Writing Excuses 10.12: Story Structure Q&A, With Special Guest Wesley Chu

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Writing Excuses 10.12: Story Structure Q&A, With Special Guest Wesley Chu

From http://www.writingexcuses.com/2015/03/22/writing-excuses-10-12-story-structure-qa-with-special-guest-wesley-chu/

Key points: Story structures are tools. See if it helps you. If it doesn't, set it aside and try something else. None of them are magic wands that will write your book. They are just tools to help organize your thoughts. Don't expect to use the tool easily and perfectly the first time. When it's new, it often is hard to use.

Questions and Answers:
Q: Do you make a conscious decision about how to structure your story before you start writing?
A: Yes. Although sometimes in writing, will realize the interesting central conflict is different than expected, then go back and change the beginning. Sometimes write some, then outline. I like to outline extensively, then toss the outline and make it up as I go.
Q: In the past, Writing Excuses has touched on many story structures -- MICE, 7-Point, Hollywood Formula, etc. Do you think it would be helpful to try to fit your story into as many of these structures as possible, or is it best sticking with one?
A: Often, structures are more useful for diagnosing what has gone wrong with a story than for planning. Pick one and learn how that works, then another. Story structure is a tool. Use the one that works for your job.
Q: Do you use any tools to help you view the structure of a story/novel? If so, what are they and how do they help?
A: Document map, to create an outline on the fly, with goals and steps. Scrivener corkboard. Aeon timeline.
Q: What do you guys think about cliffhangers? Like them, hate them, diabolically evil? How can an author use them more effectively?
A: What are you using them for? To get someone to buy your next book? That's a dirty trick. To surprise, to create mystery, and people buy because they are excited to find the answer? That's good. Don't use cliffhangers to make people wade through a POV they don't like. The payoff on a cliffhanger has to be good. I use cliffhangers to change the rules in the game. "He opened the door and..." is annoying. "He opened the door and saw (something that changes everything)" So I want to know what is going on, what the reaction is to this new thing -- that's a good cliffhanger.
Q: How do you come up with plot twists for your stories?
A: See the podcast on plot twists.
Q: My short stories all seem to take a form of a bell curve; open, rising action, climax, denouement. What are some other forms or techniques I can use to bring variety without increasing my word count?
A: That is the structure of a story.
Q: Is there a difference between short stories and novel structure?
A: Novels are like watching the Olympics on the BBC, while short fiction is like watching a YouTube clip of the trick on gymnastics. There are other story structures besides Western European ones.
Q: Is there a specific amount of time you should do for your introduction? How do you know how long to take before your inciting incident in your story?
A: There is no hard and fast rule. "The inciting incident can happen when the introduction has told us enough to know why the inciting incident is significant."
Q: How do you deal when you get a good way through your story and realize the structure isn't working? Is it better to push through and finish a thing, then fix it in edits or go back to the start and start over with a new structure?
A: First, pour yourself a glass of Scotch. Set your head on fire. Eat a lot of ice cream. Then fix it right away, because the longer you go down the wrong path, the more you have to fix. Make notes about the changes to correct, then write as if you have already made those corrections.
( Lots and lots and lots of words... )

[Brandon] Now, we're going to give you some homework as we transition out of story structure and start talking about beginnings, which we'll be doing the next few episodes on. Dan has an exercise for you. Honestly, we're recording this months after the last one recorded, so I'm not sure if we gave you homework the last time or not. We couldn't go in and look. So, if we did, do that one also. If we didn't, here is your homework for next week.
[Dan] You get double homework if you're lucky. Okay. So what you're going to do, at this point we hope that in the process of your storytelling, you know what kind of story you want to tell. So you're going to get a piece of paper or a laptop or whatever and make a list of all the awesome things you want that story to accomplish. Whether they are fight scenes or love scene...
[???] Set pieces.
[Dan] You want something to be heroic. Yeah, big cool set pieces...
[Mary] Gondola Chase!
[Dan] In a really interesting place. You want to make somebody really sad. You want to have a stand-up-and-cheer moment. Whatever it is. You're going to write all those down in a big list. Then you're going to put them in order. What order they're going to happen. That is kind of a proto-outline. Then next month, we'll talk more about what do you do with that and how do you start at the beginning and turn it into a story.
[Brandon] Excellent. Wesley, thank you for being on the podcast with us.
[Wesley] Thanks for having me, guys.
[Brandon] This has been Writing Excuses. You're out of excuses. Now go write.