Story Structure Flashcards
Story Structure
• The skeleton of your story
• Describes when certain events happen and how they are related, giving you a big picture view of your book.
• Helps weave together plot, characters, setting, history, notable events to create a comprehensive story.
• Story structure guides conflict, climax, and resolution.
6 Common Story Structure Elements
- The opening
- The inciting incident
- Rising action/ crises
- The climax
- Falling action
- The resolution
The opening/exposition
Lots of introductory information and is the foundation for the rest of the story.
The inciting incident
The inciting incident marks a permanent, important change within the story. It’s the point of no return. Nothing will be the same again after the inciting incident. Conflict is sure to follow.
Rising action/ crises
Once the inciting incident occurs, the following events increase the tension throughout the story. Through these events, your world and characters will be fleshed out. Heart rates will rise, tears will be shed etc. This builds up tension leading to the climax.
The Climax
The climax is what your book has been building up to this entire time. The payoff, the big event, the wow factor.
Falling action/ the denouncement
This is the fallout of the climax. We start to see a new normal emerge.
The Resolution
The story wrap up: no more action or conflict. Things return to a new normal.
Common Story Structure types
• The classic story structure
• The hero’s journey
• The seven point structure
• The three act structure
• Th snowflake method
• A disturbance and two doors
• The story circle
• Fretag’s pyramid
• Fichean Curve
Classic Story Structure
- Make your readers care about your character then plunge them into trouble as soon as possible.
- Make everything the protagonist tries to do actually make things worse. No matter what your protagonist tries, their actions work against them. Make this believable, and this will culminate into an event that seems impossible for them to overcome.
- In the face of overwhelming odds, our protagonist succeeds. This is the climax everyone is hoping for, but has seemed impossible. This should only be surmountable because of the lessons learned along the way, otherwise the arc will be flat.
The Hero’s Journey
A normal everyday person is called to action but is reluctant to leave what they know and are comfortable with. They say “no” but are eventually convinced of the importance of their role, and their journey into the unknown transforms them into someone completely different. Once transformed- confident, skilled ect. They return to their normal life a changed person.
Twelve Steps of a Hero’s Journey
- The ordinary world: the protagonist is living the life they have always known and are somewhat content.
- Call to adventure: something (a person, message, event, sign ect.) calls them to a task.
- Refusal: protagonist says no to the calling. This could be because of lack of confidence, fear of dangers, or leaving the comfort of home. Protagonist refuses to go forward.
- Mentor/helper: an important character encourages the soon to be hero to change their mind.
- Crossing the threshold: the protagonist, their mind now changed, takes the farthest step from home or starting place and goes past the point of no return. They are out of their comfort zone and on the way to adventure.
- Test, Allie’s, Enemies: A series of events pushes our new adventurer to their limits. It forces them to adapt, joins them up with new friends, and makes them some enemies. This is rising action.
- Approach: we’ve been building up to big event and the hero is preparing themselves for what’s to come.
- The ordeal: this is the middle of the story, but where the hero faces a near death experience, conquers their greatest fears, and prepares to be reborn as someone very different than the person who started this journey. This should be the greatest challenge so far. Again, this rebirth can be literal or transformational because of the experience.
- The reward: out of the ordeal, the hero gets the treasure. There might be some pause for celebration, but there will also be the risk that the treasure will be stolen or lost.
- The road back: It’s time for the character to take the treasure back home. This involves leaving the world of adventure and heroism behind, but it doesn’t come so easily. There can be a chase or threat that pursues that out of this new world.
- The resurrection: this is the climax of the book. The hero has been transformed, but they must prove their worth and new skills in a final test.
- Return with the Elixir: the hero either returns home or sets up for a continuation of the journey as a bigger threat has unfolded. In the end, they have some of the treasure and skills learned through out the book.
The Snowflake method
- Write a one sentence summary of the story. Don’t include character names and keep it on the shorter side. Workshop this sentence until it is perfect.
- Expand your sentence into a complete paragraph that also includes the major events and crises in your story.
- Create a one pager for each of your characters. Include their name, a one sentence summary of their arc, their motivation, their goals, their conflicts, what they learn throughout the book, and an expanded one paragraph summary of their arc.
- Revisit the paragraph you wrote for step 2. Take each individual sentence and make it a paragraph of its own, expanding the scope and detail. Each of these sentences should end in a setback or failure up until the final paragraph, which outlines the end of the book.
- Get into each character’s head and write a one page summary of the entire story, but from that character’s point of view. Do this for each major character.
- Go back to step four with all the knowledge and storylines you’ve generated up until now and expand each paragraph into a page of their own. This is where you get into the nitty gritty of your scenes and events, coming up with the best details, and ironing out any issues that you have thought of throughout the process.
- Revisit step three and expand your characters even farther. Establish the basics- height, ethnicity, sexuality, age, birthday, education, family, goals. But also dive deeper than that. Flesh them out as much as possible. Include where they are starting, how they change, and where they end up by the time the book is over.
- Take the expanded summaries from step six and use them to list every single scene in your book. Include a one line description of the scene, which characters are in it, which point of view it is told from. The more details the better.
- Take your list of scenes and write a few paragraphs describing each one. Throw in anything you want to include in the actual scene- setting, characters, dialogue, action, twists, ect.
- Write your first draft based on your outline!
