Narrative Structure

Ideas about how to approach a story are called narrative structure. If you want to find more of these, after doing the rest of this course, look up that term.

Let’s start with the simplest one.

Just use everything I taught you so far!

I suggest writing a short story (fewer than 10,000 words). It takes the least time, has a higher chance of finishing, and is more strict than a full-length novel. (In a short story, you really can’t add useless scenes or wasted lines. You already have so little space! In a full novel, you can get away with a lot more.)

In fact, if you can suppress the urge to write full novels, write 10 or 20 short stories before even attempting a longer one.

Before

Character

Invent a character.

• Give them flaws. (Things they’re bad at, emotions or situations they can’t handle, etcetera.)
• Give them a want: some external and easy-to-explain goal
• Give them a need: a lesson to learn, usually something to “overcome” their biggest flaw

Now you have a character and a goal.

Obstacle

The only other thing we need is an obstacle. Something that prevents their want, something that ensures good conflict.

• She clashes against another character, not random chance
• It is urgent
• She loses something, for sure, if she doesn’t act

You can introduce multiple obstacles, but preferably not at the same time. Only add the next obstacle when the previous one is resolved. Each individual storyline should have one clear goal and obstacle at all times.

Both obstacles I gave in the examples are fine. I don’t think you should use them both at the same time—no matter how tempting. In this case, you could start with the first, then use the second. (As the second one is literally life-threatening and thus a bigger obstacle. It’s also more directly related to her flaws and naturally presents a nice ending.)

Now write!

With a plan in place, just write. Go with the flow. Do not stop and edit, do not doubt, use the plan as your guide while completing this story.

In this very loose narrative structure, just write until you feel like the story should end.

You can use the idea from my examples, but I’d rather you provide an idea and character yourself. In the end, most writers want to write their story, not that of somebody else.

After

When done, put it away for some time.

When you come back,

• Tighten the prose and dialogue
• Check if the character is presented well. (Their wants, needs and flaws are clear.)
• Check if every obstacle/conflict you introduced is a good one.
• Check the three Elements of Storywhy: progress, meaning, and fun.

Also, remember the general principle: you’re doing this to get better at writing. The writing will often suck. You will make big mistakes from which you can’t recover with an edit. This isn’t just normal, this is necessary. If you don’t make hundreds of mistakes at this point, you will make them later, when you actually try to write a novel that gets published. And you really don’t want to make them at that point ;)