UNDERSTANDING THE BUILDING BLOCKS OF STORY STRUCTURE

Inspired by our course, Writing for Children and Teens, listen to get the full content. We discuss:

•A story beginning establishes a main character and a basic situation.

•The middle develops a problem or difficulty and builds to a climax, which is then resolved.

•The ending concludes the story’s events.

•This structure applies equally to a two-page tale for small children and to a 400-page adult novel.

•The story problem may not take the form of an urgent conflict or challenge but it might consist instead of a puzzle or question, an embarrassing situation, a hunt, or a misunderstanding.

•Setting up a pre-existing problem.

•Conflict as the element that connects a story’s beginning, middle, and ending—a problem or challenge that’s resolved through a series of events.

•Playing with your basic idea until you see how you can give it the three-part shape we’ve just described—and you can start from any point. You may be struck first with the dramatic solution to a dilemma; then you’ll need to work backwards to the events that created the dilemma, devising characters who would logically be faced with the situation you have in mind.

•What’s wrong with an identical twin or the old, “It was all a dream . . . or was it?” scenario.

Click here to download the show notes with extra resources!

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