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Message: <blockquote data-quote="HRSegovia" data-source="post: 5668426" data-attributes="member: 99950">[FONT=&quot]Why Isn't it Working? [/FONT]  [FONT=&quot]One of my friends brought a handful of pages to me. She said something was wrong. When I asked here what the problem was, she couldn’t point it out to me. All she could say was “Something isn’t working”.This is a common issue. Her story was about a teen forced to move from the city to a backwoods town in Kentucky. The teen witnesses a murder and resorts to calling her friends back in the city for help. But there was something very linear about it. The story seemed to move from point “A” to “B” to “C” too fast, with no real “story” other than its face-value. It was almost like watching a series of events rather than “experiencing” the story.We discovered that there was a problem in her character development. Each character brought something to the story with them, but neither one had a story of their own or conflicts. It was merely four teens solving the problem through a series of events, then getting caught and escaping certain death. She had her outside/action, but not her inside/need.While this problem was unique to her, many writers find that their scene is too bland (talking heads), they’ve written themselves into a corner, (failure in structure), the characters are too flat (failure to develop characters). It is important that you solve a problem as you approach it rather than leaving it alone and hoping it will solve itself later as the story develops. The second you realize that something isn’t working, step back. Don’t wait till your stuck to stop. By then, it may be too late and the story may require more repair.Learn and practice how to identify a problem before it becomes a bigger one.[/FONT]</blockquote>

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