A Few Words On Structure

On Writing....

I've started working on the outline of the story. I have come across several "tools" that help in progressing through your story. There are probably dozen of versions of these "tools" but they all are basically the same thing. They are basically a guide as to what happens at what point in the story based on stories and folklore that have been around for thousands of years. This "theory" was actually first introduced by Aristotle in "Poetics", so it's been around a while. They can be found in numerous books on writing. The two that I have found most helpful are "How To Write A Movie In 21 Days" and "The Writer's Journey."

Some writing sites that I've looked at and other books that I've read have discounted these tools saying that they force you to turn out cookie cutter stories and don't allow you to be creative. I disagree. They are simply another tool for you to use. Personally I think that you have to know the rules first before you can break them. Once you understand how stories work then you can use your creativity and deviate from the pattern. The bottom line is this type of story structure has been around for thousands of years and most stories that we read or movies that we see follow this pattern. You have to let your story and characters dictate how closely you stick to this pattern and not force your story and characters into the pattern.

Next Post....

Some excerpts of the outline and a few plot points.