Creative Writing 101: The Four Elements of a Story

Anyone who has ever taken a course in story writing has no doubt heard about the big four-- conflict, complications, crisis,and climax or resolution.  Ask any instructor of creative writing and they will tell you that, to any good story, these four items are essential.

 

Why? Human beings like trouble, especially in the stories they read.  If you do not have some form of trouble in your story, you don’t have a story.  Or maybe I should say, you won’t have a story that people find interesting.  Right or wrong, we find trouble in the lives of others intriguing. 

Think of the last movie you watched.  Remember the problem? The conflict?  Of course you do. From Gone With the Wind to Pirates of the Caribbean, conflict abounds in any story of note. 

So what about complications, crisis, and resolution?  That last movie you watched had an ending, but before it could end it had to have complications, a crisis action, and a resolution.  So what is a complication, a crisis action, or a resolution?

One of the best illustrations for this is the well-known story of Cinderella.  Award-winning creative writing teacher, Janet Burroway, also used Cinderella’s story to illustrate the relationship among these elements in her book Writing Fiction. 

The conflict in Cinderella’s story is rather simple: Cinderella is living in forced servitude to her stepmother and three ugly stepsisters. Conflict, though, is not enough.  Readers expect resolution.  In getting from conflict to resolution we must travel the road of complications and crisis. The following is a list of the complications in Cinderella:

•  An invitation to the ball arrives, but Cinderella’s stepmother says that she cannot go.
• Fairy Godmother appears and helps Cinderella get to the ball, but says that Cinderella must return by midnight.
•  At the ball, the prince falls in love with Cinderella, but the clock strikes midnight and she must hurry away, losing her slipper on the way out.
•  An announcement goes out that every woman in the kingdom must try on the slipper and that the prince will marry the woman on whose foot the slipper fits, but the stepmother locks Cinderella away so that she cannot try on the slipper.  

And where do these complications lead?  They lead to what some call the crisis action.  In Cinderella, the crisis action occurs when Cinderella is finally allowed to try on the slipper, and it fits.  Once this occurs, the resolution quickly follows with Cinderella marrying the prince and living happily ever after.

This pattern can also be easily seen in any other popular fairy tale. Take the most recent story you read or the story you are writing and see if you can break it down into its four elements.

Whether your writing a short story or novel, your story too can leave the reader satisfied if it follows the road of conflict, complications, crisis, and resolution.