When I first heard "plot and structure" I pictured chains and walls and a
moat with some alligators swimming in it. I was thinking that my
creativity would be bound and gagged and made to stick to a plot as
predictable as every episode of Murder, She Wrote.
But then I read James Scott Bell's Plot and
Structure, and it was like a bright light shone into my soul and showed
me the way to create a good story. I realized that by following a 7-step
structure (structure can be anywhere from 3-96 plot points) it actually
released my creativity. Instead of using my creativity to change the
structure and mess with things that shouldn't be messed with, I was
pouring my creativity into such things as characters, settings, witty
dialogue, prose, and clothing choices.
I also noticed that all my favorite stories followed
a structure. Some are looser than others, but all of them have it.
Picture the movie Memento, for instance. It's incredibly creative, and
since it shows the story backwards you'd think that structure was thrown
out the window. But it is actually one of the strictest story
structures I've ever seen.
So I urge you to play around with linear
storytelling, but give your character an arc. Mess with time travel all
you want but introduce the rise and fall of the antagonist. And you can
have your protag locked in chains inside a moat with some alligators for
the entirety of the book, but please...follow some plot points as you
do it.
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