Making Tough Look Easy

Hey there. It’s your friendly neighborhood Launchora founder (Lakshya) here. In order to enjoy this guide, you must pair it with my latest story - You Only Die Once.

External link: https://www.launchora.com/story/you-only-die-once

No, I’m not self-promoting. This guide is symbiotically linked to that story. This is what we (me) in the biz call synergy.

So, this is your final warning. Spoiler alert. Whatever you wish to call it. While reading this without reading my story will still be a pleasurable experience, it would be akin to watching a foreign film without the subtitles. Just… why?

So, go read it now, if you haven’t already. Then come back here and enjoy the rest of this beautiful, handcrafted guide I made just for you.

What’s this guide about? It’s my ‘how I wrote it’ so you can write your own. No, don’t write your own ‘You Only Die Once’ (hereafter referred to as ‘YODO’). Although that would be a fun challenge too. So yeah, go try that if you wish. But really though, the whole idea behind ‘Making Tough Look Easy’ is to give you a roadmap for how I make the tough - the process of taking an idea and turning it into an enjoyable and easy to read short story - look easy.

Because here is lesson #1 (I didn’t think this was going to be a lesson listicle so I may not stick to that but let’s go with the flow because that’s an important part of being a writer) -

The reader doesn’t care about how “hard” or “tough” or “brutal” or “terrible” or “fun” your writing process was. All they care about is what you put in the final product. Think of it this way - imagine you’re a filmmaker. What you put in the ‘frame’, i.e., the camera’s focus area, is all the viewer gets to see. The viewer will never see whatever else you had outside the frame. So writing a good story is about choosing the right elements for your frame.

I guess the above lesson could also apply to filmmaking. I wouldn’t know that because I haven’t made films (yet). But imagine my filmmaking guide would sound quite similar.

So, moving on. Let’s break down my story, and then I’ll break down how I broke it down. Cool? Cool.

Element #1: The Purpose

Also known as ‘the idea’. This is where most stories come to life… and also die. The idea is a beautiful and ugly phase. You come up with a cool idea, and then you think ‘how do I turn this into a story?’ And then you think about it for a few hours or days, and then another idea comes so you jump to that, and so on.

Don’t do that. I don’t mean don’t have other ideas. I mean don’t give up on old ones. Because you may not know this when you think of your idea, but what you’re really coming up with is a ‘Purpose’.

What’s a purpose? It’s the reason behind why your brain (or heart) came up with this idea. You wanted to say something, and your brain was like ‘here, nimble on this for a while’.

My purpose for YODO was to explore the idea of ‘changing death’. This is something that I often do - I look at an element of our daily life, and then I think ‘what if we didn’t live like this?’

YODO came to life when I asked myself - how would a person and a society change if the ‘unknown’ aspect of death was simplified to be as simple as a daily notification. I mean, can you imagine what it would be like if every morning you woke up and your iPhone told you that ‘don’t worry, you’re not going to die today. Enjoy! But I could change my mind tomorrow.’

That was my ‘Purpose’.

So how should you find the purpose of your next story? By asking questions. The best questions a writer can ask usually start with: ‘What if…’

Element #2: The Plot

Alright, I’ll be honest - most ideas don’t pass through this stage. Basically, this is where stories come to die a lifeless death. But don’t worry! Even the greatest writers of all time have to go through this stage. So the good news is… you’re just like everyone else. Trust me, that’s a good thing.

So, for YODO, I probably spent about two weeks the plot. And none of that time was spent on actual story-writing. Just thinking, and making notes if something felt important. You should write down all ideas - no matter how big or small. Even if a thought doesn’t belong in your current story, it could spark another story someday.

My first decision about YODO was to make it a story about one person’s Death Day. I did this to confine myself to a time period, so I don’t end up losing control over my story. This is a crucial moment for a writer like me - I tend to do my best work when I know the timeline of a story.

So once I knew I only had 12 hours (because I figured that was enough hours to get your life in order before dying on schedule), I knew that I wanted my protagonist to spend his last 12 hours in a way that was different from the way the other people (the NPCs - non playable characters, it’s video gaming term that I like to use whenever I get the chance) spent theirs.

Why did I have to do that? To ground my character in a way that the reader doesn’t feel disoriented. Often times when you read or watch good sci-fi, the main character is the audience’s proxy into the story. The Matrix is the best example of this. If you’ve ever found yourself confused or un-invested in a sci-fi story’s plot, blame the protagonist’s unrelatability.

So once I knew that my protag was going to spend his last 12 hours in a unique (less-extravagant) way, I knew that I wanted it to be a road trip. Just because it helps me shed any sci-fi layers that my obsessed-with-sci-fi brain would want to add on. Sometimes, you just have to limit the fan in you to be nice to the storyteller in you.

Once I knew it was a road trip, I needed a road trip companion. Someone this person HAD TO see on his final day. I needed my 2nd main character to be someone who knew my protag really well, because I didn’t like the idea of him spending his last day with a stranger. I knew that I could make it a former or current lover, but I’ve done enough of those dialogue-heavy stories. So I was stuck again… who should be in the car with him?

This was a fun obstacle. Because I knew that I was basically giving myself a new challenge - to write about a relationship I hadn’t handled before.

That is when I decided that his companion would be his sister.

Element #3: The Characters

I have a love-hate relationship with this element. Now, if you’ve read any of my previous stories, you now that I tend to stick to two characters, and at most four. Why? I have several reasons for that, and all of them are because of personal preferences.

Preference #1 - I only start writing stories when I know I can finish them, and the more main characters you add to your story, the longer it’ll be, and the harder it’ll be for you to finish it.

Preference #2 - I can get a lot more done by sticking to a few characters rather than an ensemble. Ensembles don’t fit well in short stories. Look at any Black Mirror episode, which are typically 45-60 minutes in length, and you’ll see that there are rarely more than 3 or 4 main characters. This isn’t just to make things simpler, it’s to keep yourself more focused on the ‘purpose’.

Preference #3 - Specifically in the case of YODO, I knew that my protag chose just one person to spend his last few hours with for a specific reason, and that helped limit my main characters to just two.

So, once I knew the number of characters, I had to start on the irreversible-but-still-flexible decision making process of figuring out who these two people were (besides being siblings).

This is a really weird stage. I personally start writing the story after just a few basic details figured out. I decided their names first. I can’t write in a person’s voice unless I know their name. So I decided on Fin and Ilaria. Then, I had to think about WHY Fin would spend his last day with his sister. Why was this whole trip worth him skipping the extravagant farewell party?

That is where I figured out that Fin needed to feel like his owed his sister something. And she needed to be unaware of this. I’ll throw some more honesty here - I’ve often felt like I’m the most selfish family member in my family. But I also know I’m not an asshole who doesn’t care about them. Because I do! So I made Fin like me, a little bit. I gave him a personality that figured that he was more helpful to his sister and her family by taking care of them from far away than by being more of a day-to-day brother. But that didn’t feel enough either. And that is where Ilaria’s character began to take shape.

Ilaria is by far, so far, most-definitely, the hardest character I’ve ever written. Not because I didn’t know who she was - I did know that quite quickly. But because I didn’t want Ilaria to be predictable, or too-easy. Basically, I wanted to create an ‘original’ female character. Someone who wasn’t created just to serve the story of the male character. And as a male human, I had to be extra careful that I didn’t reduce Ilaria to plot-serving characteristics.

In order to do so, I had to think about who Ilaria was in 3 time frames -

#1 Who she was before the events of YODO -  If you can’t imagine a character’s life outside the ‘frame’ (callback to Element #1), then you don’t have a fully-formed character yet.

#2 Who she will be after the events of YODO - think about how the events of your story would affect a person, who had no idea this was about to happen to her, and now has to live with that. Even if this version of the character is never seen in your story, if you know who she will be tomorrow, you will have a better idea about who she is today.

#3 Who she would have been with the events of YODO never happened (at least not in this way) - this one is crucial to creating a fully-formed character. In order for Ilaria to be her own person in your fictional story where you just made her up for a few hours of appearance, you need to visualize - and even write down - who she would have been if today didn’t go like this. Because that is who SHE thinks she will be tomorrow, before you change her life forever.

Alright. I need a break. So do you. We’re at over 2100 words already. And I still have at least two more elements to go through. So I’m going to have to split this into two guides. Don’t be upset, I had no idea this was going to be a two-parter.

In the next one, we’ll go over how to build the Sci-fi backdrop and insert it into the storyline while still keeping the character arcs in focus; how to create a good, satisfying ending; and some other stuff I haven’t thought about yet because I haven’t started writing it yet!

So, try this, if you wish to challenge yourself. Start writing your own #YODO Universe story. You know how the world works. You have at least half of the elements here already. So make up a plot, create some characters, and get going! And next week, when we post part 2 of this guide, you’ll have the remaining elements to complete your story! Unless you complete it by then which is also cool.

Sounds like fun. I wish I could play too. But I just did, I guess. Oh well. Good luck!