UNDERSTANDING THE BUILDING BLOCKS OF STORY STRUCTURE

Inspired by our course, Writing for Children and Teens, let’s dig into story form. We discuss:

• The full story arc and how it pertains to all books—whether they’re 32 pages or 400 pages.
• How 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.
• Playing with your basic idea until you see how you can give it the three-part shape we’ve just described.
• What’s wrong with an identical twin or the old, “It was all a dream . . . or was it?” scenario.