Debi Alper

Very interesting blog. I, too, have listened, enthralled, to Craig’s lectures on this, and have read an enormous amount of stuff about structure. I’m struggling rather with it now, at the almost-finished-the-second-draft-of-my-novel-stage. I don’t know if my struggle is because I’ve read too many different models/descriptions and have become…[Read more]

Still missing three quarters of the story….

Ah, yes. Planning. It’s going…um…

That’s the most important bit done.

Thank you for a very interesting read Daedalus. You have made me want to go and watch the film. I am

I absolutely agree with you Raine about not every character progressing through their arc in synchrony and entirety but nevertheless needing some sort of arc. I have only recently realised that this gives the relationships between characters energy and life as they shift according to where they are in their ‘journey’. It is a powerful tool.

Thanks Raine. I’ve seen the film numerous times over the years (the first being as a very small child) and have got different things from it each time. One reading would definitely be a clash between rival alpha males. And it’s definitely in the ‘high adventure’ tradition, but I do think there’s more to it than that. Not least as ultimatel…[Read more]

I was watching the film The Flight of the Phoenix earlier today, and this ‘arc’ kept occuring to me, so for the sake of curiosity I decided to have a look to see if it fit this structure, and if so, how. It’s a bit of an interesting case as it’s an ensemble piece with multiple ‘main’ characters, each with their own arc. I’ll consider it for the…[Read more]

@janeshuff, that’s a great way of putting it. Yes, “the broad sweeps” and then refining in the edits.

I too tend not too worry too much about the overall structure when I’m actually in the thick of writing a first draft but I have found that reading the various books about structure has helped me be aware of the broad sweeps of the shape of a story as I’m thinking it out.

Yeah, I tend to consider matters of formal structure far more in the edit than in the initial draft

Lots of interesting stuff here. I’ve never been much of a planner, and am inherently sceptical of the idea of story structure as something fixed and immutable for many of the reasons Libby raises. As structures go, however, I like this one more than most as it’s fixed to the inner life of the main character rather than something that risks being…[Read more]

Sorry – I didn’t actually mean that story structure depicts mental illnesses.

More that psychologists have many different models to describe particular MH conditions. For example, for depression we have the CBT model, the psychoanalytic model, the interpersonal model, the biological model etc. etc. Each model is trying to describe and explain…[Read more]

Thanks for your notes, Raine. They are very helpful and come at a timely moment as I polish the structure of my novel in progress.

A few immediate thoughts which may not stand up to scrutiny. Athelstone wonders about the universality of such frameworks. This has always been my question too. They seem to me too rigid to allow for individual…[Read more]

I feel much the same way, Squidge. I never have been able to get on with charts, graphs, grids or any other kind of science-ish analysis. I’m not knocking it for those who find it useful, but my eyes start to glaze over when faced with such stuff, and it seems to place a barrier between me and my creativity (if any). I suppose I might conceivably…[Read more]

I remember doing these sessions at York…it all seemed to make perfect sense when CMT was explaining it, but I can’t put it into practise. I don’t think I have the kind of logical and structural mind that can break a story down into these kind of segments. Which is annoying, because I know it’s all good stuff and very useful – I just can’t apply…[Read more]