Last week, I wrote about how to target your audience down to one person.
“When I was writing my book,” bestselling author Al Pittampali told my friend Jeff, “I had a very specific person in mind.” Al said he had one individual in mind. Just one. He said he knew he didn't have to please everyone. He didn't even have to please a niche.
He just had to make that one friend happy. That's it.
What If You Tried This With Fiction
This is good advice for nonfiction, but I think it's even more interesting for fiction. I think about Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children, whose narrator tells the story of his life to his overweight and uneducated lover.
Or Arabian Knights where Scheherazade's storytelling is all that is keeping her from execution at the hands of her murderous husband and king.
Or Shakespeare's Taming of the Shrew where the main play is actually set within another play about a drunk who is tricked into thinking he is a nobleman.
Or The Princess Bride. In the movie, an old man tells Westley and Buttercup's story to his sick grandson (the book is something of a story within a story, too).
What if the person you're telling the story to is actually in the story?
How You Create Your Story-Within-a-Story
Your thriller about a regular guy mixed up in a government conspiracy trying to kill him could become a story about a seductress telling the story of how her fictitious husband was killed so she can seduce a rich entrepreneur.
Your Harry-Met-Sally romance could become a story about how a couple who saved their marriage by retelling the story of how they met to their therapist.
There are basically three steps to telling a story within a story:
1. Who is your “one?”
Who is the story being told to? Here are some ideas:
- A son/daughter or grandchild
- A priest
- A murderer
- A king
- A detective
- A psychologist
- A spouse/lover
2. Who is telling the story?
You have two options here: go with the obvious choice, a priest being told a confession; or a less obvious one, a priest being told a story by the woman (or man?) he's having an affair with.
3. What is the story?
This is the hard part. It's time to write the novel. No easy advice here. Just start writing.
I don't think it matters if the two stories relate to each other. In the examples I used above, some relate and some don't. Don't get hung up on that. Just write.
PRACTICE
Practice setting up the story within a story. First, pick the “one,” the person your narrator's going to tell the story to. Next, pick the narrator, the person telling the story. Finally, write about how the narrator starts to set up their story.
Write for fifteen minutes.
Good luck, this is a hard one.
In my case, I’m writing non-fiction. More tutorials and How To’s for Real Estate Agents (my niche). Nevertheless, I think this is a great exercise. Instead of 15 minutes, I’m averaging 30 to 1 hour 🙂
Nice Ricardo. Glad it helped. Check out this post for some great advice on writing for your non-fiction audience:
https://thewritepractice.com/write-for-the-one/
In my case, I’m writing non-fiction. More tutorials and How To’s for Real Estate Agents (my niche). Nevertheless, I think this is a great exercise. Instead of 15 minutes, I’m averaging 30 to 1 hour 🙂
Nice Ricardo. Glad it helped. Check out this post for some great advice on writing for your non-fiction audience:
https://thewritepractice.com/write-for-the-one/
I came up with idea while falling asleep one night. Qaulity not assured…
The “one” – A journalist
The narrator is the journalist’s great, great, great uncle (the journalist doesn’t know, yet). The narrator left Earth long ago and has returned.
“Thanks for meeting me here. I know it’s probably not where you normally meet interviewees,” he said.
“It’s no problem. The lights over the water are rather serene,” said the Zach (the journalist). “I want to thank you again for talking with me.”
“You mean giving you a career-making exclusive, completely out of the blue?”
“Right, right.”
Zach hesitated. “Let’s get started then.”
“Yes.” He seated himself in the grass and began. “This story is about a girl.” He glanced in Zach’s direction. “Oh, you don’t believe me? What great story isn’t?” He paused and took a deep breath. “Well, that’s how it all started for me.”
This is fascinating Ryan. I’d love to see where this is going.
I came up with idea while falling asleep one night. Qaulity not assured…
The “one” – A journalist
The narrator is the journalist’s great, great, great uncle (the journalist doesn’t know, yet). The narrator left Earth long ago and has returned.
“Thanks for meeting me here. I know it’s probably not where you normally meet interviewees,” he said.
“It’s no problem. The lights over the water are rather serene,” said the Zach (the journalist). “I want to thank you again for talking with me.”
“You mean giving you a career-making exclusive, completely out of the blue?”
“Right, right.”
Zach hesitated. “Let’s get started then.”
“Yes.” He seated himself in the grass and began. “This story is about a girl.” He glanced in Zach’s direction. “Oh, you don’t believe me? What great story isn’t?” He paused and took a deep breath. “Well, that’s how it all started for me.”
This is fascinating Ryan. I’d love to see where this is going.
Post it! Then we can all help each other out. =)
Post it! Then we can all help each other out. =)
I’ll try to be honest with you. I knew what you would do to me – that you would come take me away. You’re going to kill me, and strangely I have no problem with that.
Because when I met you, I knew you had this – fragility – about you. You were lurking within your own shadow, hiding in plain sight your brilliant, demented mind. Strange, huh, that I connected with you the moment our eyes met. It must be because we’re both a little crazy. Crazy people who meet in a college café.
You wanted to approach me. You were timid. (That was an act, wasn’t it?) I came up to you first. Bet you didn’t expect that, eh? We had a good laugh then, and we’ll have a good one now.
Just so you know, unexpected things happen in this story. But that’s because it’s my story. Not yours. Even though you may recognise bits of it you’ll never know what it’s like to live inside my head. Even if you tear it open and scoop out my brains, just like I know you’re about to do.
Moving on – I flirted with you. I’m such a slut, don’t you think? That was what you thought of me – a brainless, lonely slut whom I can chat up and butcher later. Hey, don’t make that face – I’m saying the obvious, and like I said, I’m not at all angry with you.
And the rest – oh, it felt like a blur! You must have spent that week salivating for me. Did you plan my abduction? I think you’re the type who plan things out. You’re obsessive. (Don’t worry. I’m a little obsessive too.)
And then, we met again, fatefully. Under every scrutinised step of your plan. You got that rush, didn’t you? That feeling of control. Like, you can do anything you want with your new plaything. You can make them do whatever, even think whatever.
Was I a good toy? I hope I was. I tried my best with the screaming and begging. You think I’m bluffing now, that I’m dying to burst into tears when I talk to you. Sure, go ahead, think that. Everybody needs their ego boost. Like I said, it’s not like I’m the one in control, right?
“Right,” he said. He stared at her, unblinking. His face didn’t show any emotion as his mouth hung open.
She opened her mouth, then she closed it.
“Just go on with it,” he said.
“Don’t rush me,” she said. She tied up her hair as he was still staring at her. She looked down avoiding his eyes. “It’s about a boy, okay?”
He nodded.
She inhaled deeply. “There’s a boy you see. And he had a love. It-it- was,” she looked up and he only blinked once. “It was forbidden. Their parents wouldn’t allow it.”
He scrunched his forehead. “Their parents?”
“Yup, their parents.” She played with the hem of her night dress. The dim lights of the night lamps cast him in a darkshade. “One day, he decided:’This wouldn’t do anymore, I gotta tell her my feelings'”
She clenched her hands. “Thing is she was getting married to a guy she doesn’t love.” She gave him a sad smile.
He narrowed his eyes. “She didn’t ‘love’ him or the boy didn’t believe she ‘loved’ him.”
She grabbed the pillow laying at his bedside and hit him with it. “Let me tell my story, okay?”
“Okay.” He said as he leaned on the wall. She scooted closer to him, their knees touching.
She cleared her throat. “So he hatches a plan. He’ll make the best Valentines Day card. It would be awesome like when she baked me a cake he’d say as he smiled. Then he would ask him on a date to keep her away from the doofus.”
“But?” he said.
She sneered at him and said. “But he didn’t know how to make cake. Nor did he know how to make reservations for a date. That’s what grownups do.”
He smirked. “Poor kid. Bet she is suffering in her unfulfilling love life right now. Ha.”
She looked down, the floor was dark maroon in the night light. “Yeah.”
He tilted his head and his eyes widened. “So what did he do?”
She shrugged. “He didn’t do anything. He got scared. And his s-she got the wedding she never dreamed of.”
“Oh.”