Steve Nallon’s ‘Story Craft Talks’ is a series of talks which offer understanding and insight into the tradition, practice, and art of story and storytelling. The lectures range from discussions about the psychological nature of the creative writer and why we, as human beings, need and tell stories, to the nuts and bolts of story structure and the day-to-day techniques and skills involved in writing a tale. Other areas of the talks focus on the different methods whereby a narrative can be told, as well as the various media in which stories are presented, including theatre and cinema.

Story Craft is divided into six distinct parts: THINKING STORY, PLOT AND CHARACTER, ENHANCING THE TALE, WRITING SKILLS, NARRATIVE DESIGN, and CINEMATIC STORYTELLING. THINKING STORY examines the intentions and psychology of storytelling, as well as why human beings are drawn to narrative and fiction. PLOT AND CHARACTER covers the construction of a story, looking at the essential elements and components of a plot and the building of characters. ENHANCING THE TALE offers an understanding of the many devices and methods writers have at their disposal in developing a story to its fullest potential. WRITING SKILLS addresses practical storytelling issues, such as exposition, description, dialogue, and subtext. NARRATIVE DESIGN considers how the tale is told, who is narrating it, and why they’re telling it in that mode. CINEMATIC STORYTELLING focuses on the unique contribution that cinema has made to the way a story can be presented.

Story Craft has within it ‘umbrella’ sections covering key topics such as First Person Narration, The Inciting Incident, The Human Processing of Story, Turning Points, Story Shapes, Archetypes, and so on. These overarching subjects are then divided into specific subheadings focusing in detail on areas like Red Herrings, The Epistolary Tale, the ‘MacGuffin’, Meta-fiction, In Medias Res, Escapism, and Set-ups and Payoffs. And it’s within these that you’ll find pretty much everything you need to know about the craft of creating a story.

Steve Nallon’s Story Craft Talks series aims to offer not only a practical guide for novelists, playwrights, and screenwriters, but also an insight into how stories work for teachers, students, and everyday readers. Steve’s presentations simplify and de-mystify some of the complex jargon that often accompanies narrative theory, and his intention is always descriptive rather than prescriptive. It’s true there are story guidelines, tropes, and even blueprints and rules, and there’s usually a good reason why these codes and conventions exist. However, there are often exceptions to these supposed story rules, and equally good reasons why such rules should be ignored. No one writer has all the answers, and that’s why Steve includes so many quotes from industry professionals and practitioners as he goes along. Sometimes these can be contradictory, but that’s the point – for as Granny says in THE SWIDGERS, “Rules are like piecrusts, they’re there to be broken!” In this sense, Steve is less a theorist peddling his own model of how a tale must be told, and more a curator of ideas around the nature of story.

The purpose of the Story Craft Talks, then, is to offer an understanding of method and means – yet the why and how of your particular tale is up to the individual writer. What Steve’s talks essentially say is, “Look, here are the tools, but what you build and how you build it... well, that’s up to you.”

“It’s not the notes that make music, it’s what the composer turns them into.”

The Six Parts of STORY CRAFT

"Whereas life separates meaning from emotion, art unites them. Story is an instrument by which you create such epiphanies at will, the phenomenon known as aesthetic emotion... Life on its own, without art to shape it, leaves you in confusion and chaos, but aesthetic emotion harmonises what you know with what you feel to give you a heightened awareness and a sureness of your place in reality."
Robert McKee, STORY: SUBSTANCE, STRUCTURE, STYLE, AND THE PRINCIPLES OF SCREENWRITING

Steve Nallon’s THINKING STORY talks concentrate on what you may consider as the more philosophical and thought-provoking aspects of Story. There are sections covering the nature, habits, and psychology of the writer, why human beings need stories, as well as the various intentions and purposes of Story at a social and cultural level. Also included in THINKING STORY is a detailed look at laughter and its psychological and social functions, which are often neglected aspects of why we enjoy stories.

"Plot exists so the character can discover for himself (and in the process revealed to the reader) what he, the character, is really like: plot forces the character to choice and action, transforms him from a static construct to a lifelike human being making choices and paying for them or reaping the rewards."
John Gardner, ON BECOMING A NOVELIST (1983)

Steve Nallon’s PLOT AND CHARACTER talks are, as the title might suggest, fairly self-explanatory. The lectures examine what it takes to create and structure a plot, as well as how to develop and design characters. First, the essential elements of plot are considered. Steve suggests these are Protagonist/Antagonist, Conflict, Causality, Action, Catalyst Event, Inciting Incident, Method, Obstacles to Action, Climax, and Resolution. There are other aspects to a plot, but these seem to be the basic requirements for a story to be a story. As for character, Steve considers the role of traits, habits and attitudes in creating characters, and then moves on to the importance of psychological connection with a character. PLOT AND CHARACTER looks, too, at the four levels of conflict: (1) inner, (2) personal, (3) extraneous, and (4) cosmic. Additionally, the talks consider social status, duality, and the archetypal nature of a character. The character arc is examined, as is a character’s capacity to change – or not change – alongside the role of the transformation scene. The lectures then cover the desire line, motivation, and the differences between conscious and unconscious wants. Finally, Steve’s talk addresses that age-old quandary for the writer: Which is more important, plot or character?

"When I discover what a play is about, I then type out in a sentence what it is about, pin that sentence to my typewriter, and make sure that everything is now about that."
Arthur Miller, American writer

Steve Nallon’s ENHANCING THE TALE talks look at the ways the writer can take the story to its full dramatic and thematic potential. For example, one way is by opening with a strong ‘hook’ to grab attention, and another is to introduce a fascinating ‘back story’ to give your protagonist depth. In these talks, Steve also looks at building into the plot a time limit or ‘clock’ in order to up the stakes, the use of imagery and symbolism, the plot ploy of ‘the MacGuffin’, the idea of the ‘dramatic gap’, and the importance of ‘set-ups and pay-offs’. There are discussions, too, on the roles of theme, values, and story dynamics.

"He who combines the useful and the pleasing wins out by both instructing and delighting the reader. That is the sort of book that will make money for the publisher, cross the seas, and extend the fame of the author."
Horace, EPISTOLAS AD PISONES DE ARS POETICA, c.19BC

Steve Nallon’s WRITING SKILLS talks look specifically at certain skills in story composition. These include the craft of exposition; the use of language, description, and speech patterns; and techniques in the creation of action dialogue and subtext. These aspects of the craft of story are what you might call the ‘plumping’ or the mechanics of a narrative in that they deal with the inner formulation of a tale. It’s true that writing creatively and imaginatively is often seen as a God-given talent, but the know-how side of writing can certainly be learnt and skills can be acquired. And it’s on these aspects of story craft that the WRITING SKILLS talks especially focus.

"Design is a funny word. Some people think design means how it looks. But of course, if you dig deeper, it’s really how it works."
Steve Jobs

Steve Nallon’s NARRATIVE DESIGN talks begin by looking at the differences, similarities, and unique aspects of each narrative medium, including prose fiction, theatre, and cinema. NARRATIVE DESIGN then considers in detail narrative voice, objective and subjective narrations, and story information. There are also sections on story shapes and the importance of time and place in a narrative structure.

"Varied and optimum camera positioning, effective change of audience point of view through competent film editing, and the ability to highlight dramatic transition by zeroing in on the reaction, thus affording the viewer a greater opportunity to understand, indentify with, and interpret the attitudes and emotions of the people on the screen rather than just those of the author. ‘Well yes,’ most screenwriters will say, ‘but those are the prerogatives and responsibilities of the film director.’ And so they are – but not necessarily so. I have never known a director who knew it all. The more the writer can concern himself with the cinematic demands of the film, the sooner he will learn to understand, and use to advantage, the tremendous potential of the medium. How then can the quality of films fail to improve?"
Edward Dmytryk, screenwriter and director, in his book ON SCREEN WRITING

The central core of Steve Nallon’s CINEMATIC STORYTELLING talks is that the technology of ‘motion pictures’ revolutionised how a story can be told. That said, the principles of how stories work haven’t changed. What Steve’s talks seek to do, then, is to connect the technical aspects of the filmmaking process to the key elements of plotting. For example, there are sections on camera angles, shot composition, re-framing, and montage. In each case, the focus is on how filmmakers make use of the workings of the medium itself to tell and enhance the tale they are presenting. As the old adage in filmmaking puts it: ‘It’s not about the shot, but what the shot’s about’.

STORY CRAFT – Quotes from Writers and Industry Professionals

"Beware of advice – even this."
Carl Sandburg, American poet, biographer, journalist, and editor

The talks THINKING STORY, PLOT AND CHARACTER, WRITING SKILLS, NARRATIVE DESIGN, and CINEMATIC STORYTELLING are divided into short sections, and within each there are various headings with bite-size summaries. Importantly, every Story Craft talk includes quotations from playwrights, novelists, and screenwriters, as well as theatre and film directors, and various story gurus. It’s an eclectic mix of talent and experience that includes Steven Spielberg, Zadie Smith, Hilary Mantel, Bernardine Evaristo, Stan Lee, Jackie Collins, Aristotle, Russell T. Davies, Stephen King, Lord Byron, Angela Carter, and Henrik Ibsen. Each gem of knowledge offers hands-on guidance, recommendations, warnings, and ideas. Because of the wide range of views expressed, the suggestions put forward are sometimes at variance with each other. The aim of Steve’s wealth of quotes, however, is to present as many perspectives on the nature of story as possible. If there’s one point every writer agrees on, it’s that there’s no single way to tell or write a story.