How to Write an Entertaining Story

Writing stories on a blog is one of the fun activities. However, if the story is not well written, the reader will not find the story enjoyable. This article discusses the five elements that must be in a story if a blogger wants to write a story on his blog.

Everyone is basically a storyteller because everyone has a story. Many people think that storytelling is easy and I don't deny that idea. Oral storytelling is easy but writing stories, especially on blogs, is another story.

Story writers, be it short stories or novels, are creative people. They can imagine easily. Their imagination flows like water, sometimes going wild. But they became famous not because they wrote many novels. They are famous because readers love their stories.

What makes a story loved by people?

A story, especially fiction, serves to entertain the reader. If you want to write a story on your blog, then understand that the story you write is not meant to tell readers what happened in the story. You write stories because you want to entertain readers. You want readers to laugh, fear, or cry while reading your story. You want readers to experience aesthetic satisfaction after reading the stories you write on your blog.

Indeed, a good story is a story that can provide a psychological effect on the reader. An entertaining story will leave a desire in the reader to come back again to find another story, from the same author.

A good and entertaining story will bind the reader's feelings so that they will continue reading until the end of the page. On the other hand, if the story you write is uninteresting and not entertaining, readers may leave your story, switching to another blog, before they even get to the middle of the story. I'm pretty sure that's not what you want.

Does a good story have to be long?

The size of the story is not always a parameter to judge whether the story is interesting and entertaining or boring. Did you notice that even a short joke can entertain a lot of people? That is, a story does not have to be long. However, you can also see that many people are willing to spend their time to finish a novel that is thicker than the bible; of course if the novel is interesting and entertaining.

The size of a story must match the complexity of the story. The majority of novels have a thickness of about 300-500 pages because a novel is more complex than a short story. If the story is written on a blog, then those measures cannot be applied; After all, who wants to write a novel on a blog?

If you are writing a story on a blog, then it should be a short story. There is no specific limit or size for a story written on a blog. However, you should know when to end your story.

Therefore, in this article, you will find five elements of a story that can be applied by anyone to write any story, be it a short story or a novel. By adhering to these five story elements, you will be able to write a good and entertaining story for your blog readers.

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Five elements that make a story interesting and entertaining

A fictional story consists of five elements of which four are mandatory and one is optional. These five elements are orientation, complication, evaluation, resolution, and code. One element I mentioned last is optional.

Orientation

A story must have an orientation. In this orientation, you introduce the characters in the story to the readers. You also imply the theme of the story to let readers know what story they are reading. Some of the sub-elements that must exist in orientation are characters, objects, themes, places, and times.

A story must be able to make the reader imagine. But to be able to imagine, readers need some kind of clue and you have to provide it. For example, you need to describe an object or person so that readers can create an image of that object or person in their minds. The same applies to place and time. If you don't describe it, then your story will be bland and won't spark the reader's imagination.

To write an orientation, your creativity is much challenged. The words you use must be strong enough to produce a mental effect on the reader. If you are writing fiction, then the words you use must contain metaphor, hyperbole, and personification. All figurative language is used proportionally to give a mental effect to the reader.

Consider the following example:

The house is blue and the roof is red. Beside the house stood a shady tree. The house is uninhabited. The occupants of the house were all dead.

This is an example of poor orientation. Readers do imagine the house, but they don't feel any psychological effects except boredom. The same house should be described like this:

The blue house was covered by a red roof like an angry fire. Sheltered under the shadow of a giant tree, the lonely house looked even gloomier. No one lives in the house, only the ghosts of its inhabitants.

That is an example of orientation and that is how an orientation should be written. Orientation does not only exist at the beginning of the story. Orientation is always there when you describe an object, person, place, or time.

Complication

The complication is an important element in a story. Complications make for an interesting and entertaining story. Without complications, a story feels flat and boring.

The complication is the element where conflict occurs in a story. Whether it's a physical battle, war, disappointment, or inner conflict.

Complications show the difficulties experienced by the characters in the story, especially the main character. The difficulties experienced by the characters may involve other characters or objects or places or times. Situations that threaten the character's safety are part of the complication.

The complication is the climax of a story but not all complications have to contain a climax. For example, if you plan two conflict events in the story, the second conflict is the climax of the story. The function of the first conflict is to provide emotional tension to the reader but leaves a question mark "what will happen next?"

Evaluation

Readers do not like a conflict with no known root cause. You can put the cause of the conflict before the complication or after it. If you put the evaluation after the complication, you have already provided an answer to the reader's question about the cause of the incident. In doing so, however, you reduce the mental effect of the reader when they read the complication section. This is true because when they read the complication section, they do not know what the cause of the conflict in the complication is.

If you deliberately let the reader know the cause of the conflict, you have the opportunity to "trick" the reader into guessing what will happen. At that time, you can change the story that is in their mind and that is one of the secrets that makes a story interesting and entertaining.

The point is, don't let the reader get confused in reading the complications section. Let the reader guess, be curious, but answer later.

Resolution

Endless conflict is part of a bad story. A conflict, however fierce it may be, must end. Have you ever been disappointed after watching a movie? You are disappointed not because the action is less tense but because the ending is floating.

Readers want a story to have a clear ending. Try to see some series of films. Even though the audience knew that there would be a sequel, they were content to watch the film; say, Harry Potter.

Even if a story has a sad ending, for example, the main character dies, the two partners are separated forever, the hero loses the battle, all this is okay. What readers want is not an ending that matches their expectations. What they want is the clarity of a conflict; how the conflict ended.

Coda

Coda is a moral message that the author wants to convey through the story. Coda is often found in children's stories because stories for children usually contain advice and lessons.

Coda doesn't have to be written explicitly. You can imply coda in any part of the story. That is, you can make readers take lessons from the story you convey.

Since this coda is optional, you don't have to force yourself to write it. However, you may want to write stories about sages, prophets, or spiritual and religious stories. If so, then it looks like coda is becoming a must in your story.

Those are the five elements that make a story interesting and entertaining. When you are planning a story to write on your blog, make sure that your story has all four or five of these elements. That way, you will be able to write an interesting and entertaining story.