THE FIVE PILLARS OF FICTION WRITING

Writing in itself is an art and as such a writer needs to be proficient. Talent is not enough in the art of writing. One needs to be skilled when it comes to writing, you need to give your audience a strong emotional experience that can keep their eyes fixed on your story.

The five pillars that can bring about this emotional experience are:

1: Setting or what we call the story world.

2: Theme or the meaning of your story.

3: Characters: that is the players on the stage of your story.

4: Plot:the plethora of actions the characters take or series of events that takes place in the life of the characters.
Then finally.

5: Style:This is simply your own way of combining the earlier mentioned keys together. It’s the way you express yourself, in humour, in tone, in words.

  Now let's talk about the story world
This is the place where your story takes place. It ranges from the whole universe to your continent to your country to your state, etc.
  Infact in fiction, you can create your own world. I mean your own entirely different world from the real world we know. But you have to make it very real to the point that your readers will be part of the world.
You have to know your story world very well, from political structure to economics, culture, religion, laws etc.
This way you can give a good description of the place that will automatically teleport your reader into the story world where he or she can have a first hand experience of what is happening. Because we can live even in Mercury when it comes to story world.

Let's talk about the theme:
Often time, writers believe you must have a theme before you start writing. It's good to have a good message to pass to your readers but when an idea comes into your head, just start writing.
You can dig out the theme after you have put your ideas together. It's also good when the theme isn't too obvious because often times when we insist on passing the message by all means we end up preaching a sermon that can bore our readers out.
But still it's good to pass a strong message. So your story should have a good meaning to the reader.

Let's move to 3, Your characterization:
The people in the middle of it:your story world. They must have a strong personality. They must have a back story, a present life and a future.
Your characters have to be real, so much so that your readers can put themselves inside the characters and the characters themselves.

Let's go over 4: Plot
There should be a major event that you are narrating. For example it could be how Jennifer fulfilled her dreams of staying in the moon.
Now, that's the major plot but a whole lot of events will unfold in her journey to the moon. True?
These other happenings are called sub plots.
As writers one way we give our readers an emotional punch is by making sure our characters have a life of conflict.
What I mean is, something should be antagonizing the dreams and aspirations of your characters. I mean the struggles he or she is facing, there must be a challenge. In real life, we all have one hurdle or the other to jump.So give your character a challenge to face, a puzzle to solve, etc. Just something enough to intrigue your readers emotions.

Okay, so let's talk about style.:When it comes to style, you can liken it to the secret recipe that makes the taste of Mama Nkechi's egusi soup different from Amaka's.
That's simply the way you express yourself as a writer. How you play with words and how you put all the other keys together in a unique way.
We all have our individual  unique style. That's our signature. The very thing that differentiates our work from others.
 Thank you

Taught by Dekpen Tamarapreye