Tuesday, April 17, 2012

An intro to Story Structure

A few weeks ago I was talking about Story Structure and secondary characters. Seeing that is it something I use every day in my writing, I often times assume that everyone has heard about it. I know I am wrong because I talk to writers and I see their faces as I start talking plot points.

I've decided that rather than me talking about some obscure thing, and no one understanding me, I'd give you the basics.

Larry Brooks created Story Structure based off what screen play writers call the three part act. Although with novel writing, there are four parts, and three major points, and two sub points. Each part has a specific time reason and amount in the story to make it successful.

While there are those out there that say he's full of hot air, I have proof that what he teaches works. I had been writing by the seat of my pants for years; writing, editing, and submitting with no success. No partial or full requests from agents or publishers. I found Story Structure, wrote my book and revised it using what I'd learned, and wrote, edited, and sold my MS in three years.

If you are happy with your current style of writing, wonderful! If you are tired of writers block, lacking character arc's, and sagging middles as well as a ton of other writer maladies, Story Structure may be just what you are looking for.

If you are curious and/or impatient you can find Brook's book Story Arcitecture in a number of places.

Join me next week as we talk about the parts of a story.

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