What is the 5W & 1H method? Aka The Six Basics Of Writing | Going Back to The Basics of Writing
101 Writing Basics
What is the 5W & 1H method? Aka The Six Basics Of Writing | Going Back to The Basics of Writing
101 Writing Basics
Welcome back to the 101 Writing Basics series! Last week we talked about the 6 simple steps to writing a story! You may ask, “So what are these steps broken down in terms of writing a story and storytelling?” Well, I’m glad you asked!
The basics are a thing called 5W and 1H (and this is something you may have learned in grade school)!
Who
Why
What
When
Where
How
Who
The Characters
Your characters are the eyes you see the story of your world through. They are how your readers will connect and love your story. They are your story. They are who we follow and connect to. They are who we rejoice with and cry over. Your characters are arguably the most important part of your story. With strong characters who are conflicted and change as a result of their journey (the book) they can hold up a weak story or plot because they make it strong. But a strong “plot” or story cannot hold up weak characters. Basically this means you must have strong dynamic characters. Characters are vital to your story.
A few years ago I did a whole post about how to create strong dynamic characters with a character study of Rapunzel from Tangled if you want to check itout! Soon I want to do an updated version with some of the new things I’ve leaned but the key points of the post are still what I use today: https://fablerosemc.blogspot.com/2022/05/The-4-keys-to-creating-powerful-addictive-characters-that-feel-REAL-Character-Study-on-Disneys-Rapunzel.html
Why
The Theme
The theme is the beating heart of your story. This is the lesson you want your readers to take away from reading your story. This is the thing you want your readers to heal from or change their thoughts on because of reading your story. This is the mission of your book. The reason your book is being written. The truth you want to shout from the rooftops. The thing you are most passionate about that you want seen and reflected in your story.
This is a great place to pray to God about. Ask Him to give you specifics for your story. What does He want you to say? What message does He want you to write about? What (even) do you need to learn? I think writing can be an incredible place to, as the writer, grow and learn things and truths you never knew before. I know there are stories I’ve written that have massively impacted my life and have, through writing, taught me about God, unanswered prayers, why bad things happen, dealing with loss in a healthy manner, feeling and not stuffing, seeing yourself through the eyes of a child of God and so much more. I’ve learned so much through writing and it’s impacted my everyday life. I know this is true for other writers. I had a friend who once told me about her book that she wrote asking the question, “If God is good then why do bad things happen?” And she was able to learn and get an answer through writing her story.
So the theme, I believe, is a wonderful place to put your faith into. Ask real raw questions. Write about fears and doubts and then pray through it and I believe God will (if you give your story to Him and surrender to Him and listen to what He says) answer you and change your life as well as thoughts who read your story.
This is a much more personal way to write and it can be hard and scary even because it’s not just your characters going on a journey but you too are actively partaking and participating in your own journey with God. This is one of my favorite things God has done in my life—using stories to heal me and prepare me for future things to come. I highly encourage you to do this, especially when you are first beginning to write. Here, at this stage, God can be working miracles in your life and prepare you for greater things and greater stories to come.
I did a whole podcastepisode on how to write themes that point to God if that is something you are curious about learning: https://fablerosemc.blogspot.com/2024/05/writing-themes-that-point-to-god.html
What
The Story // The Plot
The plot is the story. You can also think of it in two parts.
The internal journey of your characters (them striving for their goal while battling against or avoiding their fear while having to beat their misbelief (the lie they believe about the world/themselves) to learn the truth (the theme of your characters story) and changing as a character. We mapped this out when building the characters and finding the THEME. The internal journey will be your characters starting with being conflicted and believing their misbelief to at the end (Aha moment) realizing the TRUTH and changing as a result of your story.
The external story your characters go on that parallels and leads them on their internal journey and sets up their growth and pushes them to change. This is everything happening outside your character.
For the journey of your story you can think of it as a balance of cause and effect, something I use in all of my stories and leads me to not need an actual “story structure”. Really I need to talk about this more soon because it is so insanely helpful and it’s how I learned “structure” and is why I don’t need a “story structure” for my novels. I’m a major planner so this may be su printing to you that I don’t actually use story structures like “the 3-act story structure” or “save the cat” or “the hero's journey”. Soon I want to share more about this because I think this can really help you but for now let me give you a simple breakdown of what this means.
Cause and effect = external happening to your character (the cause) & internal reaction (the effect) that leads to an action to an internal response and so on
Write all the idea that come to mind and using the internal journey narrow down your ideas to the main story you want to tell.
Where
The Setting
The setting is the visuals of your story. There are three main things to creating the setting. The physical setting, the spiritual setting (the beliefs of your characters and their world), and the political setting of your world. This will also add more depth to your story and you can even hide more themes each of these points.
This, as a Christian, is a wonderful way to infuse your story with Christian values and beliefs. Even if your story isn’t explicitly “Christian” or maybe it’s in a world (thinking of fantasy) where Christianity isn’t exactly a thing, you can still infuse your beliefs into the world and characters. It can be expressed as Christian (story example). Or it can be inferred from the text or an allegory like C.S. Lewis’ The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe or his Out Of The Silent Planet series where there are pictures of God and Jesus and the Christian faith woven into the story and it’s something to be discovered. Or it can be a theme or value in your characters or the society that fights for a truth like how in The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien there is a present theme of the light fighting against the darkness.
I encourage you, as Christians, to think hard on this and find a way to put your faith into your story even if it’s in a small way. There is this quote I love: “The world does not need more Christian literature. What it needs is more Christians writing good literature.” —C.S. Lewis
So even if your story isn’t maybe marketed as Christian (I still love those books and they are among my favorites) we need Christian Godly values and stories going out into the world. Stories about the light fighting against the dark. Stories on forgiveness. Stories on the evil of sin and the beauty in the cross and salvation in Christ.
When
Tense // Timeline
Knowing when your story takes place and knowing the tense and timeline are surprisingly very important for you to know and will save you SO MUCH TIME when editing if you figure this out before writing your story.
In writing, you need a consistent tense through your novel. This will make it a clean reading experience that feels professional and not like an amateur. What tense do you want your story in? What are you most comfortable writing (this also may change based on what person your story is in (more on that in a minute))?
Example:
past | She walked.
present | She walks.
future | She will walk.
You’ll also want to know the timeline of your story and keep track of things like times and dates. This is good if you are writing a story spanning a day or years. This will also help keep track of things if you are jumping between time periods or are having flashbacks. This is especially good when writing about real life events or using real dates. Knowing the timeline and keeping track will really help in the editing stage so you won’t have to do much fact checking or rewriting.
Lately, when is your story set? Is it historical, contemporary, dystopian or set in a whole new world of your imagination? Based on your answer you will have different things to research, keep consistent, accurate slang/word usage, worldbuilding, etc. You want your story to feel like it is truly set in whatever time it is in. That makes it immersive and won’t take your reader out of the story by some inconsistency. So do your research or at least make notes to yourself on what you need to know/create/research.
How
The Structure
This is everything else that goes into writing your story. Some things to brainstorm and think of are:
How are you going to structure your novel if using a structure?
Outlining (I recommend brainstorming on paper or with sticky notes then transferring them to your computer or writing device/software). I recommend EVERYONE outline (or brainstorm) at least a little before writing and then make sure you are writing down and keeping track of any dates or times or characters in your story.
What plot points/scenes do you know you want/need to write?
How many POVs will there be?
What person will you write in (first, second, or third)?
What do you need to know/research before writing? What don’t you need to research?
How long is your book (around how many chapters you guess you’ll be writing, what length you hope each chapter will be, and about how many words you want your story length to be)? Not necessary but can help.
Setting up scene/chapter cards
Is it a standalone or duology or series?
Basically, this is how you are practically going to write your story.
Closing
In this post you learned how to go from thinking and dreaming of your story to being ready to WRITE your story! How exciting is that? Let me know if this was helpful and if you would like more content like this!
This is the basics of writing a story. I know it’s a lot to take on but I truly believe this will help you out in writing and in creating your story. This is the basics of what I learned and knew when starting out writing.
I hope this helps you on your writing journey!
Make sure to come back next week where we will be talking about the importance of practicing and failing.
Make sure to check out the last two post in this series:
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