So glad to hear that! Honestly, Evangeline has a rough life. Every time I need to illustrate some point about conflict building or a character failing yet, I trot her out to suffer some more 😅
This was such a helpful article for so many reasons. It helped affirm that my overarching structure for my novel works, fits nicely in the three act structure. On the flipside, it helped me realise that the scenes I have written thus far don't quite follow the same principles, and so likely wouldn't grip the reader as I need them to. Thank you for this!
My husband wrote our podcast with a general story structure in mind, but it wasn't super tight. Then he decided he wanted to pitch the book version to a publishing house that wanted a very clearly defined Hero's Journey. It was very challenging to wrangle the "herding cats" feel of the ensemble podcast story into a "primary character with a growth arc surrounded by supporting characters" structure. Involved sacrificing a few sacred cows in the story...
But, ultimately, my husband liked it. We're planning to use that growth arc plan for the next book in the series. Thank you for highlighting the importance of story structure!
Honestly, props to both you and your husband. I love it when writers are brave enough to sacrifice the things they love for the sake of the story. It takes so much guts, and it always makes me so proud. You're both doing so well, and I can't wait to hear how the story progresses!
Working on a story and it was going great and then kind of slowed to a near stop and I have been babbling for the last 5 pages. Read your bit today and remembered that about half way through my first book the same thing happened. Then I attached it with sticky notes! Arc, conflict, timing all fixed. Got to go find my notes and white board. Yeah! Thank you!!!
I've heard about the three act structure before, but having that example broken down of Evangeline's story really clarified how it works.
So glad to hear that! Honestly, Evangeline has a rough life. Every time I need to illustrate some point about conflict building or a character failing yet, I trot her out to suffer some more 😅
Lol poor Evangeline
This was such a helpful article for so many reasons. It helped affirm that my overarching structure for my novel works, fits nicely in the three act structure. On the flipside, it helped me realise that the scenes I have written thus far don't quite follow the same principles, and so likely wouldn't grip the reader as I need them to. Thank you for this!
I’m so glad it helped! I’ve just finished outlining next week’s post on scene structure, so hopefully that will be useful too!
My husband wrote our podcast with a general story structure in mind, but it wasn't super tight. Then he decided he wanted to pitch the book version to a publishing house that wanted a very clearly defined Hero's Journey. It was very challenging to wrangle the "herding cats" feel of the ensemble podcast story into a "primary character with a growth arc surrounded by supporting characters" structure. Involved sacrificing a few sacred cows in the story...
But, ultimately, my husband liked it. We're planning to use that growth arc plan for the next book in the series. Thank you for highlighting the importance of story structure!
Honestly, props to both you and your husband. I love it when writers are brave enough to sacrifice the things they love for the sake of the story. It takes so much guts, and it always makes me so proud. You're both doing so well, and I can't wait to hear how the story progresses!
Thank you! Steve made a comment today about not worrying about the size of our audience. So I think that's big progress for him...
Working on a story and it was going great and then kind of slowed to a near stop and I have been babbling for the last 5 pages. Read your bit today and remembered that about half way through my first book the same thing happened. Then I attached it with sticky notes! Arc, conflict, timing all fixed. Got to go find my notes and white board. Yeah! Thank you!!!
I'm so glad it helped! Sounds like you have a solution that works really well for you. Can't wait to hear how the story progresses!
Ngl kinda wanna read Evangeline's story now!
Lol, but then I’d have to nail it down and not keep changing everything up to suit whatever example I’m making up at the time 😂