Hey guys, SolZen here, today I'm going to talk about creating stories.
The basics[]
When doing a fan fiction, or just writing in general, it helps to have a plan for where your story is going. Everything else is the little details that makes it better, but first you need a plan.
Types of Plans[]
- Connect the Dots: I would love to say that I always have a plan, but that isn't always the case. A term of my own, with connect the dots, I have in my mind, certain images, important points, scenes, situations for characters/the story and with those points in mind, I just write to make sure everything 'connects' that those scene are able to come about in the story, at the time of my choosing.
- Now this style of plotting gives you a great deal of freedom, it's true, but it also means you have to remember the points, or risk your story going of rails, it can also be difficult to create a plot for an episode etc.
- Three Part Act: The classic story structure. You may have seen or read this a million times and not even know. Basically the story is divided into three parts. The thing about this structure is that you can use it in individual adventures to overall series.
- The beginning/Build Up: Here is where the story starts, we are introduced to characters, their personality and later on their back stories. We get our first hints at the threat and head of to build up tension.
- Build Up/Climax: Here is the meat of the story, the road between the beginning to the climax, the investigation, the series of events where the characters are led to their destiny, this is build up and characters have the mental growth in this section, well most of it.
- Climax/Resolution: The end of the road, this was where everything was leading to a confrontation with a problem. The problem could be an enemy, or it could be a confrontation, maybe both. After the Climax comes the resolution, the resolving, or simply dealing with the consequences of the Climax.
- Heroes journey: The famous story structure, I'm sure some of you must have heard of it. Though I'm sure how well it would work for an Ultraman series, but then again there is Another Genesis. This is far too long and detailed to put on a blog post, and I suggest you study it yourself, when you have some free times.
Characters[]
The next thing to remember is how your characters will move and grow and change down the road in your story/series. There are other posts about a similar subject and I would prefer not to be a parrot.
World Building[]
Before you start your story, as your plan it out, it helps to World Build, create locations, things, objects, customs, people that make it feel alive. I will right more on this later, but it since we primarily do Ultraman Fan Fiction, there generally isn't too much need for World Building, if your fanon is based on a prior series. It does help in making it original, but just make sure it doesn't clash with prior lore.