Everything
on Scrivener's Quill is ©
Dianna Dalley, and is not
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Building the Skeleton
of Your Story
Author notes.
-
First, the information that is posted here is an accumulation
of what I have learned over 10 years of studying writing. It is
not a copy of any specific source of information, rather an
amalgamation of many tidbits that I have gathered along the way and
have implemented into my writing style. The three act system, I
have no idea who came up with the original idea, but it's freely
published across the web. I do not take credit for it's creation.
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The subject for this example
was not chosen for any kind of statement. The subject of abortion
is a heavy hitting theme that is easy to identify clear decisions so
it’s easier to help with the writing tutorial because there’s less
ambiguity.
The first thing that is important to your story is
to have an idea of
what you story is. Then taking that idea and making it into one
that’s really a story idea. From this idea, we should be able to
identify the main story question that must be answered by the end of
the story. Taking that idea and creating a beginning, middle, and
end is your second step in this process.
For example, say I want to write a story about a
teenage
pregnancy. Sure, I could write a book report or essay on this
subject, but it wouldn’t be a story. So, I have to take my idea
and make it into a story idea. Jane, a 16 year-old, straight A
student who’s headed for Berkley with a full ride scholarship becomes
pregnant. Ok. We have the beginning of a story idea, but
there isn’t any movement. We just know what is and not what she
must confront that will make her make life altering decisions.
Jane, a young teen with a promising future studying artificial
intelligence at Berkley, must face the decision of whether or not to
have an abortion after her boyfriend breaks up with her for getting
pregnant. Now, we have a story idea. There’s movement here
that will make Jane deal with real life issues even though the story is
fiction.
What’s my main story question? First, the
question should be a
yes or no question. The story will be the explanation of the
question so the only answer should be yes or no. For this idea
the question should be something like this:
Will Jane get an abortion so that she can continue
following her life
goals?
Now that we’ve got the idea and the question down,
we’ve got to flesh
it out a little bit. What problems force Jane to face the
consequences of her actions? I tend to stick with the three act
system, so I outline the biggest problems that will advance the story
to the fulfillment of my story question. I also use this setup
for my subplots because its easy and helps me keep things in
perspective.
So following the three act system, I’ll need…
Act I 20-35% of the story
The catalyst is the first 10% of
your story. Here I’ll plunge your character into the story and
introduce the main story problem and question.
The rest of act 1 is dedicated to
introducing my characters and setting up the story so that the reader
is prepared to get into the meat of the story when they hit turning
point 1.
Turning Point 1 is where the flow
of the story changes and plunges me into act 2. I up the tension
by adding a problem that the mc must solve in order to go on.
However, they go in an unexpected direction, which creates conflict.
Act II 50% of the story
The middle is where the bulk of
my conflict will be. Here I want to have the character fighting
him/herself and the antagonist. The must be conflict in order to
propel the story toward the climax and keep the
tension building.
Turning Point 2 plunges me into
act 3 and increases the tension and speeds up the action. This is
where I’m really building that steep incline to the climax. Think
of it as the ultimate roller coaster and this is the highest rail
before I drop them into the
gravity defying, stomach clenching, wondrous climax of my story.
Act III 15-25% of the story
This is the resolution of
the
story. Here I want to tie up the loose ends, but make sure that
in doing so, I am still creating more tension all the way up to the
climax. Remember, I want to build that steep incline for the
roller coaster so the reader gets
that head rush, giddy, goose bumps Feeling when I spring the climax.
The climax is the last 5% of the
story. Here I’m in the final conflict and the main story question
must be answered in order for the story to end.
So now I have these six points in which I have a
good idea along the
plot line where they will rest. This is where people
differ. Some writers just plunge into the story. I’m the
type of writer that figures out what my approximate word count will be
and I have a baseline of word count per scene. I also like to
write 2.5-3 scenes per chapter. So, I’ve set a tentative word
count of 2000 words per scene. Usually I predict that a novel
will be about 100,000-150,000 words. I like to check the
publishers requirements that I’ll be interested in submitting to,
because some of them are very strict on word counts.
So, for a 100,000 word novel at 5000 words per
scene, I’ll have 20
chapters and 50 scenes (20x2.5). For a 150,000 word novel at 5000
words per scene, I’ll have 30 chapters and 75 scenes. This sounds
a little daunting, but I found that I could focus on where scenes lie
along the plot line and pace my novel appropriately. It actually
made figuring out where I needed to place scenes and elements in my
story whereas before I just kind of estimated and a lot of the time
they were misplaced.
Now that I know how many scenes I’ll need, I can
then divide the word
count or the scenes by the acts percentages. This gives me a
really good idea where to put the most important parts of the
story. Basically this is outlining the story but with an added
element of actually seeing where to place specific part like the
turning points.
Some great sites to check out are…
http://www.massucci.com/Articles/Outlines/outlines.html
This is about outlining
http://www.storyispromise.com/wfound.htm
The foundation of storytelling. It’s a great read.
http://www.hackman-adams.com/articles/
General writing articles
http://www.io.com/~eighner/writing_course/oldtutorials/tnovel.html
This talks about the three act structure and more. Very good
information.
http://story.exis.net/masterlink/general.htm
This has a lot of links to great writing information.
http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/sentences.htm
This is a great place to find information on how to break up repetitive
sentence structures.