Is this new novel better than Star Wars?

When I was a kid, I adored Star Wars. 

I knew all the characters' names, including Ponda Baba. What kind of a geek knows that? Me. By age 7. I even had his action figure. He's the punk who loses his arm in the cantina.

I was in deep.

And for good reason. Star Wars transformed a generation. It deserves its legendary status. Its archetypes come from a story that belongs to all of us. I love the heart of it--the mythical aspects, the heroism, and the epic struggle between light and darkness.

How to Hire the Best Book Editor for Free: Crowdsource Editing

My friend Sherry asked me for a recommendation on a professional editor.

I told her I didn’t have one.

Now, if you haven’t read my books yet, you might be tempted to think they’re full of errors. They aren’t. In fact, I dare you to find one.

And no, it’s not just because I’m a great editor. I’m a decent editor. I’m not bad. However, my skills decrease when I’m editing my own stuff. It’s just hard to notice errors in a manuscript you’ve already read so many times.

Here’s the secret: I have smart and generous friends.

I’m serious.

And these aren’t English-major friends either, at least most of them aren’t.

The truth is that I’d like to pay a professional editor, but it doesn’t fit into my fledgling-author budget. I expect it will sometime in the future. However, this process, which I’m about to explain, has worked so well that I might never switch to traditional editing.

And, again, it’s all because I have awesome friends and fans.

These are the same friends who’ve found errors in the Harry Potter books—stuff the professional editors missed. And they’re my heroes.

G. A. Henty Books for Free with Great Covers

I’ve wanted to read some G.A. Henty novels for awhile. I’ve heard they’re an exciting way to learn history. (And, believe me, I have a lot to learn. In some of his subtitles, which are meant to clarify, I don’t even recognize the war he’s referring to.)

But, if you’ve read Inklings, you know I’m a little OCD. Okay, a lot. And I hate uploading ebooks to my library when they look like this—bleh:

 

These covers give me the willies. It’s basically impossible for me to read a book like that. I know, I know. I’m an author. I should be the last person to judge a book by its cover. But I can’t help it. And I do, all the time.

So I recently went through my ebook library and updated the covers for many of the ugly ones. I came across some awesome artwork from some amazing artists. Here’s one of my faves, even though I didn’t end up using it for a cover:

But the point of this whole post is that I designed one cover too, because I couldn’t find a good one online. It’s for a book by G.A. Henty called UNDER DRAKE’S FLAG. And now I want to pass the ECKSDOT EDITION on to you (yes, Ecksdot also happens to be the name of my publishing company, in case you didn’t know, although I feel like I should call it a “publishing company,” with quotes, since it’s mostly just a formality). 

Anyways, here’s the new cover:

And here are the download links for the full ebook, which is FREE!

Author Interview with J Washburn (for NaNoWriMo)

Some of you may not know me very well. So, in the spirit of NaNoWriMo (or, ChroNoWriMo, in my case), here's an author interview, cross-posted from Book Goodies for Kids. 

Author Bio

I was born in the middle of skin-walker territory, practically on the Navajo Reservation in Arizona. I grew up with my several siblings in suburban Idaho. The neighborhoods north of our house had a few great bike jumps, hockey courts, and even a safehouse for sneaking video games. Open fields spread out to the south, which, back then, looked surprisingly similar to the magical land of Prydain, littered with streams and trees. It was out there that my brothers and I, in one way or another, actually lived the adventures you’ve read in my books. Then I accidentally grew up. On accident—I mean it. Lucky for me, I still find adventure here and there—in places where it’s easier for adults to see it. Like Xi’an, Cusco, and Stonehenge. Being a grownup also meant I had to become a productive member of society, so I decided that writing adventures would be the next best thing to living them. That’s what I do. And I’m glad you could join me—we have some exciting things ahead of us.

What Inspires You to Write?

A few NaNoWriMo caveats and pitfalls

As you may know, I’m doing NaNoWriMo on a Google Chromebook. The rule is to write a 50k-word novel in the 30 days of November.

I’ve written a book in 30 days before (it’s called DEAR JEFF). So I know this goal is totally possible. It helps a lot if you’ve done the groundwork ahead of time too. But I haven’t done the groundwork for this project (it’s called THE ADVENTURES OF LOCKE). I’ve done some very basic brainstorming, but I didn’t start with a plot outline and I haven’t done any character sketches. Which means I’m outlining and brainstorming as I go—and that takes a lot of extra time. To say the least, it’s a setback.

ChroNoWriMo: Can an author write a book on a Chromebook?

This post is an announcement to the internet:

I’m attempting NaNoWriMo. On a Chromebook.

In case you didn’t know, NaNoWriMo is short for National Novel Writing Month. The rules of NaNoWriMo are simple: write a 50-thousand-word novel in 30 days (during November). That’s about 1.67k words per day. It’s not super easy. But it’s possible.

How to Copyright a Book

Why should you register your book with the Copyright Office?

First, I’m no lawyer, and you shouldn’t consider this to be anything more than one author’s simple understanding of the issue. If you have any questions, go get a real lawyer—someone who actually knows about this stuff—to give you more solid advice.

Now, my buddy is a copyright lawyer, and he strongly recommended that I register my books with the Copyright Office. He convinced me. Here’s a little of what he told me:

Use Google Drive to Make Your Own Ebooks and Sooth Your OCD

I converted Bentley’s master’s thesis to an ebook. I also converted a web page that was as long as a novella to an ebook. I’ve done it with a few classics too. It’s because my OCD demands an easy reading experience and, most of all, sweet cover art (yes, I judge books by their covers, which is why I’ve never read Brandon Sanderson’s Alcatraz books—but he said new covers are coming soon).

When my buddy Joel asked me how it’s done, I decided to blog it to share with the likes of you.

If these instructions aren’t crystal clear, leave a comment, and I’ll help you out.

  

FIRST

Download and install Sigil (it converts .html to .epub)
Download and install Calibre (it’s like iTunes for ebooks)

Top 5 Videogame Soundtracks to Listen to while Reading or Writing a Novel

Why Game Soundtracks? 

Movie soundtracks are done by some of the best composers in the industry, and they’re backed by big money. But the art form constricts them to movie scenes with specific lengths and cuts. This makes for great cinema, but when you’re listening to a movie soundtrack without the accompanying visuals, it comes across as pretty jarring. You get really dramatic and sharp cuts in the music. Videogame soundtracks are written without that restriction, which lets them have more natural beginnings and endings to them. They simply have better flow. That’s one major draw for me when choosing music for writing.

And I’m dead serious—great music makes me write better scenes.

1. Black Mesa

It’s gritty and techie (like grunge guitars with fast-paced electronic rhythms), and, I have to admit, it goes along with the theme of ECKSDOT really well. So I’m a little biased. But it’s also FREE to download (with donations accepted). It has a lot of ambient tracks, which I like because it’s less distracting. But it also has high intensity tracks that make me write awesome climactic scenes. (P.S. If you’ve never played the original Half Life, Black Mesa is a great way to catch up on what’s probably the greatest FPS of all time.)

“The first draft is for you. The second is for the reader. The third is for the hater.”

— Neil Strauss

(Neil Strauss is a New York Times Bestseller and the author of Everyone Loves You When You're Dead, and he’s speaking with Tim Ferriss on CreativeLive.com right now!)

HIS TIPS: 

1. Write based on the premise that NOBODY CARES; then make them care.
2. The first draft is for you. The second is for the reader. The third is for the hater.
3. If you can take a scene out and it doesn’t change the whole story, it has to go—no matter how good it is.
4. Tim (and Neil too) puts Monday as the minutia day—catching up on email and junk things. But he’ll only mess with that stuff on that one day per week.
5. Neil even automates his food delivery so he doesn’t have to choose what to eat each day. It helps remove decisions so he can focus on what’s important.
6. Neil reads his book out loud to his friends, but he doesn’t even ask for feedback. He can tell when he’s losing them from their facial expressions.
7. If you can sell 10K copies, a publisher will pick you up. No matter what. Also, if you can get on the A-list in Asia, you’ve made it too.
8. Tim outlines. Neil doesn’t.
9. Use “TK” in your document when you want to come back to something (it’s a simple “term” to search, and that combination isn’t found in the English language).
10. Tim: If the topic isn’t fun to research, it won’t be fun to read. So you better love it.

Let Me Tell You About Lois Lowry, Author of The Giver

I saw her last night at the library. She’s an old grey-haired lady, kind of slightly built, with blue eyes and a nice smile.

She told us how she randomly came up with the concept for The Giver: She went to visit her father in the hospital. He was deteriorating mentally, but somehow he always remembered who she was. However, he didn’t remember much about one of her sisters, so he asked Lois about her, and Lois said, “She’s dead, Dad.” And when he realized that again, it was like she had died a second time—he cried and had to go through the pain and grief all over again. All because of a malfunction in memory. (Why did she tell him then? She felt she needed to be truthful with her father.) That sparked in her imagination the story of a community that could control memory. (It’s funny, I’d have taken that in a sci-fi direction, but she takes it in a magical direction, and the actually hiding and controlling of memories seems like a very small and understated part.)

So how does she go about the writing process? She starts with an idea for the ending of a book and then makes up the middle—winging it, not outlining. Otherwise, she says the fun is all already gone. (I disagree though—outlining has the same creative thrill, it just saves you time in revision—so you’re not weeding down all the “great stuff” that you wrote that doesn’t fit in with how it ended up. Of course there are pros and cons to both.)

Here’s another interesting thing: She’s published 40 books. Forty! And yet she spends the whole time (almost) talking about The Giver—her ONE SUPER-POPULAR BOOK (in fact, I don’t think even the library has more than 10 or so of her books). And now she has to speak about it EVERY TIME. I wonder if she gets tired of that. “Hey! You act like you’re a fan, and yet you only know a very small part of me!” I hear you, Lois.

Anyways, she’s touring for the launch of Son, which is the 4th book in the Giver series, which sounds awesome based on the teasers she gave (but I have some catching up to do).

Now here’s the funny part: I keep forgetting to do this—they always give away free stuff at these events by taping tickets to the bottom of the chairs—so I should check beneath the chairs before I sit down. Of course, this could be kind of awkward since it’s always so crowded before the event starts. Anyways, so this time they announce it and all around the room people with lit-up faces were pulling stuff from under their chairs. Well, it turns out the library had just gotten new chairs and many of them still had stickers on the bottom. It was pretty funny. Only five or six people actually got the golden tickets, but many, many more were pulling up the stickers off their seat bottoms. : )

— j








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Peer Feedback: How to Develop Good Writing Skills

I teach technical writing—a senior-level writing course—at BYU. And I’m holding tomorrow’s class online!

If you’re interested in seeing how I teach, the whole course is on our class blog:  http://byu316.blogspot.com. I think you'll enjoy the teaching philosophy in particular.

This video is the lecture for tomorrow. It’s about how most people ignore the most important type of writing feedback.

P.S. Be sure to enter to win free Artemis Fowl tickets.

What is Academic Writing?

Or

My Master’s Thesis Part 2

The Definition of Academic Rhetoric

“If you can walk with crowds and keep your virtue
Or walk with kings nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much...”

— Rudyard Kipling, “If”

In a book called Engaged Writers and Dynamic Disciplines, Chris Thaiss and Terry Myers Zawacki take an in-depth look at academic writing and “alternative rhetorics” (or writing that isn’t academic). As the first order of business, they define academic writing so they have a basis on which to judge the alternatives. Because there are so many perspectives from different teachers and disciplines—they create an absolute definition, the essence of the term, that can be broadly applied. Their definition is helpful as a starting point for my argument too. According to their definition, academic writing has three criteria:

1. “Clear evidence in writing that the writer(s) have been persistent, open-minded, and disciplined in study” (5).
2. “The dominance of reason over emotion or sensual perception” (5).
3. “An imagined reader who is coolly rational, reading for information, and intending to formulate a reasoned response” (7).

Let’s look at each of these in turn. First, academic writing must include “clear evidence... that the writer(s) have been persistent, open-minded, and disciplined in study” (5). I used to work as a usability designer for a software company, which further ingrained my natural drive toward simplicity. I mention this because I’m about to oversimplify—but I see this first criteria as ethos—an appeal to the writer’s character and credibility. To prove their ethos, writers need to show they’ve worked hard to understand what has already been said in the conversation. They have to be fair-minded, even when that means admitting cons in their own argument and pros in their opposition’s—another sort of ethical appeal that shows the writer is a good person. (Wayne Booth called this compassionate and even discourse rhetorology [Ogden 1], which I cannot treat here—but I at least wanted to point out the footprints leading in that direction.) Academic writing needs to have an author who is well informed and unbiased. This is a baseline we can agree on. But I think an even higher standard should be met—which I will explain presently.

Second, academic writing supports the “dominance of reason over emotion or sensual perception” (5). Again, stretching this to Aristotle’s model, you might call this logos. Essentially, this means a writer must use clear logic—logic built stone upon stone and crafted with integrity, with no fallacies or illogic of any kind. This is also a strength of academic writing we can agree on—at least in the way I rephrased it. But the quote includes an underlying assumption: that logic and emotion are two competing forces, and whenever one appears it’s always at the expense of the other. I have a problem with this assumption, which I will explain below too. But let it suffice, for now, to say that academic writing must have strong logos.

Third, for writing to be academic, it has to be targeted at an “imagined reader who is coolly rational, reading for information, and intending to formulate a reasoned response” (7). This is surely the biggest stretch so far, but we might say this is how the writer connects emotionally with the reader (or, in this case, does not connect)—in a word, pathos. This paints a picture of a person—an audience—who can think clearly, abstractly, and in complicated terms—a sophisticated reader, not crowds and not the common man. If that is indeed the case, then I have to disagree with this one too, because it is slanted against emotion—focusing exclusively on the person’s logic and leaving out everything else. (I would argue that a connection of pure logic is not a human connection.) But this last criterion does have two redeeming qualities: (A) An academic writer should imagine a reader; that is, he isn’t casting his words into a void, but is directing them toward a real person—a human being. And (B), this reader is a person who values logic.

To sum up then, academic writing includes these minimum criteria: ethos (an informed and open-minded author), logos (a reasonable and logical argument), and pathos (a connection with a rational reader). But this is the status quo, the baseline. From here we climb higher.

<< Back to Part 1     |     On to Part 3 >>

“The reader is close enough to hear a whisper.”

— J

Top 10 Most-Read Books

This is from this guy: http://www.visualnews.com/data-design/april/top10books_jaredfanning/

If only I could write something as good as the Bible.

— J

The Fool-Proof Method for Pitching a Novel

Here are the six things to do to pitch a novel successfully.

(I learned this personally while pitching a novel today at LDStorymakers Conference.)

1. Wear a black shirt. (It goes well with your pale, writerly skin.)
2. Have super low expectations. (It's best to expect your pitch session to be a total bomb—that way you won't be nervous.)
3. Smile. (Because you care about people.)
4. Be confident. (Remember: nothing at stake—it's all already lost.) 
5. Be mindful of the agent's emotions. (Like it's good to notice when she starts to stare blankly—so you can swerve to the left.)
6. Have a story that's at least as good as The Hunger Games. (Yes, you do.)

If you do these six things, you can't possibly lose. Can't possibly lose.

— J

The note she slipped me.

P.S. I'm sitting typing in an empty hotel conference room, waiting for the next event, and this white-haired woman came in and sat down and put her nose in a book, and she keeps snickering really loud. It's awesome. 

P.P.S. John Brown is my favorite presenter so far, and all his stuff about writing is already online here: http://www.sfwa.org/2010/12/key-conditions-for-suspense/. 

What tone should I use when I write an English paper?

Or

The Intro to My Master’s Thesis on Putting Personality in Your Writing

If you haven't heard, I have six weeks to write my master's thesis (last day to schedule a thesis defense is June 1st), or I won't graduate in August. Which would be a major bummer.

This is the rough draft of my thesis introduction. I would love to hear your reaction and thoughts. : )

Look Your Reader in the Eye
Rejuvenating Pathos in Academic Rhetoric

by J Washburn

“Why does one write, if not to put one’s pieces [back] together? From the moment we enter school or church, education chops us into pieces: it teaches us to divorce soul from body and mind from heart. The fishermen of the Colombian coast must be learned doctors of ethics and morality, for they invented the word sentipensante, feeling-thinking, to define language that speaks the truth.”

— Eduardo Galeano, The Book of Embraces (121)

Professor Trent Hickman, the graduate coordinator for the English department at Brigham Young University, stood at the front of the class—a man who, from his classic tie and charcoal-gray hair to his clever humor and keen wit, embodied the essence of scholarship. This was an intro to grad studies course, and he kept us entertained and interested while providing the knowledge we needed to follow him in his career path. On that particular day, we were discussing academic conferences. To get accepted at a conference, he explained, you have to write and submit an amazing abstract; if they like it, they invite you to come read, with sweaty palms and all, in front of a crowd of academics. Then he gave us four pointers for when you are face to face with this audience: First, don’t just stand and read your paper; look your audience in the eye. Second, present a version that is more informal and conversational than what you would send to get published in an academic journal. Third, make some asides so people can see you are a real person. And finally, make it more explicit—clearer in its points—than something for a publication.

This advice rung true, maybe because it seemed intuitive—the natural thing to do—the thing anyone would do. It also struck me as odd that following this advice meant deviating from the academic draft that the (theoretical) conference accepted in the first place. I was not sure why these two versions needed to be different—contradictory even—so I looked at the differences more closely.

If the face-to-face version was clearer, that suggested the written version would be less clear. If the face-to-face version showed a real person, that suggested the written version would show an impersonality. If the face-to-face version was conversational, that suggested the written version wouldn’t resemble conversation (which also made me wonder how one can communicate if not through conversation—perhaps through ones and zeroes). And finally, if the face-to-face version included eye contact, that suggested the written version lacked a real connection between the author and audience.

Each of the alternatives to the face-to-face style seemed negative, and I felt ashamed to admit that I had written these vague, impersonal, sterile, and coldly objective papers all through my undergraduate career, and all in an attempt to do what I thought I was supposed to do. Much of that attitude had come from following what I assumed were ideal models of academic rhetoric. As an example of this traditional and typical style, here is a segment from a textbook we used in a course I took on rhetoric and emotion:

But strict mechanical determinism is untenable in a world that includes both divine principles and human failings. At a certain point we must take responsibility for our behavior without simply blaming a God or an evil demon. Descartes thus seems compelled to suggest a remedy for excesses of passion that exploits human volition and the power to judge right and wrong. (Gross 25)

Taken in three-sentence bursts like this, you might think this is not so bad. But when consumed chapters at a time, or books at a time, it can be overwhelming (and my peers and our instructor agreed). The general consensus was that the book’s conclusions were often obscure and difficult to pinpoint, and when you did hunt them down, it was only after a great deal of effort. I do not mean to degrade Gross’s book; the concepts in it are excellent, the research is exquisite, and the level of scholarship is far beyond my current capacity. But the prose itself is also far from the face-to-face style we have discussed.

Not all textbooks are written this way though. In fact, some writers manage to capture the face-to-face style even though it is text on a page. I came across a rare example of this in that same class on rhetoric and emotion:

I also want to contend that we are not merely passive victims of our emotions but quite active in cultivating and constituting them. In other words, we cannot just use our emotions as excuses for our bad behavior. (‘I couldn’t help it, I was angry.’ ‘I’m sorry, I was just jealous when I said that.’) We are our emotions, as much as we are our thoughts and actions. (Solomon 3)

You will notice that he repeats the concept three times, first in an overarching, abstract way, next in a simpler way, and finally in concrete dialog. This is clearer in its points. (Incidentally, I often revisit this passage with my writing students, as I think it is a stellar example of writing that is personal.) Reading Solomon’s book, some might disagree about the conclusions he comes to, but they would never disagree on what those conclusions are. That is because reading this text is like having a conversation with the author.

Nobody wants to sit through a boring speech—audiences are quick to critique a speaker who is distant, monotone, and who never looks directly at them. In a setting like this, when author and audience are face to face, being personal is obvious. Yet when the audience is not there, when it is just the author and the keyboard, being personal is easy to forget. Some hesitate to criticize this aspect of academic writing. But that is my purpose in this article—I argue that we should remember the humanness of our readers, and, even when we write, we should look our audience in the eye.

As we begin, allow me to give the scope of what follows. Lawrence Green, in the Encyclopedia of Rhetoric, says that out of Aristotle’s three rhetorical pillars, pathos “has occasioned the greatest controversy” (554). My article—which makes the case for this personal connection between author and audience—is in essence arguing in favor of bringing pathos back into academic rhetoric—as a topic of discussion, and also, more importantly, as a method of discussion.

First I will look at current beliefs on what constitutes “academic rhetoric” as well as some potential logical fallacies within that description. Then I will review the history—how pathos, the emotional appeal, was part of the foundation of rhetoric, how it was exiled when logos became king, how this coup left the foundational triangle of rhetoric lop-sided and only partially functional, and how some disciplines have re-integrated pathos (and even offered scientific justification for using it). While I will show that rejuvenating pathos will strengthen our influence as rhetors and teachers of rhetoric, I also suggest that because the pillars of rhetoric are closely linked, strengthening one will strengthen the others; specifically, I believe that rebuilding pathos will reinforce the pillar of ethos. Finally, I will recommend some ways we can begin to change a genre (a titanic undertaking), both through gaining deeper emotional intelligence—a conceptual point—as well as through making specific stylistic choices in our writing, concluding with speculation on how the future could be if we manage to make this change.

On to Part 2 >>

How to Structure a Novel’s Plot

This is the video version of the text below, a 14:35 minute YouTube screencast:


And here’s the text version (which includes the clip from The Prestige):

If you like it, reshare. And subscribe to get future posts : )


Plot

A couple semesters back I was taking a fiction class from Doug Thayer. A real likable old hooligan. He was 82. And we were his last class ever.

To help you get the date on this specimen, at the start of the semester he filmed us all with a huge VHS video camera, then had us say our names and smile, so he could watch it in his office and memorize our names. He’d always laugh at his own sarcastic jokes. And we’d chuckle out of respect. Like the time he said, “[Throw him to the lions]—it’s a good thing to do to a Christian now and then. It builds faith.” He was a Mormon boy through and through. And part of his final advice on the last day was, “Oh and stay in the church, by the way.”

His feedback was always excellent. I was trying to write a novel (called Walk Alone) to outdo Catcher in the Rye. One day we were all seated around a long table for peer workshops, and, when it got to my turn, Professor Thayer stood up, picked up a black marker, and drew a straight line across the whiteboard:

He turned back around with that dark line behind him. Then looking at me he said, “Your characters are great. There’s a lot of personality in the voice, and that makes it interesting to read. You’ve got a good sense of pacing. And the prose is tight—good descriptions, great dialog. But the plot... The plot...” He lifted his eyebrows and scrunched his nose. Then he just kind of shook his head.

Of course, he was suggesting the metaphor that we writers all know: the dramatic line that rises and falls, but generally climbs, until it hits the climax—the line that represents a story. My story didn’t have one of those. It was flat. Flat, flat, flat. I wasn’t denying it either. He was dead on. In fact, I knew the problem when I turned it in. I just didn’t know what to do about it.

So I started to study. Not that I hadn’t studied plot before. But I’d never needed to know till now.

Before we go too far, let’s define the term. Mostly, plot is what you already know it as—it’s a narrative that starts with “guess what I saw today” and ends with “a real-live elephant on a downtown shopping spree.” Plot is a promise made and fulfilled. Plot is a character with a need. Plot is choices and actions. Plot is drama—drama that can be turned up by the author’s genius.

As I studied, I came across a variety of ways to think of plot: the three act play, the climactic mountain, try-fail cycles, the hero’s round, and even the Hollywood formula. I ended up with my own understanding of a basic story structure—one you can follow in just about any plotline.

Counterargument

Now, some of you are starting to cringe already, and I’ve barely started. You’re thinking—I don’t want a formula. I want something that grows organically. I want something that’s true creativity—something that’s genuinely unique.

Hear, hear.

Take a look at this man. Now look at me. Now look at this man. Now back to me.

We look the same, don’t we? We both have eyes. Both have a nose and mouth. Two ears. Hair. We’re the same. Right?

Wrong.

There’s a certain structure to a face. Generally speaking, all faces have that structure. And yet, we’re all unique too. Just because you want to be “beautiful in our your own way,” you don’t cut off your nose. Everyone knows this.

It’s the same with story structure. (And I’ll prove it to you in a bit if you’ll lend me some credence.)

There’s a longstanding debate between the writers who like to wing it and writers who like to outline before they start. (FYI: I’m on the fence. I generally outline JUST A LITTLE.) But no matter what method you chose, eventually you’ll need to sculpt it to fit the mold of a face before it’s finalized (unless you’re not sculpting a face—i.e., not writing a novel/screenplay).  In short, if you’re worried this will ruin your organic writing, DON’T. For you, this is a lesson on the revision process, not on destroying the organic writing process.

The Structure

I’ve compiled my own structure based on several models. This was largely influenced by this excellent book: Story Engineering by Larry Brooks. But this new version is definitely my own. I’ve named the parts after an idea from the movie The Prestige (spoiler alert).


Act 1: The Pledge

We all know what comes first—the very first scene. It’s the hook. It must be designed to draw a reader in. It doesn’t have to tell much. It just has to hook them. In Jurassic Park (the movie), this is when the velociraptor kills a worker, and all we ever see is her reptile eye. This is probably the least debatable piece. (Everyone agrees a person should have a nose.)

The meat of Act 1 (in green) introduces the main characters and their personalities, it tells some backstory, and it shows us who the antagonist is. Basically, it shows us what life was like before—it shows the audience how great things were, so they know exactly what’s at stake.

Act 1 ends with a specific incident—the inciting incident—the first plot point. This is the moment when everything changes. The hero’s life can never be the same as it was before. This is the most crucial part of the story—it’s the promise to the reader—it’s the problem the story’s going to resolve (or die trying). Mr. Cutter (in The Prestige) calls it The Pledge. Once this event happens, we move on to Act 2.

(NOTE: Some say that Act 1 should be about 25% of the total story. If you’re having trouble with pacing, consider moving your inciting incident to this position.)

Act 2: The Turn

Act 2 is where the hero’s try/fail cycles take place—he makes an attempt to beat the antagonist and fails, or he has a limited success. He doesn’t win in Act 2.

This act is often divided into two halves: the character’s passive response and active reaction. The incident that divides these two is called The Turn. Some call this the midpoint shift. Remember how the inciting incident changed everything? Well, this changes everything again. Sometimes this is less of an event and more of a revelation (that’s why it’s represented by a light bulb). The hero’s perspective or understanding changes, which changes his attack stance.

After the perspective changes, the hero starts to solve his problems—or attempts to. This is when he really starts to get proactive—he acts instead of just reacting.

So if Act 2 has two halves, each of those include an important moment dead center: The Pinchpoints. These are scenes where the villain shows his face again—scenes that remind the reader (and the hero) that the antagonist is dangerous (hence the dagger icon).

If the first pinchpoint is mezzo forte, the second should be forte, maybe even fortissimo—this second pinchpoint puts the hero in a place that seems nearly impossible to get out of.

Act 3: The Prestige

Act 3, The Prestige, begins with an important incident too: The Finalizing Incident. This is the last time anything new is revealed to the audience. All the cards get overturned and the story plays out to its end.
Remember the term deus ex machina? It means “god out of the machine.” It’s when a story pulls something out of nowhere to finish the story. It’s a cheap trick too. To avoid this, just make sure that the Finalizing Incident is the last time you reveal new information.

Then the rest of Act 3 is pieces all running their courses. The hero and villain battle it out, and one comes out on top. This is the part that needs the least explaining—it’s the natural result of everything that has come before. It fulfills the promise that was made in the beginning. Mr. Cutter calls this The Prestige.

The Prestige ends with two important pieces. First is the climax. This is the dramatic highpoint in the story. It’s where the dynamite finally explodes. As an audience, you notice when this is passed, because all the tension goes away and you can finally relax. The promise that was made in The Pledge has been fulfilled.

After that, there’s the falling action or resolution. All the loose ends get wrapped up, people go home, and/or the future awaits. This is often as short as the hook. And a few stories leave it off entirely.

The Lab

It’s all well and good, you say, if you’re writing a quest story, but that’s not my angle. It’s true, this works very well for the quest story.

Well, I conducted an experiment, and I tested this structure as I read seven novels:

Surprisingly—even to me—each of them fit pretty well with this structure. And some of them were unusual too. The Lovely Bones had a whole family as the protagonist. But it still fit. Slaughterhouse 5 wasn’t linear at all. But it still fit. And Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance isn’t fiction at all—it’s fact. But it fit too.

Ironically, the two that I thought would fit it the best—Prey and Ender’s Shadow—actually were the ones that failed. As I was reading Prey, I noticed there seemed to be something wrong with the plot—there were almost two climaxes, and I noticed I became less engaged as a reader because I was confused as to what promise the story was fulfilling. Ender’s Shadow had a similar problem. In the story, Bean defeats Achilles, but the book continues on to Command School. And it leaves you feeling a little bored and hoping it will just be over.

If you want to see my breakdown for each of these, here it is, with each piece identified and labeled in an all-too-scientific fashion. So if you get queasy seeing guts, don’t read on.

For all other intents and purposes, this is the end. Good luck plotting. And I would love to hear your feedback, even if you strong disagree.