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A story must always be a story, which is to say that it must have a story arc. The arc of a story is fundamentally built around desire and the things people will or will not do to achieve their des...
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#4: Attribution notice removed
by
System
·
2020-01-03T20:41:53Z (over 4 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/27413 License name: CC BY-SA 3.0 License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#3: Attribution notice added
by
System
·
2019-12-08T06:18:07Z (over 4 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/27413 License name: CC BY-SA 3.0 License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision
by
System
·
2019-12-08T06:18:07Z (over 4 years ago)
A story must always be a story, which is to say that it must have a story arc. The arc of a story is fundamentally built around desire and the things people will or will not do to achieve their desire. Thus the crux of a story is always a choice the protagonist must make about the price they are willing to pay (or not willing to pay) to achieve their desire. Different genres are defined both by the types of choices they deal with and by the settings in which they are told. The "science fiction idea" at the heart of some science fiction stories (not all SF has an original idea by any means) functions as catalyst for the character's desire or the character's choice. If your "story" is little more than the examination of the science fiction idea itself, it is not yet a story. And while length is not strictly germane to story, it is likely that it would take you much longer to tell the story of someone whose desires or choices are impacted by the SF idea than it would to describe the idea itself.
#1: Imported from external source
by
System
·
2017-03-31T12:52:11Z (about 7 years ago)
Original score: 4