The Four Types of Fictional Stories

1. Intro: Hello and welcome to my class. The four types of fictional stories I'm a gym, a Jablonski sci fi and fantasy author. This class is all about how to begin and end fictional stories in a way that will satisfy readers by identifying what kind of story we are telling. This class draws heavily from Orson Scott Card's M I C E Quotient, which can be found in his book How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy. It's a great read, and I highly recommend it. According to Card, there are four main types of stories, and it's important to end with the type of story you start with or you risk disappointing readers. In this class. We will examine the four types of stories we will learn, how to identify them, how each kind of story begins and ends, and how to apply this knowledge to our own writing 2. The Promises We Make Our Readers: When we start reading a story, we can often pick up quickly what kind of story we are reading. Within the first few tractors, the characters and settings and events revealed. Tow us what to expect as we progress to the story. This isn't to say that there will be surprises and twists and turns along the way, but we know where the focus of this story is and what we're supposed to care about. This is the structure to storytelling. You might think that a true creative would break away from the structure. Personally, I think that is a bad approach to art General, the best artworks within a structure in new and beautiful ways. We have grammatical and spelling rules so that we can more effectively communicate to each other. The same could be said of various forms and structures with heart. In the case of storytelling, jumping outside the storytelling structure results in broken promises that will leave readers frustrated were worse board to avoid. This is the point of this class. We're going to learn about the four types of stories and how toe work within the structure of storytelling in order to deliver a satisfying tail toe, our readers 3. Orson Scott Card's MICE Quotient: I have always loved stories and storytelling. I studied writing in college because I wanted to be able to tell good stories. I believe I got a good education. But it wasn't until recently when I wrote Orson Scott Card's book that I felt like someone had dropped the ball in my education. This didn't me felt like something I should have learned in school. It was so basic and important in the craft of constructing narratives. That is why I chose to make a skill shake class about it, to share what I learned and to help inform or writers of this very helpful tool in his book How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy. Worsens Got Card Now is down storytelling into four types of stories. One could argue that most if not all stories contain elements of all forced types. However, one is going to stand out above the others, and we can identify it by how the story begins and ends. It is up to the author to decide which one to focus on. The four types are the following the milieu story the idea story, the character story in the event story. This is how we get the acronym M I C eat In the following lessons, we will examine each kind of story and how to identify them and how each begins and ends. 4. The Milieu Story: this lesson is about the milieu story. The 1,000,000 story is, I think, a very beloved story by many sciences. The milieu is the environment or the world. A 1,000,000 story is one where the world is what the story is really about. It's often an escape for the reader away to explore strange new places and ideas from the safety of their favorite chair. The beginning and the End of the millions. Story is easy to pinpoint. This story begins when our main character arrives in the strange new land and ends when he returns home. The character may be changed from his experience. He or she probably learned something important about themselves or life in general on their journey. The alternative ending two million story is if the main character decides to stay in the new world, then the story ends when they have made that decision to make the New world their home. There are multiple examples I could give of this story. Orson Scott Card mentions Gulliver's Travels and The Wizard of Oz in his book I Personally and stories such as The Hobbit or Alice in Wonderland and most portal fantasies Soju. Gonorrhea would also often fall under this category did clarify. The story of The Wizard of Oz really begins when Dorothy ends up in the string and magical land filled with color and magic. It ends when she goes home, not when she defeats the wicked Witch. In this case, the whole motive of the main character is to get back home. This is not always the case, but going home one way or another is how a milieu story needs to end. In the next class, we will examine the idea story. 5. The Idea Story: The second type of story is the idea story idea. Stories are about learning new information, specifically the characters learning things that they did not know previously. There is often a question that must be answered in the story is the process of finding out information to answer that question? Another way to look at this is the idea. Story is a mystery story. Most stories in the mystery genre, our ideas, stories. That is not to say that every idea story belongs in the mystery genre, however. Orson Scott Card lists Arthur C. Clark's The Star as an example of an idea story. The Star is a sci fi story, but there is a mystery, a question in it. Why did this beautiful alien civilization come to an end? The idea story begins with a question. Thus the ending of the story should be when the question is answered, unless the question is answered, there is no more attention in this story, so it should end as soon as possible after the answer is given. One more thing that card points out in his book is that oftentimes, in a mystery story, the question of who done it isn't asked right away in the story because the crime isn't discovered until a few scenes into the story. An idea story she began is close to when the question is asked as possible. But you can get away with putting the question off in a mystery. Since the mystery genre is so well established that the onions knows the question is going to be asked in the next class, we will examine the character story. 6. The Character Story: the character story is about one or more character. These are stories in which a character is transformed and his role in the community's that matter most to him is transformed. This is not a story about what the character does, but rather a story about who the character is. The character story begins when the character begins to attempt to change the rule in their community, and it ends when the struggle ends. Sometimes the struggle ends because they succeed. Sometimes it ends because they give up. Sometimes it ends because they have learned to accept their rule for what it is. When I was thinking of an example of a character story, the first door that came to mind, this Naruto, a Japanese anime from the late nineties to early two thousands, nor itto, is the title character, and since he was a young boy, he was ostracized from his village for reasons he did not understand. He was orphaned and alone. So at a young age he decided he would become the whole Kagay when he grew up. The whole Kagay was the leader in his village and a person that everyone respected. As the story continues however, it focuses more on his relationship with another boy in the village, this other boy sauce K. Naruto considers a friend and a royal. And to put simply, the story becomes more about. Nor it'll convincing sauce Kate to see him as a friend and worthy rival as well. The story ends when our whole finally wins Sauce K over a more popular example of a character story would be Disney's Hercules. The story begins when Hercule sets out to find a community he fits in with, or find a place where he belongs, as the song states, and it ends when he finds that place with his love interest. Meg, we will examine the final type of story, the event story in the next class. 7. The Event Story: The final type of story is the events story in an event story. The world in which I characters living is out of order. Something is wrong in the fabric of the universe. Maybe there is impending doom. Maybe something has been wrong for a long time. In any case, the event story begins when the character, whose actions are most crucial to establishing the New World order becomes involved. It ends when the new order is established or the old order is restored, or when everything descends into irreparable chaos. Many classic stories are events. Stories worsens. Got card list. The following in his book, Bill Hamlet, Macbeth, Kinghorn, Dune, Lord of the Rings, Geos, Lord of the Rings. As an example, The story doesn't begin with Stalin's ascension back into power, but rather it begins with billable, leaving the ring to photo and photo, deciding to take action to keep the ring out of the hands of the enemy. Photos. Actions are the most crucial to fixing the state of the world. The Lord of the Ring ends. Nolan Sarin is defeated. But when the New World order is established, the age of men and the elves sail off into the undying lands in the West. Other more modern examples of the event stories would be Susan Collins. Hunger Games. We're Orson Scott Card's own Ender's game. The story begins when the Viewpoint character becomes involved in the events of the world and the story ends when the New World Order is established. In the next lesson, we will discuss how this knowledge can help you become a better writer and satisfy your audience. 8. Which Story is Yours?: So now we have identified and examined the four types of stories, and the question now is which one applies to your story. Which one are you going to write? To that end, I have some good news. Nearly all fictional stories have some elements of all four types of stories. What dictates the type of story is simply what the author spends the most time focusing on . So, basically whatever interest you most about your story, whatever you want to spend the most time on is the deciding factor. The first draft of the stories often explored toward where you discover and decide what type of store you are writing. But during the editing process is when you have to really nail down the type of story you have. What is important is consistency. If you start one type of story, you need to finish with that type. If you begin with a 1,000,000 story, you confuse your readers if you end it by solving a mystery. If you begin with an event story, your readers will likely be disappointed if the main character finishes the story by changing their role in society rather than establishing a new world order for your project , either take a story you have already written or story we're working on and determine what type of story it is right how the beginning and the ending of your story fit the criteria for that type of story. For example, my short story The Heart of Alchemy is primarily a character story. My main character, Italia, is a non magical alchemist and healer who was haunted by her occasional failure to save some patients, and she mostly blamed her lack of magical ability for this, Prompted by another character, she decides to seek out the philosopher's stone. The story ends with all the characters changing significantly, both inside and out. Now the Heart of Alchemy also has elements of events, story, elements of an idea story and even a tiny bit of a milieu story. However, the character story is the primary platt. Therefore, the story begins with the character growing dissatisfied with their current situation and ends after she changes her rule 9. Conclusion: thank you so much for taking my class. I hope you found the M I. C E quotient. As useful as I did. As I stated in an earlier video, I feel like this is something I should have been taught in high school or college, so I'm very glad I have the opportunity to share it with you now. If you enjoy this class, be sure to give it a positive review and consider checking out my other classes. I currently have two other classes. One is called Writing Realistic Characters using Myers Briggs personality types, and the other is called Book Review, writing tips, tricks and helpful hints. I also recommend the book that inspired this class. How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy by Orson Scott Card. Personally, I think Card is a master of the genres, and I found a lot of wisdom in his book. I'm not getting paid to promote his book at all. I just really, really like it. Please feel free to ask any questions in the discussion area below, or to share your ideas about what type of store you were working on. Thanks again for taking my class and have a great day