There is a straightforward way to tell a good story.
Although they vary in genres, styles, meanings, and each one stands uniquely on its own, almost all good stories follow the same rules.
I'm not one for rules. As any person who knows me would tell you, I won't stand others telling me what to do.
But rules in art do have a place in our world. People have been working all their lives to find them and gift them to us.
As long as we have a healthy relationship with rules, they can totally contribute to us.
For one thing, they can always be broken, but as I see it, there's a big difference between breaking a rule from ignorance as opposed to understanding. Only once we understand a rule can we break it and create something better. Something that adds to the rule and does not take away from it.
Breaking rules out of ignorance brings chaos, while breaking them out of understanding sometimes brings a better order.
From another perspective, rules contribute to creativity.
Creativity does not come from someplace where there are no boundaries, as many people think.
Boundaries create creativity.
Children invent games, which are a set of rules. Once accepting them, they can play with one another.
Copywriters create a boundary in their minds to think only about things that relate to their target audience.
They use limits to create a thinking area where they can think creatively.
Rappers let themselves think only of words that rhyme, them more rhyming words come to their heads.
We too, in our day-to-day lives, set boundaries in order to have a healthy relationship with one another.
The posts to come will describe the fundamental storytelling rules I'm studying, which I find brilliant.
I'm thrilled that they help me in my writings every day.
Stay tuned.
DOLD update:
In the past week, I've been working on eighteen characters' biographies and creating eighteen Enigmals (special animals in the story's world). It was a bit frustrating because I couldn't continue writing until I got it all in order.
But today I finished with these and got back to writing, so I'm pleased.
*In the picture—my friend, standing at the edge and trusting a boundary so he won't fall.
