Storm Rao's guide to writing

Step one: Who are your characters?

No seriously, who are the people you are writing about. Start small. Do they have a name? A nickname? What gender are they? Does it matter?
Things like this are the basis you need to ‘shape’ a character in your mind. It doesn’t have to be an intensive processes, heck, you can stop after question one if you like, but what you need to do, is know who your character is.
Tips for helping you identify your character may include doing a sketch, but I prefer a basic process sometimes known as ‘hot-seating’. Hot-seating is sometimes used by actors to get themselves comfortable in a role. It is, quite simply, asking questions such as the ones above.
Some of the questions I like to answer are:
1) How do they interact with people
2) What do they fear/love
3) What kind of history do they have, and do they ever tell others about it
4) What kind of personality do they have (i.e., quick tempered, easy going, silly, adorable, dependant. Think about it for different situations.)
5) Do they have someone they’re involved with, or aiming at
6) What kind of skills do they have and which ones do they have that people don’t know about
Notice this list does not include the ‘standard’ age, gender, race ones. This is because these questions often answer themselves.
These six questions give you a base. Strange as it may seem, they also give you an outline for how your character thinks, which is supremely important. Your character is a real person, albeit one who doesn’t live in this world, they have to think for themselves.

Step two: Movement and shape

This can be very much a part of step one, but it is important enough to warrant a step of its own.
As a writer I much admire once pointed out, movement tells you so much about a person.
First of all, their physicality comes in to play. How is your character built? Some people are just ‘average’, but you can always progress beyond that.
Here’s a list of some key words that can help define your character’s shape.
Gangly, or gangling: Used to define someone who is thin, tall, possibly boney, but very specifically awkward. They tend to be uncomfortable with their own movements, prone to knocking things over and stumbling. Gangly characters are almost always completely aware of their extended limbs, but don’t have a great amount of control. Often a gangly character is a youth, who is more often than not, rather excitable and very easily embarrassed.
Stout: short and round. Can be muscular, but don’t tend to be fat. ‘Solidly built’. Stout characters tend move with a certain rigidity and solidity to their movements, and are often very careful with their gestures. They tend to be given very earthy, calm personalities.
Lithe: Tall and thin, often rather streamlined and elegant. Those with lithe bodies often move with a rather airy motion, like ghosts passing through, touching nothing, although this can be refined specifically with the term willowy. Lithe characters are often light on the feet, they can move rapidly or slowly, but they always tend to be full of a half-hidden energy. The slow ones are more like swans than anything else. Characters who are lithe tend to either be withdrawn and haughty, or mischievous and sprite-like.
Willowy: Similar to lithe, but for the fact that these characters are often considered to be more fragile. They tend to be more adaptable than their counterparts, but are generally thought of as weak and, usually, beautiful. Willowy characters often move with flowing movements, often literally like a willow being blown in the wind, hence the name.
Chubby: Tending towards fat. This one has little bearing on movement, as those who are chubby can be as graceful or as awkward as they like. People expect a chubby person to be slow and heavy on their feet, which can give them a great advantage.
Solid: Muscled, this does have to be used in conjunction with other descriptors, but a solid character always has good musculature. They tend to be very controlled in their movements, whether through learned discipline, or an ingrained sense not to hurt more lightly built characters. They’re often considered slow persons, but calm, unmovable and entirely reliable.
These words are just a sample of those you can use to identify your character and help others see them in their mind.
This is the important point of this step. In writing people seldom ever see your characters. It isn’t like a comic, or an animation where certain things are obvious. You have to feed your audience words that paint the image in their head, so that they end up seeing the same character as you do. If they end up thinking you have a blonde girl when you have a brunette boy, you have a problem.


These first two steps should give you a platform to work from. Now you have a character whom you hopefully empathize with. Empathizing does not necessarily mean you like or agree with them, it means you understand them. You understand how they work, and that is critical.

Step Three: Placement.

This is completely separate from your character right now.
Again, start small. Where the hell are you? Desert, tundra, forest, ocean, wherever it is, give it a basic name.
Once you know where it is, dig a little deeper. So is a desert, what colour is the sand, does it have just sand, or has it got rocks and cacti. Does anything live here?
Build up until you know where you are as if it were as familiar as your own room (hey, where’d that come from?)
Got it? Good. Now go grab your character from whenever you stashed them and give them the brief. Watch to see how they react, it can be pretty funny.
Yes, you should actually tell your character where you’re chucking them. Use what you know about them to see how they respond to the idea. If they don’t, then you need to go back and work on step one. Try adding ‘how would they react if they were put in this situation’ to the list.

Step Four: Putting in your character.

Ok, so your character is threatening to strangle you for putting them in the worst place they could imagine. Congratulations, your character has evolved aspects of their personality.
Now, actually put them there. How do they act now? Resigned to their fate? Utter outrage? Or is this their home?
Once they’re all comfy, you’re good to go. Add your counter-pointing characters and let their personalities loose.
Hopefully you’ll be seeing some things in there that you didn’t expect. This is exactly what you want. Your characters are, after all, living people. You may know a lot about them, but they still need to have some autonomy from you.

Step Five: Getting it all down.

Ok, you have chaos. Good.
Now you want to capture that chaos in words.
This is where some people get stuck, which is why you should set yourself a few basic ground rules. Mine are reasonably simple:
1) Repetition.
This can be an interesting problem. Repetition can be used to really enhance a mood, but for the most part, I try and avoid it. Part of the problem can be not knowing there are other words out there. Grab a thesaurus! Even common words can have good synonyms that will spice up your descriptions.
2) Pace.
Pace is supremely important. If you skate by something important, or drag out something unimportant you can completely lose a person’s attention. This leads on to…
3) Detail.
What is important here? Not everything matters, and you need to prioritize things. If your character stares at something, you’ll get a good description. If they just glance at it, you can go over it briefly. If it’s important to them, it should be equally important to you. Detail can be used to enhance a mood, but if overused, it can completely spoil the effect. Use it wisely.
4) Changing scenes and endings.
Finding good places to cut scenes can be tricky. I often end on a very final comment, but not always. You’ll have to find your own grounds for what constitutes a good finishing point for a scene, a chapter, or a story.
Cliffhangers often work, even if they make your audience want to scream bloody murder.
5) Perspective.
The two main writing styles are First and Third person. I write from Third person as a general rule. Third person gives you autonomy and independence from your main character, allowing you to see how other people are acting or reacting. Often I will keep the focus on the main character specifically, but it does let you move about more freely.
First person can be both restrictive and freeing. You are limited to that one character while writing the section, but you can go far more into how they are feeling, acting, or thinking.
Mix and match, find what works better for you.
As a side note, yes there is a Second person style, but it’s used mainly for real-life letter writing, and I can’t use it in stories.
6) Tense.
Past, present, future. Pick one and commit to it for the story.
I write my stories in past tense. The events have happened, their outcomes have already been predetermined, the story feels a lot more weighted.
Present tense can be tricky. While it’s often more immediate and can be more engaging, it often can become cumbersome and lack the subtlety I enjoy in retrospectively written pieces. That said, some people can make it work for them, and some people are working on making it work for them. If you use it, good on you… I can’t in writing a story, so I won’t.
Future tense is not something I’d recommend at all, ever, in any circumstance. Even in role-playing it’s a bugger to work with.

These are my basic ground rules and how they relate to what I do. These are the things I think are important when writing, or have become second nature to just do (such as writing in third person and in past tense).
You can use the same ones, or have completely different ones. Just make sure you know why you have them, and if they are what you need to think about, or what you just do.

Step Six: Choosing your words.

I mentioned this in my ground rules. I avoid repetition on general principals, but that’s not the only reason to have a thesaurus close by.
Think about this sentence:
The man walked across the room.
Pretty basic eh? No reasons why, he’s just walking across the room.
Now, let’s spice it up some.
The man strode across the room.
One word difference, yet the dynamic of the sentence has changed. It started as a casual sentence, and became something more powerful. It gives you a feeling that this man has a bit of power, because he’s striding. You can tell he’s in a hurry, and the term ‘strode’ suggests some amount of dignity.
So, from being a basic motion that gave no particular sense of a character, you now have something which gives your audience something to envision. Almost everyone knows what a stride looks like, and their own personal experiences with it will enrich what they read, adding their own layers of self-knowledge.
Let’s try again.
The man strolled across the room.
No hurry this time. Casual, leisurely. Maybe a little bit laid-back.
The man slunk across the room.
Devious, suspicious, hunched down and gloomy.
The man darted across the room.
Fast, rapid, sprightly.

Hopefully you’ve just realized why I put so much emphasis on movement.
Each of these words gives an entirely different feel to the sentence, despite it staying almost exactly the same. Each character moves in their own way… see if you can find some good words to use to invoke different emotions to their movements.
This brings me neatly to the point of how words ‘taste’.
Yup, taste.
Terry Pratchett observes this phenomenon in his book “Wee Free Men”. When Tiffany is inside the burial mound, observing the piles of gold, she takes the time to think about the difference between several words.
Two of them are ‘Gleam’ and ‘Glint’.
Say the words aloud, think about them.
Tiffany notes that the word gleam feels oily and rich. Glint is harsh and fast, yet powerful and captivating.
These words mean almost exactly the same thing, yet they have entirely different tastes to them.
How to use this to your advantage, though?
Let’s think about describing a beautiful porcelain cup.
I have a cup at home. It’s made of porcelain, it’s white and has gold trim on the rim.
Yep, that’s a cup alright. But how do I feel about that cup? I have no idea form that sentence… it sounds a little like it bores the crap out of me.
Let’s say I love it. Therefore I want you to love it to.
I have this wonderful cup at home. It’s perfectly white, with a delicate gold trim around the lip, and it’s so thin and delicate I’m always scared I’ll break it.
Doesn’t that feel more invigorating? Don’t you just want to see this fabled cup, and see how precious it is for yourself?
Too bad, I now hate this cup.
I’ve got this ratty old cup at home. It used to be pretty, but the white’s faded in the wash and the gold trim has chipped. It looks like it’s time to throw it out.
Not a happy cup.
So when I loved the cup, I used words that ‘taste’ sharp and graceful, ones that almost bounce with their happiness at being part of this cup. When I hated it, the words were snide and distasteful.
Also, I note how I feel. Being scared of breaking something indicates its value, whether monetary or emotional. Casually stating that it’s time to throw it out hints at disinterest and boredom. Both statements change the tone of the final sentence.

If you’re not sure about a word, roll it about in your mouth for a while. Consider what emotions it evokes. For example:
My cup fell off the shelf and broke.
My cup fell off the shelf and shattered.
Which one makes you think I felt worse about losing that cup?

Step Seven: Structure.

I won’t put too much here, as this changes every time. But you hopefully all know the bog-standard of “evil villain rises, hero arises, hero faces villain, kills villain and saves the day”. Fine, good, dandy.
Screw it.
It’s true most stories have this structure anyway, whether the evil be a personal challenge or actual opposition. You don’t need to adhere to it if you don’t want to.
For me, the most important part of the story is who the characters are. Why are they trying to kill this villain? Why do they want to rescue this person? How the hell did they manage to pierce eight layers of mystical enchantment to stab the guardian beast through its heart?
When it comes down to it, focus on the five w’s, and the h instead.

Who
What
Where
When
Why
How

Step Eight: Breaking the rules.

So now you have everything you need for writing your story. Characters, movements, rules, words, places, structures.
It’s time to take those rules you gave yourself, and break them.
This step is known often as ‘drabble’ or ‘dabble’. Play around with the limits you set yourself.
E.g.: I don’t like writing in first person, so I went out and wrote a journal-style story.
The purpose of this step is to help you find a style that you do enjoy. By saying ‘No, I’ll never write in x style’, you cut yourself off from things. But that said, you also should know where you do need to cut yourself off. It’s one thing to test your limits, it’s another to jump screaming and naked into a crocodile pit.
In the end it should absolutely always come down to what you enjoy and what you want, if you’re writing for your own entertainment (some compromise must be had if you’re writing under contract for someone else). If you don’t enjoy you’re writing… what’s the point of doing it in the first place?


Anyway, that’s it from me. I hope this guide helps you in some way.

Oh… and SPELL CHECK!
Most word processors have them, and the latest version of FireFox has one built in.
Mistakes happen, but that’s no excuse to leave in your teh’s.