is taking place. The setting can be an actual time period and geographical location or an unfamiliar time in a fictional world. Setting may include landscape, climate, weather, society, and culture.
C.S Lewis uses a real historical time and place for the beginning and end of The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe. The story begins and ends at the Professor’s home in the English countryside during the war. However, most of the story takes place in the fictional world of Narnia, where it is “always winter, but never Christmas.”
Voice
Voice establishes the tone of the story. For instance, a story might be humorous and playful or serious and suspenseful. It might be dramatic and intense or light-hearted and adventurous. Word choice, punctuation, rhythm, and point of view are tools that develop voice.
Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events and Dan Gemeinhart’s Some Kind of Courage are tales of adventure. Still, the authors use voice to create very different stories. Lemony Snicket tells a tragic yet whimsical tale in third person point of view. Gemeinhart uses first person point of view and sets a heart-warming, honest, and hopeful tone.
Prose
Prose is when a story uses everyday language. It’s written the way we speak naturally. All the stories mentioned in this blog post are written in prose. Writing a story in prose makes it easier for the reader to connect with it. It uses language the reader is already familiar with to draw them into the story.
Come Back for More
So now you have a list of ingredients needed to make a great story, but maybe you need help with how to use them. Over the next several weeks, we’ll take a deeper look at each of the six elements. Be sure to come back next week to learn about writing a great hook. After all, that’s the first step to making YOUR story stick with your readers for years to come!
Books referenced:
- Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White (direct quote)
- Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan
- Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J.K. Rowling (direct quote)
- The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis
- A Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket
- Some Kind of Courage by Dan Gemeinhart