Have you noticed how the news calls every item a ‘story’.
As in: We’ll keep you updated with that story as it unfolds.
Yet it’s not a story. Most things we see on the news are nothing likea story. They are just things happening, a chain reaction of events without any foreseeable closure. Afghanistan,
for instance. Coalition troops went there, took Kabul, and they’ve been fighting ever since. Some days they take out Taliban or Al Qaida fighters, some days they take casualties themselves.
But there’s actually no story; a story has well defined parameters. It has a beginning, a middle and an end.
Much of what happens in the world has none of these things. The ‘story’ is artificially imposed.
That’s why newspapers and TV stations have journalists and news editors; their job is to turn world events into stories. Why? Because otherwise we wouldn’t be interested. Human beings process like stories. It’s innate. Spin doctors, admen and CNN editors know this.
Whether it’s gossip or a world war we want to know whose side to take and who the bad guy is. We want to know how to resolve the problem and what the ending was, or is going to be. We demand this, even if it’s not true.
You can’t blame the news on the news. They’re just giving us what we want.
And protecting their ratings against other newspapers and TV channels.
As soon as CNN can’t find that story element anymore, it doesn’t mean the war stops. It just means that people won’t pay it that much mind anymore. The ‘story’ drops off the front page; it’s no longer a head item.
In Iraq, there was an instigating event (9/11), a plan and a goal (send in the troops, take Baghdad, find the bad guy) and an implied ending, (the troops coming home and world peace breaking out.)
Only - wait. It didn’t happen that way. The soldiers are still there, it’s just the news crews are mostly somewhere else, looking for a fresher story with better parameters.
Do you still follow what’s happening there? Are you as aware of the current situation as you were say, five years ago?
News is fed to us in a way that implies that if we bang up a drug lord, the drug problem will go away. Happy ending.
If we kill a leading terrorist, world peace is about to break out. It’s not true, but it’s the way we like to absorb information about the world around us.
What can writers learn from this; what can CNN teach us about finishing our MSS.
For one thing, we all process any story in three acts. (We can argue about this point technically, but let’s keep it simple and call it a beginning, a middle and an end.)
We also look for orientation; we need to know who the good guys and the bad guys are.
Notice what a problem this is for news crews in Syria, for example, where you have Muslim fanatics battling a dictatorship. Both sides are bad, and they’ll torture and oppress, no matter who prevails. It’s a difficult piece of news to cover.
So first lesson; orient your reader. Make your protagonist likeable. Admen are all over this these days; a 2007 study by marketing researcher Jennifer Edson Escalas of Vanderbilt University found that a test audience responded much more positively to advertisements in narrative form as compared with ads that talked about boring subjects like the product.
The more people like your advertisement, the more people like your product. So if you want to improve your writing skills, pay more attention to what they do on the news - and don’t get up to make a coffee in the ad breaks.
People don’t care about your plot; they care about your character. See how the Madmen know this. It’s not news to them.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-dEAhlz3Bg&w=420&h=315]
‘Another man would have made it an affair and nothing else. Another man would have been more ruthless, more cynical. The naked husband falls in love.’
Mark d’Arbanville has the ‘perfect life': a successful writer, he is happily married with a teenage son.
But when he falls in love with another woman, Mark’s life unravels, exposing regret, estrangement and heartache. Yet as his marriage falls apart Mark still can’t let go. Nor can his lover, Anna, who won’t leave her husband. When Mark finally does make the break, the effect is catastrophic - his wife commits suicide. The circuit breaker comes when Mark finds his dead wife’s journals, and in their pages discovers a man - himself - he can barely recognize.
He is forced to take stock of who he is and how men and women live their lives.
THE NAKED HUSBAND takes a candid look at the way men think, act and feel inside a relationship. Shocking, disturbing but impossible to put down, it’s a novel for every woman who ever found the reality of sex and marriage so different to the fairytale, and wondered why.
I’m not so sure that 9/11 was the instigating incident for the invasion of Iraq, but it is what we were told was the reason…but since this isn’t a political blog, I’ll just say this is the never-ending story. and in the meantime young people keep dying. nice analogy, Colin
Thanks Louise - yes perhaps I should have made it clear, it wasn’t the real reason, but in the story we were told, it was.
You made me think of something that really has sinister implications at least in my paranoid mind. First off, congratulations on being the first to point out the use of the term “story” by the news media improperly. They are not up there telling “stories.” We’re not all sitting around campfires, swapping lies. Or are we?
Since we’ve ,mentioned 9/11, let’s stick with that. I am increasingly uneasy at what I’m hearing and reading regarding verified data that suggests there was a bit more intel that was ignored by Bush, Cheney, Wolfowitz, et al., than was ever disclosed to the American Public. I’m not here to air a bunch of Conspiracy Theories or as a friend of mine puts it, “Conspiracy Realities.” We’re talking about writing stories here, but there is a fine line between truth, fiction and then there’s propaganda, or out-and-out lying. So the point about the happy ending is a bit frightening. I’m actually one of those people who is skeptical of the news media. Mr. Brian “Can’t find a fact even on Google” Ross is on ABC news and has made verifiable errors. What are we to make of that, when he still has a job? I never believed the findings of the Warren report. I don’t believe Oswald acted alone. There’s a lot that I don’t believe, yet, I’ve been told it’s so by the media. Anyway, this isn’t about historical fiction, or is it?
Yes, I agree a story has three basic parts. I’m a musician by trade, or was before blindness set in, however, artistic structures that occur in time tend to follow much the same arcs. I see that quite often. Making your protagonist likable is always interesting. I was fascinated with the TV show “24,” partly because of the technology, but partly because of the story arcs. People who seemed so good and well-meaning, people you rooted for at the beginning of one season would be complete bastards and traitors by the end of the season or the following season and usually for very good reasons. It got a bit tedious after a while, when it became one of two things: “millions of lives are at stake,” or the famous, “if I don’t kill you, they’ll kill my family.” Still and all, there were some great plots.
I am in no way, any kind of fiction writer, or historical fiction writer. I leave that to my much, much betters, like you. I love history and love to write. I’m pretty sure I can spend the rest of my life wandering around here on this blog. Thank you so very much, Colin.
Thanks so much for that. All I’ll say about 9/11 is that I believe skepticism is very healthy when we’re listening to our political leaders of any stripe. 9/11 did parallel several other incidents in history, convenient inciting events such as Pearl Harbor and the Reichstag Fire. Just because a government has secret intelligence (and boy, they do keep their intelligence secret sometimes, don’t they?) doesn’t mean they are obliged to act on it. It depends on their agenda really. I’m rapt you like mu blog - I try and keep it interesting and will keep trying my best!
I just left a review of The Naked Husband at B&N. It doesn’t seem to be showing up for some reason. So I ran over here to say, I gave it five stars! *****.
Thank you so much! Sometimes it takes a day or two to come through I believe. A five star review is the best thing you can do for a book you like! Much appreciated.