The 5 Essential Elements of a storytelling
Do you want to understand the 5 essential elements of a story? You have come to the right place. A good story should be like a journey for the reader. They should feel like it’s happening to them, right alongside the protagonist. It should have an emotional impact on them and leave them feeling satisfied at the end.
Download the first chapter of The Storytelling Series: Beginners’ Guide for Small Businesses & Content Creators by Obehi Ewanfoh.
The five key components of a story are:
- The characters,
- The setting,
- The plot,
- The conflict,
- And the resolution.
These essential elements provide structure and order to a story, allowing it to develop logically and smoothly. Now, let’s look at each of them more closely.
Characters in storytelling
Characters are really important in stories, and they fall into different categories like human beings, animals, or objects. Generally, the most important characters have the greatest effect on what happens in the story.
Creating compelling characters is an essential part of storytelling, whether you’re writing a novel, screenplay, or any other type of narrative. Here are five ways to create great characters in storytelling:
- Give them distinct personalities: Each character should have a unique personality, with their own quirks, strengths, weaknesses, and beliefs. This can help readers or viewers differentiate between characters and become invested in their individual stories.
- Provide them with clear motivations: Every character should have a clear motivation for their actions. This motivation can drive the character’s decisions and actions throughout the story, making them more relatable and engaging.
- Make them complex: Great characters are often complex, with multiple layers and contradictions. They may have conflicting emotions, hidden desires, or secrets that are slowly revealed over time. This complexity can make them feel more like real people and keep the audience guessing about their next move.
- Show, don’t tell: Rather than telling the audience about a character’s personality or backstory, it’s often more effective to show it through their actions and interactions with other characters. This can help the audience feel more connected to the character and understand their motivations and emotions.
- Give them a character arc: Finally, great characters often go through a transformation over the course of the story. This can be a positive change, as the character learns and grows, or a negative change, as they become more flawed or corrupt. This character arc can help the audience become more invested in the character’s journey and the story as a whole.
Characters are the backbone of any story. Without them, there would be no plot and no story to speak of.
They can have a big impact on the plot, changing their role as the events in the story unfold. In order to make readers care about your characters, they need to have depth and change as they go through the ups and downs of your plot points.
We can classify character types by their function in a story as followed:
The protagonist
The protagonist is the main character of a narrative who has an important role in a story and tends to be involved in or affected by the majority of events that take place in the story.
For example, Snow White, who is typically a protagonist figure, is only (usually) involved in the first act of her story when she falls victim to the curse cast upon her by her jealous stepmother.
The antagonist
The protagonist’s main opposition character is called the “antagonist.” We need antagonists so that there can be conflict, and they can be found in every literary work.
Secondary characters
Secondary characters are those in our stories who have a significant role and who appear in multiple scenes, but who are not the main focus of the primary plot. These supporting characters may be the focal point of their own subplots.
Other types of characters in storytelling could include:
- Deuteragonists characters,
- The confidant characters,
- And tertiary characters and more.
Characters are what make up your story. The plot and setting are just elements that help characters lead their individual journeys while ultimately making your story what it is.
Your characters play a huge role in crafting your story and engaging with readers. They are active participants who help to shape the world you are creating, both through their physical presence in the environment and how they might interpret it, and the readers get to explore that world through these characters’ eyes.
The role of Setting in storytelling
In storytelling, settings can be real-time periods in a known location or unfamiliar worlds with unknown locations. Settings also include the landscape (physical and cultural), environmental conditions, and prevailing weather. Settings reveal a great deal about the story.
The setting is a crucial part of storytelling. It defines the mood, and the tone and provides weight to the narrative. Writers often use specific settings to help tell their story and convey themes such as
- Loneliness,
- Isolation,
- Or claustrophobia as the case may be.
Setting often plays a big role in how readers see the story. For instance, the setting of a crime story usually creates a sense of menace.
This is why horror novels are typically set in isolated places, while romance novels are more often set in small towns. Setting can be an important part of a story and can even feel like a character itself.
What is the story plot?
A plot is an important part of a story that focuses on the actions, reactions, and effects that a protagonist experience.
A strong plot is centered around one event that creates a dramatic question that must be answered through the protagonist’s journey.
Plotting is a key aspect that authors focus on when writing their stories. It’s basically the foundation of any story – the “what” of everything. Some people would rather plot out their novels beforehand, but some don’t even bother to do that.
Creating a great story plot is essential to engaging readers or viewers and keeping them invested in your narrative. Here are five ways to create a great story plot in storytelling:
- Create a compelling premise: A great story plot begins with a compelling premise or idea that grabs the audience’s attention. This could be a unique setting, an intriguing character, or a thought-provoking concept.
- Develop a clear conflict: Every great story needs conflict, whether it’s between characters, within a character, or between a character and their environment. This conflict should be clearly defined and provide a driving force for the plot.
- Use the three-act structure: Many successful stories follow the three-act structure, which includes an introduction, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution. This structure can help you build tension and keep the audience engaged throughout the story.
- Incorporate surprises and twists: Adding surprises and twists to your plot can keep the audience guessing and make the story more exciting. These surprises could come from unexpected plot developments, character revelations, or other creative devices.
- Make the stakes high: In order for the audience to care about the story, the stakes need to be high. This could mean putting the main character’s life, relationships, or goals in jeopardy, or creating a situation with high stakes for the larger world or society in which the story takes place.
Overall, a great story plot should be engaging, well-structured, surprising, and emotionally impactful, with clearly defined conflicts, high stakes, and relatable characters that audiences can root for.
What are conflicts in a story?
In a literary work, a conflict is when an external or internal conflict creates the starting point for a story. For example, in a superhero movie, the main character might have to battle an evil villain or stop the world from being taken over by aliens with powers. A writer would use conflict as a way to tell their story and keep their audience engaged throughout the story.
Conflict is one of the most important elements in literature and film. It creates the narrative thread for a story and is what makes reading or watching so interesting to the viewer. When there is no conflict, there isn’t much of a story, which makes some stories boring to read.
There are three common types of conflict to choose from as:
- Person vs. person,
- Person vs. nature,
- And person vs. self.
Resolution in a story
Resolutions are essential to any story. They usually offer a way to resolve the central conflict introduced at the beginning of the story. They are not always uplifting but do provide readers with some sense of closure.
The resolution is the finale. It’s the part of the story where you find out what happens to the characters after things resolve themselves.
The resolution can be the most difficult part of the story to write. It’s the finale, and it’s not always easy to know how things will work out for your characters when all the conflicts are resolved.
The following tips will help you write a successful resolution:
- Keep it short – sometimes less is better,
- The resolution to your story should be the shortest part of the story.
- Don’t make it too easy for your characters.
If they were in a struggle with life and ended up winning, don’t have them instantly experience a new level of happiness just because the story is over. If something is missing from their lives, then you should write about it.
The point of the story is not to wipe away problems with a happy ending. Make sure you pay attention to this and the rest of The 5 essential elements of storytelling and you are on your way to telling your stories like a pro.
Download the first chapter of The Storytelling Series: Beginners’ Guide for Small Businesses & Content Creators by Obehi Ewanfoh.
