What are the 4 Key Story Elements to Consider when Outlining?

We recently discussed the classic structure of a story, but now we need to fill that structure with the key elements. Talking about structure focused a lot on plot, but there are a few more elements we need to put some thought into when planning to write a story.

I realized these key elements easily fall into the 5 W’s which we often discuss in non-fiction writing (particularly journalism.) Turns out they are just as important in fiction! What a big surprise… So we’ve got the who (character), what (plot), when & where (setting), how (POV) and a double serving of why (conflict and theme.) The “how” feels a little forced, but I’m going to run with it because it’s fun! 

Below we will discuss the definition of four elements (character, setting, plot and POV) and some considerations for story planning.

I want to discuss the “why” in a separate post simply because it feels like it’s part of plot rather than something separate like the other elements presented here. And also, this started to get really long… So if you want more on conflict and theme (and tension, pacing, style, and tone) be sure to sign up for the newsletter or follow me on Instagram so you know when that’s live!

Character

“Who” the story is about.

Definition: 

Character is all the people (or animals, aliens, trees etc) in your story. It’s your cast. This includes their name, what they look like, their occupation, their desires, their flaws… Some characters are more important to flesh out than others, but they all serve a purpose.

Example: 

Romance

Protagonist - A man down on his luck who just moved to a new town for a job opportunity that fell through. He thinks if his career can’t make him happy maybe love can. It’s time to give it a try again.

Love interest - The man that lives next door. He’s charming, good looking and has a very cute dog. His apartment is a little disorganized, quite the opposite of our protagonist. He’s focussed on his career but maybe his mind can be changed.

Fantasy

Protagonist - The only person in town willing to go on an adventure. She doesn’t hold the confidence of the town but her confidence in herself is enough. Or maybe it isn’t.

Mentor - Her grandma who has always taught her to fake it til she made it. Her final words are words of wisdom as the protagonist sets out on her doomed adventure to save the kidnapped child.

Horror

Protagonist - Victim - A single mom of two who was taken from the parking lot on her way home from her second job. Her goal is to return to her children. Her captor isn’t ready for her ability to get under his skin.

Antagonist - Serial killer who takes women who look like his late wife who was killed by a serial killer. His goal is to relive his last days with his wife. He acts out their last days together and then kills them with the same techniques he saw in crime scene photos. 

Considerations: 

Protagonist, antagonist, love interest, foil, mentor… There are lots of types of characters you may need for your story, but you don’t necessarily need them all for every story. In fact, technically, you can have a single character story with just a protagonist.

Let’s talk a small bit about these types of characters I introduced. 

• A protagonist is the main character (hero or not, don’t get the two confused.)

• An antagonist is the character (maybe*) who is opposite the protagonist. They push against the protagonist.

• A love interest is a character who holds the romantic affection, generally of the protagonist, but I supposed you could have side characters and side love interests.

• A foil is a character who contrasts with another, again, generally the protagonist, but you can use foils throughout your cast.

• A mentor is a character who supports the protagonist through wise words and lessons.

*the antagonist need not be a character at all. It could be the self, the world, technology…

How large your cast is often hinges on your genre and length of story. Fantasy and political intrigue tend to have larger casts than romance or horror. Short stories and novellas tend to keep character count low while “door stoppers” love to have a huge cast. 

You want to consider how many characters you can truly do justice to in your word count, how many are required to tell the story, and the difference between main cast and side cast. Having a small main cast that interacts with many side characters hits different than having a huge main cast to keep track of. Speaking of keeping track, consider your audience and how many characters they can keep in their head. Generally, a younger audience will have a harder time with a larger cast. 

When it comes to examining individual characters during the planning and writing of our story, we want to make sure we’re creating well-rounded characters. This is most important for your main cast, sometimes side characters can remain a little flat. 

So, what does well-rounded mean? Your characters should be unique with flaws and quirks. Their personality should go beyond their main personality trait. They should have a distinctive voice when they speak. A character that comes off as perfect is boring. One that perfectly fulfills a trope with nothing to set them apart is also boring. They can be familiar, but they should be specific to this story. 

We should consider those tropes though, and whether we want to use them or subvert them, but also whether the trope is problematic. We must take special care when creating characters that are marginalized, especially if they are different from us. 

For side characters, their personalities matter, but something else to consider is their purpose in the story. If they aren’t adding anything, they don’t really need to be there. Do they help or hinder the character? Do they provide necessary information or backstory? Do they deepen emotional resonance? Reveal theme? Accentuate character, maybe by providing a foil?

Finally, characters need to have room for growth and change. This harkens back to the idea of a perfect character. A key part of a good story is that the character has changed by the end. Maybe for the better, maybe for the worse, maybe just different, but certainly changed. So start your character somewhere they can change from and consider what your story will do to them and how it will get them there. Which is a perfect time to talk about plot.

Plot 

“What” the story is about.

Definition:

Simply put, plot contains the events of the story. It’s all the obstacles along the way. It’s all the bits we talked about in classic story structure. Again, you can look at this as the overall big picture and the individual scenes (which I would further classify as plot points.)

Example: 

Romance

Story plot: Gym crush story where two women begin as gym rivals but soon start falling for each other ending in a happily ever after. (A classic “enemies to lovers”)

Scene plot point: Jenny hits a deadlift PB which sends Pamela into a silent fury.

Fantasy

Story plot: A young prince is kidnapped and the main character and his adventuring party must travel the land to find and retrieve him. (an classic epic journey)

Scene plot point: The roguish sidekick overhears a clue leading to the party catching the prince’s trail.

Horror (probably comedy)

Story plot: a family moves into a house in a new province. It turns out the previous owners haven’t entirely left; they are haunting the house and refuse to leave. The two families eventually learn to work together. (haunted house with a happy twist)

Scene plot point: The ghost mother has moved the living mother’s jewelry around causing her to be late for an important event.

Considerations: 

Plot drives narrative. Each piece of the plot should be challenging your characters or otherwise moving them toward their goals or destination. Plot is where all these other elements exist. The order of plot points, how they take characters closer and further away from their goals, and how they unfold due to the details of the place and time they are happening are all important considerations when planning your story.

Plot points fall into each of those pieces of the classic story structure roller coaster. They ARE the exposition, inciting incident, rising action, climax, falling action and resolution. They are what create the opportunity for change. Without plot points (and their obstacles and triumphs) you don’t have a story. You might have written something, but it's not a story.

So you need to ask yourself about the purpose of the story you’re telling. How can you make the story interesting with tension and release? What order should these events happen in and in what order should they be revealed to the reader? How will the status quo change? How will the plot force change on your characters?

Setting

“Where” & “when” the story takes place.

Definition:

Setting is the when and where your story takes place. The main setting covers the overall story, but individual scenes will have their own, more specific, settings. The scale of details will change from story to story including time of day versus year or decade and planet versus country or street corner.

Examples: 

Romance

Story setting: Ottawa, ON, Canada in 2019

A scene: Bridgehead Coffee shop. February 2nd at 2PM.

Fantasy

Story setting: Avian Lake Village and surrounding areas, a year similar to Earth’s 1300’s

A Scene: Phoenix Glade in the southern forest, midnight.

Horror 

Story Setting: A house and surrounding grounds in Central Ontario, contemporary (2020’s)

A scene: The kitchen, 9am.

Considerations: 

It’s possible that your scale is a single building if you’re telling a haunted house story. But if this is an epic journey, your scale may be a continent or the whole world. This then affects the scale of your scene setting. In the former you may be specifying which room the scene takes place while in the latter a city may be all you need.

The time and place of a story can set limitations on technology available and language used. If you’re writing Science Fiction which takes place on another planet, the climate and technology will have a much larger impact than a contemporary setting in your hometown.

But, don’t think that tech and language aren’t still important there. Considering timely slang (and whether or not to use it,) what technology use looks like, current events and cultural phenomena will add to the reality of your story.

If you’re working with historical fiction, being sure you’re doing your research to get places and events correct for the time period is important, but if you’re working with a fictional place, you have complete control, as long as you’re consistent.

Finally, rather than just considering a static setting, your timeline falls into setting as well. If your story takes place over months or years of time, that matters for the overall setting as seasons and people change.

POV

“How” the story is told.

Definition:

POV, or rather Point of View, is the perspective the story is told from. The way this most notable shows up is what the main pronoun used is, or rather, is “I” used at all. This tells us who is telling the story. The second main piece of POV is how much knowledge the narrator has and how reliable that knowledge is. The third is the tense: is the story unfolding in the present or did it happen in the past?

Example: 

First person, present tense, unreliable.

Looks like: I close my laptop and stand to leave because Jenny just walked in, and I don’t want to deal with her rudeness.

Third person, past tense, omniscient.

Looks like: As the lilies blew in the field, and the salmon raced up the river, Sally and John sat comfortably on their porch watching the sun set.

Third person, past tense, close.

Looks like: She took her first step toward the edge of the cliff with thoughts of fear and exhilaration flitting through her mind. 

Considerations: 

A story can be told from the perspective of a third party narrator (third-person, uses she, he, they with no I) or the main character (first-person refers to themself with I and is generally part of the story) or, far less commonly, a story can be told in second person or imperative mood (using “you” as the main pronoun.) POV also refers to how much the narrator knows. This refers to the idea of an omniscient, close or unreliable narrator.

When we’re deciding which POV is best for our story we want to consider how zoomed out we want details to be.

With a first-person story, we can only tell what the character can experience. We can move into a multi POV, but we’re still limited to what each of those perspectives perceive. If the character can’t know it, neither can the reader.

On the flip side, an omniscient third-person POV allows you to explore any part of the setting you want including the inside of every character’s mind.

And then there’s everything in between. A heavy world-building and lore-focused story is probably best in third-person, as is a story with a large cast. An emotional story, focused on one character's plight is likely better in first-person to allow a more immersive experience.

In Conclusion

These four elements are a great base for planning and outlining your story. Of course there are more detailed considerations for each and I’d love to get into choosing POVs and what details you might want to have ready for setting and character at some point.

As mentioned before Plot carries the necessity for conflict which in turn requires thought about pacing and tension. And there’s the whole other “why” of writing a story in theme which often leans on style and tone. Conflict is the why for the characters while Theme is the why for the readers.

With well-rounded characters; a clear beginning, middle, and end; a time and place for things to happen; and a perspective to look at everything from, you have a pretty good place to start writing your story. Even if you don’t make a scene-by-scene outline, nailing these few elements in some haphazard notes will keep you on track through your first draft and help guide you in your subsequent editing.

Keep your eyes peeled for the smaller, yet still very key story elements coming up soon!

And as always, if you want a little personal help with your story, you can always reach out to me!

Jerrica is a writer and editor who inspires up-and-coming writers to create compelling fiction and creative nonfiction works while providing them with the confidence to do it themselves or ask for a helping hand when they need it. She enjoys speculative fiction, horror and gut-wrenching emotion with a side of food & drink and the cozier things in life.