Grab Your Quill - Let's Write: Overall Structure

I know that some of you will have seen this on Shelfari, but for the rest of the people who view this blog, here is a bit I wrote on overall structure - these will come somewhere around monthly, and will probably be more continuous (maybe) than the other posts I do, which are just whatever I feel like writing at the time. Hope you enjoy!

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As a writer, I have no fear of writing long passages - I hope you won't be afraid of reading this one. A lot of you will probably already know this stuff, but I figured it would be best to start at the beginning for this writing corner. And where better to start than with structure? Enjoy. :)

Everybody knows that in any good story, there's a beginning, middle, and end. A good beginning will hook the reader, the middle will keep their interest and force them to keep turning pages as fast as they can, and an end will satisfy them while still leaving them wanting more. Some people describe the structure of a story through what's known as the 3 Act structure. This is basically three Acts, like in a play, with two Plot Points in-between the acts.

The first Act is the beginning of it all, and the first Plot Point is what I call the trigger point. Some people include backstory in the first Act, but if you're writing a more lengthy work, it's actually better to work this backstory into the later Acts as needed, rather than dumping it all at the beginning – that's called an info dump.

Info dumps are characteristically very boring because they take too long to get to the action. As numerous little kids have said, "When do we get to the good stuff?"

The first Plot Point, or the trigger point, is the point where something happens that causes the rest of the story. Perhaps this is your main character deciding he (or she) is going to take a vacation in Egypt, but then the plane crashes in the middle of the desert, where he/she is stranded. Fortunately for him, he encounters a tribe of desert dwellers, who, although they don't speak English, take care of him. Unfortunately for him, these same desert dwellers who are so kindly taking care of him are also under attack by another tribe – then your main character finds out they want to use him as barter.

This brings me to Act 2. Although the reasons behind your main character's decision to go to Egypt might be in Act 1, and his actual decision to go, or perhaps when his plane crashes, would be the trigger point, all the stuff I said after that are additional problems or conflicts. Act 2 comprises of all the conflict and problems that your main character encounters. These conflicts will escalate through Act 2 until the final crisis comes. This crisis is the second Plot Point, or the climax.

As a note, when escalating conflicts, you don't want to simply throw the same thing at your character over and over. Having one dinosaur attacking your character, and then having twelve dinosaurs attacking your character won't escalate the tension in your story (you want to build this to the climax) nearly as well as if the conflicts change each time so that your main character has to adapt.

The second Plot Point, or climax, is the final push in the story. This is where everything is on the line. This is the point where something happens and suddenly, there is hope again that everything will be all right. (The exception to this is if you're writing a tragedy, in which case you should just kill everybody off.)

Finally, we have Act 3. Because it is nearly impossible to hold a reader's attention for very long after you've finished with the great crisis that your poor main character had to suffer through, it is generally a good idea to wrap everything up and finish. If you're planning a sequel, or just want your reader to keep reading, you can also throw in a question that you don't answer, even though all the loose ends of the story are wrapped up.

There's a lot more about structure I could say, but hopefully this wasn't too boring, and it helps – look for more about each of these (the three Acts and the Plot Points) in the future!