What if your biggest threat wasn’t a person or a group of people? What if it was something indifferent? Neither evil nor good, something that happened to oppose you. To stand in your way and prevent you from reaching your ultimate goal. That is the case in the man vs. nature conflict. Man vs nature is a feud old as time. Since the early days of humankind, people have had…
Humans are social creatures; we’ve lived in communities forever. Our survival depended on it, so it’s only natural that we crave social validation. However, today it might look like buying the trendiest jacket, following norms, or shaping ourselves to fit in. Sometimes, though, society doesn’t accept who you are. Sometimes the problem isn’t that you won’t fit in, it’s that you can’t. In literature, that’s portrayed as man vs. society.…
Do you know the self-conflicting feelings between what you’re doing and what you think you should be doing? For example, eating junk food when you know you should be eating healthier. It’s a clash between your thoughts. You want to do one thing, but you’re doing another thing. You desire something, aspire to be a certain person, be in a certain position, have a certain idea about yourself, which isn’t…
A classic story goes something like this: The hero wants something, and the villain is the reason they can’t have it. The hero is determined to reach their goal no matter what, but they’re met with resistance. The hero must fight for every step forward. The story doesn’t unfold only because of the hero’s goal, but because the villain is determined to stop it. This is a man vs. man…
A conflict is the reason the story is being told. The protagonist has a goal, but something prevents them from reaching it, and they must overcome that obstacle to achieve it. There are many different types of conflicts, but a story mainly consists of internal and external conflicts. In this post, you’ll learn what internal and external conflicts are, an example of internal and external conflict, how you can create…
Have you ever read a book that explains the history of coal in excruciating detail? It explains everything from how heat and pressure turn plants into coal to how, when coal is burned, it releases a large amount of CO2, and before you are halfway through, you forget what the point even was. If I ever picked up a book and was greeted with that introduction, I would’ve burned it.…
Clear writing is one of the most underrated skills in fiction. Conveying your story clearly is as crucial as the story itself. Many writers mistake a complicated story for a good story. They add too many elements in an unstructured fashion, which makes the story difficult to understand, and they sometimes don’t even realize it. However, you are here because you want to learn how to write clearly. This guide…
Imagine a story with no actions… Well, it’s not possible. Without actions, nothing happens, nothing changes, and there’s nothing to tell. Actions are deeds that make up the plot and move it forward. They’re the backbone of storytelling and the component that allows the hero to venture on an adventure. Despite the importance of action in a story, it can sometimes be difficult to write actions. In this post, we’ll…
Do you have these amazing stories in your head that you are itching to get out? Perhaps you are watching an emotional movie scene, and you feel inspired to open a document and write. After writing for a while, nothing about your story makes sense. You don’t have a solid plot, the characters feel inconsistent, and nothing in your story makes sense. That’s usually how storytelling goes in the first…
Books are like portals to different worlds. Worlds with magic, dragons, and time machines. They tell us stories about people we’ll never meet and lands we’ll never see. More importantly, they tell us something about our own world. They tell us stories of other people who live somewhere on our globe, in their small bubbles. We read stories about their struggles and their joy. We feel for them and think…
