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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: Hello, everyone! Welcome if you can see and hear me. Please drop your location in the chat so we can see where you are joining us from

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: always like to see where in the world

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: our attendees

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: are watching our events from.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: All right.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: See a lot of us folks here. 1st and foremost Indianapolis, New Jersey, Vermont, Florida. Well, we see some British Columbia.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: London, Germany, Canada.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: Nova Scotia, India, Finland, South Africa, awesome. We love to see so many people

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: from all over the globe here as always, welcome everyone. It looks like you can see and hear me. Just fine. So I'm gonna get rolling right through these housekeeping notes, and I'm going to drop some links for you in the chat here. But welcome to Science Fiction writers Week. We are so happy to kick things off here with you this morning, and thank you for joining us so a few little notes before we get started

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: first, st how to access. Your replays replays will be added to the hub page for Monday through Thursday sessions, and they will be added as soon as they process by zoom and Youtube. So within a couple of hours you can expect to see them. And we will also be posting these replays to our community page for all of our community members to enjoy by September 20, th and they'll just kind of hang out there

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: indefinitely, so you can enjoy them on the hub this week, and then with your resources, and also just the replays themselves will be on the community page.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: Premium day details. Friday is premium day. So Monday, through Thursday. Sessions are free for anyone to attend. Friday. Sessions are limited to premium and premium pro users. So those users will receive an email Friday morning with instructions to access those events. If you would like to upgrade your account before Friday, so that you can be at the Premium day. Sessions live.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: You may do so, and you should still receive that email Friday morning. Anyone who doesn't receive their email and does have a premium or premium pro account drop us an email at Hello, prowritingaid.com, and we'll be happy to get you set up.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: We do have a special upgrade offer for you if you would like to upgrade for premium day, and beyond 15% off, we have a special code for you. But on the hub there is a link that you can click on that has the code automatically entered. So there's nothing else you need to do. And that offer ends on September 27.th So if you go to the Hub, you will see more information on that.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: If you would like to keep talking sci-fi writing, we'd love to have you over in our private online writing community. This is a free community. You can join with your pro writing aid account, even if it's a free pro writing aid account. You're welcome there, and you just log in with your account details, and you can see us over in the live event chat space where we are currently doing some fun polls and discussion prompts, and we will be talking about this week's sessions there

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: reminders for the session today and for all of our sessions. If you have a question for the host, please put them in the Q. And a box, as you can see, the chat moves very quickly, and we don't want to lose any of your questions. And we can also access those Q&A questions later, if we miss anything. So it's very important that you use specifically the Q. And a box for your questions.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: However, you're allowed to chat with other attendees as much as you would like. Just make sure that when you are sending a message next to 2 there's a little drop down, menu. You'll just want to select everyone there, because by default. Your messages will just come to host and panelists, so make sure everyone can see your messages, and you'll be good to go. So links to any special offers we have from our speakers this week will also all be on the Hub page. So make sure you check that out.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: and we are just about ready to get started. So I am so happy to introduce our 1st speakers of Science Fiction writers Week and Holly and Richelle Ramirez.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: Anne Holly is a certified developmental editor of literary, historical, and fantasy fiction, and is the author of restraint, a novel of forbidden love in Regency, England. She was the producer and writer of the popular story, grid round table podcast and currently teaches and develops writing courses at pages and platforms.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: Rochelle, Ramirez is a certified developmental editor who helps fiction and nonfiction writers structure and finish their projects. She is a co-creator of the story path, course, and numerous writing master classes.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: She is a co-host of the happily ever Author club at pages and platforms, and the author of the forthcoming book, the Adhd writer from Frustrated to focus to finished, you can learn more about Rochelle Ramirez and her editing services at Rochelle, ramirez.com, and we do have special links from our speakers in the chat, and I will post them throughout the session today. But thank you, Anne and Richelle, for joining us, so happy to have.

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Anne Hawley: I mean, yes.

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Anne Hawley: and let's go ahead and get started.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: Yep, I will hand things over to you, and.

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Anne Hawley: Not ready!

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: Take it away.

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Anne Hawley: Alright.

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Anne Hawley: Okay. How's it? Look there.

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Rachelle Ramirez: Looks good. Your video's on. If that's all right.

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Anne Hawley: Yeah, I'm gonna turn it off here. One second. There it is. Okay. Let's go.

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Anne Hawley: Okay, well, welcome to the essentials of writing science fiction from pages and platforms and the happily ever Author Club.

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Anne Hawley: Before we start you can grab your free copy of the pages and Platforms Guide to the 7 essential story types. You will be very happy to have it, because we're going to storm it through a ton of material, and a lot of it will be captured in this guide. So please grab that at pagesand platforms.com slash sci-fi.

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Anne Hawley: and let's get started. What brings you here today? I assume you're writing science fiction or wanting to, or trying to. Are you stuck in the process of finishing your Science Fiction story? Have you completed a draft.

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Anne Hawley: but can't quite figure out how to solve the problems in it, or even how to define the problems that it might have.

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Anne Hawley: Have you gotten lost down the research rabbit hole, or tried plotting according to one of the many methods that are out there? Or are you more of a pantser.

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Anne Hawley: or are you otherwise feeling stuck somewhere along the path to a finished manuscript. Well, we are here to help you, as you have heard from Michelle. I'm Anne Holly. I'm a developmental editor here with my colleague, Richelle Ramirez, and we developed the concepts in this webinar to help you get unstuck.

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Anne Hawley: First, st a caveat. We cannot emphasize this enough

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Anne Hawley: that everything we're going to show you in this presentation is a set of tools, not rules. Okay, there are some principles of what makes a good working story. Our clients have found them useful, and so have we in our own writing. But

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Anne Hawley: please don't let any of our ideas shut down your creativity as a writer, take what you need, leave the rest. The important thing is 1st to write the story that's in your heart to tell.

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Anne Hawley: Today you're going to learn how to build, evaluate, and improve your science fiction story, using 4 tools, marketing category and setting also sometimes referred to as genre essential story elements, story types

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Anne Hawley: and world building. And again, I can't stress enough. This is a whirlwind tour.

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Anne Hawley: By the end of this webinar. You'll have a clearer idea of how to evoke empathy for your characters, create tension and excitement.

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Anne Hawley: provide emotional satisfaction for your reader.

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Anne Hawley: convey a thoughtful takeaway

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Anne Hawley: and meet the reader's overall expectations for your story

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Anne Hawley: to approach those lofty goals. We're going to start with a fundamental idea.

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Anne Hawley: Science fiction isn't a story type. What

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Anne Hawley: science fiction is a story, environment or setting. It's where your story takes place. And it is also obviously a marketing category, a genre, all right.

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Anne Hawley: The difference between genre that is marketing category and setting story type is the key

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Anne Hawley: piece of information we hope you will take away today. So we're going to spend quite a bit of time on it

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Anne Hawley: as your story's setting or environment. The term Science Fiction generally refers to stories where your reader can expect to suspend disbelief to a greater or lesser degree. It may have a cautionary premise referring to current times as much as to an imagined future.

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Anne Hawley: They are likely to involve predicted or speculative technology and a science fiction story may take place on other planets in this world, or alternate versions of this world or in space, and are generally regarded as speculative and imaginative, and they may veer from to some extent from the accepted Science Fiction facts of the real world, greater or lesser extent, depending on what kind of Science Fiction. You're writing

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Anne Hawley: at writers, conventions, and book fairs. We always ask people what they're writing, and most writers who are writing in the Science Fiction genre will say

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Anne Hawley: I'm writing science fiction, and then they'll add something like Ya or Lgbtq dystopian, hard Sci-fi space opera, etcetera.

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Anne Hawley: Now, these categories tend to describe the specific kind of world the story takes place in, or the age or orientation of the intended reader, and these subcategories might make or break a potential reader's decision to read your book. Many readers are looking specifically for hard Science fiction or dystopian.

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Anne Hawley: and you need to be clear on what you're offering.

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Anne Hawley: Each of these subcategories has its own trends and conventions and rules, so you do need to know them. But

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Anne Hawley: your science fiction, genre, and its subgenres alone cannot tell you much of what you need to know as a writer to build and finish your story.

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Anne Hawley: And that's what story type is, for

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Anne Hawley: we'll be covering that in detail with Richelle in just a moment.

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Anne Hawley: no matter what Science fiction, category or subgenre you're writing in your story, structure has to work the same way as if it were set in modern day. Los Angeles. This means that a science fiction story will need to meet certain criteria that most good working stories have in common.

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Anne Hawley: and that brings us to our second major topic the essential story elements that need to be in place before you really have a professional working draft.

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Anne Hawley: There's another little caveat here

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Anne Hawley: writing a novel or other book length work is not a 1 draft process. Sorry about that

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Anne Hawley: that movie image of the writer, typing page after page, and yanking them out of the typewriter, and then typing the end and sending the whole stack off to their publishers. A total myth. I think we all know that by now.

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Anne Hawley: First, st you need a 0 draft. This is where you metaphorically back the truck up to the building site and unload all the materials. This is the everything draft sometimes called vomit draft, crappy, 1st draft, etc. However, you want to think about it where you pour all your ideas, your character sketches back stories, redundant scenes, everything. Just you write it all, and

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Anne Hawley: whether you outline 1st or just start writing, your initial draft will need work before it becomes a professional working draft.

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Anne Hawley: So let's define that professional draft

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Anne Hawley: to count as a professional draft. Your story should have a protagonist with a singular, clear desire.

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Anne Hawley: The desire establishes something the protagonist wants to gain, and something they fear to lose. In other words, it sets up stakes.

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Anne Hawley: pursuing their desire, and facing those stakes, causes the protagonist to change.

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Anne Hawley: The story has a clear premise that is reflected in every scene.

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Anne Hawley: and it is driving towards the emotion that the reader of your story type expects to feel.

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Anne Hawley: So. Desire stakes change.

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Anne Hawley: premise, and emotion.

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Anne Hawley: When these 5 elements are clear and your story is working.

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Anne Hawley: Then you start revisions.

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Anne Hawley: and then you're on your way to a fully finished and polished story.

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Anne Hawley: If you nail these elements you'll attract the reader who is just waiting to choose your story.

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Anne Hawley: Now, I'm going to pass this discussion over to Rochelle. She is one of literally, seriously, one of the world's foremost experts on story types. She helped create numerous master classes on the subject for our happily ever author club, and she's here to share a bunch of what she's learned. So, Rochelle, off to you.

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Rachelle Ramirez: Right. Thanks, Anne. I am excited to cover this section today because choosing your story type is the single most critical decision you'll make in writing your Science Fiction story

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Rachelle Ramirez: story types give you the practical and applicable assistance you need for creating a working draft.

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Rachelle Ramirez: That's because your story type determines those important story elements that Anne just went over.

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Rachelle Ramirez: Your story type defines your protagonist's motivation, also known as their desire or their want and need.

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Rachelle Ramirez: It defines what kind of things are at stake, what your protagonist has to gain and lose.

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Rachelle Ramirez: Story type tells you the specific kind of change arc, your protagonist undergoes from beginning to end of the story.

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Rachelle Ramirez: and it specifies the kinds of emotions you should aim to evoke in your reader.

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Rachelle Ramirez: Story type contains a basic premise or message, which is the idea you want the reader to take away.

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Rachelle Ramirez: Don't worry. You'll meet all these elements again in a minute.

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Rachelle Ramirez: All of these essential elements. Shape your story and inform the story. Events.

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Rachelle Ramirez: That's because story types are a way to understand and communicate the kind of story you're telling.

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Rachelle Ramirez: As Anne mentioned a few minutes ago. Story type isn't analogous to marketing categories or genres that are used by publishers to communicate with potential buyers.

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Rachelle Ramirez: Story types are not explicit in back cover blurbs.

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Rachelle Ramirez: Agents and readers don't use these in their decision of whether or not to read your book.

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Rachelle Ramirez: Story. Types are for writers and editors who use them for crafting cohesive stories.

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Rachelle Ramirez: and as we see it at pages and platforms, there are 7 essential story types. Now, other writers and editors have identified more, but we've distilled it down to 7 for the sake of simplicity and ease of use. They are 7 distinctive platforms, each with individual character, motivations.

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Rachelle Ramirez: stakes.

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Rachelle Ramirez: reader, emotions.

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Rachelle Ramirez: premises, and more.

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Rachelle Ramirez: You and your editor can use story types to identify and fix deep structural issues in your manuscript.

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Rachelle Ramirez: and knowing your story type will help you both understand, discuss, and improve the kind of story you're telling.

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Rachelle Ramirez: Story types are the key to organizing, integrating, and evaluating those essential story elements we just went over.

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Rachelle Ramirez: So what are these 7 story types?

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Rachelle Ramirez: Here's a quick overview. And then we're going to look at each of these individually.

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Rachelle Ramirez: the 7 story types are action, crime.

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Rachelle Ramirez: horror.

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Rachelle Ramirez: love.

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Rachelle Ramirez: worldview.

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Rachelle Ramirez: validation and redemption.

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Rachelle Ramirez: Let's look at them one by one, and watch for those essential elements as we go along.

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Rachelle Ramirez: The 1st story type is action.

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Rachelle Ramirez: Action. Stories are as old as humankind. They teach us the importance of individual heroism in the face of danger.

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Rachelle Ramirez: identifying an action story is pretty easy for most of us. Action stories are plot driven and involve escape, chase, adventure, rescue, and rebellion.

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Rachelle Ramirez: The action protagonist is motivated by the desire to save lives or avoid danger.

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Rachelle Ramirez: So action stories involve the high stakes of life and death, or at least safety and danger.

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Rachelle Ramirez: The action. Protagonist usually begins in ordinary life, moves through high stakes, danger and ends as a hero to other people after having restored safety.

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Rachelle Ramirez: If you're writing an action story. The reader you're writing for likely wants to feel excitement. They want to imagine their own bravery in the face of danger.

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Rachelle Ramirez: It's your job to deliver those feelings.

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Rachelle Ramirez: and before we look at action's essential premise, we should 1st define what a premise is.

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Rachelle Ramirez: A premise sometimes called a controlling idea or theme is a single sentence statement that describes the value change of the entire story at the climax

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Rachelle Ramirez: and identifies the cause of that change.

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Rachelle Ramirez: It names the primary story event.

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Rachelle Ramirez: What happens? And why

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Rachelle Ramirez: keep in mind that the premise statement you'll hear for each story type is broad and general, and that you'll need to personalize it to your story

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Rachelle Ramirez: for action. The general essential premise is that heroic action leads to saving lives, whereas villainous behavior leads to loss of life.

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Rachelle Ramirez: This could end negatively as well. When the protagonist fails, dies, or is shamed if they fail to act, to save the victim.

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Rachelle Ramirez: And, in other words, the primary story event is reacting to villainous behavior. The big story change at the climax is saving lives, or possibly loss of lives.

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Rachelle Ramirez: and the cause of the change is heroic action or failure to act

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Rachelle Ramirez: action stories and science fiction realms are not hard to find. Most popular science fiction films, including superhero and comic book movies are primarily centered on a hero motivated to save lives

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Rachelle Ramirez: in novels. The subject matter can run a little deeper and turn more philosophical. But there's plenty of action to choose from.

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Rachelle Ramirez: For example, Andy Weir's Mega hit. The Martian is set in a realistic near future, and leverages current science to pit a stranded Astronaut against the antagonistic Mars landscape.

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Rachelle Ramirez: He takes heroic and desperate measures to stay alive, that is, to save himself as both hero and victim until rescue can come.

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Rachelle Ramirez: Parable of the Sower, by Octavia Butler, begins with the seed of an idea for a new religion, but quickly turns into an action story of chase and adventure as the protagonist leads a group of followers away from roving bands of violent addicts through fire and an earthquake to a promised land.

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Rachelle Ramirez: While this novel of ideas has a strong character driven coming of age plot for its young protagonist. Her leadership role in facing danger makes action its main plot.

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Rachelle Ramirez: Ridley Walker, by Russell Hoban, is set roughly 2,000 years after a nuclear war devastated civilization.

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Rachelle Ramirez: Ridley, the young narrator, has a chosen one arc of adventure across the harsh and toxic landscape, facing deadly packs of wild dogs, rough tribal communities, and nefarious government agents, as he slowly uncovers efforts to recreate the weapon that destroyed the ancient world. In the 1st place.

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Rachelle Ramirez: the second story type is crime.

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Rachelle Ramirez: We enjoy reading, watching, and writing crime stories because they show us that social order and justice depend on clever people who can outsmart chaotic wrongdoers by using brains rather than brawn

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Rachelle Ramirez: crime. Stories like action stories are plot driven.

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Rachelle Ramirez: They involve solving a puzzle, investigating a crime or planning a heist.

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Rachelle Ramirez: The crime protagonist is motivated by a desire to solve a puzzle, restore social order, or bring a wrongdoer to justice.

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Rachelle Ramirez: and that means what's at stake in a crime story is justice and order. If the protagonist doesn't win injustice and chaos will prevail.

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Rachelle Ramirez: the crime protagonist generally starts out facing chaos, disorder, crime, and a big question, the end in a more ordered state, with a solution to the puzzle, justice and restored order.

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Rachelle Ramirez: Crime, story readers want to feel the intrigue of solving a puzzle along with, or just before, the protagonist, and they tend to enjoy the sense of security in seeing justice prevail.

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Rachelle Ramirez: Crime's essential premise. It's primarily its primary underlying idea is that criminal activity results in chaos, whereas the pursuit of justice restores social order.

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Rachelle Ramirez: Again we see the primary story event as criminal activity. We see the big story change at the climax which is restored social order, and we see the cause of the change as the pursuit of justice.

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Rachelle Ramirez: Some crime stories set in Science Fiction worlds include

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Rachelle Ramirez: 6 wakes by Muir Lafferty, modelled on the classic closed room murder, mystery. This novel takes place on a generation ship in deep space, where crew members are cloned as they age and die.

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Rachelle Ramirez: The protagonist awakens from deep cryogenic sleep 25 years into the voyage to discover her last clone, and the Clones of the rest of the crew have been murdered.

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Rachelle Ramirez: The culprit could be. Any one of them, including the protagonist herself.

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Rachelle Ramirez: Lock in by John Scalzi, is a police procedural set in the near future world where an epidemic has left 1% of its victims locked in.

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Rachelle Ramirez: trapped, fully conscious and unmoving, unsensing bodies.

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Rachelle Ramirez: Some can afford robot like vehicles, they can transfer their consciousness into, and one such person is the protagonist, a Federal agent assigned to solve a murder involving the misuse of the same technology

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Rachelle Ramirez: and dark run by Mike Brooks set in a corrupt galaxy, where life is cheap and criminals are the best people in it. The epic spake space. Heist has a crew of thieves and con artists who take on dangerous secret job that could pay off lots of debts if they survive.

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Rachelle Ramirez: The 3rd story type is horror. Horror stories exist to remind us that evil is never really destroyed, but the courage and internal vigilance of ordinary people can keep it at bay.

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Rachelle Ramirez: Horror stories are plot driven with a monster intent on destruction, and a protagonist who becomes a victim.

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Rachelle Ramirez: The monster can be anything, a human sociopath, an animal, an alien, a supernatural being any being or force that does evil as part of its basic nature, and can't be reasoned with.

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Rachelle Ramirez: The protagonist is motivated by staying alive and avoiding a fate worse than death, such as torture.

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Rachelle Ramirez: That means that the stakes in a horror story involve life, death, escape, and torment.

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Rachelle Ramirez: The horror. Protagonist generally changes along a continuum from continuum, from safety to danger, to the threat of torment to escape.

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Rachelle Ramirez: And the horror reader wants to feel terror and imagine their bravery in facing a monster.

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Rachelle Ramirez: Horror's essential premise is that ordinary people can keep evil at bay with courage and vigilance, whereas cowardice and indifference allow the monster to win and for evil to thrive.

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Rachelle Ramirez: We see a primary story event, evil. We see the big story change at the climax. Evil is kept at bay, and we see the cause of the change, the courage and vigilance of ordinary people.

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Rachelle Ramirez: Horror almost always has an inherent speculative element, and its monsters can be aliens or technology, including biological entities, like diseases.

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Rachelle Ramirez: Jordan Peele's film. Get out, puts a young black man into a country home of his white girlfriend's parents, where a secret technology is doing horrible things to other black people and is coming for him next. And note that there's a secondary monster of racism operating in this story as well.

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Rachelle Ramirez: Salvation Day, by Callie Wallace, gives us an abandoned exploration ship, whose entire crew has been killed by a virus.

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Rachelle Ramirez: Now a motley band of space wanderers wants to take the ship and make it their own. They don't know that sleeping alongside the orbiting dead is a secret that threatens all of humanity until they wake it up.

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Rachelle Ramirez: And the Classic Science Fiction Film alien, a near, perfect model of a horror story where an alien monster picks off its victims, one by one in a mining vessel far out in space.

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Rachelle Ramirez: Now for a change of pace, the love story.

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Rachelle Ramirez: Here's a chance for us to debunk a misconception, because it turns out that the love story isn't limited to the romance novel or ROM-com

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Rachelle Ramirez: love stories overall show us how to earn the intimacy, love and togetherness that are essential to human thriving

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Rachelle Ramirez: love. Stories are both plot driven and character driven and involve relationships of intimacy, vulnerability, and commitment, including friendship and family love as well as romantic love.

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Rachelle Ramirez: The love protagonist is motivated by a desire to win love or avoid vulnerability.

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Rachelle Ramirez: The love protagonist risks rejection and vulnerability in order to gain intimacy and togetherness.

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Rachelle Ramirez: The love protagonist usually changes along a continuum from disconnection and loneliness to connection and togetherness.

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Rachelle Ramirez: But a less happy love story can go the other way.

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Rachelle Ramirez: The reader wants to feel anticipation of intimacy and vulnerability without the risk.

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Rachelle Ramirez: Romantic and sexual anticipation may be at play in stories involving romantic love.

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Rachelle Ramirez: The essential premise of the love story is that a willingness to be vulnerable leads to love, whereas an unwillingness to be vulnerable results in the loss of love and probable loneliness.

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Rachelle Ramirez: The primary story event is the desire for connection. The big story change at the climax is gaining or losing love, and the cause of the change is risking vulnerability or, failing to do so.

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Rachelle Ramirez: love and Science fiction make an unusual pairing. But let's look at some examples.

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Rachelle Ramirez: The Time Traveler's Wife, by Audrey Nifenneger, is a love story about a man with a genetic disorder that causes him to time travel unpredictably, while Claire, an artist and his loving wife, has known him across time, and must cope with his frequent disappearances into the Time stream.

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Rachelle Ramirez: Charlie Cosman.

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Rachelle Ramirez: sorry the eternal sunshine of the spotless mind posits the existence of a technology that erases memories of failed relationships and helps the bereaved and the rejected overcome their trauma and loss.

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Rachelle Ramirez: It tells the story of 2 lovers who get back together again. Even after this erasure

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Rachelle Ramirez: in Sean, David Hutchinson's a complicated love story set in space. 3 young people find themselves aboard a spaceship with no idea how they got there.

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Rachelle Ramirez: They face aliens and disruptive memory technologies. Well, 2 of them are falling in love.

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Rachelle Ramirez: The novel has a telling Tagline. Love is complicated enough without also trying to stay alive.

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Rachelle Ramirez: letting us know that it's as much an action story as a love story.

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Rachelle Ramirez: The 5th story type is worldview.

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Rachelle Ramirez: The cultural purpose of the worldview story, broadly speaking, is to show that the world is not a simple black and white place. They teach us about accepting the nuance and complexity of other people and ourselves

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Rachelle Ramirez: often referred to as a maturation or coming of age story.

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Rachelle Ramirez: The worldview story is character driven and involves a protagonist confronting their naivete, experiencing disillusionment or finding meaning.

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Rachelle Ramirez: The worldview protagonist's primary motivation is a desire either to gain knowledge or avoid some unpleasant truth, whether they're conscious of this desire or not.

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Rachelle Ramirez: This means that the stakes for the worldview protagonist.

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Rachelle Ramirez: what they have to lose are their ignorance and their cherished beliefs, while what they have to gain are knowledge and wisdom.

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Rachelle Ramirez: The worldview protagonists arc of change is from ignorance to knowledge or wisdom, and they tend to move from seeing the world in shades of black and white, to understanding their role in a world of gray in the world of grays. Basically they grow up.

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Rachelle Ramirez: The reader wants to feel empathetic satisfaction or pity.

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Rachelle Ramirez: They may also enjoy feeling comparatively wise and mature.

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Rachelle Ramirez: The essential premise of the worldview story is that open mindedness in the face of new information leads to wisdom, whereas, avoiding the truth results in self deception.

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Rachelle Ramirez: So we see a primary story event, new information.

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Rachelle Ramirez: We see the big story change at the climax, wisdom, or alternatively self deception, and we see the cause of the change, open mindedness, or else avoiding the truth.

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Rachelle Ramirez: you will find a worldview arc in almost any story involving a young adult protagonist. But the story type goes beyond just coming of age or maturation.

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Rachelle Ramirez: The worldview protagonist can be of any age.

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Rachelle Ramirez: Here are some examples.

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Rachelle Ramirez: The nobodies by Alanna Schubach

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Rachelle Ramirez: tells of 2 best friends, who discover that by putting their foreheads together they can swap bodies

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Rachelle Ramirez: as their worlds begin to mesh. Each deceives the other confesses and is forgiven, but they each have to contend with the disappearing boundaries between them and the question of their own identities

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Rachelle Ramirez: as a story of strong female friendship. We might see the nobodies as having a secondary love story of the intimate friendship, variety.

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Rachelle Ramirez: Ray Bradbury's classic, the haunting short story all summer in a day is set in a colony on Venus, where it never stops raining except for 1 h every 7 years.

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Rachelle Ramirez: The child protagonist is from Earth. Unlike her new classmates, she has seen the song before, talks a lot about it, and is longing to see it again.

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Rachelle Ramirez: and as the special hour approaches, jealous classroom bullies lock her in a closet and forget about her

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Rachelle Ramirez: when they let her out. The sun has come and gone, and she is left in loss and grief to consider human nature.

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Rachelle Ramirez: The ones who walk away from Omalas is a 1,973. Short story by Ursula K. Le Guin, set in a Utopian city called Omalas.

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Rachelle Ramirez: whose prosperity depends on the perpetual misery of a single child.

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Rachelle Ramirez: When citizens learn this fact most eventually acquiesce, but a few walk away.

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Rachelle Ramirez: Nobody in on the last, including the narrator, knows where they go, but they never come back.

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Rachelle Ramirez: and typical of many short stories, science, fiction or otherwise. This one and the previous example create a worldview shift in the reader as much as in the protagonist.

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Rachelle Ramirez: Now for validation. This is the 6 story type, and one that confuses a lot of writers.

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Rachelle Ramirez: We read, watch, and write validation stories to examine our personal and cultural definitions of success and failure, and to remind ourselves that honorable values are more important than worldly success.

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Rachelle Ramirez: Validation stories are character driven and involve the protagonist's search for success and esteem.

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Rachelle Ramirez: The validation protagonist is motivated by a desire for success, honor, and validation by others, for example, winning a trophy triumphing in a competition or moving higher in social ranking or wealth

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Rachelle Ramirez: validation stakes. What the protagonist has to gain and what they have to lose involves success, failure, and the selling out of true values.

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Rachelle Ramirez: So the validation protagonist changes most along the spectrum of success, compromise, failure, and selling out to dishonor.

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Rachelle Ramirez: they may start out successful and fall or start out low and rise.

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Rachelle Ramirez: The validation. Reader wants to feel admiration or pity, and enjoys a sense of moral superiority.

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Rachelle Ramirez: The essential premise of the validation story is that ethical choices create honorable success.

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Rachelle Ramirez: whereas unworthy goals lead to selling out one's true values.

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Rachelle Ramirez: The primary story event here is at least implied some opportunity to rise.

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Rachelle Ramirez: We see the big story change at the climax.

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Rachelle Ramirez: honorable success or selling out. And we see the cause of the change. Ethical choices or unethical ones.

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Rachelle Ramirez: A validation story in a Science Fiction milieu isn't the most common combination which might point to a good area for innovation. Here are some examples we were able to find.

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Rachelle Ramirez: Terry Pratchett's novel

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Rachelle Ramirez: novels are, note, absolutely classifiable as either science, fiction or fantasy, but they do fall in the broad realm of speculative fiction, and they are a delight

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Rachelle Ramirez: in going postal. A convicted Con artist is given a choice to run the moribund postal service in the capital city of Discworld instead of being hanged.

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Rachelle Ramirez: It's a hopeless task, but he becomes committed to succeeding by bringing the institution back to life.

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Rachelle Ramirez: His adventures in uncovering a criminal conspiracy at the same time give this validation story, a strong secondary crime story type.

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Rachelle Ramirez: John Pepper's Green Goddess gives us the high powered CEO of a fossil Fuel energy company in the near future who must at least fake. Believing in the environmental movement. In order to keep the corporation going.

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Rachelle Ramirez: she eventually finds a way to fund research into fusion energy as an innovative answer to climate change.

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Rachelle Ramirez: Matt Haggs, the Midnight Library is also arguably more fantasy than science fiction, depending on whether you think the mechanism for the plot is weird science or outright magic.

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Rachelle Ramirez: A young woman, dissatisfied with her choices in life, attempts suicide and finds herself between life and death in a library that contains the stories of all the alternate lives she might have lived.

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Rachelle Ramirez: She visits them one by one, from an unhappy marriage to wild success as a rock star.

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Rachelle Ramirez: she ultimately re-enters life with a new definition of what comprises a good life.

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Rachelle Ramirez: Our 7th and final story type is redemption.

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Rachelle Ramirez: Redemption stories are harder to find these days than in the past, but we have tended to tell them, as a reminder that our wrongs can be forgiven if we take altruistic actions and sacrifice for the greater good

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Rachelle Ramirez: redemption. Stories are character driven and involve forgiveness or atonement.

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Rachelle Ramirez: The redemption protagonist is motivated from the outset by guilt, shame, and a desire for forgiveness.

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Rachelle Ramirez: The redemption protagonist risks not being forgiven, and has to make sacrifices, but stands to gain atonement, forgiveness, and reconnection.

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Rachelle Ramirez: They must make an active choice between selfishness and altruism.

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Rachelle Ramirez: and if they choose selfishness, they lose, and if they choose altruism, they win, but must sacrifice something important to them

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Rachelle Ramirez: the redemption protagonist almost always begins as a despicable character.

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Rachelle Ramirez: knowingly doing or having done wrong, and changes for the better through altruistic sacrifice and difficult lessons

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Rachelle Ramirez: alternatively, they may begin hoping for redemption, but end having failed to attain it through some incurable character. Weakness.

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Rachelle Ramirez: the redemption reader wants to feel satisfaction, pity, or contempt or moral superiority. If the character makes poor choices and fails.

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Rachelle Ramirez: the essential premise of redemption, story type is

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Rachelle Ramirez: altruistic, action results in redemption, whereas selfishness leads to moral failure.

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Rachelle Ramirez: In other words, redemption results. When the protagonist atones for past wrongdoings by abandoning selfish goals and sacrificing for the greater good.

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Rachelle Ramirez: Usually the primary story event is the opportunity to make amends.

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Rachelle Ramirez: The big story change at the climax is redemption, or else moral failure, and the cause of the change is altruistic action and sacrifice or selfish action in a negative story.

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Rachelle Ramirez: True redemption stories in in Science fiction setting was a little hard to find, and we really only came up with one novel, an old one, and this could be a real opportunity for innovation.

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Rachelle Ramirez: Gateway, by Frederick Pole, begins in high action with a hero who is willing to sacrifice his life in a suicide mission to a black hole in order to let a large group of people live.

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Rachelle Ramirez: But in the unstable event his ship survives, and the others don't.

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Rachelle Ramirez: His survivor guilt drives the rest of the story as he seeks atonement, which is never truly possible for him.

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Rachelle Ramirez: Of course, characters all over superhero and Science Fiction stories have individual redemption arcs.

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Rachelle Ramirez: even though the stories are primarily action in the Marvel cinematic universe. Natasha Romanoff is driven in part by her need to atone for wrongs. She's done as a spy, saying there's red in my ledger.

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Rachelle Ramirez: George Lucas has said that the 6 original Star Wars films were about the rise, fall, and redemption of Anakin Skywalker.

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Rachelle Ramirez: Most of us would have a hard time overlooking his heinous atrocities, but as the story is presented, he shows regret and experiences release at death when his son Luke recognizes him.

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Rachelle Ramirez: and there you have them. Thus 7 story types.

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Rachelle Ramirez: There's so much to learn about combining story types and at pages and platforms, we've developed a whole 20 module course on the subject. But the short version is that you need to weave a plot driven story type with a character driven story type who deliver a story that will truly engage your reader

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Rachelle Ramirez: either choose a plot driven primary story supported by a character driven secondary arc, or choose a character driven primary story where a plot driven story type presents the external challenges your protagonist needs in order to change.

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Rachelle Ramirez: Why should you combine 2 opposing story types because even the most heroic action protagonist undergoes some internal change, and even the quietest and introverted of protagonists has to face troubles from the outside world

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Rachelle Ramirez: as a reminder. The plot driven story types are action, crime, horror.

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Rachelle Ramirez: and love.

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Rachelle Ramirez: Well, the character driven story types are world view, validation, and redemption.

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Rachelle Ramirez: You may have noticed that in several of our examples I mentioned a secondary or supporting story type, for instance, love with action, a complicated love story set in space

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Rachelle Ramirez: action with redemption, gateway.

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Rachelle Ramirez: validation with crime going postal

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Rachelle Ramirez: worldview with love and nobody's

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Rachelle Ramirez: action with worldview, the parable of the Sower. Now, a good way to innovate on your science fiction story is to try unexpected combinations of plot driven and character driven story types, or a combination that you find most personally evocative.

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Rachelle Ramirez: So a quick recap before we move on to Part 4,

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Rachelle Ramirez: we've identified the 7 story types. And for each one we've covered 5 essential story elements.

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Rachelle Ramirez: the wants and needs the basic motivation. The protagonist of each story type must have

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Rachelle Ramirez: what's inherently at stake for the protagonist. That is what they have to gain and what they risk losing as they go after what they want

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Rachelle Ramirez: the arc of change. That is how the protagonist state fundamentally changes from the beginning of the story to the end.

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Rachelle Ramirez: The kind of emotions the reader of the story type hopes to feel.

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Rachelle Ramirez: and the essential premise or message of the story type.

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Rachelle Ramirez: Understanding these 5 elements helps you. The author, meet the expectations of your intended reader.

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Rachelle Ramirez: Write a consistent story with a clear beginning, middle, and end.

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Rachelle Ramirez: and finish your story.

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Rachelle Ramirez: Now back to Anne.

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Anne Hawley: Thank you, Rochelle. We do cover the

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Anne Hawley: subject that's near and dear to the heart of all Science Fiction writers which is world building. It is a huge subject, and I'm looking at the time here, and I'm not sure we're going to be able to go through this part 4. So I'd like to offer that. It's in the slides, and I see questions coming in. So I'm going to suggest that we go to the QA now. And I will make this

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Anne Hawley: the text of this and the slides available because tick, tock here.

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Anne Hawley: So I'm going to go ahead and go off video, and we'll go to your questions. Now.

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Anne Hawley: I meant to say, go on, video, and stop sharing.

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Rachelle Ramirez: There we go

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Rachelle Ramirez: alright. Laura asks, how would you market a story? That is 6 of the 7 types for the 7th type. There's no romance, only affection and friendship.

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Anne Hawley: I I wouldn't try to market it by any of these categories. They're not really for marketing. You would market it as a sign. I'm assuming you're writing Science Fiction as a Science fiction story, and if you think you have 6 of the 7 story types, I would strongly, strongly urge you to reconsider that stance and decide that your pro, your protagonist, goes through one primary arc of change

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Anne Hawley: and figure out which one it is and which story type it is and focus there. It's not that there can't be little subplots that might involve some of these other story types, but if you have a an affection or friendship story set in a science fiction world where the protagonist has to face danger, then chances are you have sort of an action and love type of combination. But you don't really market your book that way, or pitch it to agents that way. This is the way you work on editing and revising it.

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Anne Hawley: Richelle, do you want to add to that.

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Rachelle Ramirez: Well, I would say, if you're gonna if you think you have 6 of the 7 story types you might want to reevaluate might want to get a developmental editor, you might not have as focused of a story as you would want for your intended reader. Think specifically about that intended reader, and if you have more than, say, 3 of the story types in your story.

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Rachelle Ramirez: I would really really look for for a second opinion from a qualified structural editor on that.

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Anne Hawley: Yeah, on which way, what kind of story you're really telling is one of the biggest problems that we see in client work. And we've both been editors for years, and the the main problems. If you have a manuscript that you say you give to Beta readers, and they're like, well, this part was pretty good, but I didn't really get that. I would say 8 times out of 10. It the problem is that you haven't focused on this the main story type. You don't know what kind of story you're telling. It starts out one way and ends.

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Anne Hawley: you know, giving you give the reader expectations at the beginning, and then it ends satisfying completely different reader expectations, because your story type was shifting throughout. It's a really valuable tool.

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Anne Hawley: And yeah, if you can. If you can find a structural editor to discuss your story with Richelle as one such. You you can get a lot of guidance in. In an hour. Conversation!

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Anne Hawley: What's next?

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Rachelle Ramirez: Alright, Sarin says, what if I can't figure out which of the story types is most prominent in a story? Well, let me take an example, though it's not sci-fi, but fantasy. Lord of the Rings, has horror, action, and coming of age elements. So which of these is the primary story, story type for Lord of the rings.

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Anne Hawley: What are they trying to do? Save the world.

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Rachelle Ramirez: Stay alive!

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Anne Hawley: I get there. It's an action story. There is a there is a wonderful love story there between Sam and Frodo, the greatest friendship ever told. All kind. Yes, it's huge, it's a trilogy, it goes. I forget how many words. It is a half a million or something. It's gigantic and a lot of different things go on. But when you take a step back and say, what is the goal of the protagonist, and there's multiple heroes. It's a complex story.

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Anne Hawley: The goal is to save the world from Sauron and get the ring, you know. Destroy the ring. And why do they want to destroy the ring because he's going to kill people, and they want to save people. That's your fundamental action story premise.

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Rachelle Ramirez: Alright, Lucas says, would you say horror can be more a genre than a strict story type.

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Anne Hawley: It's both. Actually, you horror, horror, and crime are 2 that you can. You can you actually use as marketing tools, too? Because, say, this is a horror story. This is a crime story. Yes, absolutely it. It happens to be the word that is used for for both the story type and as a marketing category. Yes, absolutely.

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Rachelle Ramirez: Alright. Nancy, you said, can you provide more on speculative fiction? And I think that's pretty broad question. So I'm sorry we won't be able to answer that here, within this context,

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Anne Hawley: I would just say, it's a very big umbrella that Co. You know, that includes fantasy. Many kinds of fantasy, many kinds of science fiction. The ones like the midnight library, for example, kinda you know, verges over into what is it magic, or is it technology? We don't know. It doesn't really, you know, it's like, not really real, but kind. I I the short version of what I'm saying is, I don't know. I mean, does anyone have a really solid definition, but it's a very big umbrella that includes

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Anne Hawley: sort of anything, not of this world. It can kind of include even sort of magical realism to say

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Anne Hawley: it's a it's a big tent

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Anne Hawley: that's that's the best I can do for you. Sorry.

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Rachelle Ramirez: PP. Says, been struggling with this genre, would speculative fiction classify as a specific genre description.

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Anne Hawley: I you could certainly like pitch it to agents that way. You may find agents who are looking for, you know they may say we, we represent speculative fiction.

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Anne Hawley: I I would be more specific than saying speculative fiction you want to get at what kind of story it is like this. You want to get at what your character wants, what they're

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Anne Hawley: what what's at stake for them, and include in your marketing. If you're marketing like a self published book you the the you want to let the reader know that. Yes, this is not like total realism, because some readers will not touch anything speculative, and some readers will not touch anything that isn't so you definitely want to get that in there. And I think generally you can say you can use the term speculative. But I'd be more specific about what kind of

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Anne Hawley: things it's speculating on.

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Rachelle Ramirez: Yeah, and I would look.

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Anne Hawley: Is it outright magic? Is it high technology? Is it futuristic? Does it involve time? Travel? If so, is, you know, is there a magical explanation for it, or a technical explanation for you kind of want to get at those things in your marketing.

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Anne Hawley: But speculative is is awfully broad, except as like when you're looking for an agent or a publisher who's looking for it. They may use that term. Yep.

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Rachelle Ramirez: And they may specify. An agent may specify in their calls. So same with an with magazines. Acquiring editors, that sort of thing, and I would say, look at some of the back cover blurbs for books that are the most similar to the one you're writing, and see how they describe the story right?

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Anne Hawley: And when you're looking at like back cover blurbs, or the blurb on the on Amazon, or whatever keep it fairly recent, because these this terminology is shifting all the time, and the way things are presented. It's a moving target, so keep it within the last 3 or 4 years, maybe 5 years to get a to get a good feeling for what's going on going on now.

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Anne Hawley: Okay, Jennifer says, what's you? Go ahead, Michelle?

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Rachelle Ramirez: What's the difference between a structural and a developmental editor which is better to help an author focus in on the main story to dig it out of their 0 draft.

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Anne Hawley: They're very similar, I mean, I hear I I kind of use the terms interchangeably myself. I think some people differ on it a little but either one is going to help you find we're not gonna be looking at your grammar punctuation and spelling. We're not gonna be reading your sentences for literary value particularly. That's for a later pass. It's it's read the whole story. Figure out what your act structure is.

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Anne Hawley: I think we both. If you call yourself a developmental or a structural editor, that's what we would do is, look at. Does your story. Does it hit certain points at the right places where the reader expects them to happen? Does it contain the main elements for the kind of story that the reader expects to find in the in the kind of story you're telling. Where should they fall? Are you? Are you hitting your marks? And and once you get we call those

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Anne Hawley: tent poles. Once you get your tent structured and

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Anne Hawley: solid and nice and tight, then you go back and you start, you know, sanding and polishing the pros and the the smaller, the finer grit sandpaper, basically. So

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Anne Hawley: I don't think there's much of a difference. I think you should. If you have an editor in mind that you'd like to find out about. You can ask them, what what do you mean by that? Because the terms are again kind of like speculative fiction. It's kind of broad, but they they're very similar. They some I prefer to call myself a developmental editor. But if you called me a structural editor I wouldn't be offended or anything.

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Anne Hawley: Yeah.

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Rachelle Ramirez: Christolis says, How do you know if a story has legs.

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Anne Hawley: What I was just talking about, how? Whether you that you're talking about pacing I I think you are. I don't know. I mean legs can mean? Will it last a long time? Or does it move? Does it have pacing as the reader expects it in the reading experience legs

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Anne Hawley: in terms of having a long life in someone's mid list forever. I that I can't. That's magic. Nobody knows how how how that happens, or why. But if you want to talk about, does this story like keep the reader turning the pages? That's a question of pacing. It's a question of having the main events in the story in the right places along the the

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Anne Hawley: continuum of the story. It's like you want. Act one, to end approximately. Here. You want a big midpoint shift, and it better be in the middle, and you want, you know there's a bunch to that. But legs are defined by pacing and pacing is defined by, does your story structure hit? The right beats at the expected kind of percentage of the story?

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Anne Hawley: And a lot of it is, I mean, everybody's probably had this experience. I'm reading a book, and I've got like a whole bunch of pages still in my right hand. We're talking about a physical book here, and it's like I I thought we were coming to the end. What the heck is all this over here, and that's bad pacing. It's like Whoa! You missed a mark there somewhere. There's still too much story. You have too many pages left to go. That kind of

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Anne Hawley: that. Ha! That's

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Anne Hawley: getting those right. So there's only a few pages left in the in the right hand. When I feel like there's I'm coming to the end. It's very

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Anne Hawley: basic explanation of pacing there. You want those things to fall in the right place, so the reader

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Anne Hawley: doesn't get discouraged and keeps reading, and is interested, and know, and trusts you to finish the story at the place that sort of expected to finish.

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Rachelle Ramirez: A lot of times when I get this this question like, How do I know the story has legs? They're saying, you know. Does should I keep writing this story? And the answer is.

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Rachelle Ramirez: Yes, if you, if it's if this is a story that's in your heart to tell, and this story is something that you want to continue working on. Then? Yes. Does it have legs to stand on in terms of? Does it have a structure? Now that works do I have the seed of a story that's going somewhere with the, you know? Maybe even let's back it up further like, Do you have an idea for a beginning, a middle and an end

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Rachelle Ramirez: are the is the beginning, middle, and end. Are they related to one primary problem? What's what is the opposition to that problem. Once you figure those things out

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Rachelle Ramirez: like you have a general idea of where your character begins, what they're gonna do at the climactic event and what the results of that is going to be. Yeah, your story probably has legs and and keep right. If if you've been given the story from wherever it comes from, in the universe or the core of yourself. Keep writing right towards it.

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Rachelle Ramirez: Diana says, can a story be both character and plot driven? Or does one? Yeah.

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Rachelle Ramirez: that's over the other.

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Anne Hawley: It has to be. Basically, you need, you need one of each. We sort of covered that real quickly. And I'm sorry to rush through this, but we are out of time here.

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Anne Hawley: and so if you go back over the

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Anne Hawley: the recording, you'll yes, you need an internal or character driven story for your protagonist, and an external or plot driven story that drives them, and which one is primary, is kind of up to you. But yes, that's the short answer is, yes, they have to.

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Rachelle Ramirez: Just a reminder.

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Anne Hawley: H basically.

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Rachelle Ramirez: Alright, just a reminder. Go to Story Path, dot me, and you can get the copy of the 7 Story Types, little summary Overview special which could be helpful, especially if you're having trouble deciding which story type you're writing in.

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Anne Hawley: Yeah, the the link that we gave you at the beginning, and it will be in the materials afterwards, will take you to our guide to the 7 essential story types which has pretty much everything we covered.

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Anne Hawley: I'm sorry we can't cover all of these live now, but Michelle has promised to give me the list of questions. I will type up answers for them and get them out to you. Because these are great questions. Everybody that was fun. So we'll we'll get the rest of those out

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Anne Hawley: soon. Thank you.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: Thank you so much, Anne and Richelle. Amazing presentation as always. And yes, the replay, the slides. There will be a spreadsheet with the QA. Answers, whenever Anne and Richelle have time to answer them. We'll have all of that on the hub. Thank you all for coming, and we will see you in just an hour for our second session. Bye, everyone.

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Anne Hawley: Everybody.

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Rachelle Ramirez: Bye, okay.