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How to Write Decision and Action Scenes
The Decision Scene in a story usually follows the Realisation Scene – the subject of last week’s post. The Action Scene, in turn, is most often preceded by the Decision Scene, forming a...
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The Nuts and Bolts of Story Structure
Nuts & Bolts For sometime now, I’ve been posting articles about such narrative elements as the introduction scene, the inciting incident, the first and second turning points, the first and second...
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The Nuts and Bolts of Story Structure II
This is the second and final installment of The Nuts and Bolts of Story Structure. Must-Have Scenes Second Pinch As mentioned previously, pinches are scenes located within act II that remind us of the...
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In Defense of Story Structure II
Two Hemispheres, One BrainThis is primarily a blog about the art and craft of storytelling, written from a structural perspective. Its aim is to provide advice on how to get narrative ingredients, such...
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Exploring the Story Network I
Structural Links Understanding story structure involves different stages of learning. The first stage is to identify, name, and understand the function of each narrative component. We learn that a...
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Exploring the Story Network II
Network ConnectionsThe main structural hoists between the 1st and 2nd turning points are: the 1st pinch, the midpoint, and the 2nd pinch. In this post, we explore the dynamic relationship that exists...
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Exploring the Story Network III
Story NetworksIn this third and final post on understanding story networks, we look at the dynamic relationship that exists between the 2nd turning point, climax, and denouement. The 2nd Turning Point...
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How to Write Your Second Draft
The Rewrite We’ve all heard the adage: writing is to rewriting. But what precisely does this mean? How do you go from the first draft to the final one? Indeed, can there ever be a final draft – in the...
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Story Crisis & Climax
Crisis & Climax What is the story crisis and how is it related to the climax? This post traces three variations of this most important relationship. Crisis & Climax Back-To-Back The climax of a...
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How to Write Your Story’s Midpoint
Halfway Line Although much has been written about the midpoint, not least of all in this blog, it is a crucial structural element in a story that deserves revisiting. Midpoint/Moment of...
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Turning Points
Turning Point I have talked, more than once, about what constitutes a turning point. This post takes another look at this all important topic, adding what, I hope, is fresh insight. A turning point, we...
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Story-Structure Checklist
Story Checklist: A story checklist helps to concentrate our attention on important aspects of story construction. Here is one on story structure, once more, gleaned from Michael Hauge’s book, Writing...
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How to Pace Your Story
The Darkest Moment: One of the reasons that we, as story tellers, need to master structure is so that we may position our narrative events, the high and lows, tension and release, in a way that keeps...
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How to Structure your Reveals
Revealing Secrets: When and how do you reveal that big secret in your story? All at once? Through smaller increments and surprises? The latter encourages your reader to follow the bread crumbs with...
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How to keep your story interesting through reversals
Keeping our story interesting as we navigate towards the major pivot points (the inciting incident, the first and second turning points, the midpoint, and climax), takes some doing. This is because we...
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The Hero’s Journey
Journey to the lightA student recently asked me how he could bolster the credibility of his hero’s actions in a story he’d written. Was there a guideline, other than instinct and experience, he could...
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What is Storytelling?
Storytelling, as Robert McKee succinctly tells us, is the creative demonstration of truth. A story is the living proof of an idea, the conversion of idea to action. A story’s event structure is the...
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How to Contrast Scenes in Scripts and Novels
How many scenes are necessary in writing good scripts? In Making a Good Script Great, Linda Seger notes that this number varies. Some have less than seventy five scenes, some more than a hundred. In...
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How the Moral Premise Drives your Story
The Moral Premise in There Will be Blood . . ALL great stories have a moral premise – a deep structure that shapes the narrative from below the surface of the novel or film. The moral premise is why...
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Brevity, Clarity, Simplicity in Writing
Brevity, clarity, simplicity in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance KidIf brevity, clarity, simplicity are important in specialist writing, they are crucial in a screenplay. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance...
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