Foundation Principles of Storytelling
by Bill Johnson

 When most people consider how to tell a story, they think in terms of plot and character. While these are often the most visible aspects of a story, there is an underlying foundation of principles that support a well-told story. These principles could be compared to a house foundation. Without a solid foundation, the other effects of the house, its "character and design," cannot be fully enjoyed. In the same fashion, the principles of storytelling are also mostly out of sight, but the effect of badly laid story foundation has effects just as damaging as a badly constructed house foundation.

The purpose of this essay is to lay out the principles of storytelling in a manner they can be considered individually. Second, so they can be understood as a unified body that offers an overview of what a story is, and how to write one.

Understanding these principles should be an aid to help writers identify some of the issues involved in creating a dramatic story.

What are these story principles?

Understanding the human need for stories.

A story is a world where every character, every action, every story element has meaning and purpose. This makes a story fundamentally different from life, which offers facts that don't necessarily have a clear purpose, meaning or outcome; events that generate emotional states that have no clear purpose or fulfillment; or events that engage the senses, but not in a meaningful, dramatic, fulfilling way.

Real life, then, can be chaotic, or appear to lack a desirable purpose and meaning. We don't marry the love of our life... or we do, and things go terribly wrong. Or the one we love is taken from us by a freak accident. Or we work hard but don't get the rewards we desire. Worse, they appear to go to someone who appears to be completely undeserving of the reward and honor we've worked to attain.

So real life can be painful, unpredictable, or even, yes, wildly rewarding. But in spite of our best laid plans or efforts, we can never clearly predict the outcome of any action or series of actions.

Most people, then, have a need for something that assigns meaning and purpose to the events of a life. This is what a story does.

How stories meet the needs the human need for resolution and fulfillment.

Stories offer an experience of life having meaning and purpose by taking life-like characters, issues and events arranged around a dramatic issue, and moving them to a state of resolution and fulfillment. A story thus fills a basic human need that life can appear to have a discernible meaning, purpose and outcome that can be experienced in a direct, potent way.

Because a story resolves and fulfills the issues and ideas it raises, a story can create a fulfilling, complete experience of any state of human emotions, thoughts or state of the senses. But for this state of fulfillment to occur, the storyteller must create a story around a dramatic issue a reader/viewer desires to experience, or can be led to desire to experience. So a story is written around a dramatic issue a reader desires to internalize to experience its movement to fulfillment.

This is why the storyteller must, first of all, understand the human need for stories, and how a story meets those needs. For only when a story engages and holds a reader's attention by what a story is about at its deeper, foundation level, will it be perceived as compelling. So all stories, from the simple to the complex, revolve around some issue that arises from the human need to feel we matter. To feel alive. To experience states of love, honor, courage. Fear, doubt, revenge. To feel a part of a world, even an imaginary one. To feel the freedom to explore new worlds. Or simply to experience a desirable state of the movement of our senses, intellect, or feelings to an engaging, desirable outcome of events. To experience insights into life we might not see on our own, or see deeply.

Romeo and Juliet, as an example, is a story not about its title characters, but about the nature of love. Thus, when readers enter its world, they are led to experience something deep and clear about love. This makes the story Romeo and Juliet totally unlike a life-like, factual telling of the deaths of Romeo and Juliet. To be told that two teenagers, Romeo and Juliet, committed suicide because their families kept them apart, and to go over the "true," factual events that led up to their deaths, is not the same as to create a story around those same events. The story Romeo and Juliet uses the deaths of Romeo and Juliet to create a deeply felt, fulfilling story about the power of great love.

A "moving" experience of love that the reader/viewer can internalize and thus experience within themselves.

Creating a story premise that sets out a story's dramatic idea, movement, and  fulfillment.

An important tool to be able to write a powerfully affecting story is the ability to create a story premise. To be able to verbalize, in the case of Romeo and Juliet, that "This story is about the nature of a great love that proves itself by defying even death."

Any story, then, at its heart, must have some dramatic issue of consequence to its audience, and the writer should be able to verbalize this issue. In the case of Romeo and Juliet, it's a story about love.

The second part of creating a story premise revolves around describing the story's movement toward some kind of fulfillment.

The third part of the premise describes the fulfillment of the story idea.

Fourth, the writer must perceive that by the binding action of a premise every character's action is tied in some way to the story's dramatic issue. This binding effect creates a quality of conflict and drama over a story's course and outcome. Without that binding effect, characters can act forcefully to no particular effect on the course or outcome of a story.

To break down a story premise more clearly...

Lajos Egri, in his book The Art of Dramatic Writing, states that the premise of Romeo and Juliet is: Great love defies even death.

The main dramatic issue of this story is love. That's what this story is organized around on that deeper level that appeals to anyone who might want to experience a clear, direct, potent state of feelings, thoughts and of the senses about love.

The movement of the story is represented by the verb "defying." The active principle of this story about love is that it defies even death. Every story premise must recognize and reflect this issue of the active movement of the story toward its fulfillment. Every character in the story thus "moves" the story toward its fulfillment by their actions. Character actions which do not move a story toward its fulfillment are dramatically inert, no matter how forceful or dynamic they appear when viewed in isolation.

Third, this story about love is fulfilled when, by the actions of the story's characters, it's proven that great love can defy even death. Thus, the readers/viewers who have internalized the story's dramatic movement share this experience of love.

Note, again, that a story premise expresses the dramatic idea at the core of the story in a way that can be acted out -- moved -- by the story's characters to a recognizable  fulfillment.

When a writer is able to clearly identify the premise of their story, they can begin to see how every action of the story must serve that deeper purpose of moving the story toward its fulfillment. And how by binding together the actions of a story's characters around a recognizable purpose, a storyteller generates a quality of conflict around the course and outcome of their stories.

Perceiving how a well-written story is "true" to its purpose in the way every element of the story moves the story toward the fulfillment of the story's dramatic idea.

While creating a story premise sets out the boundaries of a story's world, a story must still be "true" to the movement within its boundaries. This  means that characters actions that, when viewed in isolation, are active, bold, dramatic and direct, can still have no bearing on the story's movement to fulfillment. Such movement is inherently flawed.

To visualize story movement, consider a race with several runners. It has a beginning, middle and end. The varied actions of the different runners makes the action of the race from its start to finish -- its movement to fulfillment -- visible and concrete. So far, the same could be said of a factual accounting of the race.

In a story, however, the events of the race and its outcome are arranged by the storyteller to create a particular state of thought, feeling and state of the senses for the reader; in the same sense Romeo and Juliet is shaped so readers can experience a deep sense of the nature of love. So the storyteller understands the "why" a race matters enough that we internalize its movement to its fulfillment. To be story-like in its movement, then, the outcome of a race would revolve around the nature of courage, of faith and determination defeating overwhelming odds, heroism, victory achieved even in defeat, hard work its own reward. (One reason "sports" are popular is that their focus on personalities, clearly defined goals and dramatic outcomes, lends their action and mythos to being internalized and perceived as "story- like." We can imagine ourselves as Roger Maris hitting that 61st home run (or ourselves knocking in the 62nd), coming in dramatically first at the Indianapolis 500, knocking out Mike Tyson.)

The binding effect of the premise that generates conflict can be seen in this race example because, if each runner doesn't have an identifiable purpose, goal and concrete outcome associated with the race, there's no drama over their participation in the race. Again, just like in the race, a story's premise sets out why particular characters are in action in a particular story. Why they feel compelled by what's at stake in the story.

Whether the overall movement of a story is simple or complex, the various movements of story elements must be discernible and of enough consequence a reader desires to internalize the story's movement to fulfillment. Thus, characters who are not in conflict over shaping a story's course and outcome are not tied into its movement; and it is those varied movements which must serve that deeper issue of what the story's about being fulfilled by the collective action of a story's characters and its events.

When a story -- on this deeper foundation level -- comes across as unclear in how the actions of its character are moving the story toward its fulfillment, a reader can struggle to internalize and assign meaning to those character actions. Such characters can appear to be life-like, i.e., unclear and unfocused, and not story-like, i.e., acted with meaning and purpose. The result, readers set aside that story. Even when a reader can't consciously identify why the story "feels" false, false movement "jars" them out of a state of being able to internalize the story.

In the case of Romeo and Juliet, the story is "true" to its movement because the characters of Romeo and Juliet are so intimately intermeshed with the story, their every action moves this story about the nature of love toward its fulfillment. They become the embodiments of the story. But it is what the story itself is about that gives birth to these characters, and assigns meaning to their actions.

The action and events of a story, then, are arranged in a way to make clear, and dramatically potent, the story's movement toward its fulfillment.

Again, that's why every action of the story must serve that deeper purpose of what the story is about and move it toward its fulfillment.

An important tool to be able to write a powerfully affecting story like Romeo and Juliet is an ability to lay out what such a story is about at its foundation level. To be able to verbalize, in the case of Romeo and Juliet, that "This story is about the nature of love. By these characters defying every attempt to keep them apart, they prove that great love defies even death."

  Perceiving how story elements are "arranged" in a particular way to create the effect of a story that a reader will desire to internalize.

Once a story is understood in terms of how it meets a reader's need of fulfillment around their feelings, thoughts and state of the senses, a writer must be clear about how to arrange the elements of a story for the dramatic effect that creates that effect of fulfillment. Referring again to Romeo and Juliet, this is a story about the nature of love, but its opening scenes play out the hatred of the Capulets and the Montagues via a confrontation on a street in Venice.

To perceive the reason why Shakespeare's chose a street brawl as a potent way to begin the play about love is to see into this issue of arrangement.

Because Romeo and Juliet is about the nature of love proving itself – not its title characters -- it becomes clear what kind of action generates opposition to love proving itself: Hate.

In Romeo and Juliet, then, the story starts out by demonstrating the hatred of the Montagues and Capulets. The purpose of this arrangement of the story's elements is that:

It's dramatic. We're not told the Montagues and Capulets are in conflict. We're shown.

Characters from the story's first pages are in physical movement.

Because the story is about the power of love, to show the depth of the hatred of the character's families immediately establishes what the power of love must overcome to prove itself. So the story, in its arrangement of its elements, immediately sets out what's at stake in the story; what, of consequence, is at stake for the story's characters AND its readers; and what would fulfill the story.

Again, keep in mind that the opening lines of the story refer to the death of Romeo and Juliet, so the story's drama is not over its outcome, but in the arrangement of its dramatic elements in a way that creates a powerful experience of the nature of love.

The deeper level of drama in a story then is in the arrangement of its events that create a pull on a reader's attention and interest, and offer a reward for that interest and attention: a deeply felt fulfillment of this issue of love.

Again, to perceive the dramatic issue at the heart of your story -- love, courage, a need to matter -- is to understand what blocks those dramatic issues from fulfilling themselves: hate, fear, indifference.

Understanding how writing in the "moment" heightens the effect of a well-told story.

When the writer is clear about how their story fulfills some human need, to hold a reader's interest they still must be able to write powerfully in the "moment."

Writing that is "true" to the craft of storytelling creates a compelling sense of being in the "moment" of the action being described. Writers can develop this ability by perceiving what's at stake in their stories. When this is understood, it becomes more clearly apparent the emotions and events that drive a story's characters. With that perception, the next step is the ability and craft to describe only that which dramatically recreates the mood necessary to make a story's events and characters potent and dramatic. All else should be trimmed away as dramatically weak.

This ability to create scenes or characters who exist powerfully in the "moment" is one of those issues of writing that separate those who get published and produced from those who don't. This is because for many people life is not something they can, or are able, to feel deeply. When a writer is able to create an experience of life being deeply and powerfully felt by a story's characters, and a reader is able to internalize those dramatic actions, it's why many people have such a desire for well-told stories.

Again, in Romeo and Juliet, the story opens in a state of heightened feelings and conflict to draw us into its world. By describing those states of heightened feelings in a way that the stories viewers/readers can internalize them, Shakespeare makes this story about love all the more dramatic and potent.

When writers fail to understand what their story is about at its essence, and how that drives their characters, they can also struggle with this issue of how best to describe the elements of their story in a way that brings it to life. Instead of describing characters and actions and issues at the heart of their stories, they describe characters and events the reader doesn't "feel" are relevant. Or they describe such characters and events in a way that fails to generate a dramatic quality of moving a story toward its fulfillment.

To summarize, stories are never life-like, because most of the events of life are linear and inconsequential. Well-told stories are arranged, designed to offer a heightened experience of the events and characters of life in a way that offers that story-like experience of fulfillment. So the ability to write potent "moments" that together create a story are a tremendous asset to the craft of storytelling.

 Understanding story structure.

Many story elements can be arranged in particular structures that generate the qualities of a story, i.e., the presentation of a dramatic story idea and its movement toward resolution and fulfillment via the actions of its characters. In a detective story, as an example, a crime is generally committed early in the story, setting out what's at stake in the story's world. The roles of the story's characters are generally clearly defined, as well as how their actions will resolve what's at stake in the story.

In a horror story, characters must act -- move -- or die.

In a western, the story's hero generally has no choice but to act, no matter the obstacles he or she faces.

In a romantic novel, we may know very well how the story will eventually turn out, but it's that experience of love, or romance, that we desire to experience, that the story acts out in a fulfilling way, that gives such romance stories their enduring appeal.

So writing and studying films or novels of a particular type can give writers insight into the principles of story structure that can be applied to all stories.

Imitation.

By reading well told stories and copying their structure, an inexperienced storyteller can incorporate the principles of a creating a well told story.

A writer desiring to write mysteries can study and learn the structure of a particular kind of mystery, and recreate it. And the fact that the writer starts with a structure that creates an outline for their story, allows them to use their own "voice" while learning the craft of storytelling.

A writer's experiences of life.

Because a writer has experienced states of love, grief, loss, hate, the desire to matter, they have some of the most essential tools to be a storyteller: an understanding of the needs that draw readers to stories.

The Craft of Storytelling.

Part of the craft of being a storyteller means learning to create images with words. Such writing requires a willingness to learn the craft of language, just as being a qualified carpenter, or mechanic, means a mastery in the use of the tools of that trade. So the storyteller must have a mastery of words. Or be willing to study and master that craft.

Technical knowledge.

To set a story on a ship, one must have some knowledge of ships. To set a story on an airplane, one must have some knowledge of planes.

This is not a call that to set a scene on a ship one must be a ship's captain, but the writer must be clear about what they describe. Otherwise ,by "lying" to the reader in some detail, they give readers a reason to set aside their stories.

The desire to be a storyteller.

In the main, one does not become a storyteller out of a desire for wealth, or fame, or prestige, although some do...and a few even succeed for those reasons. People most often write stories because they feel moved to do so. If you don't have that desire, even success won't generate what a commitment to the craft of being a storyteller. A storyteller's first audience is themselves.

Understanding the role of characters in a story.

Characters in a story operate to make the story's movement visible and concrete in a way that engages a reader's interest. This must happen if a reader is to be able to, to desire, to internalize the story's movement toward its fulfillment.

The storyteller, then, needs to be able to make the subtle distinction between what their story is about on that deeper, foundation level, from what's at stake for their characters and what they need to do to set up their plot.

When the storyteller is clear about how their story fulfills some need a reader comes to a story to have satisfied, what a story is about, its premise and its movement, they still must be able to create characters who act powerfully in the "moment."

In Romeo and Juliet, Romeo is hot blooded and impulsive. He will not be denied the woman he loves...even if death is an obstacle that must be overcome.

So Romeo is a character of great strength of will. All characters in well told stories must have this strength of purpose. Whether the issue is love, greed, revenge, compassion, hate, jealousy, a character must be willing to confront and overcome whatever obstacles the story places in their path. Weak characters offer readers/viewers no reason to  internalize the story; and because their actions are weak and unfocused, the reader literally has difficulty internalizing the actions of such characters and assigning them meaning.

The emotional make up of such a character as Romeo makes him a young man who will not back down, not give up, who will actively pursue Juliet in spite of any obstacle.

Again, in any story, the writer creates characters with states of emotions that mean they will act forcefully when confronted with the need to resolve what's at stake in the story in a favorable way to themselves, or their allies. Such characters, born into a world designed to deny them what they feel they must have to live, generate a quality of movement from a story's opening lines.

Writers who fail to understand their stories and what constitutes their movement to fulfillment, or who ignore their stories while they generate issues for their characters to respond to, create dramatically weak characters. Again, they are weak no matter how powerful they might appear when viewed in isolation.

Perceiving how a plot operates to make a story's movement concrete and dramatic.

This last issue of storyteller -- understanding what a plot is -- is easily the most misunderstood.

The purpose of the plot is to make visible and concrete the movement of the story in a way that its action -- movement -- is dramatic and potent. Stories with well designed plots thus have a dramatic quality of movement that encourages readers to internalize the story.

A plot serves to make the movement of the story dramatic and potent by taking character concerns and intertwining them with what's at stake in the story itself. Therefore, as characters feel compelled to act, they're actions increase the obstacles they face as they strive to shape the outcome of the story in a desirable way. So to achieve personal goals -which readers desire to internalize to experience the drama over their outcome -- a character must act more forcefully in a way that advances the story. In turn, they are blocked just as forcefully by other characters who desire a different course or outcome for the story. Again, a story creates this effect because every character in a story should be bound by a story's premise. But to describe a story's plot is not to describe what's at stake in the story itself, or its movement, or its premise.

To illustrate this point, consider the novel The Hunt For Red October. On the surface, this story might appear to be a plot driven thriller. A story about a Latvian- descended  commander of a Russian nuclear submarine attempting to flee to America in his submarine while pursued by both the Russian and American navies. But on a story level, this story is about a conflict between values, about the clash between freedom and authoritarianism. Because we desire to experience that state where the values of freedom win out over oppression -- which many times doesn't happen in real life, or in our own lives -- we readily internalize this story that revolves around its movement and purpose via the actions of its characters. Because the story, in its every action, proves that freedom can, indeed, overcome oppression, it drew in readers.

To summarize, the purpose of a plot is to make visible and concrete the movement of the story in a way that its action is dramatic and potent. This encourages a reader to  internalize the story to experience its dramatic fulfillment.

To describe a story's plot is not the same as describing what a story is about on its foundation level.

  Understanding POINT OF VIEW.

Having a strong grasp of how best to present a story's point of view can be a struggle for inexperienced and experienced writers alike. But like understanding why character belong to a particular story, and how a story's plot operates to create drama over its outcome, seeing that POV as an issue of storytelling is related to a story's movement can help writers untangle this thorny issue.

As an issue of movement, the issue that underlies all POV questions is this: how does telling the story through the POV of one character over another make the story's movement to fulfillment dramatic and concrete for the story's readers/viewers in a way that offers a satisfying state of fulfillment?

Many inexperienced writers struggle with POV issues because, to make their story seem fresh and engaging, they change the POV between characters. But it should be kept in mind that a reader/viewer needs to be able to internalize the story's movement. If abrupt changes in POV keep a reader from being able to enjoy the story's movement, changes in POV have the opposite effect of what the writer intends.

Inexperienced writers can be led to believe that changing their POV among a variety of characters keeps their story fresh because they have already internalized the deeper level of their story and its movement. What they then can fail to realize is that what they're putting on paper isn't recreating that dramatic movement toward fulfillment for their readers. So a POV that doesn't serve to make a story's movement dramatic and potent is weak, no matter how it can be justified when examined in isolation.

So, to answer the question, what POV character will best tell your story? Think of it in terms of, does making this character, or using this POV device, help my reader/viewer feel my story in a stronger, deeper way?

In most instances, clever, unusual uses of POV devices weaken a story, not strengthen it. Unless the writer has mastered all the other elements of the craft of storytelling. Such a writer, a master of the craft of storytelling, is free to chose how best to tell their story.

To conclude...

A writer needs to be able to perceive what their story is about, its movement, and its fulfillment. And how what a story is about, its movement and fulfillment, engage a reader. Then, they will be able to see how characters, plot devices, POV, work to create a dramatic movement of their story to its fulfillment. How every element of a story works together in its characters, plot, environment, to bring that story to life. To introduce it and move it toward its fulfillment, to this deeper realization around the dramatic issue at its core. As in Romeo and Juliet, about the nature of love, i.e., "My story about love is  brought to life through the action of its main characters, Romeo and Juliet, two young lovers who will not let their parents or the authorities, even death, keep them apart."

At its heart, a story must have an issue at stake that is of consequence to the story's readers. Something that they will desire to experience in a state of resolution and fulfillment. Love. Courage. Redemption. Renewal. Some issue that revolves around the aching need of humans to feel they matter, that they have their place in the world... even if it's a fictional story.

Every issue of storytelling, then, can be seen to arise from understanding these principles of storytelling.

So even though I assign Character, Plot and point of view as the last of these principles, this is not to suggest that most writers don't come to a story through some insight or interest in a character, scene, or plot. Some issue that pulls at them. That won't let them sleep at night. But the underlying issue I've sought to explore and illuminate in this essay is the issue of why we desire stories, and how a story meets the needs we bring to it. From that foundation, a writer can more easily perceive the relationship of character and plot to a story.