Story Fix

by Larry Brooks

  3 Steps (Traditional)

  Beginning

  Middle

  End

  5 Steps (McKee)

  Inciting Incident

  Progressive Complications

  Crisis

  Climax

  Resolution

  5 Steps (Seger)

  Setup

  First Turning Point

  Second Turning Point

  Climax

  Resolution

  5 Steps (Hauge)

  Turning Point 1: Opportunity

  Turning Point 2: Change of Plans

  Turning Point 3: Point of No Return

  Turning Point 4: Major Setback

  Turning Point 5: Climax

  7 Steps (Field)

  Inciting Incident

  Plot Point 1

  Pinch 1

  Midpoint

  Pinch 2

  Plot Point 2

  Climax

  8 Steps (Daniel)

  Status Quo (II)

  Predicament Lock-In

  First Obstacle (Raising Stakes)

  First Culmination (Midpoint)

  Subplot (Rising Action)

  Main Culmination (End of Act 2)

  New Tension (Twist)

  Resolution

  14 Steps (Bell)

  The Disturbance

  The Care Package

  The Argument Against Transformation

  Trouble Brewing

  Doorway to No Return 1

  A Kick in the Shins

  The Mirror Moment

  Pet the Dog

  Doorway to No Return 2

  Mounting Forces

  Lights Out

  The Q Factor

  Final Battle

  Transformation

  15 Steps (Snyder)

  Opening Image

  Setup

  Theme Stated

  Catalyst

  Debate

  Break into Act 2

  B Story

  Promise of the Premise

  Midpoint

  Bad Guys Close In

  All Is Lost

  Dark Night of the Soul

  Break into Act 3

  Finale

  Final Image

  17 Steps (Campbell)

  Call to Adventure

  Refusal of the Call

  Supernatural Aid

  Crossing First Threshold

  Belly of the Whale

  Road of Trials

  Meeting with Goddess

  Woman as Temptress

  Atonement with Father

  Apotheosis

  Ultimate Boon

  Refusal of Return

  Magic Flight

  Rescue from Without

  Crossing Return Threshold

  Master of Two Worlds

  Freedom to Live

  18 Steps (Brooks)

  Hook

  Character Intro and Positioning

  Foreshadowing, Intro of Stakes and Threat, Intertwined with Setup

  Mechanism of FPP Turn

  First Plot Point, Core Story Launch

  Hero Responds and Heads Down New Path

  Threat Lurks, Builds, or Evolves

  Midpoint Context Shift (New Info)

  Hero Changes Course

  Antagonist Ups the Game, Stakes Increase

  Trial and Error, Confrontation

  Lull (Hope Seems Lost)

  Second Plot Point Story Shift

  Hero Becomes More Heroic and Clever

  Truth Emerges and/or Changes

  Final Confrontation Moment

  Resolution

  How the World Returns to New Normal

  22 Steps (Truby)

  Self Revelation (Need/Desire)

  Ghost and Story World

  Weakness and Need

  Inciting Incident

  Desire

  Ally or Allies

  Opponent and/or Mystery

  Fake-Ally Opponent

  First Revelation/Decision, Change Desire/Motive

  Plan

  Opponent’s Plan/Main Counterattack

  Drive

  Attack by Ally

  Apparent Defeat

  Second Revelation/Decision: Obsessive Drive, Changed Desire/Motive

  Audience Revelation

  Third Revelation and Decision

  Gate, Gauntlet, Visit to Death

  Battle

  Self-Revelation

  Moral Decision

  New Equilibrium

  I have written hundreds of pages about this model, both in my two previous writing books and on my website. Story Engineering (my first writing book) delivers a deep dive into this model, defining and exploring the meanings of the terms and the missions of the elements, and both Story Engineering and Story Physics offer examples from bestsellers that show this model in spectacularly effective execution. Rather than repeat that content here, I direct you to these books and many others, including the iconic Screenplay: The Foundations of Screenwriting by Syd Field. These titles will help you internalize this story-saving, life-giving theory and model.

  For now, though, these graphics say it all.

  If this was a war, you would have just been given a Sherman tank. Or an F-18, which is a more apt analogy. The solution to your revision challenge is right in front of you.

  A cynic might ask how issues relative to concept, character, theme, or a flat writing voice can be observed and fixed using a structural model. That’s a fair question.

  Scene execution and writing voice, which are two of the six core competencies, can’t be improved from this structural perspective. Scene placement, however, is totally driven by structure. A structure model allows you to examine your existing scenes to see if they align with the optimal context assigned to them. Scenes that have the wrong content and context, or are located in the wrong place within the structure, are some of the most common story toxins you can name, so don’t take this lightly.

  Theme is more about a perception of the whole story, so structure isn’t the right tool for strengthening it. That said, a story that works—and structure is the right tool for achieving that—is the best place within which to empower a theme, so adjust your cynicism accordingly.

  Can this model improve your concept and your premise?

  Absolutely it can. The highest calling of concept and premise is the degree to which it lends itself to dramatic tension and character arc, how it creates a landscape for each of the physics of storytelling to work its magic.

  The same is true for many of the other elements. Pacing is completely driven by this structural model. Optimal pacing calls for certain expositional content that escalates a story to appear in specific places proven to be the ideal location relative to the reading experience. This model doesn’t allow for a slow opening, or for focusing on one essential structural context to the detriment of another, which is what happens, for example, when the opening setup quartile is short-changed in the impatience to fully launch the core story (which happens at the First Plot Point milestone, at the intersection of Part One and Part Two with the model). Pacing and structure go hand in hand, generating twists and changing the story in major ways at the right spots, yet leaving you free to insert other surprises as you see fit.

  Such narrative surprises (often called plot twists), in turn, empower the reading experience relative to character empathy and the vicarious experience. They make the story more vivid, more fluid. If the premise isn’t boring, execution along this model ensures that the reader won’t be bored in the telling.

  A Structure for Character

  Like a medicine for, say, hair loss that also causes you to lose weight, this four-part narrative flow facilitates an optimally succinct character arc as well. This was first observed in 1989 in a book by Carol S. Pearson, which contains an expanded version of this model in its title: Six Archetypes We Live By: Innocent, Orphan, Magician, Wanderer, Martyr, Warrior.

  I know, that’s six. But all of these fit into one of the four parts in our storyte
lling structure. Part One, for example, is called the Setup because it inserts all the preliminary context and elements necessary to unleash the plot and—notice this—our empathy for the hero. In the context of character, this quartile is labeled the Orphan stage (thus also embracing the Innocent stage), which begins with a hero who is innocent relative to the journey she is about to take, in effect “orphaned” from a core story that has yet to emerge and engage.

  Here are those four character labels aligned with the four expositional parts of the flow:

  Exposition/PlotCharacter/Arc

  Part 1: Setup Innocent/Orphan

  Part 2: Response Wanderer/Magician

  Part 3: Attack Warrior

  Part 4: Resolution Martyr/Hero

  The affinity between these contexts—plot exposition and character arc—becomes the key to the narrative kingdom for writers seeking to understand the best way to tell their stories. And for those who look away and choose to rely on their instincts, the draft that finally works—likely after several revisions—will still look very much like the table shown above.

  You did it your way in your draft, for whatever reason. Now it has been judged as deficient; it was denied access to the next step. It’s on you to fix that. To repair the narrative. Chances are the solution is right here, in the structural realm. Now you know where to look. And with a deeper embrace of the principles of story architecture, you know how to strengthen it as well.

  Optimal Pacing

  Optimal Pacing Defined

  Allow me to make quick work of this one.

  Pace is a product of structure, of escalating exposition—notice the italics—toward optimal conflict, tension, and drama.

  The story model you just encountered in this chapter accomplishes the task of creating optimal pacing. By optimal, I mean the best pace for where you are within the narrative. The first quarter has a markedly different pace (more leisurely) than the fourth. The third quarter reads faster than the second. All four parts are context driven, and the relevant context dictates how heavy your foot should be on the accelerator.

  The good thing about pacing, in context to the format of structure, is that you are still encouraged, perhaps driven, by your now-evolved story sense to add your own bells and whistles within this structural paradigm. To make the story your own, dress it up as you please within this framework.

  An athlete has a field of play and lines that define the sport. All she is tasked with is to play the game within those lines. The same goes for the writer. Within those parameters, you can move any way you want: Dance a jig, do somersaults, bob and weave and cut and feint and push and mow someone down, be coy or go for the throat, play big or play small, crawl or run or do whatever your game plan and your instincts tell you to do. When someone suggests the structural model is nothing other than a formula, think of this analogy. You have infinite freedom to improvise within the lines.

  Formula is not necessarily a bad word. Genre fiction, by definition, places formulaic expectations right in front of you. How you create between those lines of expectation dictates your level of art.

  Without those lines you have a gang fight or a riot or finger-painting that slops off the canvas.

  Pace is one of the best beneficiaries of structure, by whatever process you apply it. Organic, design, or denial, plan or no plan, outline or draft—however you search for and develop your story—when the manuscript needs to stand alone and your process no longer matters, the model applies. It is there for you, ready to guide you, waiting to rescue you.

  Remember that example I gave you earlier about the writer whose novel was devoted to character intro and setup in the first half? Now you can see how it was a structural disaster, a deal-killing outcome of his process. But perhaps now you can also see that the specific reason it’s a deal killer is that the story’s pace was compromised. Destroyed, actually. Pacing, or lack thereof, killed the story. He needed to reframe his story within the structural paradigm—compress the setup into the first quartile, leading toward a killer First Plot Point moment that shifts the context of everything from setup into a fully ignited, dramatic core plot. In hindsight, the fix is obvious.

  Scene Execution

  At some point in the writing process, the rubber must meet the road. Narrative happens. Whether in outline or draft, the most critical step of all is beginning to write actual expositional scenes.

  Scene Execution Defined

  Scenes are stand-alone units of exposition. There are many kinds of scenes, some introductory, some transitional, some of them major story milestones, the stuff of movie trailers.

  Most novels have between forty and sixty scenes, and some have many more. The novels of James Patterson, for example, often have well over one hundred scenes, presented as discrete chapters. That said, a “chapter” may or may not be a single scene, and, conversely, a single scene may or may not be a full chapter. There is no guideline on this; your story sensibility makes that call. You can put as many scenes into a chapter as you choose, but do so in a way that optimizes flow by allowing chapter changes to create a transitional pause or break in the reading experience.

  Scenes become the intersection of intention and execution, of vision and outcome. Right here is where greatness materializes, or where the story becomes less than. This is where you actually write. Because even if a premise glows in the dark and the characters are memorable and moving, scenes are the stage upon which they are presented. And if the lighting is off and the direction and choreography of the scene don’t work, the story is compromised or deflates entirely.

  The trouble is, some authors simply don’t write their scenes well enough. This manifests in two ways: (1) Their scenes don’t work as they should, because the flow is awkward—it takes too long to put the intention of the scene into play—or (2) their sentences and styling are not at a professional level. We’ll talk about writing voice in the next section, but for now let’s examine your scenes to see if this is where your novel or screenplay shot itself in the foot.

  Every scene needs a mission.

  This might be the single most relevant pointer in all of fiction writing. Read it again: Every scene needs a mission. A specific function and purpose, relative to what expositional information it imparts to the story. Every scene should contribute something relative to exposition, which may include a new twist on something already in play. (A twist, by definition, is something changing within the story). The mission is rarely to focus only on character (you can get away with a few—and only a few—of these scenes, especially in the Part One setup quartile) but rather to illustrate character as plot exposition and flow take place within the scene.

  Without a scene mission that forwards the story’s exposition, the scene risks becoming filler. Or a side trip. Or a flashback. Everything stops while such a scene plays out, which is never a good thing.

  Another helpful scene-writing tip (with a nod to my colleague Donald Maass, who is an enthusiastic spokesperson for this one) is the creation of microtension within key individual scenes. Think of the scene as a one-act play that appears within the contextual flow of the whole. This scene asks a specific dramatic question. A need or a goal or a problem is in play, and something opposes the hero’s actions within the scene. That micro-confrontation is resolved to some degree (which doesn’t mean it is completely solved; it merely establishes or escalates a source of tension or other required narrative exposition) in a fashion that moves the whole story forward, to the next step of macro-exposition.

  Any scene that is not in context to an efficient core story spine, created in context to where it appears within the four context-defining quartiles of structure, and in context to an ending that awaits and requires foreshadowing and nuanced setup, will risk being aimless, even chaotic, if not outright irrelevant.

  How Scenes Go South

  Writing effective scenes is challenging to teach. This is truly a sensibility issue, one that improves with practice and in noticing how scenes flow within the
work of published novels and produced movies. This is always most effective when such observation is informed by a familiarity with these principles. If your scenes feel and read differently than the mission-driven criteria demands, if you are using scenes primarily (or solely) to create your own unique prose footprint, you may be at risk. This may be where the need for revision will be most obvious.

  Revising for optimal scene execution requires you to examine each scene and perceive if it contains any of the following weaknesses. Take your time, and regard each scene as a stand-alone piece of work, almost as a story in its own right.

  The scene is not connected to the spine of the core dramatic story. It becomes a side trip or an overwrought flashback. (Flashbacks can and should be part of the core story sequence, but only so far as they inform the foreground story rather than display an unconnected or overplayed episode from the past for the sole purpose of characterization, which only works well within the first quartile.)

  The scene does not contribute to the forward momentum of the story. The pause button has been hit, and the scene seems to linger, to flesh out sideline details or backstory.

  The scene doesn’t cut into the heart of its true purpose. Instead it ramps up with descriptions of setting, chit-chat between characters, and other nonessential narrative. William Goldman advises us to enter our scenes at the last possible moment and shed the nonessential details that happen before the most crucial point. Doing so will force you to understand the mission of the scene and will increase pacing and hold your readers in the tight grip of dramatic tension. If you realize you are writing a scene without a clear mission in mind, if you are searching for a place for the scene to land, then you are in risky territory.