As everyone knows, or may not know. A lot goes into writing. And well, every author probably has their own system of writing, no matter how much they may have learned from school or elsewhere. I'm not speaking solely on grammar, grammar is nothing more than aesthetics. Preety colorful words can be important, but should never be an issue when it comes to writing.

      Of course I decided, why not give my thoughts on the subject and use colorful GTS metaphors etc, to explain? I'm not a teacher, far from it really, college educated yes, but not a teacher. What makes my stuff valid, nothing, but the same can be said for any teacher or person's view on the subject.

      Well at best let me try and break down what I think of, when I think of writing a story. Namely a general analyses.

All stories fundamentally to me are broken into three things.

      First off, characters! They make up your story, and so of course they are important, but alone they are only a bunch of personalities.

Then of course you have the setting dictated by the author. It is through setting that characters interact.

      Thirdly you have misunderstandings. Without misunderstandings, you would have no story. Misunderstandings are in fact what create character, and story. And stories are just a makeup of its characters and settings. In a sense, misunderstandings, bring about both the flow of a story, as well as the hook to keep readers attention, and thus is critical.

      Let's look at characters briefly. They should have varying personalities, and traits which lead to misunderstandings with other characters. Characters should never bend to the author's will because it would be out of character to do so. The characters either need to be liked or disliked by the intended audience for them to have any interest generated towards them. Being interesting forms a hook, but still they are just characters, and without setting they could not interact.

      Setting, this is always changing and leads a story, or at least its characters interactions. The author can give characters any setting, and it will change how the characters act. Humans are social creature, so we have distinct tendencies to act certain ways in certain areas. Of course dwelling on one setting to long can lose your reading audience, or not staying long enough.

      Misunderstandings occur in stories so often, it's the bread and butter of a story. One occurs whenever something; is, happens, will be, in a way in which any character is not aware of that information. This can be as simple as not being aware of alien life, not being aware the girl sitting next to you is a witch planning to shrink you, or your best friend has been secretly living a shrunken life in your shoes. Basically a misunderstanding occurs whenever there is a lack of information to one or more parties that results in story progression. In key this also means the flow of your story is dependent on this, because they are one in the same really.

Examples:

      Jack Loves Lucy, but Lucy does not know. Jack will interact in a straightforward manner the audience expects, while Lucy is under the Misunderstanding that he is just another friend. If she knew he had such feelings then she would act entirely different, and the audience knows this, so interest is generated. They want to know if he will succeed, and want to know what her shocking revelation will be, when she discovers the truth.

      Philip is a giant, and thinks all humans do is murder his kind. When Catherine comes, he is deadly freighted of her. In truth she is a human of a tribe that protects Philip's kind. Philip is under the misunderstanding the she came here to kill him, while in truth it's the total opposite. This generates interests and a hook to get readers attention.  Of course this happened because the author placed Catherine in a setting where a misunderstanding would occur.

      Romeo the tiny human has fallen in love with the Titanic Juliet. The love is mutual and the two are secretly married. Their families however, have been fighting a deadly war for thousands of years. When Romeo is attacked by the giant's of Juliet's family, due to the misunderstanding that they are enemies, Tibalt of Juliet's family tries to kill the small Romeo. Knowing he must keep the secret, Romeo is forced to slay the mighty Giant Tibalt. Because of this decision, Juliet and Romeo fear their families will never let them be together. In fact the families head's would welcome an end to the fighting between their families, so Romeo and the Giant Juliet have a misunderstanding about their own parent's acceptance of their marriage. When they choose to run, their marriage is still not known, and because of this misunderstanding the families still continue to be violent with one another. Until finally the Giant Juliet decides to fake her own death with fake poison. When Romeo arrives to find his dead wife, who is actually alive, he misunderstands and kills himself. When Juliet awakens, her character pain is so great she is left with no choice but to act out her charters personality.  Sure all of the problems would be solved if all the misunderstandings had been properly explained, but instead the story characters would not allow an explanation, and they acted on them until a gruesome end. But without these misunderstandings, we would have no story. There would be no flow, and there would be no hook to keep the reading audience.

      As you can see, interaction is driven by the unknown. But that unknown is always played out by the characters personalities. How those actions they chose, from their personality play out, is dependent on that setting they are in. Also the way in which they might misunderstand is also relevant to the setting.

Example:

      A man in church who just found out his giant wife next to him cheated on him with another tiny human, is likely to wait until they get out of church. That's if he decides to act at all, because he is too small to really take action against her, that's also a character setting in and of itself.

      A man in the same circumstance who is aboard a giant mech suit in the jungles of giants, might choose a different route.

      Back to characters. Personality dictates a characters actions under certain conditions. Setting also dictates a characters actions, because your more liable to start a gang fight in the back streets then in front of a police station. A gang fight is most likely going to occur because there was a misunderstanding about what turf belonged to which gang.

      In the end all a author can try and do is place characters into a unique set of settings, and let the characters themselves write the story, they will have misunderstandings on their own, they will act on their own, and eventually choose settings of their own. All the author has to do is predict what their personalities will do. We the authors don't create the scenario's the misunderstanding, settings, and personalities of characters do.

      Of course, there are things which can destroy a character as well. Namely when a character is forced to unnaturally change by the will of an author for convince, or is stripped of a potential source of strength for no reason.

Example:

      Say you had a human who was very intelligent on their own, and became as smart as a super powerful giant alien race. Then you had a member of that alien race fall in love with that human because of their intelligence. But the author decides they need to make their character more acceptable, because his race is so stupid it just doesn't make sense. So he decides that all along this clever special human, "Whom all the readers slowly took their time to adore, was actually another alien species different from a human that had been sent to earth like superman. The author was trying to find a convenient way for his clever human to make sense. But by doing so he basically said, humans are worthless and this guy was only ever clever because he was actually an alien, not human. The readers get pissed and upset at this change, he was great because he was relatable. The author in this case actually dehumanized their character and made him less special.

So what can an author do besides come up with good misunderstanding, unique character personalities and interesting settings?

      Write something interesting to both you and the reader.

      Write about what you know, as writing about the unknown well leave your readers feeling just as confused as you.

      Characters develop themselves through their actions and words, not the authors vision of them. Play as little, God, as possible.

      Stories are interesting because of their elaborate misunderstandings, and plot devices, but don't forget your story must be easy to follow.

      As an author you must either give the reader either something to hate, love, or find fascinating. This can be in your characters, your settings, or the all important misunderstandings which create flow.

      Never dwell in one setting too long as it stagnates a story, unless the place itself is of interest. Sure you can be aboard the RMS Titanic, but make sure you got to more than just a single room, you could also call this scene creation, like in movies.

      Don't be afraid to surprise your readers, and always give your characters goals the reader can relate too.

      Use cliff hangers and events which lead the reader wanting to know what will happen next, this creates a great hook device.

      Allow the story to have a predictable flow but try and be unpredictable. Readers love to speculate and it helps to keep their interest.

      The stories or scene's,  which make up a long story, must have great triumphs and falls. Both most push the reader into the feeling of wanting or denying them. Nothing hooks a reader like a outcome they pray for, but see little or all to hope for.

If you want to create a story but are having trouble being creative try this exercise if you wish.

      Start by creating five unique characters. Try about 200-500 words which describe them, and their personality.

      Then write five unique settings, which any of your characters might react to, again 200-500 words.

      Finally, write out five or more uniquely different misunderstandings. They don't need to be intricate, they can be shorter then a paragraph. Now take two random characters, one random setting, and then one random misunderstanding. Write. You might just be surprised what you get.