Getting Started with Quillry Stories

This section briefly explains how to use and include stories in Quillry.

To get started quickly, watch the video below or go to the side-navigation panel and find the My Stories navigation link and click it.

If you do not see the side-navigation panel, click the icon to the left of the Quillry name in the top left corner of the screen.

You will then be redirected to the stories page where you will see a table of data. If you haven't created a story yet, the table will be empty. If you have created stories, you will see a list of stories you've created on Quillry.

To create a new story, click on the Add Story button above data grid.

You should be redirected to the Create a New Story page. Verify that you are creating a new story by examing the header text and ensuring it says Create a New Story.

From here, you may choose to fill out the theme, perspective the story will be written in, and other data fields.

For the conflict in the story, you may choose one of the following driving factors:

• Person vs Person are stories where the central dramatic conflict exists between people.
• Person vs Self are stories where the central dramatic conflict exists where the character's struggle is internal, whether with doubts or character flaws (Hamlet).
• Person vs Nature are stories where the central dramatic conflict exists between a character and the natural elements (Moby Dick, Robinson Crusoe).
• Person vs Society are stories where the central dramatic conflict exists between a character and the institutions, organizations, traditions, or laws into which they were born or agreed to be apart of. Examples include The Firm, Hunger Games, 1984, Atlas Shrugged.

For the archetype in the story, you may choose one of the following driving factors:

• Rags to Riches: In a rags-to-riches story, a poor and derelict main character gains something they lack (money, power, love) loses it, and then wins it back again by the end of the story. This plot archetype is popular in fairy tales like Cinderella as well as various Disney animated films like Aladdin and Ratatouille. The rags-to-riches tale is effectively an underdog story, wherein a simple, relatable character receives newly begotten privilege (whether via luck, conquest, or a magical trickster like a fairy godmother) and must balance the duties that come along with that privilege.
• The Quest: In a quest archetype, the main character must reach a certain location, attain a certain object, or fulfill a certain objective while conquering many obstacles along the way. The Odyssey is a classic quest story. So, too, is J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy, Watership Down, the films Finding Nemo and The Wizard of Oz, and episodes of J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series.
• Rebirth: The rebirth story archetype has its roots in religion—think of the biblical resurrection of Jesus—but in common practice, it may simply involve a character changing their ways and becoming a better person, resulting in a happy ending. Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol is a classic rebirth story, as Ebenezer Scrooge sees the error of his ways and transforms. Other examples include The Secret Garden, Beauty and the Beast, and the film Groundhog Day.
• Overcoming the monster: This story archetype, rooted in ancient classics like Perseus, Beowulf and the biblical David and Goliath, involves a hero who must conquer some sort of evil force—typically physical but sometimes metaphysical. Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula qualifies as an “overcoming the monster” story. Such stories often intertwine with what theorist Joseph Campbell referred to as “the hero’s journey,” wherein an inciting incident presents a call to action for the story’s main character, who will then—via the story’s rising action and climax—rise to the role of a hero. (Note that Campbell himself was extrapolating from the theories of Swiss psychologist Carl Jung.) The original Star Wars trilogy fits this archetype, as do standalone James Bond and Terminator films.
• Comedy: The notion of comedy is intrinsic to humans as a species, and written examples trace back to the ancient Greek playwright Aristophanes. Comedic plot lines subvert expectations and blend the familiar with the absurd to keep audiences laughing and on their toes. William Shakespeare mastered classical comedy, with famous jester characters like Sir John Falstaff and ribald plots like that of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Comedy remains immensely popular in contemporary TV and film, where main characters like Veep’s Selina Meyer and sidekicks like The Office’s Dwight Schrute exemplify comedic archetypes.
• Tragedy: Tragedy is comedy’s mirror image. In a tragedy, a protagonist is undone by a critical character flaw or by the cruelty of fate. William Shakespeare mastered tragedy just as thoroughly as he did comedy, and his tragic masterpieces like Macbeth, Hamlet, King Lear, Othello, and Romeo and Juliet remain in heavy rotation in today’s playhouses. Leo Tolstoy’s masterwork Anna Karenina contains elements of both tragedy and rebirth, while twentieth-century films like Nicholas Roeg’s Don’t Look Now combine tragedy with horror to conjure almost nihilistic endings.
• Voyage and return: A voyage and return story sends a protagonist to a strange land, from which they will return armed with wisdom and life experience. J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit is a voyage and return story. Alice in Wonderland and The Chronicles of Narnia feature child protagonists who return from journeys with newfound wisdom.

For the Structure in the story, you may choose one of the following driving factors:

• Linear: A structure in which the plot and story follows a regular, chronological and linear time line.
• Non-Linear: A structure in which the plot and story is presented to the reader out of sequence. Examples include The Sound and the Fury.

For the point of view in the story, you may choose one of the following driving factors:

• 1st Person: In first-person narration, the narrator is a person in the story, telling the story from their own point of view. The narration usually utilizes the pronoun I (or we, if the narrator is speaking as part of a group). The character who tells the story might be in the middle of the action or more of a character who observes the action from the outer limits, but in either case you are getting that character’s recounting of what happens.
  
  It also means that impressions and descriptions are colored by that character’s opinions, mood, past experiences, or even their warped perceptions of what they see and hear.
• 2nd Person: Second-person narration is a little-used technique of narrative in which the action is driven by a character ascribed to the reader, one known as you. The reader is immersed into the narrative as a character involved in the story. The narrator describes what "you" do and lets you into your own thoughts and background. The most well-known piece of fiction that employs second-person narration might be Jay McInerney’s novel Bright Lights, Big City.
• 3rd Person: In third-person narration, the narrator exists outside the events of the story, and relates the actions of the characters by referring to their names or by the third-person pronouns he, she, or they.
  
  In third-person limited narration, the narrator still exists outside the events of the story, but does not know the motivations or thoughts of all the characters. Rather, one character is the driver of the story, and the reader is given a closer peek into that character’s psyche than the others.
• Omniscient: Omniscient means "all-knowing," and likewise an omniscient narrator knows every character’s thoughts, feelings, and motivations even if that character doesn’t reveal any of those things to the other characters.
  
  Omniscient writing can be viewed as "head-hopping" because the narrative can move seamlessly between the thoughts of all the characters at once.