The number one thing I learned from screenwriting is story structure. Robert McKee, author of STORY, explains that there are two kinds of talent: story talent and literary talent. Most writers focus on literary talent … which are the words, the phrases, and how you use them. Often, literary talent is what we’re taught in creative…
I want to thank everyone for reading my Organic Architecture Series! I realize this was a long series with lots of posts. The following are the links to all the different articles. Feel free to bookmark this page for easy reference! Happy plotting, structuring, and designing, everyone! Organic Architecture Series: Organic Architecture Series Introduction Classic…
I’ve spent the last two months talking all about classical design, alternative structures and plots, and designing principles! Hopefully you’ve seen that there are innumerable design possibilities at your fingertips. But as I walked us through this series, I’m sure a few of you read my posts and thought to yourself: Doesn’t that story fit…
The final category in my series on designing principles is the storyteller. Who is your novel’s storyteller? At the outset, it might not seem like the point-of-view or the narrator you chose to tell your story would have a large impact on its structure, but it does. Imagine if how differently the The Usual Suspects…
Some stories are not about a single protagonist. Sometimes a group or community becomes the larger focus. Using a community as a designing principle is the fourth category in this series. Give a Boy a Gun by Todd Struasser explores the complexity of a school shooting and could have been told from POV of the shooter,…
We live our lives in a linear progression and that affects the way we think about narrative, how to live our lives, and what we value. Structurally and metaphorically time can be an interesting element to design with. Continuing our discussion on designing principles, lets see how the way we use time can become an…
My second category in my series on designing principle is using your setting and environment to as inspiration for your story’s design. It’s interesting that the predominant structure we talk about is a mountain, which is ultimately a metaphor for a certain kind of movement and escalating energy to a story. In my first post…
Some of you may know that I am obsessed with story structure. If you didn’t know this, please check out my WIP novel structure chart or my collection of story structure diagrams. It’s no big surprise that I did my VCFA graduate lecture on structure and story design. I love this topic. Thus, I’ve broken down…
Did you know that literary talent and story talent are not the same thing? Literary talent is the use of words. It’s the ability to create beautiful sentences and spin a stunning metaphor. It’s the language of imagery, the emotion of a carefully placed consonant, crafty dialogue, and gorgeous descriptions. But according to Robert McKee…