Story Structures to use for outlining your stories. Please I beg of y'all to outline. It has helped me so much to complete my stories and know what I want to write & can help with writers block.
3 ACT 8 POINT STRUCTURE.
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Act One (Exposition, Inciting incident, turning point)
✷ Normalcy
The exposition is all about setting the stage. The reader (or audience) should get an idea of:
- who your protagonist is, - what their everyday life is like, - and what's important to them.
✷ Inciting incident What changes? When the story shifts.
- How is my protagonist dissatisfied with their life? - What would it take for my protagonist to find satisfaction? (This is their goal). - What are my protagonist's biggest fears and character flaws? - How would the actions that my protagonist needs to take to find satisfaction force them to confront their fears and/or flaws?
✷ Reaction What is the MC going to do about the inciting incident?
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Act Two (Rising Action, Mid Point, Turning point to Act Three)
✷ Fun and Games
They enact the plan. Things are looking positive.
✷ Break Arm
Their plan fails horribly. The situation may be worse now.
✷ Lowest Point
They are hopeless and very close to giving up.
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Act Three (Pre-Climax, Climax, Denouement)
✷ Reflection
They acknowledge and learn from their mistakes.
✷ Climax/Plot Twist
They use all they learned.
✷ Setting Down.
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SNOWFLAKES METHOD.
✷ The starting sentence should be a summary of the novel.
✷ Then, that sentence turns into a whole paragraph. This is where you come up with "story setup," or exposition, conflict, and a resolution. Ingerman suggests that if you're going for a 3 Act Structure, you can come up with "three disasters" for your character to go through, and each one is the central point of that act.
✷ Next, write a one page summary sheet for each major character. Here's where we want to decide on their names, storylines, motivations and goals, conflict, and their epiphany (what they'll learn at the end of the story). Write a half page for other minor (but still important) characters.
✷ Expand the plot summary into four pages.
✷ After that, expand character descriptions into full character charts.
✷ Write a scene chart developed from the plot summary.
✷ Ingerman says this is optional, but the next step is to write out a one-to-two page summary of each chapter, as a prototype of a first draft.
✷ Finally, you're ready to write the real first draft.
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