The Art of the Storyteller - HG Nadel

The question most often asked of creative writers is, "Where do you get your ideas?" and it's a silly question because a fertile imagination is one of the basic requirements of the craft.

If you don't have the ability to create new scenarios, or merge several disparate notions into something fresh and exciting you lack one of the three fundamental strands of creative writing.

These are, and not in order of importance -

• A good imagination
• A command of the language
• A knowledge of storytelling

This article focuses on the third of these elements because the first two are relatively self-explanatory. Imagination, as I've said, requires the ability to read a news story in a newspaper, watch a movie, listen to a record, and merge elements from all of these to create something new. This is not stealing other people's ideas; it is using your imagination to its fullest extent. No ideas spring from nowhere, they are all based on information that your brain has absorbed and processed.

The second element, a command of the language merely refers to the stuff you should have learnt at school, spelling and grammar. You may believe that your experimental novel is going to break all of the rules of spelling and grammar because you are a creative writing genius, but you can't break the rules if you don't know what they are. So, learn the basics, because otherwise you'll just look stupid.

Now, the art of storytelling. It too rests on solid principles and accepted practices though many refuse to accept that they actually exist. The story is such a fluid medium that it can absorb many of these dissenters without being compromised, but the facts remain as true now as they were when Homer lifted a pen. The basic rule of the story is that something must happen, or there must be some kind of journey for the characters in the story to undertake. This need not be a physical journey and in a psychological novel, for instance, the action could all take place in one character's mind. But the essential is that 'change happens'. So, a description of a meadow is not a story. A description of people dancing in a meadow is not a story. Even a bull charging the people dancing in the meadow is not much of a story. But the man saving a child from the charging bull is becoming a story. In its simplest form this is -

• Protagonist
• Antagonist
• Conflict

But the good writer adds to this simplicity with complication. The child is the man's daughter but he was not aware of it. He trips as he runs to save her. It is the child's mother he trips over. Maybe the bull trips or a helicopter gunship appears over the horizon and shoots the beast dead with a missile, or the mother has pushed the child in front of the bull. Those are just some of your choices in creating a story because conflict is king but complication is crucial. The good writer recognizes this, that the hero rescuing the child with one great leap is hackneyed and unsatisfying, that the reader expects more. So, your hero attempts to resolve the conflict with his antagonist and must nearly succeed (perhaps several times) but each time he is thwarted as the conflict is escalated. Check every novel you've ever read every movie you've ever watched and you'll see the truth of this. That, and it's a simple notion, is the art of the storyteller.

HG Nadel is a self published author and writer; her writing skills are well- honed. HG Nadel works with children in their professional development. She offers a variety of classes like performing art, writing etc. for children.
For more reading, please visit here: http://hgnadel.webs.com