How Do You Write A Story?

I found myself with so many ideas for my book, that I had to stop and take a moment to remember exactly what it is that will make this a "book" and not just a bunch of pages with words on them. This is really just my thoughts on the progression of a story, to help me stay organized and on-topic.

• You have to have a main character. You can have more than one, but at least one.

• You have to summarize and define this character in their life before the story takes place.

• Something has to happen; some turning point or event that sets the main character on a path to change who they are.

• There has to be a journey of some sort through the story, whether that journey is physical, mental, emotional, or all three combined.

• There needs to be some sort of negative or “evil” taking place throughout the main character's journey, something that will eventually collide paths with the main character to result in a confrontation of some sort.

• The evil needs to have an uprising. It needs to appear as if evil may just triumph after all; though of course we all know it wont, there has to be a turning point where it seems as if it will.

• There has to be a confrontation, the one that resulted from the main character's and the evil's plot lines colliding.

• There should be a twist. Something unexpected that makes you gasp in surprise (or alarm even), something that captures your interest and makes you want to read more. Where this twist takes place in your story is entirely up to you, but most times it's at or near the end.

• Evil will be vanquished. In some way or form, there should be an ending in which good rises up against evil and triumphs, setting the world right again.

• There is typically a period of “floating” after the battle, in which perhaps there is sadness or a sense of grieving over something lost. Good always loses something in epic battles, and at some point when evil has been conquered, good takes the time to show respect and care for lost loved ones and destruction.

• The conclusion of the story should tie up all the loose ends. What happened to the evil? What will happen to the main character(s)? What dynamic changes have occurred to form the new being that the main character embodies? What happened to everyone else that was important to the storyline? Where will it all go from here? You don't have to set it up for a sequel, but you should give the readers a sense of closure, so that when they turn the last page, they aren't left with a feeling of emptiness, or a million questions (unless of course you ARE writing a sequel, in which case questions and curiosity are a good thing... though emptiness is never something you want to leave someone with).

Well, I think this ought to help me organize my thoughts. I've spent a good part of today doing a bit of research, so I'm hoping I can pull this together and form a good storyline, with characters that the readers can associate with things/people/creatures and develop feelings or emotions towards, to sort of "connect" to. I hope the worlds I create are worth reading about, because in my head I really would love to visit each and every one of them.