This book is totally unlike any other book on writing that you have ever seen. That’s because it’s based on combinations of options which will effectively mean that a writer using it will have thousands upon thousands of choices for stories that will all be based on the firm foundations of fiction, as outlined in How Stories Really Work.

​

For example, you might start out with a simple prompt like ‘Someone falls deeply in love.’ But then the writer is presented with Four Basic Genres into which to fit this scenario: should this relationship be a Tragedy? Or somehow Ironic? Or should it be Comic? Or is it an Epic tale? Each one of those four choices brings with it certain story templates which give the tale a basic story shape.

​

In addition, though, the writer is provided with the Seven Character Archetypes through which to view the incident — is the ‘refusal’ from the viewpoint of an Antagonist? A Shadow Protagonist? A Submerged Companion? Or is it told through a standard Protagonist, an Emerging Companion, a Comic Companion or a Wise Old Figure? 

​

Furthermore, what setting does the writer want to place this tale in? A legendary fantasy/mythic environment? A historic setting? Is it to be a ‘down-to-earth’ realistic scene? Or some kind of science fiction future? And so on.

​

Other options are provided too, including Style and Format.

​

So you can calculate already that, out of an original prompt of ‘Someone falls deeply in love’, the writer has a huge number of possibilities. He or she might want to have the piece be Comic in nature, but told from the viewpoint of a Shadow Protagonist, but in a Victorian setting; or they might want to create a Tragedy, told from the Submerged Companion angle, but set in contemporary New York.

​

The possibilities are almost endless, just from one initial scenario.

​

Things get even more interesting when one realises that any of the initial prompts and their chosen paths can be combined into longer tales.

​

So The Story Creation Handbook becomes a kind of encyclopaedia of story potential, with everything based on tried, true and tangible foundations of fiction. It also includes tips on reinvigorating existing work and much more. More than an encyclopaedia, in fact: the Handbook is a fiction-making machine with extraordinary possibilities.