Story Structure

In his online editor blog post, Brian Klems writes about the structure of a story. Like I always tell the students when I do a school visit, everyone has a story to tell. And we all know that a story has a beginning, a middle, and an end. But how do you get from here to there?

 

In Klems’ post, “The Two Pillars of Novel Structure,” on the Writer’s Digest blog, he uses a visual bridge to explain how story structure works. This is just an inkling of what he wrote:

 

“A Bridge to Somewhere: My favorite visual representation of story structure is the suspension bridge: The key foundational elements here are the two pillars, or pylons. These pillars are set down in bedrock, allowing the suspension cables to support a solid and secure platform—the bridge itself.

Think about it: Every story has to begin, and every story has to end. And the middle has to hold the reader’s interest. The craft of structure tells you how to begin with a bang, knock readers out at the end, and keep them turning pages all the way through. When you ignore structure, your novel can begin to feel like one of those rope bridges swinging wildly in the wind over a 1,000-foot gorge. Not many readers are going to want to go across.”

There is much, much more in his article including excerpts from great novels to get his point across. A must read.

New Mexico

“Novella: Shorter than a novel but longer than a long story—approximately 50,000 words.” – Writer’s Digest Weekly Planner

Story Structure

If you’re a visual type of writer, you might find the following post by Ingrid Sundberg on her blog, Ingrid’s Notes, helpful. We’ve all read about story structure when developing our stories. Ingrid actually shows us the story structure in diagrams, pyramids, arcs, and branches. The breakdown of the story is visually pleasing and helpful to writers.

Pumpkin Patch

And here’s some encouraging news in an article, “Majority of Young Readers Still Use Libraries,” posted on the Publishers Weekly blog. Part of the article reads: “Some 80% of Americans ages 16-29 have read a book in the past year, and 6 in 10 say they have used their local public library, but ..."

 

 

"When you choose a creative life, you never grow old. It's forever young and forever growing." -- Salome Jens

 

Story Structure

When you think of story structure, you automatically think of a story having a beginning, a middle, and an end, right? Well, here’s an interesting blog that adds a bit more to story structure. Brian A. Klems’, “The 5 Essential Story Ingredients,” posted on the Writer’s Digest blog lists the following five and elaborates on each: (1) Orientation (2) Crises (3) Escalation (4) Discovery and (5) Change. He points out what makes a story a story and not a report. Very interesting stuff. See for yourself.

 And I won’t bog you down with blogging about entering writing contests … except … one last time. Here’s another great blog that addresses this topic. It’s a guest column by author Janice Hamrick posted on Chuck Sambuchino’s Guide to Literary Agents Editor’s blog. The title: “Contests: The Writer’s Fairy Godmother.”

School Visit

"Local clubs and organizations often use volunteers to create newsletters and publicity pieces. This is an excellent way to bolster your confidence and give you published work for your portfolio." -- Writing Tip from Writer's Digest Weekly Planner