If you are participating in National Novel Writing Month this year, you might be in the swing of Preptober things right now—taking the month of October to develop your characters, plan your plot, and build your story’s world.
One of the most common pieces of advice you’ll hear around this time of year is to know as much as you can before diving in. Even if you aren’t someone who likes to outline—a plantser or pantser as opposed to a plotter—it’s still recommended that you have a solid understanding of what you want to write about before diving in.
The logic behind this is that if you know where you’re going, you’ll have an easier time getting there. That makes sense, right?
But story structure is complex. Very complex. And not every part of writing a story will be intuitive to every writer.
The Secret to Understanding Story Structure
The secret is: it’s all the same. You just have to find the system that works for your brain.
What do I mean by “it’s all the same?” Well, first of all, I’m lying a little. The “it” I’m talking about is the various story structure philosophies that revolve around Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey, also called the Monomyth. While not originally approached as a tool for writing stories—Campbell was just pointing out that this pattern of events is common—it has become a guide for ensuring our stories hit all of the beats today’s reader expects.
Are there other story structures that aren’t derived from Campbell? Of course there are. This is a very Western way to think about telling stories. Other cultures do things differently. But it’s safe to say that if you’re writing for today’s English-reading Westerner, Campbell is a good place to start.
But Campbell’s wording is filled with cool yet cryptic phrases like “Meeting the Goddess” and “Return with the Elixir.” When I was first learning about story structure, those terms meant nothing to me. I sought out other interpretations of story structure. And boy, did I find them. Dozens of them. And I got to book-learnin’.
Your Plan for Becoming Well-Acquainted with Story Structure Before NaNoWriMo
This is the same plan I’ve been following for the past several years, revised and condensed just for you.
- Rewatch a movie you know well and have seen multiple times. (You can safely rule out movies like Memento—you want a linear movie.) I say watch a movie and not read a book because movies are faster to consume, but if you have the luxury of time, a book would work even better. If you’re drawing a blank, go back to a movie from your childhood. (Semi-recently, I’ve done this with Peter Pan, School of Rock, Hercules, Mean Girls, Legally Blonde, and Atlantis: The Lost Empire, among others.)
- Take notes of the movie’s plot points as you see them. What are the beats where the story shifts from one phase to another? Note that you need not be able to articulate why this is a change in the story at this stage.
- If possible, watch the movie twice to make sure you’ve absorbed everything you can.
- If possible, repeat this with other movies.
- Set aside those plot points for now. You will be doing a lot of reading because it is time to research outlining methods. Search wide, not deep. I will include a list below. Not all of them will speak to you or even make sense at first, but that is okay. Discard the ones that do not intrigue you.
- Of what remains, look again at the plot points and try to “match up” the plot points you’ve written down with the beats mentioned by your story structure template of choice. What lines up? What can you not make sense of? Did you maybe miss something in the watching of your movie that would help it all make sense?
- If the first story structure you try with this doesn’t work, try again with a new structure. Eventually, you will find a story structure that clicks with you. You’ll know you found it when the epiphany hits, and suddenly, you’re able to fit all the movies you watch into the structure.
- You can consider yourself a master when you’re able to diagnose a problem with a movie or book by thinking back to how well the story did or did not line up with the structure.
A Non-exhaustive List of Story Structures to Research
One thing to keep in mind: many of these philosophies will appear and re-appear with different names and explanations attached to the plot points.
- The Three Act Structure
- The Four Act Structure
- The Five Act Structure
- The Seven-Point Story Structure
- The Plot Embryo, or Story Circle
- Save the Cat Writes a Novel
Eva Deverell has an excellent cheatsheet for popular plot formulas.
My Favorite Online Resources for Learning Plotting & Story Structure
Amy Christine Parker’s Plotting Your Prose Course
Of course, my first recommendation is offered by Writer’s Atelier. It contains eight videos and a 42-page workbook that might be particularly helpful to writers who want to take a cinematic, storyboarding-type approach to planning their story.
Investment: $97
K.M. Weiland’s Helping Writers Become Authors Blog & Podcast
I’ve been reading this blog and listening to this podcast off and on for a decade. When I say there is a wealth of information on how to craft a story here, I am making a massive understatement. I have returned to this blog—and notated helpful, relevant articles in the margins of the manuscripts I’ve edited—time and time again. Weiland’s explanations are simple, yet meaty.
The blog and the podcast are free, but she also has a series of excellent books on the craft of writing that you can buy for under $30.
Investment: $0–$28.12
Jami Gold’s Beat Sheets
When I first encountered the beat sheets however-many years ago, I had no idea what to do with them. I had not even finished a short story yet, let alone a book, and was completely thrown off by the word and page counts. I clicked out of that tab out of sheer panic.
Now, I understand them. Yes, certain beats do tend to hit at certain percentage points within a story. If you enter your estimated final word count into the magical (mathematical) spreadsheet, it can calculate at what point you should be writing your beats. If your pacing is off, this’ll tell you.
I primarily use the beat sheets as a diagnostic tool more than a planning tool. But, hey, if you are the type of person who likes to attach numbers to things, this could be the tool for you!
Investment: $0
Eva Deverell’s One Page Novel
I found Eva Deverell’s blog on accident. I was looking to solve some writing problem—probably a worldbuilding problem, but I’m not sure—and one of the first results on Google was a worksheet. I was happy to download—and recommend to other authors—one of her vast number of writing worksheets on occasion, and have that be that.
Then she posted about her One Page Novel, and I was intrigued. An entire novel’s plot on a single page? And you could cut and fold it into a little mini book à la Greg’s comic books from Lunch Money by Andrew Clements, a childhood favorite of mine that sparked or flamed my loves of writing, entrepreneurship, and quarters? And washi tape is on the table?
Aesthetics aside, this was the first plot structure that was my plot structure until I found the Plot Embryo. But you can bet I still return to the OPN and Eva Deverell’s blog and worksheets all the time. Oh, the worksheets! All free!
Investment: $0–$197
Rachael Stephen’s Story Magic Academy
Dan Harmon created the Plot Embryo, but Rachael Stephen may understand it even better than he does at this point. And she’s innovated it, too!
The Story Magic Academy opens twice a year, and comes at the steep price of $997. I can personally recommend this course, but I also am absolutely enamored of the Plot Embryo, which is a distilled version of Joseph Campbell’s Monomyth without the confusing names. It’s just eight simple plot points to a (happy ending) story that resonates.
Investment: $0–$997
The Writer’s Atelier Blog
Surprise! My final recommendation is also brought to you by WA! Who would’ve seen that coming?
Our blog has many, many helpful resources for writers looking to understand story structure (and more!) a little better, or who want to see a few different takes on the matter. I’ll highlight a few below, but you can search through the blog for more.
Once you understand story structure, you’re ready to get the book done.
You can do that with our 90-Day Novel Planner, featuring weekly and daily planning pages and space for notes about characters, plot threads, and whatever else you need to keep track of while you get the book done.
