cj Sez: To quote a friend of mine, hurricanes have the
predicable trajectories of a Frisbee.
 |
| Hurricane Florence spaghetti model |
Please join me in praying for the victims of Hurricane
Florence and helping when you can.
***
“As I have mentioned before—” That’s my sneaky way to
introduce a subject I’ve written about before, story structure.
Back when I was still working full time, I spent three days
in San Francisco at a screenwriting seminar led by author, lecturer, and story consultant
Robert McKee. The experience was invaluable in showing me how to create the scenes
that create a story. Then years later (in 2014), I happened across a post titled
“Adapting screenplay to novels,” by author James Preston. Mr. Preston’s post explained
how he reverse engineered a screenplay into a story.
Side Note: The Oxford Dictionary defines “story” as: An account of imaginary or real people and
events told for entertainment.
The following is an excerpt from Mr. Preston’s post.
“Remember, a story is about somebody who wants
something. Something stops them from getting it. They try to get it
and either succeed or fail.
A Plot Point is something that changes the story, turns it
into something unexpected, usually by changing the heroine’s goals.
Since I am talking about adapting this structure to novel
writing, I will use page numbers to show locations in the manuscript.
Assume a 200-page manuscript. We’ll see how it works as minutes.
Let’s talk about the bones, the skeleton that is one way of
building your story.
1. Hook. Something
interesting happens that grabs the reader’s attention. This is the very
beginning of the story and it is important!
2. Twist. The story goes off in a
different direction. It’s not what you thought it would be. This
can come anytime before . . .
3. Plot Point One. About 20%
in. For our mythical 200-page books, this is around page 40.
4. Midpoint. A watershed
moment. You guessed it. Page 100 .
5. Plot Point Two. Everything the
heroine did is wrong. Page 160.
6. Climax. The heroine solves the
problem, or doesn’t. This is less precise. Say around page 180.
7. Denouement. Loose ends are
tied up. Everybody who wasn’t killed and eaten goes home.”
So my question is, how would your novel stack up against
Mr. Preston’s skeleton? Mine will need work.
BSP (blatant self promotion)
A book signing is in my future and yours too should you
choose to stop by. Sept 29 at Mobile Bookseller from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Local
authors are being featured, so if
you’re in the Mobile, AL, area, you are cordially invited to stop by and say “hey!”
That’s it for today, folks. You-all guys keep on keeping on,
and I’ll try to do the same.
cj
Stop by Amazon and pick up copies of DEADLY
STAR and CHOOSING
CARTER, (to keep me in good standing with Simon&Schuster), and if you
take a moment to leave a review (good, bad, or indifferent), I shall be forever
grateful.
Qrtly newsletter sign-up:
cjpetterson@gmail.com
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