How to Write a Novel: Story structure
“I do not over-intellectualize the production process. I try to keep it simple: Tell the damned story.”
—Tom Clancy
On one level, we know instinctively what makes a good story. We read and watch favorite books and movies again and again because they leave us satisfied. We also know when a story doesn’t work. Either the ending strikes the wrong note, or we leave it partway through because we are just not hooked in.
We understand story at this instinctive level because we’ve been mainlining it our entire lives—from picture books in childhood, to the Netflix series we binge-watched last weekend, to the novel we had to read in one sitting because it wouldn’t let us go.
Despite all this story instinct, it’s still difficult to put thoughts into words, to turn your ideas into a finished novel that someone else will enjoy.
Pages of writing are not a story, and it takes more than a lot of words to satisfy a reader.
You need to understand basic story structure — but don’t drown in it
When I started to work on this project, I revisited some of the (many) books I’ve read on story structure. I also have journals full of notes from workshops and online courses.
I found myself quickly drowning in way too much material.
You can get so lost in these books that you forget why you wanted to write in the first place. Perhaps you even lose the excitement for your story through over-analysis.
Of course, your reaction will depend on your creative preference and personality. Analytical writers, plotters, and outliners, might resonate with detailed structure, while discovery writers might prefer to write more organically and restructure later as necessary.
Once again, it doesn’t matter. We all end up with a finished manuscript at some point. Story structure is essential, even if you figure it out later in the process.
My goal with this book is to simplify concepts as much as possible and help you finish your novel, so I’ve focused on basic story structure here. If you want to explore further, I’ve listed many additional books in the Resources.
But remember the iceberg.
You need to know enough to finish this novel, but you don’t need to know everything before you write it.
Simplified story structure 1: Five elements
Let’s start with something super simple. In her book on outlining, Take Off Your Pants, Libbie Hawker says, “Every compelling story has the following five elements:
1) A character
2) The character wants something
3) But something prevents him from getting what he wants easily
4) So he struggles against that force
5) And either succeeds or fails.”
Fill in the details and you will have a story.
Simplified story structure 2: Three-act structure
At a high level, the typical three-act structure is simply a beginning, a middle, and an end.
This structure is nothing new. It goes all the way back to Aristotle’s Poetics and the Greek tragedies of over two thousand years ago, and is still used as the basis for many of the best-selling story structure books today.
Three-act structure resonates so deeply because it is similar to the way the stories of our lives progress.
In life, you have a beginning, you have a long middle full of challenges, and then you have an end.
On a smaller scale, each day begins with morning routines, then you get on with whatever you do for the day, then you return home and have evening rituals before bed. If you think about it that way, the three-act structure is not so complicated. Once you know it and understand it, then you can play with the rules.
Act 1: The story starts in the ordinary world of the character, then the inciting incident happens to kick-start the story.
Act 2: This is the bulk of the novel.
There is rising action and conflict, complication, and progressively more difficulty. The stakes rise. The character tries to get what they want, fails, and keeps trying and failing. They may enlist help from other characters, but things get really bad at some point.
Act 3: In the climax, the story reaches its peak, and the character achieves their goal or fails, depending on the genre. The story questions and subplots are resolved. There is a satisfying conclusion to the story.
Simplified story structure 3: The hero’s journey
This structure was popularized by Joseph Campbell in The Hero with a Thousand Faces, which explains ancient mythological stories through the lens of the hero.
There are seventeen detailed steps, but they can be grouped in three main stages.
Departure: The hero lives in an ordinary world and receives a call to adventure. The hero refuses the call and resists the adventure but, with the help of a mentor figure, decides to go on a quest.
Initiation: The hero faces a series of tasks and challenges, has to fight battles, finds allies and enemies, and learns things along the way. In the climax, the hero must overcome their biggest challenge and find what they seek.
Return: The hero returns to the real world changed and with important lessons to share.
The hero is not necessarily male. The structure is more about one central character and follows their arc, while side characters are less important. The hero must improve their skill and defeat an enemy alone. The climax may even be a one-on-one battle.
Classic examples of the hero’s journey in film include Star Wars, The Matrix, Wonder Woman, and characters like James Bond and Lara Croft. In terms of books, Lee Child’s Jack Reacher is a classic hero, and my ARKANE series has a classic hero in Morgan Sierra, who I modeled partly on Lara Croft.
Simplified story structure 4: The heroine’s journey
The heroine’s journey is not just a female version of the hero’s journey. As Gail Carriger explains in The Heroine’s Journey, “Biological sex characteristics are irrelevant to whether a main character is a hero or a heroine.”
The heroine’s journey is more about “networking, connecting with others, and finding family.” Side characters are important, and the story is all about the team, the companions, working together, and strengthening relationships in order to overcome obstacles. The end goal is to be happy, surrounded by family and friends.
Carriger uses Harry Potter as an example of a heroine in her book, arguing that the books “more than anything else, are about the sensation of belonging,” and “his success is nested in the networks he forms and the friendships he makes… Harry has friends and he is not alone.”
While the basic story structure might be similar to the hero’s journey, the characters and the plot will be different, as it’s essentially about community over the individual.
Can you reject all forms of structure and do something original?
Of course, you can write whatever you like in whatever way you like.
In 2019, Lucy Ellmann won the £10,000 Goldsmiths Prize, given for ‘fiction at its most novel,’ with Ducks, Newburyport, which is one long sentence of internal monologue continuing for over 1,000 pages. As reported in the Guardian, Ellmann said of her work, “I sense people are hungry for something new, and sick of fiction that lazily kowtows to the reader or, God help us, the ‘market’.”
Your answer to this question comes down to what kind of reader you are as well as what kind of writer. I love escaping into thrillers, dark fantasy, and horror. I love explosive action-adventure movies. I am ‘the reader’ and ‘the market,’ so I write the books I want to read.
You must do the same.
Will story structure make your writing unoriginal and cliché?
“When forced to work within a strict framework, the imagination is taxed to its utmost and will produce its richest ideas. Given total freedom, the work is likely to sprawl.”
—T.S. Eliot
The simplified story structures above can be laid over pretty much every story in existence for every genre in every age.
Your story does not need an original structure. It needs original characters and plot and setting and detail and theme — and all the things that only you can bring to it.
You can be more creative within boundaries, so take a simple structure and use it to make sure your story satisfies readers, whatever the genre.
Questions:
• Which story structure/s might work best for your idea?
• Which story structures do you want to learn more about? How will you prevent yourself from drowning in analysis?
• How will you use structure while also bringing originality to your writing?
Resources:
• Anatomy of Story: 22 Steps to Becoming a Master Storyteller — John Truby
• Romancing the Beat: Story Structure for Romance Novels — Gwen Hayes
• Save the Cat! Writes a Novel: The Last Book on Novel Writing You’ll Ever Need — Jessica Brody
• Story: Substance, Structure, Style, and The Principles of Screenwriting — Robert McKee
• Take Off Your Pants! Outline Your Books for Faster, Better Writing — Libbie Hawker
• The Heroine’s Journey: For Writers, Readers, and Fans of Pop Culture — Gail Carriger
• The Story Grid: What Good Editors Know — Shawn Coyne
• The Writer’s Journey: Mythic Structure for Writers — Christopher Vogler
• Interview with Gail Carriger on the heroine’s journey — www.TheCreativePenn.com/heroines-journey
• “One long sentence, 1,000 pages: Lucy Ellmann ‘masterpiece’ wins Goldsmiths prize,” The Guardian, 13 November, 2019 — www.theguardian.com/books/2019/nov/13/eight-sentences-over-1000-pages-lucy-ellmann-masterpiece-wins-goldsmiths-prize
