Stories
can be either event-driven and character-driven. An event-driven story
focuses on what happens, starting with a stimulus such as missing the
bus and, through a sequence of responses/events, arriving at a conclusion,
such as being late for work. It is a logical way to tell a story - start
at the beginning and end at the end.
However
I prefer character-driven stories. Years after I've read a great story
I remember the characters but forget the events. Great authors, I believe,
create great characters, not great events.
Another
way to think of a story's structure is to think of it as a journey with
a start and a finish, such as the missing-the-bus story. It wouldn't
be very interesting to the reader though, if your character gets to
work too easily. Authors are advised to put lots of obstacles in their
characters' paths and to make the journey urgent. Readers are then interested
in how your characters overcome these obstacles.
I
usually focus on one main character in a short story, and prefer to
start my story as close to the end as possible in the story's time frame.
Focusing on the main character's back story, I ask myself what it was
that brought this character to this point in the story. A back story
can be a whole lifetime or it can be a few minutes.
The
back story is an important structural element in all my short stories.
After introducing my character I'll take the reader back in time and
slowly reveal my character's history. It is a technique that works well
if you can weave the back story into the current or present story, concluding
it with a return to the current story. It's a matter of learning how
to manipulate scenes and the story's time line.
Cinderella
told the conventional way is an event-driven story. It would start with
Cinderella scrubbing floors and her ugly sisters getting ready for the
ball. One event follows another until she marries the Prince.
However,
adopting the back story technique the reader could be introduced to
Cinderella as she is putting on her wedding gown (that is, very close
the Happy-Ever-After ending). The next scene may take the reader back
to the beginning, when her ugly sisters forced her to do all the housework.
Two stories, the current story and the back story, come together to
make one.
You
will write a livelier, more interesting story if you can move your reader
backwards and forwards in time while revealing Cinderella's back story.
Look for ways to link your characters' pasts with the present and try
to keep a little mystery alive for the reader. For example, your reader
may wonder why the ugly sisters are so miserable while they are helping
Cinderella into her wedding gown. Shouldn't they be pleased for their
sister? I would use the gowns (wedding gown/ball gown) to link these
scenes. Your second scene may take the reader back to the time when
the ugly sisters were dressing for the ball, and Cinderella, wearing
rags, was scrubbing floors. The third scene should remind your reader
of the present story. How? Perhaps the fairy godmother has provided
a horse and carriage for the wedding which is similar to the horse and
carriage that took Cinderella to that fateful ball. The high point or
climax of your back story should be close to the climax of the present
story, so it would be logical to link these scenes with the glass slipper.
Readers have to work a little harder to keep track of two stories being
told in alternating scenes, and you, the author will need to work a
little harder to structure a story that weaves a character's back story
into the current story. However, it is worth the effort, in my opinion.
Your characterisation will be deeper and you will create more memorable
characters. Your stories will be character-driven rather than event-driven.
I
have recently published an anthology of my short stories which I have
called "Back Stories". Most of the stories selected have won
prizes in literary competitions and they focus on the characters' back
stories. I like to get inside the skin of my characters and enjoy writing
in the first person with the narrator as the main character. So, I'm
a teenage girl who tells a lie that grows; I'm a mature woman whose
son went missing twenty years ago; I'm an "old feller" in
a prison van; I'm myself with a famous and eccentric aunt; I'm a murderess;
and I'm an investigative reporter.
Back
Stories can be purchased from me for $15.00 plus $3.00 pp. (Pippa Kay
Pty Ltd, PO Box 237, Gladesville NSW 2111, or visit my website: www.pippakay.com.
)
Biographical
information: Pippa Kay won the Free XpresSion Short Story Competition
this year with "Compound Interest". She teaches a number of
Creative Writing courses through Macquarie Community College, including
a Writing Workshop, Life Writing (Hindsight) and Short Story Writing.
She is the author of two books: Doubt & Conviction: The Kalajzich
Inquiry and Back Stories.