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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: Welcome everyone. Welcome

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: as you can see and hear me. Please drop your name and location in the chat.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: I have.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: Drop some links for you there as well, and I will drop them again throughout the session.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: All right.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: There's so many of you I see so many different places. Scotland, Washington, DC. Texas, Missouri.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: Washington, UK.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: Canada, Florida, Nova Scotia, Sweden. Awesome.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: We love seeing so many of you here, and from so many different parts of the globe. It's so exciting. Welcome to our second session of day, one of fantasy raiders week

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: before we officially get started. I just have a couple of housekeeping items to go over with you.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: Your replays this week are available on the Hub page, so you will go to your hub. You should have the email for that. Sorry, the link for that in your email. But I also am dropping it in the chat.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: That is where you will access all of your offer. Special offers replays event materials that will be on the Hub. You can see the full schedule of events, and as you go through the schedule as we update with the materials and webinar replays, you will see them all listed there right within the schedule.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: Monday through Thursday's sessions are available for everyone to view, and those replays are going to be on the hub as soon as they're done processing. By zoom, they'll also be available on our community page for all community members to view by May third. So you'll want to check that out there, too.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: Friday is our premium day, that is, for premium and premium pro users of pro writing aid only. If you are already a premium or premium pro user, you will have access to the live sessions, and you will receive an email on Friday morning with those instructions. So be sure to watch your email Friday morning for that information.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: and that will show you how to log in for those sessions that day.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: If you are interested in upgrading to a premium or premium pro account, so that you can attend premium day with us. We do have a special offer for you this week of 25 off your first year of premium or premium pro writing aid. If you have any questions about that, please drop them in the chat. QA. Or you can email Hello, at pro writing aid com.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: But if you are interested in upgrading. Now is a great time to do so, because that is a great discount.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: If you would like to keep the fantasy writing, conversation going and also view our replays after May third, please come over to the community. This is our private online community. There's a lot of fantasy writing conversation already happening in the live event. Chat. You can simply sign up and log in using your prorating 8 account information, and then you can chat with other attendees about all of the topics this week

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: reminders for this session. If you have a question for our speakers, please use the QA. Box. The chat moves very quickly, and we don't want to lose anyone's questions. So you can find that button in the center of your zoom screen. You want to look for QA.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: If you'd like to chat with other attendees today, you may do that. Please use the chat for that, and be sure to select everyone in the drop-down menu next to 2. Otherwise your messages will, by default, just come to the host and panelist

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: and links to all of your special offers, are in the hub. So the hub has everything you need. You'll want to go there for all of your offers, replays and session materials just as a reminder. So with that being said, we are ready to begin. Today we are joined by Ann Holly and Richelle Ramirez.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: Rochelle 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. 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, which I will drop in the chat for you again.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: Ann 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, roundtable, podcast and currently teaches and develops writing courses at pages and platforms. Welcome Ann and Richelle. We're so happy to have you back for another event.

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Rachelle Ramirez: Thank you.

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Anne Hawley: We are.

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Rachelle Ramirez: Fear.

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Anne Hawley: Very happy to be here. Let me just do the share screen thing here and we'll go ahead and get started.

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Anne Hawley: Okay?

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Anne Hawley: Got what we need on the screen.

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Rachelle Ramirez: Yes.

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Anne Hawley: Alright! Great, thank you.

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Anne Hawley: Well, we love working with pages. We love working with pages and platforms. We are pages and platforms we love working with pro writing, and thank you all for being here. It's just wonderful to be here. I'm Ann Holly, as some Michelle has told you, and Richelle and I are both developmental editors at pages and platforms. So we're excited to share what we view as some of the essentials of writing fantasy

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Anne Hawley: before we get started. I would like to invite you all to download our free pages and platforms. Guide to the 7 essential story paths@storypath.me slash Pwa. You'll be hearing a lot more about the story types in a minute. But this document does give you the overview of most of what we're gonna talk about today. So let's get started. We got a lot of treasure to unearth here.

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Anne Hawley: What brings writers to most of our webinars is feeling stuck. Could that be you? Have you started drafting a fantasy story only to get stuck along the way.

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Anne Hawley: or are you writing yet another draft and running into the same problems as the first time, not sure how to fix it, or maybe even how to define what you're trying to do.

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Anne Hawley: Have you spent time researching, tried plotting methods, tried pantsing, also known as writing from inspiration. Both methods are perfectly acceptable by the way.

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Anne Hawley: different people use different methods, and nothing is still getting you unstuck. Well, at pages and platforms.

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Anne Hawley: We know how it feels to want clear, applicable ways to solve story challenges. Today, we're going to share with you some of the most useful tips and tricks we have found for getting unstuck

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Anne Hawley: in this webinar. You're going to learn how to build, evaluate and improve your fantasy story using 4 tools. And those are marketing categories, those 7 essential story types I just mentioned just now

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Anne Hawley: 6 story elements that are essential to making your story work.

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Anne Hawley: and that area is so near and dear to the hearts of many fantasy writers. World building.

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Anne Hawley: By the end of our time together. You should have some new tools to evoke empathy for your characters, create tension and excitement, provide emotional satisfaction for your intended reader, and convey a thoughtful takeaway

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Anne Hawley: and meet, reader expectations for the type of story that you're telling

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Anne Hawley: to help you with those lofty goals. We need to talk about what kind of story you are telling. It may not be what you think, because it turns out that fantasy is not a story type.

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Anne Hawley: Fantasy is a story, milieu or environment or setting. It's also a marketing category.

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Anne Hawley: Fantasy as a story. Milia does not have hard and fast boundaries. But here are some characteristics that most fantasy stories in the marketplace today share

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Anne Hawley: fantasy generally requires the reader to suspend disbelief in significant ways. Fantasy may reflect myths, folklore, or fairytales from any culture.

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Anne Hawley: It often, but not always, contains magical, paranormal, or supernatural elements. It may take place in this real world or in other worlds.

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Anne Hawley: It's a story category generally regarded as imaginative, and it veers from the scientific facts of the real world to a greater or a lesser degree.

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Anne Hawley: Now, at writers, conventions, and book fairs. We always ask people who stop by our table, so what are you writing?

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Anne Hawley: And many will answer fantasy, and then qualify that with a reader category like YA. Or middle grade, or with a subtype like Urban or Romanticy or Lgbtq. And that's great. All valid fantasy categories are important. Your fantasy category or subcategory or sub subcategory might make or break a potential reader's decision. Whether or not to read your book.

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Anne Hawley: Many readers are looking specifically for epic high fantasy, or grim, dark stories or paranormal love stories. And you, as the author, need to be clear on what you're offering. Each of those categories has its own trends, conventions, and rules. You need to know them. You need to keep up with them. But

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Anne Hawley: your fantasy, marketing, category or subgenre alone doesn't tell you very much of what you need to know as a writer to build and finish your story.

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Anne Hawley: Now, assuming you're clear on which fantasy, category marketing genre, your story falls into, you might still be stuck trying to make it work as a story. And that's probably because that category that marketing category or subgenre can't tell you what your protagonist wants and needs, what motivates them.

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Anne Hawley: what they have to gain and lose in going after what they want. That is what's at stake

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Anne Hawley: the specific arc of change. Your protagonist is going to go through

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Anne Hawley: the kinds of emotions that your ideal reader will expect to feel in reading your story.

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Anne Hawley: or the fundamental premise or message. This the reason you're telling this story.

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Anne Hawley: those things, character, motivation, stakes, arc of change, reader, emotion and premise arise from your story type. And Michelle is going to go deep into story type in just a minute.

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Anne Hawley: So what are we getting at here? Fantasy is not the type of story you're telling. Fantasy is the milieu in which your story takes place. For instance, you can have a love story involving vampires or werewolves or Kitson. A.

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Anne Hawley: Horror story that takes place at the bottom of the sea.

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Anne Hawley: a crime story in a city where magic is real, but no matter how exotic, familiar. The story has to work the same way as if it were just set in modern day. La

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Anne Hawley: story type provides tools, useful tools that you can use to create that professional draft of a good working story, and you'll be meeting those tools again several times.

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Anne Hawley: But please bear in mind that everything we teach at pages and platforms is a set of tools, not rules. Don't let anything we teach here today throw water on your creative fires. Take what you need leave the rest.

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Anne Hawley: With that caveat. We believe that understanding story types will truly help you get unstuck

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Anne Hawley: craft. The story that's in your heart to tell and help you finish your book.

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Anne Hawley: Now, I'm gonna pass this discussion on to Richelle. She's one of the world's foremost experts on story type. She literally wrote the book on it. She's here to share a bunch of what she has learned. Michelle.

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Rachelle Ramirez: Thanks, Anne. So why are story types so important? Why are we spending so much time on this subject?

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Rachelle Ramirez: Because your story type determines your protagonists want and need their motivation.

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Rachelle Ramirez: It determines the kind of thing your protagonist has to gain and lose in order in in going after what they want. That is, the stories stakes.

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Rachelle Ramirez: It specifies the kinds of changes your protagonist will go through from the beginning of the story to the end.

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Rachelle Ramirez: It determines the kind of emotion your reader expects to experience.

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Rachelle Ramirez: and it guides you to the basic premise or message of your story, which is the idea you want. The reader to take away

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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 one way to understand and communicate the kind of story you're telling.

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Rachelle Ramirez: They are not analogous to marketing categories used by publishers to communicate with potential buyers.

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Rachelle Ramirez: They are for you.

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Rachelle Ramirez: The writer and editors like Ann and me, who use them in crafting cohesive stories

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Rachelle Ramirez: as we see it. There are 7 essential story types.

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Rachelle Ramirez: Other writers and editors have sorted stories differently, saying, there are dozens of story types, but we've distilled it down to 7 for the sake of simplicity.

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Rachelle Ramirez: They are 7 distinctive platforms, each with individual, unique

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Rachelle Ramirez: character. Motivation

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Rachelle Ramirez: steaks.

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Rachelle Ramirez: protagonist change, arc.

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Rachelle Ramirez: reader, emotion and premise.

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

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Rachelle Ramirez: we define the 7 story types as

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Rachelle Ramirez: action.

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Rachelle Ramirez: 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.

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Rachelle Ramirez: The first story type is action.

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Rachelle Ramirez: Action. Stories exist to 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 plot, elements like escape, chase, adventure, rescue, and rebellion.

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Rachelle Ramirez: The action protagonist is motivated by their desire to save lives, protect people, and restore safety.

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Rachelle Ramirez: That means that what's at stake in an action story is life or safety, and the risk of danger or death.

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Rachelle Ramirez: So the action protagonist changes along a continuum that stretches from life and safety to danger to the possibility of death.

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Rachelle Ramirez: Readers choose action stories in order to feel a certain way.

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Rachelle Ramirez: Well, any story. Really, if you're writing an action story, your reader wants to feel excitement.

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Rachelle Ramirez: They like to imagine showing bravery in the face of danger.

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Rachelle Ramirez: So before we define the essential premise of the action story, we should define what a premise is

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Rachelle Ramirez: a premise sometimes called a controlling idea or a theme describes in a simple sentence the climactic change of the entire story and the cause of that change.

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Rachelle Ramirez: The premise statement names the primary story event. What happens and why.

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Rachelle Ramirez: for action the general essential premise is that heroic action leads to restoring safety or saving lives, whereas villainous behavior or a failure to act on behalf of the victim leads to danger, possible loss of life, and possibly moral failure.

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Rachelle Ramirez: Some examples of action stories in fantasy worlds are the truly epic, high fantasy Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson, in which the fate of an entire world rests on the shoulders of an unsuspecting chosen. One.

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Rachelle Ramirez: Children of blood and bone by Tomi at Emma. This is an epic young adult fantasy adventure set in a world based in part on West African folklore, where young protagonists must risk their lives to restore magic and overthrow tyranny.

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Rachelle Ramirez: The grandmaster of demonic cultivation by Mo. Shank

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Rachelle Ramirez: is the story of a warrior who loses his pure powers, and has to cultivate demonic powers to overthrow an enemy intent on total domination.

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Rachelle Ramirez: It's also an epic story of love that transcends death.

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Rachelle Ramirez: It was adapted to a popular C drama series, the Untamed. It's on Netflix, and it's awesome. One of Ann's favorites.

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Rachelle Ramirez: The second story type is Crime

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Rachelle Ramirez: Crime Stories exist to examine questions of justice and show that social order depends on clever people who outsmart chaotic wrongdoers.

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Rachelle Ramirez: Crime stories like action stories are plot driven and involve someone trying to solve a puzzle, investigate a crime, or pull off a caper or heist.

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Rachelle Ramirez: The crime protagonist is motivated by the desire to solve a puzzle and restore order and justice.

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Rachelle Ramirez: Crime. Protagonists use their brains rather than brawn

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Rachelle Ramirez: at stake in a crime story are justice and order.

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Rachelle Ramirez: If the protagonist fails to solve the puzzle and get justice. There's a risk that chaos and social disorder will prevail.

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Rachelle Ramirez: This means that the crime protagonist changes by moving from chaos and injustice to order and justice, or sometimes vice versa.

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Rachelle Ramirez: Readers generally seek crime stories to create the feeling of intrigue, and possibly intellectual superiority, as they try to solve the puzzle before the protagonist

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Rachelle Ramirez: crime. Readers often also enjoy the sense of safety when justice prevails.

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Rachelle Ramirez: crimes essential premise. The primary idea that the story revolves around is that criminal activity results in chaos and injustice, whereas pursuit of justice restores social order. There's a result. Justice which is caused by the specific actions. The protagonist takes the pursuit of justice.

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Rachelle Ramirez: Some good crime stories set in fantasy worlds include

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Rachelle Ramirez: Jim Butcher's Harry Dresden, Urban fantasy novels where a private investigator with magical powers, solves supernatural crimes.

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Rachelle Ramirez: The Rivers of London Series by Ben Aranovic, where a police detective slowly gains magical powers in modern day, London, while attempting to solve crimes involving perpetrators from folklore and myth

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Rachelle Ramirez: and China mealevills, the city and the city. This one doesn't involve magical powers or supernatural crimes, but a weird and compelling alternate world setting where one city is superimposed over another, and a detective from one of them must solve a crime committed in the other.

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Rachelle Ramirez: And yes.

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Rachelle Ramirez: it does seem that the crime story is a natural fit for the urban fantasy category.

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Rachelle Ramirez: The third story type is horror.

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Rachelle Ramirez: Horror stories remind us of the persistence of evil.

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Rachelle Ramirez: They show us that the courage and that courage and vigilance of ordinary people is the only thing that keeps evil at bay.

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

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Rachelle Ramirez: They involve a monster intent on destruction, and a protagonist who is a victim.

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Rachelle Ramirez: The monster can be anything as long as it cannot be reasoned with or count.

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Rachelle Ramirez: It might be a human sociopath, an animal, an alien, or a supernatural being.

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Rachelle Ramirez: The protagonist is motivated by the desire to stay alive and avoid a fate worse than death, such as torture or eternal torment.

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Rachelle Ramirez: Thus stakes in a horror story, therefore, involve life, escape and torment.

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Rachelle Ramirez: and that means that the horror protagonist victim changes along a continuum from safety to the threat of death or torment to escape in life, assuming they escape.

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Rachelle Ramirez: Readers choose horror stories to feel terror, and feel courageous in the face of that terror.

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Rachelle Ramirez: imagining their own bravery, and confronting a monster

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Rachelle Ramirez: as a horror writer you are expected to deliver.

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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 allows the monster to win an evil to thrive.

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Rachelle Ramirez: Horror very often has an inherent fantasy element, since it frequently involves monsters, supernatural beings, or paranormal events.

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Rachelle Ramirez: Here are some examples.

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Rachelle Ramirez: Tony Morrison's will love it, in which the monster is a ghost of a dead child that haunts the mother.

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Rachelle Ramirez: There is a secondary monster of racism operating in this story as well.

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Rachelle Ramirez: the haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson, where the monster is an ambiguous supernatural entity that possesses a house and eventually destroys the family that lives in it.

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Rachelle Ramirez: And Neil Gaiman's Cora line, where a lonely child discovers a mirror world behind a closed door where a monstrous mirror mother lives.

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Rachelle Ramirez: This brings us to our fourth story type love and a chance to debunk a common misconception, because, as it turns out, not all love stories are romances, or even romantic

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Rachelle Ramirez: love stories in all forms show us how to earn the intimacy, love, and togetherness that help the human community thrive.

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Rachelle Ramirez: A love story might involve a courtship or romance.

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Rachelle Ramirez: it might or might not have a happily, ever after ending.

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Rachelle Ramirez: It can be about a forbidden union or a marriage with the possibility to have divorce.

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Rachelle Ramirez: Love stories may also center on friendship or familiar love.

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Rachelle Ramirez: These stories tend to be both plot and character driven.

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

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Rachelle Ramirez: and that makes the stakes of the love story involve possible rejection, vulnerability togetherness, and intimacy.

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Rachelle Ramirez: The love protagonist usually undergoes a change from disconnected or alone to connected by allowing themselves to be vulnerable.

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Rachelle Ramirez: It's also possible to have a negative or cautionary love story, whose protagonist winds up refusing to be vulnerable and remains or becomes lonely.

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Rachelle Ramirez: Remember not all love stories are romances.

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Rachelle Ramirez: Readers choose love stories to enjoy feeling the anticipation of romantic or other human connection, and to experience the vulnerability of love and intimacy without the risk.

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Rachelle Ramirez: The essential premise of the love story is that willingness to be vulnerable makes committed human connection possible, whereas unwillingness to be vulnerable. Results in loss of love.

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Rachelle Ramirez: love and fantasy make a popular pairing. Here are some examples

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Rachelle Ramirez: in the City of Brass, by SA. Chakra Borti, a fortune teller in the streets of fantasy. Cairo accidentally summons a Jin warrior who invites her into his world of intrigue and power.

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Rachelle Ramirez: There she must face danger, intrigue, and real magical power, while her attachment to the chin grows

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Rachelle Ramirez: Diana Gabaldon's Outlander series, in which time travel allows a twentieth century woman to find love with an eighteenth century man

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Rachelle Ramirez: and cat chose wicked fox, a young adult love and action story brings the classical Korean myth of Gumiho, the nine-tailed fox, into modern day soul as a shapeshifter who finds love with a regular mortal.

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Rachelle Ramirez: The fifth story type is worldview

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Rachelle Ramirez: often referred to as a maturation or coming of age story. The worldview story shows us that the world is not a simple black and white place. It teaches us about accepting the nuance and complexity of other human beings and ourselves.

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Rachelle Ramirez: Worldview is the first of our 3 character driven story types.

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Rachelle Ramirez: Worldview stories involve protagonists confronting their naivete, experiencing disillusionment or finding meaning.

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Rachelle Ramirez: The worldview protagonists, primary motivation whether they're initially conscious of it or not, is gaining knowledge or avoiding truth.

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Rachelle Ramirez: This means the stakes for the worldview protagonist involve sacrificing ignorance and beliefs as they're confronted with new information.

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Rachelle Ramirez: They move from seeing the world as black and white to understanding their role in a world of grays.

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Rachelle Ramirez: In other words, they grow up.

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Rachelle Ramirez: Therefore, the worldview protagonist undergoes a change from naive or ignorant to knowing our wise.

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Rachelle Ramirez: The worldview reader wants to feel empathetic satisfaction or pity for the protagonist, and enjoys feeling comparatively wise and mature.

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Rachelle Ramirez: The essential premise of the worldview story goes something like this, open-mindedness leads to wisdom, whereas, avoiding the truth results in self-deception.

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Rachelle Ramirez: You'll find a worldview arc in most stories involving a young adult protagonist. But the story type goes beyond just coming of age. The protagonist could be of any age.

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Rachelle Ramirez: Some examples are

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Rachelle Ramirez: Margarita Montamore's Una out of order, which sends a young woman time traveling into her own future body in life, and explores what it means to live a life fully present in the moment, even if those moments are out of sequence.

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Rachelle Ramirez: Love, Grossman series. The magicians, despite many action elements, is primarily the exploration of one young man's coming to terms with his power and its meaning for his life.

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Rachelle Ramirez: And finally, Susanna Clarke's Pyrenees is the story of a man with no memories locked in a bizarre labyrinth world who slowly comes to a revelation of the crime that caused his amnesia.

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Rachelle Ramirez: Okay, validation. This is the 6 story type, and one that can confuse a lot of writers.

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Rachelle Ramirez: I know it was the hardest for me to sort out

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Rachelle Ramirez: validation. Stories exist to remind us that the ultimate definition of success is remaining true to honorable values.

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Rachelle Ramirez: Validation stories like worldview are character driven.

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Rachelle Ramirez: They involve the protagonist search for success and the approval and esteem of others.

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Rachelle Ramirez: The validation protagonist is motivated by success and sometimes honor.

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Rachelle Ramirez: They want validation from others in the form of winning the trophy, acing a competition or rising in social or economic status.

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Rachelle Ramirez: So, of course, the stakes of a validation story involve success, compromise, failure, honor, and the selling out of true values

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Rachelle Ramirez: and the validation protagonist moves along a change continuum between failure and success.

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Rachelle Ramirez: Readers choose validation stories to enjoy vicarious triumph, to admire or pity the protagonist, and if the protagonist fails to enjoy a sense of moral superiority.

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Rachelle Ramirez: the essential premise of the validation story is that ethical choices create true success, whereas unethical choices lead to true failure or selling out

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Rachelle Ramirez: fantasy and validation

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Rachelle Ramirez: isn't the most common combination, and that might point you to a good area for innovation.

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Rachelle Ramirez: Here are some noteworthy examples.

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Rachelle Ramirez: Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, by Susannah Clark, is an epic historical fantasy set in the mostly realistic world of the Napoleonic wars, featuring 2 magicians vying for greatness as they try to revive the practice of English magic.

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Rachelle Ramirez: The Poppy War, by Rf. Quang, tells the story of a poor orphan in an alternate history, China, who must decide whether to make a deal with the gods, to unleash her Shamanic powers and rise in an elite military Academy

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Rachelle Ramirez: and Aaron Morgenstern's The Night Circus set in. A historical Victorian world pits 2 magicians against each other in an endless competition of magical powers. It's also a love story.

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Rachelle Ramirez: Our seventh and final story type is redemption.

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Rachelle Ramirez: Redemption stories remind us 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 like worldview and validation are character driven.

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Rachelle Ramirez: They are concerned with forgiveness or atonement.

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

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Rachelle Ramirez: So the stakes for the redemption protagonist involve shame, altruism, and sacrifice.

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Rachelle Ramirez: and of course, the redemption protagonist moves along a continuum that can range from guilt and shame to forgiveness.

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Rachelle Ramirez: they must make an active choice between selfishness and altruism. 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: In many redemption stories the redemption fails and the protagonist remains despicable.

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Rachelle Ramirez: The redemption audience wants to feel satisfaction, pity, or contempt, and moral superiority. If you are writing this kind of story, aim to evoke satisfaction for the redeemed character, or evoke pity or contempt for the unredamed, resulting in a sense of moral superiority.

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Rachelle Ramirez: The essential premise or theme of a redemption story is altruistic. Altruistic action results in forgiveness, whereas selfishness leads to moral failure.

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Rachelle Ramirez: In other words.

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Rachelle Ramirez: 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: some great redemption. Stories in fantasy settings include

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Rachelle Ramirez: a Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, which is an endlessly adapted story of a miser whose encounter with ghosts causes him to change his ways and help his community.

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Rachelle Ramirez: Elia Don Johnson's novel trouble. The Saints, is set in an alternate alternate history. New York City, where the protagonist, a knife, willing assassin must confront the question, can one woman ever sacrifice enough to save an entire community

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Rachelle Ramirez: and the streaming series, the good place where a cast of dead characters have to come to terms with the fact that they're in hell and make amends for their flaws and errors in life.

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Rachelle Ramirez: and that is the brief overview of the 7 story types.

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Rachelle Ramirez: But wait, there's one more thing. If you want to create a story that will truly engage your reader, you'll want to combine 2 story types.

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Rachelle Ramirez: There's so much to learn about story combinations, and we can only touch on it here. But the short version is this.

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Rachelle Ramirez: a good story leaves a plot driven story type, together with a character driven story type.

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Rachelle Ramirez: Even the most heroic action protagonist undergoes some internal change.

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Rachelle Ramirez: That's a plot driven primary story with a character driven, supporting story.

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Rachelle Ramirez: and even the most quiet and introverted of protagonists in a character driven primary story must face troubles from the outside world in a plot driven, supporting story.

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Rachelle Ramirez: A good way to innovate on your fantasy story is to try unusual combinations of plot driven and character driven story types

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

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Rachelle Ramirez: horror and love

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Rachelle Ramirez: and the character driven story types are worldview validation and redemption.

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Rachelle Ramirez: You may have noticed that I mentioned a secondary or supporting story type in some of the examples

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Rachelle Ramirez: we had worldview with action. The magicians

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Rachelle Ramirez: worldview with crime, pure and easy

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Rachelle Ramirez: action with love.

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Rachelle Ramirez: the untamed

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Rachelle Ramirez: crime with validation, rivers of London.

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Rachelle Ramirez: or with validation beloved.

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Rachelle Ramirez: or with worldview, or a line

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Rachelle Ramirez: redemption with horror, a Christmas carol.

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Rachelle Ramirez: and love with action, wicked fox.

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Rachelle Ramirez: So to recap

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Rachelle Ramirez: each story type has its own form of motivation.

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Rachelle Ramirez: Stakes, change, arc, reader, emotions and basic premise or message.

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Rachelle Ramirez: all of which 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 book.

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Rachelle Ramirez: Now I'm going to pass this back to Anne for the final section of this webinar.

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Rachelle Ramirez: Anne.

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Anne Hawley: Thank you, Richelle.

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Anne Hawley: World building. Haha! It's why so many of us were drawn to writing fantasy. In the first place, it's a huge subject, and it comes up a lot with our editing clients who are writing fantasy. Also Science Fiction historical a lot of times. So we decided to boil it down to a few simple points.

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Anne Hawley: There are 3 main questions that any author of any kind of story, fantasy, or otherwise, needs to consider about the world in which their story is set, and it really doesn't matter whether it's taking place on the most ordinary street and the most ordinary town in the present day, or in a world of fabulous floating temples in the clouds.

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Anne Hawley: And those 3 main questions are.

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Anne Hawley: what obstacles and opportunities should the world present to the characters in your story?

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Anne Hawley: What is your narrative device and point of view?

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Anne Hawley: And how much does your reader need to know in order to keep reading

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Anne Hawley: under the broad category of obstacles and opportunities, we include all the things most of us think of as world building, climate and geography, socioeconomic system, the culture, including material culture, the level of technology.

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Anne Hawley: and if applicable, the system of magic, all but that last one apply to any story type in just about any S. Any kind of setting magic obviously is pretty unique to fantasy

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Anne Hawley: is rich farmland, for example, an obstacle or an opportunity. Is it something to be fiercely protected. Maybe farm life is something your protagonist wants to get away from a land as rich and easy as we see in this beautiful picture is often what a character has to leave in order to enter a story. See both bilbo and photo baggins for prime examples.

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Anne Hawley: A squalid slum might seem like something to be escaped, or maybe all the magic in your world resides among the garbage and the flowers of the poorest people.

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Anne Hawley: The relentless desert makes water rights a cause of war. But maybe the desert is the life-threatening, proving ground for your protagonist's powers, or the barrier between the protagonist and their goal?

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Anne Hawley: Does your character's poverty or wealth play a significant role. You, the author, may need to know a lot about the economic system of your story world, but in order to understand that your protagonist is broke, that there is a system involving coins, and that someone bakes and sells bread. All we, the readers need to see is the protagonist digging the last copper coin out of her pocket to buy a bun.

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Anne Hawley: If your world has magic.

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Anne Hawley: we recommend resisting the temptation to have a magic that can do anything anywhere with no cost.

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Anne Hawley: If your story world is a temperate rain forest with bears, or it's all winter all the time you should think long and hard about where they get wheat to make those scones, and magic really shouldn't be the answer. The exception here is, if you're writing a fairy tale or fable type of story, something like, say famously, the Narnia books, where whimsy and ethical lessons prevail over realistic world building

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Anne Hawley: generally, though magic without constraints, is a story. Ruin her. It's the same as the invincible superman who would quickly become dull without the threat of Kryptonite.

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Anne Hawley: What level of technology. Have the people in your world attained? What are the constraints on communication? If your characters can communicate, say telepathically, how does it work? Does it take a toll physically? Are there limits? Does everyone have it? Like everyone has a cell phone?

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Anne Hawley: Or what about written communications? How widespread is the ability to write. How hard is it to get paper or ink, or tablets and

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Anne Hawley: chisels and stone? Can just anyone afford these things? Is there a postal system supported by what.

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Anne Hawley: in a notorious example, that I love to cite from Lord of the Rings, there's a signal fire system to spread word of trouble from mountaintop to mountain top, and it's in the movie, if you've seen it. This is absolutely glorious. Scene. But don't think too hard about who lives on those remote mountaintops and maintains huge piles of firewood and oil just waiting for the once in a lifetime signal from the next mountain, because that makes no sense.

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Anne Hawley: It's better, if you can, to ground a significant plot point like the beacon fires of Gondor a little more firmly in the probable.

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Anne Hawley: Your readers will probably let you off the hook if they're emotionally engaged. But why not do your best to fill those holes in the logic of your story? After all, I don't think any of us can claim to be Tolkien.

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Anne Hawley: How do the people in your world get around? Are they landlocked? Are there animals like horses? They can ride or is walking, their only means of going anywhere? Are they beside the sea or a river? How do they build boats? What about carriages? Do they have means of flight, magical or otherwise.

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Anne Hawley: If your characters go places, and the journey from point A to Point B is smooth and uneventful.

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Anne Hawley: you probably don't need to describe it. And the landscape it covers. Probably. Isn't that important to your story?

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Anne Hawley: The geography and climate of your fantasy world should also line with the customs, the rituals, the religion, the architecture, the food, and the clothing of your characters. For instance, you probably wouldn't put fur coats on people who live in a hot desert world.

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Anne Hawley: That seems fairly obvious. The world of your story needs to present an internally consistent reality that arises from the culture which in turn arises from the socioeconomic system which arises from the resources which arise from the geography.

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Anne Hawley: Maybe you began the world with a map. A lot of fantasy. Writers start with a map, and that's great by all means flesh it out. Readers who, like adventures in magical lands, usually like to refer to the map readers love maps. But your map is not your story.

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Anne Hawley: The geography of your world is really only relevant to the degree to which it limits your characters, choices, provides those opportunities and obstacles we mentioned, that raise the stakes, and defines what your characters want and need, and supports your premise.

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Anne Hawley: The second question you should be thinking about in terms of world building is, what is your narrative device and point of view.

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Anne Hawley: that is, who's telling the story?

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Anne Hawley: To whom?

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Anne Hawley: For what purpose? Why and from what distance, in both time and space. For example, give a couple. This is a complex concept. We'll just give you a couple of examples here in David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas, which may or may not qualify as fantasy.

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Anne Hawley: The narrator is literally writing letters to his lover. We learn nothing but what that character wants to write at the end of the day to someone who knows him well, we gradually figure out what's really going on through what that character would naturally reveal to his lover in a letter, and what he leaves out.

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Anne Hawley: your narrative device might probably won't be as obvious as one character writing letters to another. But you do need to have some idea of who your narrator is, why they're telling this story, to what audience and from how far away in time, that's going to constrain how much of your fantasy world you should describe, explain, or simply drop hints about.

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Anne Hawley: If your point of view, character is entering a magical world from an ordinary world, like a portal type of story. Everything is going to be new, presumably to that character. Everything, therefore, is a potential danger. Everything's unknown.

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Anne Hawley: So, for example, when Lucy first goes through the wardrobe to Narnia, there's room in the narrative for the reader to experience quite a bit of detail through her eyes and senses.

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Anne Hawley: But it can't be explained, only described because Lucy herself doesn't understand what she's seeing.

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Anne Hawley: Her point of view constrains what CS. Lewis could put on the page.

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Anne Hawley: On the other hand, if your point of view character is in their everyday world, they will only notice what's different or out of place. Typically. And you, the author, have to select exactly, and only the details that will help bring the reader along without explaining.

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Anne Hawley: Everyone in the world of his dark materials. Has an animal, Damon. You see it there in the picture the little Pine marten. So the Damons are mentioned and described. But for quite a while they're not explained. Nobody in the story pays them very much attention, because they're part of everyday life. The reader learns more about them as these Damons play bigger roles in the story. It's quite a gradual process in that series of books.

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Anne Hawley: Our Third World building question is, how much information does your reader need in order to keep reading

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Anne Hawley: filmmakers add a vast amount of world building detail to every shot like this one of a marketplace in Wakanda, in Ryan cougars, film, Black Panther. The audience absorbs most of this subliminally

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Anne Hawley: at this point in the film. We'll talk about this picture just for a minute. The protagonist to Chala has just undergone physical and spiritual rituals, proving his fitness to be crowned king.

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Anne Hawley: And now he's out walking in Mokonda with his lady friend Nakia.

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Anne Hawley: It's hot, it's dusty. There's the smell of spices in the air. Handmade baskets hang in front of pegs. Outside of shops plants grow up the sides of buildings. Everywhere

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Anne Hawley: the architecture is a jumble of exuberant shapes and forms, colored patterns and black and white stripes, and the streetlights are hoops of turquoise neon

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Anne Hawley: buildings rise right up a steep, lush green hill. Taking advantage of every available space in this crowded, vibrant city. A streetcar

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Anne Hawley: with ovoid windows and copper trim, makes its leisurely way along the narrow street, and the brightly dressed people stroll out of its way.

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Anne Hawley: Are you getting bored yet? Would you like me to get on with the story?

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Anne Hawley: Don't make the movie mistake. You are not a filmmaker, I mean. You may be a filmmaker, but what we're doing here is writing novels. You're a novelist. All that lush detail can and should exist in your mind in some form.

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Anne Hawley: but you can't possibly get it all on the page and keep the story moving.

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Anne Hawley: What does your reader for? Your kind of story enjoy different writing styles and genres and subgenres support different levels of detail. But you have to trust that reader's mind to flesh out the entire scene from a handful of sensory cues

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Anne Hawley: in this. Here, I'll give you an example. In the spice-centered air. A basket weaver hawked her wears, and the streetcar clattered down the crowded Avenue.

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Anne Hawley: It's all thing.

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Anne Hawley: But don't leave the reader in an empty landscape, either. You may have a vivid picture in your mind of everything in the scene, and forget to share it with the reader. I do that all the time.

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Anne Hawley: Alternatively. You may be a fantasic someone who does not actually have visual images in their heads. Either way, you need to think about what's important in the setting. What specifics can you include that will convey obstacles in the landscape?

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Anne Hawley: What specifics

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Anne Hawley: efficiently convey, say, for example, the power of the weather

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Anne Hawley: indoors.

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Anne Hawley: what can you mention in the room that will convey the richness or the poverty of its occupant, their way of life, their taste or character.

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Anne Hawley: or what the point of view character finds surprising or revealing.

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Anne Hawley: No reader is ever going to picture the scene exactly as you do, anyway. So all you can do is provide the 2 or 3 details that drive the story forward while helping the reader enter the spirit of the setting.

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Anne Hawley: So the short answer to the question of how much world building information should remain on the page. For the reader is

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Anne Hawley: just enough.

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Anne Hawley: and that amount is going to vary with your point of view, your narrative device, your style, your intended reader, and what you have to say.

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Anne Hawley: which I know is a bit vague. So here are 3 pretty good rules of thumb to help you think about how much information about your world to include in any given scene.

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Anne Hawley: First of all, less is more. I know you've heard this before, and if you're like me, you may have reacted as if the advice was telling you not to be imaginative or descriptive in your prose, and that's not at all what we mean here.

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Anne Hawley: We mean that if you show us a lady whose ball gown is made of beetles.

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Anne Hawley: How much does it really matter that her eyes are green?

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Anne Hawley: If you show us a dwelling house in a giant tree. Do we need to know how many windows it has?

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Anne Hawley: If the reader genuinely needs to understand an aspect of your fantasy world in order to understand the story.

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Anne Hawley: preferred description over explanation, and try not to interrupt action or dialogue with either. Show the reader a character using magic rather than telling us the history of magic. Show your protagonist polling a boat in the watery streets of the Venice like city, and even if you know the whole history of the canals, and that history is really cool.

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Anne Hawley: Think hard about whether the reader needs to know it.

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Anne Hawley: and finally select details that will pay off later. For example, if you're going to have the characters community wiped out by a flood in the third act, show the character living in a low-lying area in the first act.

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Anne Hawley: and that, my friends, is the presentation. This is a lot to absorb. Of course you'll be able to watch it again, and I hope you will. You'll find that all these essential elements are contained in our free download, which we'll get a link to in the chat here in a second.

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Anne Hawley: So a quick recap, and then we'll go to the Q. And A.

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Anne Hawley: Today you've learned why the fantasy genre does not determine your story type.

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Anne Hawley: and you've learned the 7 story types that as we define them and they're importance for you as a fantasy writer

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Anne Hawley: along with the essential elements of motivation stakes change, reader, emotion and premise that are unique to each story type.

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Anne Hawley: And you've learned some of how story type can help you innovate and meet reader expectations, and you've gotten some insights into the pages and platforms approach to world building. And now we hope you are feeling ready to write and finish your fantasy story.

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Anne Hawley: Here's that link again. Don't forget to grab your copy of our Guide to the the 7 essential story types@storypath.me slash PWA.

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Anne Hawley: And now to the Q. And a.

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Rachelle Ramirez: Alright. The first question we have is from Michael Porter. He asks. I am familiar with the heroes journey. But is there a heroin's journey that is better suited for female main characters.

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Rachelle Ramirez: and I.

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Anne Hawley: I wouldn't separate it by male and female characters. But yes, there are. There are

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Anne Hawley: 2 or 3 really good books on the heroin's journey. It.

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Anne Hawley: They're both based, or they're all based on

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Anne Hawley: the basic structure of the hero's journey. But take the fundamentally the approach that

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Anne Hawley: women's stories. Typically women stories tend.

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Anne Hawley: not to go out into the world so much as make change at home.

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Anne Hawley: There's a lot to question there, but there are 2 books called The Heroines Journey Once, by Gail Character and One Spy. I can't remember the author of the other one. Now start to a name, and then there's the one called the Virgin's Promise, and all 3 of them are worth looking at. If you're concerned about that, you have a woman character who or a character who is not going out adventuring, but who is staying at home to to create change within the community. I think that's pretty brief way, Richelle, do you wanna add to that.

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Rachelle Ramirez: Yes, and just.

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Anne Hawley: Maureen Murdoch. Thank you. Someone popped that into the chat. Yes, the heroine's journey by Maureen Murdoch, the heroines journey by Gail Carriger, the Virgins promised by I forget her name.

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Anne Hawley: but pretty unique title, so.

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Rachelle Ramirez: Just a second that the neither the story types nor the heroines journey or the hero's journey are gender specific. They're just a way of talking about certain types of arcs.

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Rachelle Ramirez: And I would encourage you to throw gender out the window, except for how it impacts your character in their society.

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Rachelle Ramirez: Braylin, Willis asks, can a story be a blend of story types? And we answered that you wanna blend 2 story types. One care. Sometimes we talk about that story, a story. B, one is pushing against the other. You need something going on internally and externally.

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Rachelle Ramirez: and then, when it comes to marketing, is it best to showcase the blending of story types or stick to one story type of story of Mar for marketing purposes, and I would say that generally we are not marketing experts there. Our marketing expert is Sue Campbell. At pages and platforms. She is amazing.

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Anne Hawley: And she presented earlier today. So.

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Rachelle Ramirez: Yup. But generally

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Rachelle Ramirez: you're go. If say in a back cover, Blurb, in describing your story, you're talking about what's colliding here primarily, you're talking about the protagonists, primary arc. But you're also going to mention what's pushing against it. What's keeping them from getting what they want or need. So you will want to mention it. But you're Gonna focus on the primary story type.

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Rachelle Ramirez: Emily Ashraagi asks, what story type is Harry Potter.

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Rachelle Ramirez: Was going.

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Anne Hawley: Bye.

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Anne Hawley: primarily action story. There's yeah. Primarily action throughout. The each book has its kind of a little bit separate, internal.

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Anne Hawley: I mean, within the separate arc of the story. There's

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Anne Hawley: might change a little bit. It's primarily action. There's Life and Death Stakes, safety and danger stakes. Harry Potter is the chosen one who is, you know, it, charged with saving the magical world from

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Anne Hawley: he, the unnamable Voldemort and then, because it's structured like a school Arc, where he starts at age 11 and goes through the 7 years of school. There's an obvious sort of coming of age, worldview where he comes to understand himself and his place in the world. It's action and worldview, I'd say safely enough.

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Rachelle Ramirez: Yes, agreed.

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Rachelle Ramirez: let's see, anonymous attendee asks, what's the difference between plot driven versus character driven.

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Anne Hawley: Great question. Plot driven stories are primarily, if if that's the primary story, your protagonist is primarily motivated and affected and changed by external things in their world

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Anne Hawley: character. Driven stories are stories in which you're protected. If it's a primarily a worldview validation or redemption story, they are primarily motivated and changed by things that are happening within themselves and their own thoughts which are being impinged upon by events in the outside world. That's basically it is it happening, mostly changing inside the characters, heart and mind? Or is it? Are they mostly changing as a result of external forces? The villain, the the force of antagonism, that sort of thing.

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Rachelle Ramirez: Anonymous attendee asks, which is the most popular of these story types.

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Anne Hawley: Action.

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Rachelle Ramirez: And love, sell, selling wise.

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Anne Hawley: Yeah, love is probably dominates the publishing industry in the form of the romance, the happily, ever after romance story. So love is extremely popular after that, if you want to go to movies, I'd say action definitely in these in these days.

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Anne Hawley: right.

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Rachelle Ramirez: Deborah asks, how do you narrow it down? If you have 4 categories, I'm assuming she means story types.

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Anne Hawley: Types. Yeah, yup.

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Rachelle Ramirez: And I I guess I'll answer this

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Rachelle Ramirez: The question is to ask yourself, what's the primary change that my character needs to go through from the beginning of the story to the end. What do I see at the inciting incident, the midpoint shift and the climactic sequence of the story? What's the what are the big parts there? What's the main change? That's your primary story type.

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Rachelle Ramirez: Then I would say, what's the main thing that pushes against that that challenges the protagonist that prevents them from getting what they want. And I would say.

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Rachelle Ramirez: that would be your secondary story type. So let me give you an example. Sometimes you have an action story with a secondary world view story that's very common, say in superhero movies. But then you might have

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Rachelle Ramirez: tertiary story type as what and sometimes refers to as the little black dress with a love story in there. So you might weave a little bit of love story in there, but it's primarily and superhero action story with a worldview change as the protagonist moves through, making them maybe more available to love. And there's that little black dress of the of the tertiary story type.

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Rachelle Ramirez: I.

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Anne Hawley: For those of you who aren't old enough to know what little black dress means. It's basically a fashion idea that it's a it's a garment that you can wear to any event.

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Anne Hawley: That's that's what that means. I think that's getting a little outdated.

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Rachelle Ramirez: It never occurred to me that somebody would not know what.

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Anne Hawley: Not respectable.

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Rachelle Ramirez: Thank you. So how do you narrow it down?

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Rachelle Ramirez: Biggest, biggest biggest piece. If you have a little bit of one piece in there. It's okay. But you are focusing on your primary piece and your secondary story type supporting that so that the main story

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Rachelle Ramirez: is weighted with your primary story type. Secondary story type is less of in the plot and on down. If you have a whole bunch of story types, and you're like, my story meets all of them.

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Rachelle Ramirez: You really need to look at your your sequence of events, your plot, your climactic action, and make sure that those line up. Are you telling the same story throughout, from beginning to middle to end, because you might be all over the place.

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Anne Hawley: Gail asked, when writing a series, do all the books need to share the same story type? No, they don't. If not, what are some examples where the author use varied story types. I'd like to give the example of Ursula Caleb wins the Earth Sea trilogy where it starts out

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Anne Hawley: primarily worldview for the young protagonists, and as he matures he goes through a validation part where he's trying for success, and that it ends with redemption story. But the O, there's an overarching, I think. Probably kind of an action plot that goes from beginning to end similar with like the wheel of time, much longer bookshelf there.

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Anne Hawley: Where you have a character? Who's going through major maturation. He's a a young man when it starts, and he discovers who he is, and has to face his responsibilities. But it's primarily action, action, action, action. If you've ever gotten through all 13 volumes, congratulations.

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Anne Hawley: So.

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Rachelle Ramirez: Like just to clarify that if you're writing a series, your primary story type throughout the Stu, this series probably needs to be the same, it's what it's what brings all the the whole series together as one.

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Rachelle Ramirez: Your secondary story type probably could, should, would fluctuate from story to story because the character is changing and working through different things. They don't have to. But keep in mind. If you're whoever's reading book one. Here's this is the main question forget story types.

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Rachelle Ramirez: It's the same person who reads book one, do they wanna read Book 3. Do they wanna read book 5. Are they in some way connected. And you were gonna say something about that.

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Anne Hawley: The different. We're out of time here. The difference is, if you're writing a series like a a

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Anne Hawley: ongoing detective series where they solve a different mystery every time it's it's different from a series with a with an overall arc. So you have your Rivers of London series, where there's 5 or 6 books, and you just keep solving new mysteries. So that's that's a little different. I think we are just about out of time.

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Rachelle Ramirez: We are.

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Anne Hawley: Can grab one more. We're ready.

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Rachelle Ramirez: I don't think we can. We are up to.

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Anne Hawley: I don't think we can. I think we're being thankful.

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Rachelle Ramirez: You're.

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Anne Hawley: Yeah.

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Rachelle Ramirez: Thank you.

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Anne Hawley: And the.

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Rachelle Ramirez: Come visit us at pages and platforms. We'd love to see you. Thank you.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: Thanks so much. It was a great session. Thank you to everybody who attended in the chat, and we will be back in an hour with our third session with Danny Abernathy. So we'll see you all. Then.

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Rachelle Ramirez: Hi.

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Anne Hawley: Thanks, everybody.