Boosting Your Story (a Checklist)
When I used to write for competitions, I would make lists of ways that judges might look at my work in order to grade it. For example, some judges might look for an ending that brought them to tears, while another might be more interested in an intellectual feast. A couple of you asked what my list might look like.
So here is a list of things that I might consider in creating a piece.
First, a word of warning. When I was very young, perhaps four, I remember seeing a little robot in a store, with flashing lights and wheels that made it move. To me it seemed magical, nearly alive. My parents bought it for me for at Christmas, and a few weeks later it malfunctioned, so I took a hammer to it and pulled out the pieces to see what made it work—a battery, a tiny motor, some small colored lights, cheap paint and stickers.
Your story should be more than the sum of its parts. It should feel magical, alive.
But when we go through a checklist like this, we’re looking at the parts and not the whole. When you’re composing your story and editing it, you must be constantly aware of the whole story, keeping it in mind, even as you examine it in detail, making sure that one part doesn’t overbalance another.
My goal with my settings is to transport the reader into my world—not just through the senses, but also emotionally and intellectually. I want to make them feel, keep them thinking. This can often be done by using settings that fascinate the reader, that call to them.
Do I have unique settings that the reader will find intriguing? In short, is there something that makes my setting different from anything the reader has seen before?
If my setting is in our world, is it “sexy” or mundane? (People are drawn to sexy settings. Even if we place a story in a McDonald’s, we need to bring it to life, make it enjoyable.)
Do I have any scenes that might be more interesting if the setting were moved elsewhere? (For example, let’s say that I want to show that a king is warlike. Do I open with him speaking to his counselors at a feast, or on the battlefield?)
Do I suffer by having repetitive settings? For example, if I set two scenes in the same living room, would one of them be more interesting if I moved it elsewhere?
Do my descriptions of settings have enough detail to transport the reader?
Did I bring my setting to life using all of the senses—sight, sound, taste, touch, smell?
Do my character’s feelings about the setting get across?
Do I want to show a setting in the past, present, and suggest a future? (For example, I might talk about a college’s historical growth and importance, etc.)
Can a setting be strengthened by describing what it is not?
Does my setting resonate with others within its genre?
Do my settings have duality—a sometimes ambiguous nature? (For example, my character might love the church where she was married, have fond memories of it, and yet feel a sense of betrayal because her marriage eventually turned ugly. So the setting becomes bittersweet.)
Do my settings create potential conflicts in and of themselves? (If I have a prairie with tall grass and wildfires are a threat, should I have a wildfire in the tale?)
Do my characters and my societies grow out of my setting? (If I’ve got a historical setting, do my characters have occupations and attitudes consistent with the milieu? Beyond that, with every society there is almost always a counter-movement. Do I deal with those?)
Is my setting, my world, in danger? Do I want it to be?
Does my world have a life of its own? For example, if I create a fantasy village, does it have a history, a character of its own? Do I need to create a cast for the village—a mayor, teacher, etc.?
Is my setting logically consistent? (For example, let’s say that I have a merchant town. Where would a merchant town most likely be? On a trade route or port—quite possibly at the junction of the two. So I need to consider how fully I’ve developed the world.)
Is my setting fully realized? (Let’s say I have a forest. What kinds of trees and plants would be in that forest? What kind of animals? What’s the history of that forest? When did it last have rain or snow? What’s unique about that forest? Etc.)
Does my setting intrude into every scene, so that my reader is always grounded? (If I were to set my story in a field, for example, and I have men preparing for battle, I might want to have a lord look up and notice that buzzards are flapping up out of the oaks in the distance, already gathering for the feast. I might want to mention the sun warming my protagonist’s armor, the flies buzzing about his horse’s ears, and so on—all while he is holding an important conversation.
Are there any settings that have symbolic import, whose meanings need to be brought to the forefront?
I want my characters to feel like real people, fully developed. Many stories suffer because the characters are bland or cliché or are just underdeveloped. We want to move beyond stereotypes, create characters that our readers will feel for. At the same time, we don’t want to get stuck in the weeds. We don’t want so much detail that the character feels overburdened and the writing gets sluggish.
So here are some of the checkpoints I might use for characters.
Do I have all of the characters that I need to tell the story, or is someone missing? (For example, would the story be stronger if I had a guide, a sidekick, a love interest, a contagonist, hecklers, etc.?)
Do I have any characters that can be deleted to good effect?
Do I have characters who can perhaps be combined with others? For example, let’s say I have two cops on the beat. Would it work just as well with only one cop?
Do my characters have real personalities, depth?
Do my characters come off as stock characters, or as real people?
Do I know my characters’ history, attitudes, and dress?
Does each character have his or her interesting way of seeing the world?
Does each character have his or her own voice, his own way of expressing himself?
Are my characters different enough from each other so that they’re easily distinguished? Do their differences generate conflict? Remember that even good friends can have different personalities.
Have I properly created my characters’ bodies—described such things as hands, feet, faces, hair, ears, and so on?
Do each of my characters have their own idiosyncrasies?
Do I need to “tag” any characters so that readers will remember them easily—for example, by giving a character a limp, or red hair, or having one who hums a great deal?
How do my characters relate to the societies from which they sprang? In short, are they consistent with their own culture in some ways? And in what ways do they oppose their culture?
What does each of my characters want?
What things might my character be trying to hide?
What is each character’s history? (Where were they born? Schooled, etc.?)
What is my characters’ stance on religion, politics, etc.?
How do my characters relate to one another? How do they perceive one another? Are their perceptions accurate, or jaded?
Does each character have a growth arc? If they don’t, should they?
How honest are my characters—with themselves and with others? Should my readers trust them?
What would my characters like to change about themselves? Do they try to change?
Do my characters have their own family histories, their own social problems, their own medical histories, their own attitudes? Do we need a flashback anywhere to establish such things?
