Storytelling For Beginners: 6 Tips To Think About Now

No matter where you are in the writing process, refreshing yourself on storytelling for beginners is a smart choice. When I first started writing I had no idea there were specific tips and tricks of the trade.

I simply started writing my characters and diving into my plot. I’m grateful to a New York Times bestselling author for sitting down with me for coffee and showing me how much I didn’t know.

Over hot drinks in a crowded café, she told me how much learning I needed to do, but she also said I could be a writer. Hope with a plan is the best kind there is, so in this post, I’m giving you 6 insights on storytelling for beginners.

This way, you can take action to achieve your dream. In fact, most of our over 3,000 fiction and memoir authors published their first book with us. If you feel in over your head, no worries. We’ve got you covered!

Storytelling for beginners: what you learn

• How do you start a story for beginners?
• What’s the significance of theme and tone?
• What are techniques for storytelling generation?
• What are the 4 P’s of storytelling?
• What are the 5 C’s of storytelling?
• How to write the first draft?
• Bonus: publishing tips

1. How do you start a story for beginners?

To start writing a story, it’s crucial to know if you are a pantser (someone who writes to find out what happens) or a plotter (someone who plots the book before writing it). You may be a creative mix of these two (that’s me!) and that’s totally okay too.

Once you know which camp you fall in, you can start storytelling for beginners: sit down and start writing or sit down and start plotting. Or, if you’re like me, you may sit down and do a little bit of both.

Personally, I like to know the three acts of my story structure before writing:

• Where does my story start?
• What is the midpoint of my story?
• Where does my story end?

Since this is a blog on storytelling for beginners, let’s brush up on the various structure types you may encounter:

• Three-Act Structure: A classic model of storytelling that includes setup (Act I), confrontation (Act II), and resolution (Act III).
• The Hero’s Journey: Popularized by Joseph Campbell, this structure involves a hero who goes on an adventure, faces a crisis, wins a victory, and then returns transformed.
• Five Act Structure: More common in plays, this structure includes: exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and dénouement.
• Seven Point Story Structure: Involves seven key events: the hook, the first plot point, the pinch point, the midpoint, the second pinch point, the second plot point, and the resolution.

Tip 1: Storytelling for beginners starts with the fundamentals, so take time to learn how you write so you know how to start.

2. What’s the significance of theme and tone?

The theme and tone serve as the soul and voice of your story, so it’s important you settle on what you want to communicate before settling down to write. Storytelling for beginners emphasizes laying a strong foundation!

The theme is the central idea or message that you want to convey. It’s the thread that ties your characters, plot, and setting together. Tone is the attitude or emotional atmosphere of the story. It can be light-hearted, somber, suspenseful, or anything in between.

Once you understand the power of theme and tone, you can intentionally implement it into your story to create a powerful read that resonates with your audience.

Tip 2: Take time to intentionally set your theme and tone.

3. What are techniques for storytelling generation?

Storytelling for beginners can be difficult if you are unsure how to brainstorm and get your ideas on the page. Try one of these five tips, or a combination of several, to see which one works best for you.

Once you learn how to generate ideas, you’ll quickly become a master of storytelling for beginners (and experts!).

Your story idea is one of the most important parts of the creative process:

• Brainstorm: Write down any and all ideas.
• Free write: Write continuously for a set period without worrying about grammar or coherence.
• Mind map: Start with a central idea and draw branches to related ideas or themes.
• Observation: Pay attention to the world around you because ordinary situations can spark extraordinary stories.
• Journal: Keep a regular journal to record thoughts, experiences, and reflections that could inspire a story.

Tip 3: Get your ideas down on the page, a crucial component of storytelling for beginners.

Tips for inspiration

Reading and consuming a variety of media can be an immense source of inspiration for your story. Why? It exposes you to different storytelling techniques, narrative styles, and thematic explorations.

Watching TV flip from awful news stories to ads is said to be what inspired Suzanne Collins to write the phenomenon that became The Hunger Games.

Tips for unique story ideas

One of my writing friends stresses the importance of asking questions when settling on a new idea. This is a fundamental aspect of storytelling for beginners.

You can see it in practice in A Quiet Place: Day 1. Hypothetical scenarios can lead to unique story ideas by challenging you to think beyond the expected.

Tips for generating character development

Here are five proven techniques for character development to help you master storytelling for beginners:

• Backstory: Delve into your character’s past experiences, their upbringing, and pivotal moments that shaped them.
• Motivations: Identify what drives your character, their dreams, goals, fears, and desires.
• Strengths and weaknesses: Establish your character’s skills and vulnerabilities to make them feel real and relatable.
• Relationships: Define how your character interacts with others and how these relationships affect them.
• Appearance and mannerisms: Provide physical descriptions and behavioral habits that distinguish your character.

Focusing on character traits will help you write a story that carries significance and does not seem like a cookie-cutter stereotype that has been used too many times.

Tip 3: Get your ideas down on paper to help set you up for success.

4. What are the 4 P’s of storytelling?

Storytelling for beginners includes a knowledge base of the 4 P’s, which are: people, place, purpose, and plot.

People

We discussed your protagonist above, but don’t forget about your cast of characters. The more you create real-life characters, the more your readers will feel invested in your story.

Place

Place is your setting and the context of your story. But, storytelling for beginners needs to include sensory details, particularly smell and taste (senses often looked by new writers).

Creating a vivid setting involves more than just describing the physical environment. You can leverage sensory detail to make your setting immersive. 

Including cultural, historical, and social aspects can also make your setting feel more real and interconnected with your characters and plot.

Purpose

Themes in storytelling are an important part of the writing process because they are often the purpose of your writing. Be sure to settle on your main theme as early as possible. Whether good vs evil or a coming of age story, your theme can drive the trajectory of your story.

Plot

Whether you are a plotter or a pantser, be sure to include the following in your first draft:

• Beginning: Start with a hook to captivate your reader’s interest.
• Middle: Maintain tension and interest through character development and escalating conflict.
• Ending: Provide a satisfying resolution that ties up the loose ends of your plot.

My writing mentor calls the middle the Marathon-of-the-Middle because it takes so much effort to push through. When learning storytelling for beginners, it can be easy to fill the middle of your story with fluff.

Avoid this at all costs. Keep the tension high throughout your plot to keep readers reading.

Tip 4: Focus on the 4 P’s to make sure your story feels well-rounded.

5. What are the 5 C’s of storytelling?

Storytelling for beginners also includes learning the 5 C’s, which are: context, character, conflict, choice, and change/consequence.

Context

The context or setting of your story refers to the time and place where it occurs. It’s not merely a backdrop for the plot but an active element that can shape your characters and their actions.

Whether it’s a bustling city in the 21st century or a mythical land in a bygone era, the setting can provide context, set the mood, and influence the storyline. 

Character

A character arc is the transformation or inner journey of a character over the course of a story. It’s an integral part of storytelling as it drives the plot, engages readers, and conveys the story’s themes. 

Conflict

Conflict is the track on which the train of story moves forward. It drives plot and character development.

Whether a character becomes better, worse, or simply changes their perspective, use conflict to reflect real-life experiences, making your story more compelling.

Choice

If conflict drives your plot, your character’s response (choice) to the conflict drives their character arc. Choices arise from the struggles your characters face, whether against other characters, themselves, or their circumstances. 

By creating difficult choices for your characters, you can keep your readers engaged, create suspense, and build toward a satisfying climax.

Change/consequence

The change or consequence can include your character’s development and arc, but their change will also have consequences for those around them, whether positive or negative.

To reference The Hunger Games again, Katniss’s choice to defend her sister had consequences that impacted her family and reached all the way to the Capitol. Many of these changes were good, but some had difficult consequences.

Tip 5: Feeling super ambitious? Add the 5 C’s to your 4 P’s to create a fully immersive story world.

6. How to write the first draft?

Writing the first draft while also editing the first draft is a possibility if you follow my writing mentor’s advice to set a daily word count goal (and yes, this is even possible in storytelling for beginners).

His method, which I find incredibly helpful, is below:

• Create a self-imposed writing deadline
• Set your daily word count goal to reach that deadline (and don’t forget to add days for sickness and even procrastination)
• Day one: write your daily word count
• Day two: edit day one’s word count and write day two’s word count
• Day three: repeat the process for day two until you hit your deadline

This ensures that you keep writing every day while also providing a creative launching pad via edits. When I sit down to write and feel intimated looking at the blank page, guess what?

All I have to do is edit yesterday’s work to get me back into the writing mindset. By the time I’m done editing, more often than not, my creative juices are flowing and I’m ready to write new material.

Tip 6: Follow the edit-then-write method to complete your draft and first edit in no time.

Bonus: publishing tips

Storytelling for beginners would not be complete without a few publishing tips! Once you finish your draft it’s time to decide which path you want to take to put your story out into the world.

• Traditional publishing: In traditional publishing, a publishing house buys the rights to your manuscript, handles the editing, design, some of the marketing, and provides you with royalties from sales. 
• Self-publishing: Self-publishing involves you publishing your own book, which gives you full creative control but also means you’re responsible for the entire process. 
• Hybrid publishing: Hybrid publishing blends elements of both: you might pay for some professional services like traditional publishing, but you maintain more creative control than you would traditionally publishing. 

Each route has its pros and cons, and the choice depends on your specific goals and resources as an author!

Rejection and perseverance

Rejection is an inherent part of the writing and publishing process. Whether from an agent, a publisher, or a reader, it can be discouraging. 

However, it’s essential to view rejection as a learning opportunity rather than a definitive judgment on who you are as a writer. Many successful authors faced numerous rejections before they found success. 

The key is to persist, to keep refining your craft, and to keep practicing. Writing a story can seem daunting, especially when you’re learning storytelling for beginners. 

But my writing mentor says that every name author once started as unknown and unpublished. We all start as aspiring authors.

Don’t let fear or uncertainty hold you back. Dive in, start crafting your unique narrative, and explore the magic and power of storytelling. Every story matters, and the world is waiting to hear yours.

Storytelling for beginners: take your next step

Now that you understand all things storytelling for beginners, take your next step toward authorship by using our free resource below!

This blog was rewritten from the original version published by P.J McNulty.