Super Standard Story Structure

Moocow: Well, Death of a Salesman's Willie never realizes anything, but I guess Biff takes that mantle.

Is there any particular reason why you are building a writing formula this large? Normally I think if one were to piece the bones together, they'd make it easy to remember and understand. This is especially if they want others to learn it, if that is your goal for posting it on here.

^ It's a "super standard" story structure. Writing formulas can be large or small, at least they should be insightful. I don't prefer relying on just what one says though.

edited 1st Feb '12 1:43:48 PM by QQQQQ

Cool bit of mind mapping. I can follow it, but then, I'm lucky. My brother has dyslexia, so I had to learn how to mind map along with him.

I'm not sure if I'd use the same type of structure - but then, it's highly dependant on the story, isn't it? But, the breakdown you've done makes a lot of sense for most action-packed tales.

Mind maps - your friends if you've lost yourself in the details and want to find the patterns again.

One funny thing about all these sorts of story structure things, is that they all seem to be about a very specific sort of story. I don't think I've ever written a story that had a call to action. And the only of my stories which has a villain who needs to be defeated, defeating the villain is not the point of the story.

edited 2nd Feb '12 3:27:23 AM by fanty

There exists the concept of hiding your tracks for these sort of things. If you aren't aiming for something absolutely Troperiffic, you generally are a little more subtle about what is leading to what. Call to action could be something along the lines of seeing something that you shouldn't have, a conversation, an invitation to an unrelated thing that only gets serious when they get deeper into it. There has got to be a call at some point to separate that day from any other day. Even if it's about going grocery shopping, you have to have some reason to go to the store, even if it's as mundane as, "I'm out of cereal."

And the reason I made it so drawn out was mostly for my benefit, since there are plenty of writing conditions out there that have rise and fall in three acts and the like, but I wanted something to be better able to detail A and B stories, and try and avoid the "And then this happened" method of storytelling, mostly because I was burned so badly when Heroes dropped to that level. Still pissed, honestly, and The Last Airbender movie didn't help any. /mad

edited 2nd Feb '12 9:38:36 AM by moocow1452