Yuffie's Writing How-To's

How to Plot pt. 3

If you search plot structure on google, you're going to get tons of structures. The Eight-Point Arc, The Three-Act Structure, The W-Plot, The Six-Stage Plot, the Four-Act Structure... etc.

What you need to know is THEY'RE ALL THE SAME THING. Just labeled and categorized a little differently. But they're all inherently telling the same basic story. Glance through a few and see which one makes the most sense for you.

Today I'll talk about the one that makes the most sense for me: Dan Wells's Seven-Point Story Structure. He does an hour-long lecture teaching this method of outlining, which I highly recommend. Go to youtube and search "Dan Wells on Story Structure". It's a series of 5 videos, each 10 minutes long. Watch all the way to the end! The last video puts everything together nicely. If you'd like the steps written out, Google "Seven Point Story Structure"  and click the first link at writerstoauthors.com.

Why I like this structure over the others is that it's simple and broad. Some structures lay out each story beat and it gets far too detailed and mind boggling. Dan Wells's only has 7 steps, and they work for every story (at least I haven't noticed a story that doesn't fit this structure, and I'm speaking specifically on genre fiction here).

What's really great about this structure is that it can be applied to not just the plot arc, but the side character arc, the romance arc, etc. You come up with the different arcs of your story and then are able to weave them together to create higher tension and and drama. Wells uses The Matrix (my favorite movie!) to exemplify his structure, and that's when I was like WHOA THIS IS SO COOL. It provides a cohesion between plot and character, which I haven't seen in a story structure (or if there was, I didn't understand it. Wells's structure is very easy to understand and apply, which drew me to it).

Previously, when I outlined, I just wrote summaries of scenes: This happens, then the character does this, that, and then something else happens. That wasn't efficient and created weak arcs. And it took forever to write an outline. But then I tried Wells's method to outline Guardian Redemption's sequel (Guardian Absolution *teaser*), and I plotted it out in a DAY. The whole thing, start to end. (There are some holes because Wells's structure is broad on purpose, so that's on me) but I was able to come up with a proper beginning, middle, and ending, and tie them to the character arc at the same time.

You might notice that you've already been intuitively writing your stories to Well's structure without even knowing what it is. That's great! That shows you have a handle on story. But by adding names and dividing a story into digestible chunks and categories, you can more effectively plan out the same plot and do it much faster and with purpose. So that's why I highly recommend you watch his lecture and try to apply that to your writing.

As always, there's exceptions to everything, so take this as a tool, not a rule.