7 Elements of a Story: A Writer’s Guide to the Essential Parts

Storytelling is an artform as old as humanity itself. Whether told around an ancestral campfire or unfolding today on our screens, stories have the power to transport us to new worlds, inspire us to greater heights, and illuminate the human experience.

You might think that creative writing relies fully on intuition and imagination—and you’d be partly right. But if you dream of crafting compelling tales, you also need to understand the fundamental parts that make up a great story. You can strengthen your creative vision by tapping into core narrative building blocks, such as plot, character, conflict, theme, and setting.

Master these essential elements of a story, and you’ll be well on your way to developing the next great page-turner!

Defining the Elements of a Story

At its core, a story is built upon key elements working in harmony. The elements of every great piece of literature include:

• Theme: The central idea or message of the story
• Characters: The people driving the story 
• Point-of-View: Whose perspective the story follows
• Plot: The narrative structure of the story
• Conflict: Obstacles facing characters
• Setting: When and where the story takes place
• Style: The author's unique voice

These foundational elements of a story shape the reader's experience. When crafted skillfully, they can immerse your audience into an experience that resonates emotionally. Let's explore each part of a story and how you can use it to bring your work to life.

Theme: The Central Message of Your Story

Theme is the overarching central idea or message that you want to communicate to your readers. This part of a story turns your narrative from just an exciting or dramatic series of events into a meaningful experience.

Wondering if your story truly needs a theme? Or worried that the theme has to be some grand idea? It doesn’t.

Often, the most impactful themes are centered on universal topics. This includes messages on love, loss, friendship, courage, or forgiveness. They don’t have to be complex or philosophical to anchor your story or create an emotional connection with your reader.

Think about what you want your reader to walk away with—whether that’s an emotion or an idea or a question. That’s your theme.

Then the key is to introduce that idea naturally, and subtly, in your story, so that it doesn’t sound like you’re preaching to your readers. You can develop it as the story progresses through the scenarios you place your characters in and the growth they show as they navigate conflicts or overcome obstacles.

For example, Harper Lee's classic To Kill a Mockingbird revolves around the theme of good versus evil. Lee accomplishes this by contrasting an honorable character who stands up for justice against a racist antagonist. Even though the theme is universal (good vs. evil), it drives her tale and emerges organically through the characters as they explore morality.

Defining a clear theme early will help guide your story as you write. And keeping this core element of a story in mind from the start will allow you to craft plot points and character arcs that support it.

Characters: Making Your Story Feel Alive

Vibrant, multidimensional characters draw us into a story and make it come alive. Whether hero or villain, main or supporting character, the people who populate your tale connect us emotionally and drive the action forward. 

Successful characters feel like living, breathing people with nuanced inner lives and vivid personalities. They have world views, backgrounds, strengths, flaws, motivations, and relationships shaping who they are. And when they go on a journey, grappling with conflicts, evolving, and interacting with others, we take that journey with them.

This is a critical element of literature, and every classic work has compelling characters that make us want to keep turning the page. For example, in The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald brings the mysterious protagonist Jay Gatsby to life through telling details and actions. We learn about Gatsby's secretive past, ambitious nature, and his obsessive longing for lost love Daisy Buchanan. This nuanced characterization makes Gatsby leap off the page.

When developing your characters, dig deeper than their surface-level traits. Show who they are through their dialogue with others, actions they take, and the choices they make when faced with conflict and adversity. Reveal their inner landscape of dreams, fears, beliefs, and regrets. Give them backgrounds and histories, even if only a few of those details make it into the work. 

You should know your characters better than your reader ever could. Doing this will help you create complex individuals that readers relate to and care about.

In Motif, you can easily create and access story elements like characters and settings as you write. Sign up free.

Point-of-View (POV): Writing the Right Perspective

Point-of-view is the perspective your story is told from, whether that’s a main character or an omniscient narrator. Choosing the right POV is crucial for pulling readers in and establishing your narrator’s credibility.

The two most common perspectives are first person and third person limited:

1. First person point-of-view tells the story from the main character’s, or characters’, “I” perspective. It is best for keeping the reader close to the action and emotions of your protagonist(s). However, it is limited to their knowledge and reliability as a person. 

2. Third person limited follows a character’s experience from a “he/she” perspective. Readers still get insights into their thoughts, feelings, and motivations, but it is limited to them. 

It’s not unusual to read stories with chapters that alternate either of these points of view between several main characters.

The two more uncommon points of view are third person omniscient and second person:

3. Third person omniscient gives a godlike overview of any character’s inner world. It can provide a fuller understanding of the dynamics and tensions between characters in a work. However, this POV has to be handled with care as head hopping between different characters’ perspectives can cause confusion for your readers. 

4. Second person POV directly addresses the reader as “you”, drawing them into the protagonist’s shoes. This experimental viewpoint is uncommon outside of short stories. 

When choosing this part of your story, you need to evaluate your goals and different characters to find the POV with the best vantage point. 

Plot: Structuring Your Narrative Arc

There are many different ways to structure your plot, but the definition of plot is the same, regardless. Plot is the backbone of your story and the sequence of events that must take place for the tale to unfold. 

A strong storyline engages readers and builds suspense so they’re hooked to the very end. Plot generally consists of:

• Exposition: Introduces setting, characters, and background context 
• Rising Action: Builds tension and interest that comes to a head in the climax
• Climax: Turning point where the conflict reaches its peak
• Falling Action: Loose ends are tied up leading into the resolution
• Resolution: Provides closure and answers the central question of your story

When mapping your plot, it can help to use an arc that escalates drama and stakes progressively. You can foreshadow details that will prove significance later on and insert twists that surprise readers. However, payoffs should always tie back logically to what was set up earlier as satisfying conclusions resolve central conflicts. That being said, they can also allow room for unanswered questions.

Some common plot structures include the Hero’s Journey, 3 Act Structure, or 27 chapter outline.

Conflict: Driving Your Story Forward

Conflict is a key element of an engaging story. It is the friction you create that drives your plot and transforms your characters as they struggle to overcome obstacles. 

Conflict comes in two main forms:

1. External Conflict:

This pits a character against external forces, like struggles against nature, society, or technology. These larger scale clashes raise the stakes, especially if tied closely to your protagonist's goals.

2. Internal Conflict:

‍This arises from emotional turmoil and moral dilemmas within your characters. Their inner battles create suspense and tension. These psychological and emotional struggles often parallel the external battles they face.

Weaving both external and internal conflicts throughout your story creates momentum and suspense. Characters grow as they face difficult choices and challenges. Tension is keyed up when conflicts tie closely to their motivations and desires.

A great example of this is in The Hunger Games Trilogy by Suzanne Collins. The protagonist faces an intense external conflict as she battles for her survival in the dangerous Hunger Games arena. However, she also struggles with internal conflict about her role as a symbol of rebellion and her complex love triangle with Peeta and Gale. These layered conflicts propel the high-stakes narrative forward.

You should introduce the main conflict, or define the stakes, within the first few pages of your story, so your reader understands what it is driving toward.

Setting: Immersing Readers in a Story World

Plot and setting, setting and plot. These two elements of a story probably get written about the most. However, you might still be wondering: What is setting and what does it have to include?

At the basic fundamentals, setting is the time period and location where your story takes place. 

However, the way you build these details—from period-specific clothing to local culture to sensory cues like baking bread—can establish an atmosphere that immerses readers in your world. And settings that mirror or contradict your characters' inner states can add symbolic resonance.

Setting details become more important the more unfamiliar your world is to readers. For example, a fantasy or sci-fi novel may require complex worldbuilding down to every detail of food, culture, clothing, magic or technology systems, and more. But even a story set twenty years behind modern day requires grounding in time and place.

To write authentic settings, research historical details and local color. Take atmospheric cues from weather or landscapes to set the overall mood. Use your setting intentionally to evoke emotional responses that propel your narrative.

Style: Finding Your Unique Voice

You might not think of style as an element of a story, but it’s just as important as plot and setting. 

Style is your unique authorial voice that shapes your readers’ experience. Style covers creative choices, including:

• Perspective and point of view
• Tone and mood 
• Pacing and structure
• Language, imagery and descriptive details
• Sentence and paragraph structure

You can hone your unique style through the choices you make. For example, you can vary your sentence structures, paragraph lengths, and vocabulary to add visual interest and energy. You can choose between point-of-views to filter access to characters’ thoughts, feelings, and observations. You can select specific details for your scenes to make them more immersive.

Your tone will shape how readers connect with the story emotionally. For example, playful and nostalgic tones evoke different responses. Meanwhile, how you pace your story will determine how readers experience suspense and climatic moments. And figurative language like metaphors can enhance imagery.

While developing your style takes practice, crafting an authentic writer’s voice will keep readers engaged. Let your style choices complement the characters, setting, and overall mood you want to convey.

Mastering the Elements of a Story

Great stories are crafted piece by piece. Planning your story concept around a compelling theme provides an anchor, populating it with vivid characters in conflict drives it forward, choosing an immersive setting and gripping plot structure pulls readers in, and tailoring your style and point of view dials up engagement.

Study how your favorite books successfully incorporate these parts of a story. Absorb their techniques and emulate classics, but also don’t be afraid to break conventions and innovate. As you practice writing these fundamentals, your writing will strengthen and your creative voice will emerge. 

If you’re ready to craft an immersive world and plot with these story elements, start writing free with Motif today.