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Story Structure Guidelines

story structure guidelinesFirst find out what your hero wants, then just follow him.
— Ray Bradbury

Yes, it is critical to have your protagonist and the goal developed as this begins to form the backbone of the story.  Dean Koontz, a prolific novelist, and author of How to Write Best Selling Fiction, recently told me that he begins with “…a small premise and one or two characters I believe will fascinate me, along with a central theme from which others might grow.  No notes, no character sketches, no plot line.  If the main character works, if he/she comes alive to me, then the character takes the story places I never foresaw.  Outlines are limiting for me, and I need to let the imagination rule.”

That does not mean that the stories he builds do not have rules; it’s just that he lets the characters guide the process.  As a writer, I value that intuitive approach.  However, I also find it incredibly helpful to follow the guidance of what we call story structure, the conscious craft of telling stories.

Here are Dean’s Story Structure Guidelines as Outlined in his Book:

  1. Introduce a hero/heroine who has been or is about to be plunged into terrible trouble.
  2. The hero attempts to solve his problem but only slips into deeper trouble.
  3. As the hero works to climb out of the hole he’s in, complications arise, each more terrible than the one before.
  4. The hero makes while struggling to solve his problems, mistakes and misjudgments which result from the interaction of the faults and virtues that make him a unique character.
  5. At last, deeply affected and changed by his awful experiences and by his intolerable circumstances, the hero learns something about himself or about the human condition in general. He now understands what he must do to get out of the dangerous situation in which he was wound up.
  6. He takes the necessary actions and either succeeds or fails, though he succeeds more often than not.

These elements are time tested and can stimulate the imagination to create stories that resonate with the psyche.  Our psyches are wired to respond to story because every story is the story of everyone’s journey.  As Aaron Sorkin, an award-winning screenwriter says that audiences know the rules without knowing they know the rules . The rules are there to help us create the story magic.  But I also agree with Koontz about keeping it simple.  Story structure and/or the so-called rules of story, does not exclude originality.  Rather, it encourages structure.  It takes a lot of originality to imagine and structure a well-told story.

The Purpose of Structure Guidelines

My research has shown that understanding story structure helps to engage both the conscious and unconscious artistry.  The bottom line is that stories that grab us use a structure that is designed to capture, indispensable ingredients, to hold our attention, and to cause us to feel empathy and tension.  We get hooked and want to know what will happen next.  It’s all about sustaining our attention with emotion.  If the story drops us into the experience of the protagonist, we can live through the protagonist vicariously.  It is as though we are right there.

The goal is to tell the story in a way that causes readers to feel as if they are the character in a simulation, narrative transport, a phenomenon identified by academic researchers on communications Melanie Green and Tim Brock.  We begin with capturing the attention of the viewer or reader, so they care about the story.  Great stories incite reader’s emotions, particularly evoking pity and fear, particularly valued by Aristotle as key in heroic engagement.  Pity engenders empathy.  Attention is then sustained through rising and falling action, tension and release.  It is what the reading or viewing audience unconsciously expects and wants.  Kendall Haven, in Story Proof, agrees: “The common structural patterns of a story (even if unconscious) are fixed and established in every person’s mind.”

Fundamentals of Structure Guidelines

All stories have a protagonist, a term that originates from the ancient Greek words for chief actor or combatant.  Just as each of us is the protagonist of our lives, the protagonist in the story is the main character with whom we identify.  The protagonist has an important goal or desire.  It usually emerges after and/or because of the inciting incident that drives the action.  As in life, there are conflicts and challenges that stand in the way of the protagonist getting what he or she wants.  Tensions also arise from the role of the antagonist, a term that comes from the Greek word for competitor, referring
to any character who frustrates the protagonist’s goal or desire.

By the end of the story, the protagonist may or may not end up getting what was wanted but always gains some new insight or growth. This is part of the resolution of the story.  We go on that journey vicariously with the protagonist, connecting emotionally with that character.  This is something we can all relate to because this struggle is a metaphor for life.  Stories draw us in because they explore problems.  Their results and resolutions show us how characters change, react to loss, and grow.

The plot is the vehicle that helps to unfold the story, the action and conflict that drives what happens next.  Sigmund Freud suggested in a paper he wrote Creative Writer’s and Day Dreaming that the enjoyment that the audience experiences from storytelling is the liberation of tension in our minds the story creates.  This happens because stories transport us out of our world into the story’s world.

Conclusion

As writers, we also go on a journey that can be viewed as being a parallel adventure to the protagonist.  Writing our stories can help us to understand ourselves and others.  It is through finding our own voice that we can see how the inner world affects the outer world.