No that s a form of creating a misunderstanding to the reader. The readers are a participant in a story as well. In this case the misunderstanding is developed through the way the character acts, and so the readers starts making assumptions, then you reveal the truth, while keeping the character in, well character, to their personality. So yes, for god's sake, keep the reader guessing! So many authors tend to ignore breaking the fourth wall and interacting with the reader. Breaking the fourth wall, isn't just referencing your favorite show, or them realizing their in a story, it often involves, bringing the reader into the story by well, surprising them.

Now it would be playing god, if she squished several tiny bug boys before saving him without any real reason. Even in insanity one can find reason of course, but making that believable is up to the author.

 Thanks for the discussion.

I'm really glad these thoughts of mine are bringing about such good discussion.

You're not the first to disagree with me on my concept of misunderstandings. And yes plot, as defined by a dictionary, is a skill term defined as the events that make up a story, particularly as they relate to one another in a pattern, in a sequence, through cause and effect, how the reader views the story, or simply by coincidence. As I see it, a plot, is a combination of a sequence of any events, not the events themselves. Conflict is defined by a dictionary as, opposition in a work of drama or fiction between characters or forces (especially an opposition that motivates the development of the plot); "this form of conflict is essential to Mann's writing". Which in a sense, is a lot like a misunderstanding, as misunderstandings, bring about conflict. When conflict happens, an event occurs. Finally when enough events occur, often plot happens as a byproduct.

In your example, the dinosaurs were in a form of static information. They simply were. Then an action occurred, this action, " the asteroid coming without their knowledge", can be seen as a absence of information, and form the misunderstanding that their static world would not change. Then the result is an event occurs, since the asteroid hits earth, causing a conflict because of this misunderstanding. The result is their world has gone from a static world to a world of chaos.

In this regard I feel that the asteroid hitting earth can be categorized as a piece of information in the story. You're right the asteroid didn't have a conscious, nor motive, it was a piece of the setting, brought upon the characters within the story to make them act, a plot device or mechanism. In this case I call that device a misunderstanding, other authors call it differently, it's just my thoughts after all. Yes conflict is a basic element of a story, but without misunderstandings of some nature, as I have defined them, then there can be no conflict.

We are both agreed that, "the basic elements of a story are: Character, Setting, Plot, Conflict and one other thing, Theme." I just went a step further and said that misunderstandings, come before conflict.

As for theme, it's defined as a unifying idea, image, or motif, repeated or developed throughout a work. This to me is also very important, but it's not like every story is limited to just one, and your right about it being a staple on this site. Without a theme of some sort, not matter how well written a story, it can fall flat to the chaos of consistency.

So we have a man and a woman "in" an apartment. The apartment being a setting in the modern world as you said. They are simply static information right now awaiting a misunderstanding of some sort to occur. The woman then starts an action, one unexpected, unknown to the man. He has a lack of information she would perform this action, and so brings about a misunderstanding. He is now shrunk, per the theme of the story. He has a very slim choice of actions to perform. Then because of the woman's personality in how she choose to perform her actions, the man must suffer for her choices, and becomes a sex toy. He doesn't willing of course, but any action or misunderstanding he might try and generate, to create a conflict event, to free himself is nearly a moot point. He has no recourse or free will, and almost nothing that he does can return him to the previous state he held before becoming shrunk.

Yes the story follows an intresting theme, and rooting for the guy who generates meaningless conflicts to survive, or events which make up the plot, is what's causing people to keep reading. Maybe there are no misunderstandings, to the characters, but there doesn't have to be. Misunderstandings can occur to the readers, simply, the lack of the things they know or don't know about the characters. To me the reader who becomes enthralled in reading a narrative, becomes part of it, and should not be factored out for convenience to the author. In this type of story, personalities are the rule, but it's the actions and conflict brought about by misunderstandings, that let us know what those characters personalities are. Otherwise were just creating a straight static fiction world, were we don't observe a story, but are told information. It's how the writer writes, the events which allow the character to perform the story, which makes the author a good or bad writer, as a writer who just tell us everything, is a lot worse than the author who lets us discover everything on our own, the mark of a truly good writer.

Even in a basic story devoid of all logic and reason, with the theme of sexual simulation, a true story may still lie hidden underneath. Please don't insult the community, then again, I'm mostly in agreement with you.

I loved the fact your shared your view, and I hope you appreciated mine as well, I don't mean to be arrogant of offensive either. Thanks for the discussion!

We'll see if I add more chapters. Honestly I'm not so sure I want to yet. But if I know it's helping GTW's authors, I think that might motivate me to do more.

• I already stated my opinion on a grammar crash course chapter. This information is already to expansive and abundant.
• Rather than my thoughts on when and where to use a detail chapter. I think it's more important to know what kind of story your doing first, since a, "Detail" chapter, is most likely referring to a major plot twist chapter.
• Realistic dialogue could potentially be covered. This might be a harder one to explain.
• Tracking your information. Well I just did a chapter on information, this one might be a good idea. Plot hole's are definitely a problem in some peoples writing.
• Character creation is a tough subject, even for me. Though I think this would be a good idea. It's not just as simple as a bio, or a description of your character, but namely how your character acts and behaves themselves.
• Pacing is up for interpretation, but there are some basic rules I choose to follow, maybe it would be worth writing down.

Thanks for the suggestions.

I have a very scientific and logical approach to the way I see things in life. The three things, are definitely an example of this. In this case, I attempted to give a very technical basic thoughts on how I thought the process is occurring in stories.

I agree with you melding of the characters and setting. Setting is often alive in and of itself, a forest or city are not unchanging, and neither are characters. That said, I stand by my thoughts on unchanging characters, at least to the application of short stories. Novels may have drastic changes which are brought about by story evolution.

Misunderstanding, or the events brought on by the know, or lack of known information could be called plot. Then again you could also break those down into scene's which make up an overall flow to a story which results in a plot. A plot necessitates that there might be a finite ending or a place where the story is going to end up, in truth not all stories work that way and sometimes they don't end at all. I think your attempting to label my concept of misunderstanding as plot, and that may be correct, as you said, "The simplest example is "the unknown" - which isn't a misunderstanding of any kind, but merely a set of facts or events that are yet to be identified by the characters and/or readers."

But the unknown is a misunderstanding in a sense, because even if not known by any of the characters, the reader will know. If the readers knows, even if the characters cannot identify the lack of or need for information, it's clearly a situation in which a misunderstanding has occurred. So I'm not arguing with you, I think we're just choosing to define things differently but ultimately are talking about the same, thing, in your instance, the plot.

Defined as: "Plot is a literary term defined as the events that make up a story, particularly as they relate to one another in a pattern, in a sequence, through cause and effect, how the reader views the story, or simply by coincidence. One is generally interested in how well this pattern of events accomplishes some artistic or emotional effect. An intricate, complicated plot is called an imbroglio, but even the simplest statements of plot may include multiple inferences, as in traditional ballads."

Positive misunderstandings can occur and lead to a happy ending, to think all misunderstanding are bad, is a fallacy. But again we are both really talking about the same thing mostly, I think, so I will move on.

I'm glad you agree on my thoughts of character destruction, and  your right, I could have delved far deeper into the subject.

Research is a must. I think it follows my thoughts, on knowing about what you write. Otherwise you will just be confusing your audience. I think cliff hangers are good, of course you don't use them every scene. Cliff hangers should be used as a hook, a reason for the audience to want to come back and find out what happened. No cliff hanger is created equal and some can barely register on the cliff hanger scale. Knowing whether Van Hilda will be going to the sausage feast is mundane and not very important, but should she go, Sir Mathew Jones will be delighted, as the rest of the readers at his chance to talk to her. Maybe even ask her out on a date, not nearly as pressing as a man shrunk and trapped in a shoe with a foot coming down at the end of a chapter.

A character bio does not need to be that long. The writing exercise was meant of novices who cannot take the time or effort to write 50k word stories. Should you write a 10k word bio for a 12k word short story, I'd call you nuts, but alas it was my fault for not clarifying.

I hope both our comments will prove some help to the community. As for interesting things in stories, I will never bend on that point. If a story has no hooks or anything of interest to me at all, whether it be situational, environmental, etc, then I will not read it. Sure a biography or technical manual might entertain or even be interesting to some people, but I believe that to be a smaller niche market.

Thanks again for adding to the discussion.