Entering

Part 1: Why Do Humans Write Such Stories?

Lesson 1: Why Your Story Isn't Interesting
Prejudices and myths floating around the content industry | What kind of stories sell? | What stories are good and what not to write | Why do you want to write that story?

Lecture 2: Humans crave probability and legitimacy.
Without the law of cause and effect, humans cannot think | Myths, legends, religions, and conspiracy theories | How humans endure absurdity | The human instinct for storytelling, serving the need for legitimacy

The Three Powers Worldview: A Window Through Which Homopictus Accepts Reality
We also need stories that crack windows. | Reality has no planned worldview. | How Homopictus confronts an uncomfortable reality. | In the worldview of genre fiction, events connect like dominoes.

The worldview, characters, and plot structure of the story of surviving the quarterfinals_
The Worldview-Plot-Character Triangle | The Pirate Captain's Treasure Hunt Game and the World of Storytelling | Deficiency: The Essence of the Story That Runs Through the Triangle

Part 2: Every story begins with a lack.

The story of the fifth lecture is about a character who lacks a worldview and solves problems.

Chapter 6: The Main Character: The Blank Spaces of the Characters Elicit Empathy
A character lacking in worldview order | Lack of knowledge + unknown choices = curiosity about the character | A mechanism for eliciting empathy | Why the protagonist keeps making difficult choices

7th Character: Press the Deficiency button to begin the story.
The result of an effort to cover up the wound

8-part plot: The more dramatic the change, the more captivating it is.
A choice I never could have guessed | The plot is the character's trajectory | The asteroid impact and the protagonist's birth
| A character's growth story that amplifies emotion

Lesson 9: Famous Lines: Don't Fall for the Living Lines
Between realistic lines and clichés | A character with a deficiency delivers memorable lines | The power of lines that make even villains sympathize | Lines that usurp status | A character with a deficiency lies | A character who knows metaphor has depth | The art of nitpicking to avoid seriousness

Lesson 10 Message: The author speaks in terms of the order of the worldview.
The author's message that determines the order of the worldview | Aphorisms that contain the order of the worldview | Anything can be a message | What genre readers want

Lesson 11: Trial: Create a Custom Gateway for Your Protagonist
In Search of the Master of Worldview and Plot | Regular Gates in Romance Novels | Trials Are Tailored Gates for the Protagonist | Why Trials in Web Novels Are New

Episode 12: Make a promise in the first episode and keep it until the end.
The order of the worldview is initially promised | A world that could exist somewhere

Read more How to Establish Your Protagonist's Deficiency

Part 3: Principles of Plot Design That Stimulates Instinct

Lesson 13: How to grab your readers by the scruff of the neck and get them to the end in one fell swoop
Aristotle's Poetics and the Three-Act Structure | The Story Structure That Ends with a "Come to Yourself" | Paving the Way for Your Protagonist

Lecture 14: A 6-Step Structure for Designing Worldview, Characters, and Plots
Step 1: The protagonist in a certain world makes a decision the moment he realizes his deficiency and crosses the river of no return. | Step 2: The protagonist's chosen action triggers a chain of events. | Step 3: The protagonist's heart breaks after falling into the trap of a problem and choosing the wrong answer. | Step 4: Realizing that the wrong answer was also a necessary process, the protagonist devotes himself to solving the problem again. | Step 5: Solves the problem using the right method. | Step 6: The protagonist finally reaches the ending, restoring the order of the worldview and resolving the deficiency.

Lesson 15: Six Archetypes of a Loved and Survived Plot

Round of 16, Round 1: Journey to Deprivation
Order Restored After Adventure | A Plot of Pursuit and Adventure, A Journey in Pursuit of Lack

Round 17, Round 2: Showdown with the Doppelganger
Doppelganger: A showdown between the "real" and "fake" self | A fateful clash between the protagonist and his nemesis | A chase plot: A story of chase and being chased | A revenge plot: Chasing a monster while gazing into the abyss | A rival plot: A battle for the legitimacy of the worldview

Round of 18, Round 3: Dramatic Growth
The most immature grow the most | Maturity plot: The worldview shatters and the person becomes an adult | Transformation plot: The most extreme form of growth

Lesson 19: The Love Trap
My Savior Who Came to Ruin My Life | Love Plot: When Life's Greatest Ordeal Is with One Person | Sacrifice Plot: Filling the Void and Becoming a Victor

20th Round, Round 5: A Fateful Choice
My Choices Determine My Destiny | A Plot of Temptation and Downfall, Wrong Choices Lead to Ruin | Isolated Success, When Victory Isn't Victory

Lesson 21: Archetype 6: Restoring or Destructing Order
Mystery plot, restoration of rational order | Horror plot, defeat of rational order

Going out
Recommendation

A lecture on story writing at Cheonggang University for creators who keep getting stuck in a labyrinth no matter how many times they revise.
"Grab the reader by the scruff of the neck and take them to the end in one fell swoop."

In an era where web novels earn a billion won annually, universities and other educational institutions are rapidly expanding their curriculums aimed at nurturing commercial writers to respond to the rapidly growing story industry driven by the influence of global OTT.
Cheonggang Cultural Industry College, the first university in Korea to offer a web novel writing major, also sees a high competition rate for admission every year due to the influx of aspiring writers.
But despite the high hopes of aspiring writers, in a content market saturated with competition, only a few writers are actually writing stories that make money.


So, what can you write to create engaging stories and sell? Professor Jeon Hye-jeong, a web novel writer at Cheonggang Cultural Industry College, says the question she hears most frequently from students in her story writing classes is, "Why isn't my story interesting?"
Most beginning writers start by learning the formulas of genre grammar and writing style and then writing similar pieces.
While following a set structure can be helpful in understanding how a story works, focusing solely on the formula for a successful story can easily lead to the trap of continuing to write "similar but boring stories."
At the very moment when you feel like the story is no longer interesting no matter how many times you revise it, Professor Jeon Hye-jeong recommends that you think about this question.
“Why do people get lost in stories?” “What kind of stories do people find interesting?”

"What Makes a Survival Story Different" is the result of Professor Jeon Hye-jeong's insights gained through her diverse experiences as a creator and long conversations with students in the classroom regarding these very questions.
Professor Jeon Hye-jeong's "Storytelling Writing Lecture" is greatly loved by students at Chung-Ang University for its insightful understanding of the essence of storytelling and its unique humor.
This book is Professor Jeon Hye-jeong's first solo book, a compilation of her popular lectures, which any aspiring creative writer would want to eavesdrop on at least once.



Homopictus, seeking the legitimacy of fiction, asks the world "why" through storytelling.
What is a story that captures human instinct?

There are clearly trends driving the industry, such as the expansion of the SF genre market, the decline in the popularity of romantic fantasy, and the rise of mystery thrillers due to the popularization of global OTT.
However, you can't write an 'interesting story' just by following the ever-changing industry trends or readers' reactions.
Professor Jeon Hye-jeong points out that if you start writing stories without fundamental insight into what kind of stories people like, you will get lost in online criticism and self-censorship.
So how do you write a compelling story that grabs the reader by the throat and, like a runaway train, drives them to the end? To uncover the secret, the author, rather than dissecting a popular story today, takes readers into a cave dating back to the Paleolithic era.
Since the time when people left murals in dark caves to pray for a successful hunt, 'storytelling' has not been a simple form of entertainment for humans, but a fundamental tool for understanding existence and the world, and an instinct in itself.
Humanity has evolved by inferring the workings of the world, such as the providence of nature, war and disease, discrimination and hatred, loss and death, as cause and effect, and in the process, fictional stories such as myths, religious folktales, and legends were born.


Part 1, “Why Do Humans Write Such Stories,” relentlessly explores the types and structures of stories that have fascinated Homo Fictus, humanity who cannot live without stories.
Faced with harsh reality, humans wander around the 'why triangle' of 'why?' (worldview), 'why me?' (character), and 'why are you giving me this ordeal?' (plot).
The goal is to overcome reality by finding the 'causal relationship' and 'justification' of the incident.
Perhaps this is why, when life becomes unhappy, it's easy to fall prey to conspiracy theories woven into storytelling.
To get a plausible answer to all these questions, a sense of 'this is how it should be', the story must have a 'solid structure'.
The creator's story design must begin from the very essence of the story.
Based on the belief that writing a story is an attempt to understand human existence, the author reinterprets the organic structure of worldview, characters, and plot through the keyword of human instinct.
The easiest and fastest way than any story design formula was through ‘human understanding.’


From The Epic of Gilgamesh to The Remarried Empress: The Fundamental Principles of Worldview, Character, and Plot Design
“Ultimately, all stories begin with human deficiency.”

Most story genres that have been loved for a long time have a solid triangular structure of worldview, characters, and plot.
The problem is that if you set these three things separately during the creative process and then try to combine them, the story is likely to become uneven.
How do we design an immersive story without a grand worldview or a unique portrayal of character psychology? The answer lies in the character's "deficiency."
Humans have always loved stories about wanting to recover something that should have been given to them but was taken away by the absurd reality.
Because we all have a need, we want to know the rules of conduct to fill it, and we want to live in an orderly world where living by the rules brings rewards.


This instinct makes humans fall into storytelling that is justifiable and plausible, and live in comfort and vicarious satisfaction.
In Part 2, “All Stories Begin with Deficiency,” the author examines beloved stories that transcend time and genre, from the Epic of Gilgamesh, the first epic poem in human history, to masterpieces like “The Graduate,” “The Princess and the Matchmaker,” and “La La Land,” to dramas like “Game of Thrones” and “Breaking Bad,” to the webtoon “My Daughter Who Turned into a Zombie,” and web novels “The Remarried Empress” and “The Youngest Son of a Chaebol Family,” and brings up the immutable principle of story design called “deficiency.”
Furthermore, through 'Read More', Jeffrey E.
By introducing the schema theory of the spirit, it helps creators design stories more elaborately.


When human deficiencies collide with the world (worldview), characters move through time and space and act (characters), events move accordingly (plot), and readers become immersed.
In other words, a story is a series of events that a character who lacks order in the world view causes to fill it, and can be defined as a process of solving problems that lead to the correct answer called the world view.
Among all narrative literature that follows the flow and probability of events, genre literature follows this especially skillfully.
In an anxious world where only uncertain reality and existence remain, it is a beautiful design built with a worldview, characters, and plot that provides comfort to humans.


A worldview that creates nerds, a plot that's all over the place, and "tips" for creating living, breathing characters.
"Show the worldview in the first episode, and unfold a domino-like pattern of trials tailored to the protagonist."

In the world of stories, readers 'empathize' with the protagonist as they follow the process of a character lacking a worldview solving a problem.
The more difficult the problems or trials the protagonist faces, and the more tailored they are to the protagonist, the more interesting the story becomes.
This principle applies without fail even in the world of web novels.
However, unlike traditional writing styles where the protagonist goes through a particularly difficult and unfair process of resolution, the world of web novels that follow the 'myth of meritocracy' is different in that the protagonist solves problems with outstanding abilities as if he were dealing with a leaked exam question.
One thing to keep in mind is that in web novels, the worldview promised in the first episode must be maintained until the very end.
The reason why the drama "The Youngest Son" ended up being a bust, unlike the well-received web novel "The Youngest Son" that maintained the worldview of "Money is everything" from beginning to end, ended up being a bust, is because it did not adhere to this principle.

This book presents the fundamental principle of worldview-character-plot design: "deficiency," while also thoroughly presenting various writing techniques that bring dramatic fun and empathy to the story.
"Create a customized gateway for the protagonist." "Deficient characters argue and lie." "Promise your worldview in the first episode and keep it until the end." "Events don't explode like landmines, but connect like dominoes." These are some of the "honey tips" that creators often miss when designing stories of various genres, and they are explained in simple and clear language.



Six Plot Archetypes that Apply Traditional Principles to Modern K-Content
“A story is the face of humanity, ultimately the process of understanding humanity.”

From Aristotle's theory of three-act structure to Ronald Tobias's "Twenty Plots to Capture the Heart," there are many books on plot theory and how to deal with them.
However, most of them deal with authors or classic films or plays that are unfamiliar to Korea, and they focus on plots from old folk tales or myths, making it difficult to apply them to modern narratives.
In Part 3 of this book, "Principles of Plot Design that Stimulates Instinct," the author reinterprets universal writing theories in a modern way and analyzes works well known to Korean readers today using examples to derive "six archetypes of beloved plots."
These are 'Journey to Deficiency', 'Confrontation with the Doppelganger', 'Dramatic Growth', 'Love Trap', 'Fateful Choice', and 'Restoration or Destruction of Order'.
From the movies "Decision to Leave," "Mad Max," and "Gravity," to the comics "Galaxy Express 999" and "Naruto," and the controversial novels "Lolita" and classic detective stories like "Sherlock Holmes," readers naturally come to understand the structure and principles of plots in a feast of stories that transcend time and genre.


"What Makes a Survival Story Different" covers practical writing theory, but it also serves as a comprehensive textbook, highlighting the author's profound insight into how humans have understood and endured reality through storytelling.
Just as readers of genre fiction can vicariously experience the protagonist's journey of overcoming his or her own deficiencies, the story can also help us understand what our own deficiencies are.
The author conveys the message that developing the ability to analyze and understand the structure of stories that are loved and survived is not only training for creating interesting stories, but also a path to understanding "storytelling humanity" like us.
I also hope that through this book, you will one day be able to start a new story with your own questions.