5 books in 4 weeks.
Stephen King got me.
Avidly reading and taking notes from his stories to learn five secrets of storytelling.
Use great great great hooks
Build up tension at the very beginning.
Stephen King often has an ordinary person experience something extraordinary (or even disturbing, irrational, violent or dramatic). He challenges the audience by making an assumption that triggers their sense of righteousness, or by using an absurd phrase that promises something hilario
“This isn’t funny at all”
“Lazy butt?”
Create expectations
Very soon, announce a meaningful and important event.
An event that is going to change everything (it will grasp attention even more if it is tragic) and understandably will be explained over the course of the next few pages.
Have a Hero, will travel
Have a character. She/he/it does things, experiences things, feels things, shows things.
Make the character describe what is happening at any given moment in the story.
Joe, the bum lady, the baker guy, Grandpa Carl, you name it.
You can use objects too, like cars, an envelope, even a building (your bank for example).
Don't: It as a very cold day
Do: Maggie felt the frozen wet bench hitting her buttocks, as if she was sitting on ice cream.
Storytelling about the most dry / technical / boring topic works, when it is about a hero and his/her life, describing what they experience and using the biographies to make audience understand things.
A character will trigger emotions and empathy too, making your story sticks to audience's mind.
Remember that terrific ad by Spike Jonze for IKEA?
Watch it here (on Youtube)
Use what you know
What one has seen or experienced for real can be used to provide the audience something to relate to.
If you talk about a common brand of cookies, they will feel their taste in their mouth, see it and smell it.
Jack Torrence closed in the pantry room in "The Shining" is eating Triscuits, exactly those ones and no sort of general biscuits not associated with a brand which really exist.
Talking about one's experiences enables precise storytelling.
Be aware of the cultural gap, and don't be afraid to use the same 'bits of reality' in different stories (Stephen King does this a lot!).
Relax and notice
Ideas cannot be fabricated on demand; they come by themselves.
As Stephen King explains in 'On Writing':
"... good stories ideas seem to come quite literally from nowhere, sailing at you right out of the empty sky... Your job isn´t to find these ideas but to recognize them when they show up."
To recognise ideas, you need to be clear about what you want to tell a story about.
For example, let's say it's about bravery.
Start looking around you for experiences or feelings that reflect this.
Watch how your cat gets the better over the neighbour's big dog, for example. Could you use that to make your point?
Immerse yourself in your chosen topic, focus your mind on it, let it sink in and keep it at the back of your mind while observing your surroundings and the people around you.
The trick is then to sit back, relax and be ready to catch that idea when it shows up.
Cover image generated with Sora by OpenAI
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