What Makes a Story?

During the final rewrite phase of my novel, Misfit McCabe, leading up to publication, I worked with a class of young readers to preview the manuscript and provide feedback. What Makes a Story? attempts to answer the question of what makes one thing a story and another piece of writing not.

One of the things that any author needs to understand before they write is what makes a story. In order to have a story, you must have the element of conflict, or what you might call a problem. Conflict usually falls into one of the following three categories:

Man against Man
Man against Nature
Man against Self

I won't go into too much detail on the categories right now because what you really need to understand is that without some sort of problem to overcome or struggle within a story, there really isn't a story. Let's see if I can help you understand what I mean.

Once upon a time, there was a bunny hopping through the forest. The sun was shining and it was a beautiful day. The bunny, Bernard, was happy because he had a good home, a loving family, and plenty to eat when he was hungry.

While the above might be a start to a story, it isn't a story in itself because there is no conflict. There is nothing that the bunny has to resolve or work on. Everything is good and there is nothing wrong. While this is a happy state of events for Bernard, it doesn't make anyone want to turn the page and find out what happens. Now if we use this as the start to a story, we need to put some conflict into the story.

Once upon a time, there was a bunny hopping through the forest. The sun was shining and it was a beautiful day. The bunny, Bernard, was happy because he had a good home, a loving family, and plenty to eat when he was hungry. While Bernard was hopping along without a care in the world, a shadow crossed the path in front of him. Bernard slowed down and looked around to see what was causing the shadow. His heart started racing, there was a hungry looking coyote to the left in the bushes, just waiting for Bernard to hop on by. Bernard turned quickly and started hopping away as fast as he could, looking furiously for a hole to hide in. Somewhere that the coyote would be too big to follow him in. His heart was racing and he could hear the coyote's paws pounding on the grass behind him getting closer with each step. As the coyote lunged, Bernard hopped to the side and he could feel the hot, stinky breath of the coyote as he gnashed his teeth, just missing Bernard. Finally Bernard spied a hole and hopped as quickly as he could down the hole. Bernard took a deep breath and his heart started to beat more slowly. He was safe at last.

Now we have a story because there is conflict (the coyote wanted to eat Bernard, and Bernard did not want to be eaten). We also have resolution of the conflict (Bernard hid in a hole where the coyote could not get him). With Misfit McCabe, we have conflict right at the start because Katie is doing something she knows that she shouldn't do and burns down a shed, her Daddy wants her to go live with Uncle Charley and she doesn't want to, and her Daddy being ill are all examples of conflict. You'll have to keep reading to find out what happens and whether Katie faces more conflict and what happens to resolve them.

One other thing that a story must have is a plot. The plot is the structure of a story. It is how the author arranges the events in the story. Each change in the direction of the story or event is called a plot point. In the story with Bernard, the first plot point is when he sees the shadow. Let's imagine for a moment that a story is like a clothes closet. In the closet is a rod to put all of the hangers on. We'll call this the story line. It has a definite beginning and a definite end. A story line is the bare bones of the story - almost like a summary. The hangers are the plot points and you put them on the rod or the story line. The clothes that go on the hangers are like the descriptive portions of the story; what things look like, feel like, smell like, taste like, and sound like. How you arrange the hangers with the clothes on them is what makes the plot or structure. Do you arrange them by color? by time sequence? fabric type? Are the hangers close together or far apart? All of these things make a difference in the story.

LK Gardner-Griffie is the author of young adult novel, Misfit McCabe, which is available now through Lulu.com , Barnes and Noble, and Amazon.com in paperback and as a Kindle edition at Amazon.com.