The Five Key Story Elements

The Five Key Story Elements from Writers Village

To apply this to my own story, I started by considering the original piece and identified the various elements of the story using Anne Lamott’s ABCDE formula (Action, Background, Conflict, Development, and Ending):

Action — Start with something happening to draw the reader into the story.

Background — Provide context for readers to understand how the characters came to the current situation

Conflict — The characters must want something they don’t have and work to achieve it (sometimes against each other)

Development — The 70-80% of the story describing the characters’ struggle to get what they want. Each time it appears they have the goal within reach, give them something more difficult to overcome until they reach the climax

Ending — What happens after they reach their goal. In a romance, the hero and heroine realize their “happily-ever-after”. In a mystery or thriller, all the loose ends are tied up. In a literary story, the ending may be rather ambiguous