This is the most recent plotting method I’ve come across. Simply called “Story Structure,” this method gives great advice for partitioning your story as well as the major events and turning points. I used it in my most recent WIP (which I reached the end of late Saturday night ), and it was really helpful to pace myself (though I ended up short on word count, I know I’ll add more in revisions).

Larry Brooks, author of many, many scripts, four published novels, and the blog StoryFix, published this in a blog series. It’s very much worth it to read the Story Structure full series, but I’ll give a quick overview here.

The structure is in four parts with three turning points separating them (plus two “pinch points”). Each part of the story should be about one quarter of the story.

Part one is the Set-up. In this part of the story, we meet the characters and are introduced to the story question. (If you’re reading this and thinking “Oh, the Ordinary World,” you’re not alone.) Here we also establish what’s at stake, but most of all, we’re working up to the turning point at the end of this part: Plot Point 1 (what we commonly call the Inciting Incident).

Brooks says that First Plot Point is the most important moment in your story. Located 20-25% of the way into your story, it’s

the moment when the story’s primary conflict makes its initial center-stage appearance. It may be the first full frontal view of it, or it may be the escalation and shifting of something already present.

This is a huge turning point—where the whole world gets turned on its head. (If you like, you can say this is where we formally pose the story question.)

PP1 bridges into Part 2—the Response. The hero/heroine responds to the first plot point. This response can be a refusal, shock, denial, etc., etc. That doesn’t mean they have to do nothing—they have to do something, and something more than sitting and stewing—but their reactions are going to be . . . well, reactive. The hero(ine) isn’t ready to go on the offensive to save the day quite yet—they’re still trying to preserve the status quo.

In the middle of this part (about 3/8s of the way through your story), comes Pinch Point 1. Brooks defines a pinch point as “an example, or a reminder, of the nature and implications of the antagonistic force, that is not filtered by the hero’s experience. We see it for ourselves in a direct form.” So it’s something bad that we get to see happen, showing us how bad the bad guy is, raising the stakes.

At the end of the Response comes the Mid-Point. As the name suggests, this is halfway through the story. And here, the hero and/or the reader receives some new bit of information. It’s pretty important, though—this is the kind of revelation that changes how we view the story world, changing the context for all the scenes that come after it.

Then we swing into Part Three, the Attack. Now our hero(ine) is ready to go on the offensive. He’s not going to operate on the bad guy’s terms anymore—he’s taking matters into his own hands, and he’s going after the bad guy. This is the proactive hero’s playing field now.

In the middle of this part (5/8s of the way through the story), comes Pinch Point 2, which is just like PP1—a show of how bad the bad guy is.

Part Three ends with a lull before the Second Plot Point, our last new information in the story. This last revelation is often the key to solving the mystery or fixing the problem—it’s the last piece of info the hero needs to make his world right. This comes 75% of the way into the story.

And now we’re ready for Part Four, the Resolution. Our hero steps up and takes the lead for the final chases, the last showdowns. Here we get to see how much of a hero he really is—he passes his final tests, proves he’s changed and finally, saves the day.

Simple, right? Uh, kind of. Since examples always help me, we’re going to have a guest post this week talking about how this author is applying this structure to her story. And of course, I need to give credit to the person that pointed out Larry Brooks’s story structure to me, Jaime Theler.

What do you think? Can you see this in place in your writing, or in other works? What advantages do you see to this method?

Photo credits: cutaway (to see structure, yeah?)—Buffalo ReUse; gasp—Becka Spence; attack—D. B. King

Can you identify the three- and five-act structures in Pixar’s The Incredibles? They’re all there!

Almost a corollary to the three act story structure is the five act story structure. Its most notable proponent is Gustav Freytag (in Freytag’s Technique of the Drama).

The basic difference between three and five act structures is that the second act in the three act structure is divided into three acts in the five act structure. (Uh . . . what?) It’s like this: the confrontation phase of the story is divided into the rising action, turning point and falling action.

Basically, the middle turning point is where things turn around for the hero. It’s not the ultimate confrontation, but after this point, the hero is able to start applying some of the things he’s learned—to start succeeding. I guess that’s why they call it the “falling” action. Because . . . things are falling into place? (*cough*cough*dumb name*cough*)

I’m going to blame this on my middle school English teacher—but I think this structure is a little misleading. First of all, the “falling action” sounds an awful lot like the denouement—the events after the climax. In fact, that’s exactly how I learned the term. (I honestly can’t think of any reason to call the third quarter or so of the book the “falling action.” That sounds boring.)

Here’s how I was taught a five-act structure (please, don’t hate on me because of my mad Paint skills. You know you wish you had 8-bit graphics skillz.):

The line graph here is somewhat representative. In the exposition, the hero isn’t making a lot of progress toward his ultimate goal—the final confrontation with the antagonist.

Then comes the rising action—he’s started on the path toward the confrontation. The rising action leads to the climax.

After that final confrontation, we have a very short falling action—it’s not as long as the rising action, it’s just tying up the loose ends. And then there’s the resolution: the character’s final situation. Notice that this is much higher than the exposition, because the character has changed.

This might be a little misleading, too. Really, the rising action is anything but a straight line—we have all those intermediate story questions to answer. The hero has to learn and acquire new skills (like 8-bit graphic skillz, yo), and growing and learning and changing are usually painful and fraught with setbacks. So the rising action might really look like this:

The three act structure would divide the acts at the end of the exposition and either at the climax or just before the resolution (depending on who you ask ).

What do you think? How would you apportion or draw the five acts in the five act structure? What is with the name “falling action,” and what would be a better name?

I think most of us have to try a few Winchester Mystery Stories before we’re ready to become story architects.

I really like the analogy of architecture here because I like floor plans a floor plan isn’t a complete house. It’s a sketch of what you plan to build. It’s an easy way to look at a scaled-down model of where you think you want the major rooms to go, where the appliances will be, where the doors are, etc. It isn’t your house.

The floor plan can change even after you start building your story. Sometimes we “remodel” as we “build”—we decide this doorway should be a window and the front entrance should go here. We change the door to a double door; we upgrade the A/C or the wiring; we knock out a wall and add a new bathroom. We scrap the entire second floor.

Having a floor plan doesn’t mean we have to build that house—or even that we’d all build the same house with the same floor plan. But having a floor plan means we don’t end up six months into the project with 123 bedrooms, 16 dining rooms and no kitchen or bathrooms.

On the other hand, the floor plan is just a basic sketch, which can be improved upon, revised, and changed during the process of writing. In fact, you probably wouldn’t recognize the house just from the floor plan.

For me (and others), the floor plan is such a basic sketch that once we’ve gotten that built, we still have a long way to go before we have a finished product. Once we have the events down in the first draft, we still have revising and finishing to do—furnishing, painting, decorating, accessorizing (moving all our crap in ).

There’s a long way from the bare drywall to the furnished home we hope to end up with. And even after we slap on the paint and get our boxes through the door, it’ll still take a lot of work—and maybe some more paint, some help from friends and professionals, a lot of reading catalogs and home magazines. . . .

But finally, after all that, we have a home we can be proud of—and one that we didn’t have to completely rebuild six times. (Okay, I’ve probably beaten that analogy to death.)

What do you think? Do you like to consider yourself a “story architect? How much detail (or freedom) do you need in your “floor plan” to make a house work?

Next week, we’ll start looking at methods of plotting—and don’t forget, I’m looking for volunteers to talk about how they plot! And tomorrow—free goodies!

Photo credit: floor plan—Richard Crowley; dry wall—Pattie; room and photo—Christopher Barson