Creative Writing

May 8, 2026 · View on GitHub

Collected notes on practicing creative writiing, its an art form we have been using to tell stories for centuries now, it makes sense to learn some versions of the existing theory, the following TIL post is an attempt at that.

I might relate creative writing to computer programming throughout the text (in a lot of way its similar).

Basics

A story consists of following items glued together by conflict,

  1. Plot/Idea (motion)
  2. Characters (motivation)
  3. Setting (environment)

Plot

  1. Promise
    • Stories make one or more (tone) promises.
    • Being control of your promises is mastery of art.
    • Promise a character arc (how the character is going to change).
    • Plots can be divided into,
      • An umbrella plot (will 2 people in a romom get together).
      • A core plot (we were doing ABC, but fell in love).
  2. Progress
    • Hardest.
    • There's a time clock that a reader feels when reading a story (page numbers, chapters, visual maps) that makes the story compelling.
    • Can be done by indentifying the type of plot.
    • Do mini-plots (nested code).
  3. Payoff
    • Make good on all the build-up of plot and characters.
    • Should flow naturally, should give readers everything they were promised and more.
    • Reader Engagement: If they are slightly ahead, they feel anticipation. If they are slightly behind, they feel curiosity.

Another way to word the above steps:

  1. Hook
  2. Context
  3. Tension
  4. Pivot
  5. PayOff

Viewpoints

  1. Omniscient
    1. Present Narrative
    2. True Omniscient
    3. Limited (narrator follows one person at a time.)
  2. 1st Person (Memoir)
    1. Epistolary (story told via letters, diary entries, emails etc.)
    2. Flashback (retrospective)
    3. Cinematic (observational, more focus on environment)
  3. 2nd Person (mostly seen in self-help books)

Characters

How to make people emotionally invested in a character.

  1. Establish empathy
    • Show they are like us.
    • Make them nice.
    • Show people liking them.
  2. Establish routing interest
    • Show character motivations.
    • What do they want & what can't they have it.
    • Personal connection of character with the plot.
  3. Establish the pogress.
    • Show the flaw.
    • Set-up the journey.

Character Struggle (Arc) & Conflicts

Making the protagonist suffer by having them evaluate:

  1. Interpretation - Is your view of the world really true?
  2. Behaviour - What happens when your your old tricks no longer work?
  3. Boundary - What will you do when the only way forward is to dis-regard your morals & principles?
  • Conflict can be built by showcasing what the character is running away from (loneliness, cowardice) and then finding what discomfort is keeping them from growing up.
  • Ideas are dead on arrival (ideas aren't original because you are exposed to trans-subjective views your whole life, millions of people existed before you). When you don't put your characters through an ordeal, they are just talking about their feelings (your story is not a therapy session), make the character struggle by introducing chronic or acute conflict which are relatable to a human in the real world (depression, trauma, etc).

Formats

Short Stories

  • Short stories can be based on one idea/plot and a minimum of 1-2 characters.
  • Setting is the not that important.
  • Reader Experience: delievering a specific emotional "punch" (can be correlated to watching short videos, reels).

MICE Quotient (Organisational theory)

  • M: Milieu (environment)
    • Anything related to place.
  • I: Inquiry
    • Goal: Prevent from finding the answer to the mystery/question.
    • E.g Murder Mystery
  • C: Character (Interior)
    • Driven by angst/emotion
    • Driven by identity shift
    • E.g romance stories.
  • E: Event (Exterior)
    • Driven by action/status-quo.

Most stories are made by multiple variations of above (mice) threads. HTML DOM is a nice closely related concept. These threads have to opened and closed at right times since we are governed by zeigarnik effect, this directly helps keep you reader engaged with curiosity gaps.

A structured process for writing flash fiction

  1. Opening (first 3 sentences)
    • Make promises.
    • Model
      • who - what action is character doing?
      • where - give sensory detail
      • genre - specific & unique
  2. Conflict (next 2 sentences)
    • Character trying & failing to achieve a goal.
    • Model
      • what & why - is the character doing?
      • what - is the barrier?
  3. Try-fail (Middle) (next 5 sentences)
    • Refer to mice threads to add a failure (a consequence).
    • yes-but (character made progress but they were pushed back).
    • no-and (character did not make progress and they where pushed further from it).
  4. End of Middle (3/4th) (next 5 sentences)
    • Add resolutions.
    • Whatever the character is trying to do now works.
    • This should be a try-succeed step.
    • Model
      • yes-and (moving towards the goal and continuation)
      • no-but (didn't move towards goal but something good happens)
  5. Wrap up (next 3 sentences)
    • Close out mice threads.

Miscellaneous Tips

  1. The [begin] and [end] of a line is a powerful place to set expectations and surprise readers. Same as the start and end of a episode, chapter, etc.
  2. Hide the fact that you are making the reader work for their story; we are problem solvers by design, so readers can naturally figure some shit out.
  3. Best stories infuse wonder.

Insights from review of public media

  • A lot of marvel movies are of different genre with a common theme of superhero.
    1. Ant man - small crew heist.
    2. Thor - epic fantasy.
    3. Captain America (Winter Soldier) - spy thriller.

References & Inspirations

Tools