Context is the foundation for everything. It colors perception and fact. It changes minds and tugs on emotion. Without context, a story is nothing more than an anecdote floating in space.
Context provides the background, backstory, setting and structure that holds the details of a story together and gives the reader the framework necessary to understand. Without this, the reader cannot know how to feel.
The first part of this two-part series covered the importance of complications and how to test whether the complications you are are adding are within the framework of your story. In this blog, we’re going to look at the different kinds of complications typically found in stories.
There are many ways to add complications in your story. In a romance novel, it might be rival or obstacle that keeps the two main characters apart. In a mystery, it could be a serial killer or a lack of clues. In SciFi, it might be an alien invasion or a dystopian world that oppresses its citizens. The list is limited only by your imagination.
I don’t know many people who don’t lean in when they hear that phrase. “It’s complicated.” Two words that hold the power to intrigue and pique curiosity. They make us click to find out more. They prompt questions and promise a bevy of details. “It’s complicated” might not be a great way to live, but it sure is a good way to tell a story.
Complications make stories. As writers, we understand this. It’s why we cram complications into our stories and keep shoving until our characters can’t take it anymore…and then we add more.
As writers, we create the circumstances and context for our characters. We create the world. The setting. The characters themselves. Then we offer it all to our readers with an unspoken promise that the story and characters will be worth their time. This promise is an acknowledgment that we will do our research and write a story that is not full of errors, factual, grammatical or otherwise.
Story is everything. It’s the prime initiative. The raison d’être. Nothing should subjugate it. Nothing be held higher or given more attention. Sounds simple, right? Not so much.
I recently read a story that had amazing detail, setting, and concept, but the author spent so much time pushing her agenda she lost the thread of the story. It was lost among the message. It didn’t help that she presented her story in a fractured timeline, destroying any chance for tension. The characters were subservient to the setting. The setting used mostly as evidence in proving her cause. It was a missed opportunity. The book could have been great. It had all the elements, but needed editing and a strong hand.
There are steps you can take to ensure your story remains at the forefront. The biggest is to understand the big ways you can go off track. Here are some things have a tendency to take over:
There are moments in a dance that instantly distinguishes a great dancer from a mediocre one. It’s the same type of moment that differentiates a choppy film from one that sweeps you away.
I’m talking about transitions. Those tiny moments between movements and scenes. The seconds hidden in the in-between spaces. A great dancer will use those transitions to make the dance flow seamlessly. A filmmaker uses transitions to hide cuts and let the story feel whole.
Structure is 85% of your story. Never heard that before? Yeah, that’s because I made it up. I don’t think anyone has an exact statistic showing the importance of structure, but maybe they should. Structure is essential, even if the math of the thing is not. All you really need to know is that structure is essential to a good story, whether that story is fiction or nonfiction.
It’s all about story—or it should be. When books and movies fall apart it’s often because the story gets pushed to the background. It becomes secondary to other concerns, like action sequences, special effects, pushing an agenda, or…insert reason here.
I remember the first time I performed a monologue in drama class and got some of my fellow students to cry. It was a heady thing. Such power. Such exhilaration making someone else feel the way I wanted them to feel.
Getting to those feelings are the goal of every writer. We want our readers to feel the thrill of the chase, the fear of a killer, and the joy of falling in love.