These are all my notes, typed into the chat, during our hour-long webinar about structure last week. This is basically an overview of what Angie is going to go into in her amazing structure class. In the class there will be only 6 people and each will get individual response from Angie on every assignment. They will leave with clarity and depth about the structure of their projects. There may be ONE space left (class is all 5 Wednesdays in May, 5 – 6:30 p.m. Pacfici/ 8 – 9:30 pm Eastern), so sign up here by clicking on the box with Structure in it, if you know this will transform your whole writing process, as it has mine: https://bookwritingworld.com/shop/

Otherwise, here are the notes, which will give you a lot. Unless otherwise specified, these are notes on what Angie is saying. — Elizabeth

A) Premise:

Clarify what’s important to you so you build characters and story to illuminate that. Helps to develop a story or revise it. If you are revising, what is the big message you have come to?

Examples: Greed leads to distruction OR Community overcomes evil.

We are talking at a global, high level when we talk about premise, but even so, the first abstraction in your premise statement (love, greed, community) has to do with your character.

Examples: Freedom demands sacrifice: “freedom” speaks to the character and her desires and “sacrifice” speaks to the actions she’s taking or the price she’ll be paying.

The premise is a tool for brainstorming; all these explorations of structure are tools for brainstorming and making something richer.

Premise is also a tool for exploring character. When ready to dig into character, think: who is the best person to go through this journey?

B) Character building:

What is the thing that your character needs to learn or do or be in order to complete the story.

Example: In the premise, “individual sacrifice leads to redemption,” the story needs a character who is as far away from individual sacrifice as possible. Maybe they are greedy or unable to let go of something because of fear. From this, you can begin to shape the world.

Think about:

• What is the aspect of your character that needs to change in order for them to get through the story with a positive outcome?
• What belief or aspect of themselves would need to change?
• What is their belief, approach or activity that would need to change to have a positive outcome?

Participant #1 Premise: Heroism happens in tiny steps. Character has to shed his sense of himself as ordinary, his reluctance to try things.

Participant #1 Q: How can a character be aspirational and yet flawed?

Example: Earthling, a middle grade graphic novel. Character is recovering from the death of this mother and he is not happy to be where he is . . .

You need to have a really great obstacle, too, but there is always something that needs to change and grow . . .

In looking at your character, get as clear and concise as you can about what needs to change. What does this character’s wound look like?

C) The Seven Steps: moving into outlining at a high level

1. Ordinary world:

We see the character with their challenge in their world. The aftermath of the life lived not quite correctly.

2. Inciting Incident:

Kicks off the destablization of this world. Something new comes into the environment and unsettles the way they go about things. Characters try to do as little as they can to get things back to where they were but will ultimately come to a place where they have to move forward.

3. Act 1 Decision:

The characters have been put into a situation where they realize that their approach has to change in order to restablize their world. They have a new, clear goal. They have a plan. The character is now moving forward with a plan and a goal.

4. The Midpoint:

A moment when the stakes are raised, really high. Up to that point, the character might be able to bail out of the story. Now they reach the point of no return. A moment when the reader, narrator or protagonist gets new information that changes everything . . . The new information changes the stakes . . .

5. The Low Point:

The character is really committed from the midpoint on but hasn’t necessarily changed. Here they lose their friends, their support systems. This is the moment where they have to learn their lesson and make a new plan or fail to learn their lesson and head into tragedy . . .

6. The Final Battle:

The final battle is deeply tied to your chacacter. You do not design a final battle that does not challeng your character’s particular flaw in as challenging and painful a way as possible.

7. The New Ordinary World:

Either everything is great–the battle is won, they’ve done what they meant to do, everything is happy OR they’ve failed and there’s now something worse than the ordinary world. Ask: What would be the worse situation for my character, specifically, to be in, given his or her weakness?

Examples: Dickens’ A Christmas Carol — Scrouge has to deal with the poverty of his soul.

Motherless Brooklyn: a novel about a detective with Tourette’s Syndrome.

Exercise: take a few minutes and brainstorm a list based on your character of five situations that would be the worst for your character.

A story will be focused on one flaw of a character. This does not mean the character is perfect other than that one flaw, but the story relates thematically to that one aspect of the character.

Example: Room by Emma Donoghue

Child always has a limited understanding of what is going on because his mother is protecting him.

Everything he does in linked by his notion of understanding.

D) The Shape of Scene

Questions will bring your reader through your book.

In a traditional narrative, it might be: Here is what a person does not do well–will they learn something that will change that? In a post-apololyptic road trip novel, the question might be: Will they get to this place they seek? Does it even exist?

On a scene level, you still have a question. Often, we’ll come out of a previous scene wondering about the resolution of the previous scene . . . We know  what the character wants in a scene and what will happen if they don’t get it–so we are wondering if they will get it.

Make sure each scene has a question that pulls us through it. The question is something we hope for. You don’t have to have nice, friendly, perfect protagonists–but they do have to be relatable so that on some level we want them to get the thing they want . . .

E) Revision: Good questions to ask.

If you’ve made an outline, the number one question that you need to ask yourself when you put a scene or sequence in place: would this character do that? Is the character acting authentically?

Take space from your outline and then really ask these questions.

What actions makes sense of a character who wants something? The intent of the character has to make sense.

Be honest with yourself as a writer: when are you faking it because you need the character to do something that the character wouldn’t do . . .

Participant #2 Q: When you have two characters–a protagonist and a very strong second character–does the premise have to apply to both?

A: The characters will explore the same ideas but may be from different angles . . . Secondary characters are going to push your characters in different ways.

What you want is thematic unity.

Angie’s premise for her book: giftedness, hidden, destroys human dignity

Particpant #3 Q: How does this apply to memoir?

A: You’re editing when you are choosing the scenes for your memoir. Look at the changes you went through. You are not looking at extraneous, unrelated changes or scenes. You are still going to have thematic unity.