As I've said before, it's common to say there are no 'rules' in fiction. Your story is what you want it to be, and what makes sense for the characters and their setting. If your characters are interesting and engaging, the plot is paced correctly, and people enjoy reading it, congratulations! You have a story. Bugger the rules.
That said ... there are some sort-of rules you can follow if you're new and need help. Or rather, there are some accepted common story conventions you can follow that very clever people have identified as being 'good', which you can use to frame your plot.
These are called 'story structures'
Story structures act as a kind of framework for a plot, helping you the writer understand, roughly, what 'beats' should come next in the plot to keep it interesting and maintain the right pace. They give you a sense of where to start and what will happen at the mid-point and end, so you know what goes in between.
Think of them another way: Story structures are the editors you hire before you write the book.
Using story structures
Structures aren't here to constrict and control your plot, but to help you figure out what should happen within each chapter. Should the protagonist be having fun, or running for their life? Have we met the bad guys yet? How should the final scene relate to the rest of the book?
They aren't specific to any one genre, but are left broad enough for you to twist them into the setting that works for your book. A romance writer and a Sci-Fi horror writer could use the exact same structure with two very different results.
(examples are included below)
Who benefits most from a story structure?
Newer writers in particular can benefit a lot from story structures - especially here on Wattpad, where you're writing and publishing chapter by chapter. When you lack experience or self-confidence, they are a guiding resource to help you keep going and take away some of the burden of plot development.
Free-writers who 'fly be the seat of their pants' (i.e. those who write as they go, as opposed to plotting a story out entirely in advance) can also benefit from learning common story structures. You can often tell an inexperienced Pantser from a mile away, because their plot has weird pacing and perhaps even a lack of coherence. Story structures offer a path to follow to guide the story without necessarily thinking about it all in advance.
Experienced writers use them too, so this isn't just some rookie tool. It's an industry standard!
Common story structures
There are quite a few official story frameworks out there but these are four of the most commonly referred to:
1. Blake Snyder's "Save the Cat", which is a variation on common "Three Act Structure". Originally developed for screenwriting, it works just as well for books, and can help keep your novel sharp and snappy - without ballooning that word count. I personally use this one constantly.
2. The Hero's Journey - an all-time classic that's been around since Greek poetic epics. The Hero's Journey is a story of departing your old life, navigating an unfamiliar world, and returning changed. It's not just for adventure and fantasy!
3. Freytag's Pyramid was developed by Gustav Freytag in the 1800s as a dramatic structure. It's very useful for drama and tragedy authors in particular, where the hero is heading for catastrophe.
4. Snowflake Method. This is less a story structure to follow like a blueprint and more a method of developing a story in a structured manner. The snowflake method is a 'start small, build up' writing method beginning with a single one-sentence plot summary and expanding step by step into a full plot outline.
Google each of these to gain an understanding of how they work and what 'beats' they contain. Masterclass and Reedsy are two websites which have a lot of great resources. You can also gain a broad understanding of story structure from Story Grid.
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Think you might give a story structure a try? I'd love to hear how it goes for you, so please do come back and let me know! And don't forget to vote on this page as well to help it get found by other writers.
Got questions? Hit me up in the comments. And please tag anyone you think might find this info useful.
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