The Story Cookbook

by Westerfield, D. J.

• ISBN13: 9781456303174
• ISBN10: 1456303171
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2010-11-27
• Publisher: Createspace Independent Pub

Summary

The basic recipe for any good story includes the answers to: Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How? The Story Cookbook helps you to assemble these "ingredients" with a series of worksheets designed to help you begin thinking more deeply about your story, characters and settings. Worksheets Included:Character ListBasic Character Sketch100 Question Character InterviewPlot ChartTimelineSetting and World Building Worksheetsand much more...EXCERPT:RECIPE FOR SUCCESS:Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How?The name, The Story Cookbook, is more literal than it may seem.Writing a story is a lot like cooking. When cooking you follow a recipe and use certain techniques such as chopping, simmering, and baking to get your desired result.There are basic cooking techniques that every home-cook and professional chef uses. There is not #xE2;#xAC;Sone right way#xE2;#xAC; to stir or chop, but there are basic techniques that can be learned. Every cook adopts a way of doing things that is different from anyone else. The method used can affect the outcome of the dish.Writing styles and methods are the stirring and chopping of writing. There are basic techniques, that are important to learn, but each individual writer adapts those techniques into his or her own writing style. How you write makes as much of a difference in how your story turns out as what you write.However, this book isn#xE2;#xAC;"t concerned with methods or techniques. This #xE2;#xAC;Scookbook#xE2;#xAC; is the basic sort, the kind that is focused on the #xE2;#xAC;Srecipe#xE2;#xAC; and not teaching technique.In cooking a recipe is nothing more than a list of ingredients that, when put together in just the right amounts, results in a delicious dish. Every dish has its own basic recipe. If you mix flour, eggs, oil, and milk together you get a cake. That is basic, and a bit bland. If you add a bit of chocolate, then you have a basic chocolate cake. Recipes can be spiced up by adding, subtracting, or changing the amounts of each ingredient.A story is much like a recipe. There are six basic ingredients that, when mixed together in the right amounts, can create a feast for the eyes and mind. The magical ingredients: Who, What, When, Where, Why and How?The answer to each question is different for each story, just like the differences in the ingredients for oatmeal raisin cookies and apple pie. Though every well told story must have a little of each ingredient, the amount used is up to the individual writer, and is part of what makes a story unique.The worksheets in The Story Cookbook are designed to help you assemble your #xE2;#xAC;Singredients#xE2;#xAC; and help you answer: Who, what, when, where, why, and how?