Recipe for Writing

By C. LaRene Hall

This week while looking for a recipe I decided that “Writing” is much like a recipe – you need the proper ingredients in the correct order to make it work. If you follow the instructions, the chance of your product turning out is greater than if you fail to follow the guidelines. You have to follow each step, in the exact procedure outlined, and not leave something out.


Of course, when you are making cookies you do use a lot of the same stuff each time. Have you ever stopped to think about how many different chocolate chip cookie recipes there are in the world? No one makes them the same way, but most of them start the same. If you asked 10 people to each bring chocolate chips cookies to a party, none of them would look or taste the same. Nearly all of them would have the same ingredients, plus a few other things.

1. Flour
2. Sugar
3. Salt
4. Baking soda
5. Eggs
6. Vanilla
7. Chocolate Chips

The ingredients used in making chocolate chip cookies are as different as the way a person writes a book. No two people write the same, but every book has to have a plot and characters. Your setting will be different from what someone else will write. The way you write dialogue will not be like anyone else would do it. Every writer has their own unique style of writing, but you all have to use the same seven components in your stories.

1. Plot
2. Characters
3. Setting
4. Dialogue
5. Point of View
6. Theme
7. Style

As in making chocolate chip cookies, you can’t leave any of the ingredients out or your cookies will fail. The same is true with writing – you need all of the above components to have a good story.