Crash Course: Parts of a Story

Art By Grace Walters

By Grace Walters

What makes up a story? What qualifies your lived experience as narrative? The pieces that make up any work of fiction, should also exist in your true tales. This week we are going over parts of a story, and how identifying these in your own work can strengthen your personal narrative.

1.     Characters

Whether it’s Frodo Baggins, your Aunt Jane, or Peter Rabbit, the characters tend to be a driving force behind the action of a story. When you are telling a story from your own life, it is helpful to identify the key players. How would you describe them to someone who had never met them? How would an author introduce them, or explain their mannerisms? 

2.     Setting

In what place (or places) does your story happen? The more specific your answer is, the better. For example, if your answer is the United States, you’ve given yourself the task of describing an entire country. However, if your answer is “my hometown”, or even “my house”, or “my bedroom”, then your task is more manageable, and you can also direct your audience’s attention more easily. Part of identifying your setting is also deciding the scope of your story, which brings us to…

3.     Conflict

Simply put, The Problem. In every story, there is some problem that needs to be fixed. Frodo’s problem is a ring that needs to be destroyed, Peter Rabbit must outsmart a gardener, and your aunt Jane needs to claw her way to the top of the PTA’s leadership structure. Scope and setting matter here, because the size of The Problem should match the size of your setting. The Lord of the Rings is an expansive story, and Middle Earth is an appropriately expansive setting. Peter Rabbit’s feud with a gardener is comparatively smaller, and so the story takes place in one garden. If the setting of your Aunt Jane’s power struggle is an entire country, the stakes seem lower than if we place her within one specific town.

4.     The Plot

In what order did events unfold? What is the beginning, middle, and end of your story? Frodo begins a journey, undergoes a struggle, and arrives at Mount Doom. Peter Rabbit steals from a garden, is caught by a gardener, and escapes. Aunt Jane joins the PTA, encounters a rival, and eventually emerges victorious with her rival’s head on a platter at the end of year bake sale. Your plot is what leads to the final element that we will go over.

5.     The Resolution

Your resolution often encompasses the ending of your story, and the conclusion of your plot, but it should also answer the question “Why should we care?”. The question can seem daunting, but there are many reasons for an audience to be invested in a story, and if we are telling a story from our own lives, it often boils down to the fact that this event changed your own life in some way. The reasons for an audience to care can be as large as “this event changed the entire world” or as small as “this event changed my mind about my aunt Jane”, and both of those stories can be equally compelling.

Happy Storytelling! And if you’re still hungry to learn more make sure to check out Story Jam’s classes and workshops!