The Situation

Posts from the ‘The Situation’ Category

What Do I Write About?
October 4th, 2011 | Plot, Poetry, Storytelling, Subject Matter, The Situation, Writers | journalpulp | No Comments
Anton Chekhov answered that question this way: You could write a story about this ashtray, and a man and a woman. The man and the woman are always the two poles of your story. The North Pole and the South. Every story has these two poles — a he and she. The late Raymond Carver, [...]
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Plot and Theme: A Complicated Relationship
September 6th, 2011 | Plot, Storytelling, The Situation, Theme, Universality | journalpulp | No Comments
The Situation is the nucleus of your story: it contains the kernel of your conflict from which the rest of your storyline will grow. A real story cannot exist without some sort of conflict. If you have a specific message that you wish to get across (e.g. the destructiveness of superstition), it is that message [...]
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The Situation
August 5th, 2011 | Plot, Storytelling, Suspense, The Situation | journalpulp | 4 Comments
The best stories are those that can be summed up in one sentence. Said John O’Hara. A solid story hinges upon The Situation. The Situation is not the whole story but the essence of that story’s conflict, which will in turn shape the events of your plot. Here is an example of a situation: On [...]
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