The Basic Building Blocks of Good Story Structure

I'm over at Cheryl Wyatt's blog today talking about the Basic Building Blocks of Good Story Structure:

Hey there! This is Camy Tang, and Cheryl is letting me guest blog today!

She wanted me to talk about the basic building blocks of good story structure because I tend to naturally look at stories on a structural level. When I do telephone consultations for my Story Sensei critique service, most of my clients are looking for help to fix their novels’ story structures.


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Comments

  1. RoxoWed Jul 29, 01:30:00 PM 2009

    Thanks Camy, that was a super useful post. I added it on my 90 pages Tips For Writing.
    however, I have a question: How can I edit the pace of the story? Let's say that one episode is important to character development but it slows down the pace of the story.

    Thanks,
    Roxo

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  2. Camy TangWed Jul 29, 02:57:00 PM 2009

    Thanks, Roxo!

    Good question. One thing I usually do is to combine purposes for a scene. If I need to show character development, I do it in another scene that also forwards the plotline or something like that. One of the pitfalls of episodic writing is that the scene is ONLY for character development or the development of the romance or something like that. You need each scene to have a very strong purpose of its own that forwards the storyline itself, and then the character development can be added into the same scene so it serves a dual purpose. Try not to make scenes that are only there for character development--it will slow the pace down too much and is episodic, which can be boring to read.

    I hope that helps!
    Camy

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