How to Identify the Structure of a Story

When writing a work authors often start a brainstorming session that identifies a beginning or ending of a story. They then will work on establishing the other two parts of the tale. If something interesting comes of this brainstorm, they may get it motion to produce a complete work. When you are looking to dissect a work whether it be a familiar story or a screen play, you are looking to understand the three parts of the narrative |Beginning, Middle, End|. Obviously the beginning of a work is the start of the story, but how do you know when you have progressed to the middle of the story? The beginning will often identify a clear goal for the main character(s). Once the character(s) start undertaking the steps to achieve this goal, you have made your way to the middle of the work. The middle of a work will have the reader undergoing a roller coaster of different emotions; in good works anyway. When the tale starts to wrap up the conflict or has main characters achieve a goal, it is all downhill, as you have reached the ending. What is really interesting is that many of great authors will start with an idea for the beginning or ending of their works, undergo the brainstorms, and usually writing the ending of the story first. This helps them make sure they go deep enough into detail when writing the complete work.

How to Visualize This When You Are in the Writing Process

We spend a great deal of time in this series of worksheets with determining the subsections of the work of other people. What about when we are writing our own stories? A great way to go about creating your own stories is to start with a storyboard. I prefer to draw, and I will take an hour or so into drawing characters and the scenes that surround them. I also find that when I put their faces up, it instantly helps me understand their character traits and nature, in general. This may even require me to redraw everything several times until I have a basic sequence of the plot and how everything unfolds. Once I have storyboards together that I am happy with, I begin to write. While this may sound like a longer, than normal process I find it to be super enjoyable and immerses me into the writing process. Another good idea is to take the ideas setup by the story and write a brief outline that lines up with it. It will be helpful to reflect on this outline as you prepare the work.