Story Elements

After browsing some websites for help I made a short list of the elements in my story.
So of course a story needs to be built uit of something. There has to be some kind of structure about it.

The first thing I tried to do is to come up with a premise.

I did that by asking myself these questions.

Who is the protagonist?
The children in the hospital are the heroes. Space travellers, travelling through the depths of space searching for freedom and fortune. 

 What is the situation? What is the hero’s personal condition at the beginning? How will that 
condition be changed, for better or worse, by the hero himself or by the antagonistic force?
The Heroes are under contract from a big syndicate lead by a mysterious man called crohner. They are to discover something in a vault. They're free to go when they find it. Crohnar however tries to prevent this by sending his men to capture the heroes.

 What is the protagonist’s objective? At the beginning, what do the heroes want? What moral (or immoral) choices will they have to make in their attempt to gain that objective?
The heroes are to find the treasure in order to be free with a big reward. In the real world it would be to leave the hospital. In order to leave the hospital they have to undergo some things that seem negative and scary at first. Things like surgery, medicine and examination. To the heroes this seems like a bad thing. And the bad guys turn out to be the good guys after all. So the heroes are after freedom and adventure. And in order to get what they want they have to face some inevitable things.

Who is the opponent? Who or what stands in the way of the heroes achieving their objective?
What will be the disaster? What misfortune will befall the hero as the result of her attempts to achieve her objective?
The opponents or antegonists for the heroes are the doctors in this case. The heroes don't see that the doctors are only trying to help them in the real world. The heroes will be captured by the "bad" guys because they need to undergo examination or surgery in the real world. The players are pulled out of the world into reality. Another enemy can be a manifestation of their illness. Crohner in this case. Crohner is a manifestation of Crohns disease and is a crime lord. It seems like Crohner wants to help the heroes because he sees the bad guys (medical staff) as the enemy. In the end Crohner is the bad guy and the doctors helped the heroes overcome or stabilize their disease. A disaster could be one of the heroes being taken away by the bad guys. Resulting in the heroes being seperated. (in the real world one of the kids needs to undergo surgery)

What’s the conflict? What conflict will result from the hero’s reaction to the disaster? And what is the logical flow of cause and effect that will allow this conflict to continue throughout the story?
The bad guys will always be after the players. But in reality they are only trying to help them. This is an ongoing situation showing how intimidating the situation in the hospital is. On their adventure the heroes are being interupted all the time. Dinner time for example. Or parents visiting, or examination by the doctors.


I have to use these elements and build a story out of it. So to summarize it.

The heroes are on a journey in their ship (their room in the hospital), looking for freedom and adventure. Everything in their universe is based on what the children see in the hospital. They have to find some kind of treasure for a man named Crohner (not sure about this) On their way they come across various locations and aliens. (more on that in the next post) The bad guys (the medical staff in the hospital) are trying to stop the heroes from reaching their goals. But in the end it seems that the only way to reach their goals is to do what the bad guys want. And not what Crohner wants. Crohner is actually a personification for their illness. The bad guys are actually the medical staff in the hospital. Each entity has their own form language.

This is what I have now. Now it's on to find some cool locations for the players to travel to that can also be linked back to the real world.