You must believe in the power of story. And of course, in various cultures story tellers have held power; in Celtic communities, for instance, the Bard was second only to the Chief; consider the fact that the layout of a Bronze Age home gravitated around the centre where an elaborate chair was placed for the story teller; and witness the strength of the oral tradition, out of which Homer came with his tales of the Trojan war, and of the journeys of Odysseus.

Given that the secular gods of this society are celebrity and fame and wealth, it is hardly surprising that the story tellers have found themselves drawn in. And thus you have the cult of the celebrity bestselling novelist. Yes, sometimes our culture rewards a storyteller - but it is very uneven in the way it spreads its blessing. And beyond every famous successful writer there stand many others who are faithfully doing exactly the same thing - crafting stories.

So what are the elements of a good fiction story? Here are the five elements HG Nadel (a self published author) believes are absolutely essential:

1) Characters that catch the reader's imagination - as in reality, so in fiction stories, individuals have a private and a public life. And it's the private life that yields the stories by which they live. Especially for a fiction writer, you cannot afford to present someone solely by how they behave in community, as they appear to other people. To me, the joy of fiction is that you are inside the characters, you feel how they feel, you experience life through their eyes, through their minds and hearts. We all have bright and dark areas in our characters. Our lives are a process of facing down our demons - archetypal story structure often includes dual characters like Spiderman & Peter Parker, or Superman & Clark Kent. Both these superheroes battle with the duality of dark and light in their characters. On one side is the bold, brilliant, public face; on the other side we find the quiet, the obscure, the vulnerable.

2) Archetypal theme - no matter how humble you think your story is, the fact remains, that in order to give the reader a strong experience, ultimately there has to be an archetypal theme behind it. This can be friendship, loyalty, love, betrayal, loss, redemption, grief, despair, fear - but all of these are archetypal, meaning they are profoundly part of human experience. The story can be light, humorous, hard-boiled, playful, serious, panoramic or any one of a number of different styles; but there will be an archetypal theme behind it. And then all is down to the author, as to which angle to take. Any originality a story has lies in the angle which the author takes.

3) Emotional charge - every successful story, even if it is pared-down in style, and doesn't ever describe the characters' feelings, as in Neil Gaiman's Coraline, or John Fowles' The Collector, carries its own emotional charge. This can come from the author's selection of events, and once again the angle the author chooses to take; the information the author decides to use, and the information the author keeps out of sight. If the story elicits a strong response from the reader, that story inevitably has "emotional charge".

4) Unexpected Turning Point - whether a story is suspense, or a thriller, or a mystery, or any other genre, a powerful turning point is key. Of course this plays its part within classic story-structure. This is why Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca is so universally loved. The turning point shocks. This has a lot to do with what is hidden from us, and what is revealed, during the progress of the story. The skilful withholding of information, the subtle drip-feeding of clues... all this plays its part in determining the effect that turning point will have on us.

5) X Factor - and then there is the final, unknown factor. This cannot be discounted. It evades the teachers of creative writing courses, the writers of "how-to" books; but it is there, undeniable. It has to do with the spirit behind the novel, and the spirit of the age in which the author writes, and the age in which the story is received. In Jane Austen's apparently simple romance novel about love, sex and money, Pride and Prejudice, we can analyse - and many have - but where exactly do we locate the X-factor? Yet it is there, mysterious, elusive, mercurial. Stories with X-factor have characters who haunt us, dilemmas we can relate to in every generation. Thomas Hardy's novel The Mayor of Casterbridge touches a deep nerve in human experience. You cannot chase X-factor. You have to work with your unconscious, be true to yourself, and let go.

Ms. HG Nadel is a self published author, recording artist, a song writer, and a musician. Nadel is known as the author of "Eternal" a love story that spans across continents and centuries. She has written numerous screenplays also. Her expertise in young adult drama has allowed her to write captivating coming-of-age stories in both English and French
For more reading, please visit here: http://hgnadel.dudaone.com/