(NOTE: I cannot take reading requests due to having a family, a small business, and trying to find time to write, which sadly doesn't happen much nowadays.)
Is your story lacking a really strong plot structure that grabs the reader and really keeps her turning the pages like crazy?
Well, I'm going to share a great story structure that's one of the best out there. Dean Koontz wrote a book about story structure called How to Write Best Selling Fiction. The structure presented in it is greatness.
However, that book is out of print and sells for nearly $200 now because it's so good. Why it's out of print I'll never know. But what I'll do is give you the general structure in a few quick sentences.
Dean Koontz's Classic Story Structure
1. Make sure you put your character into a horrible situation very quickly in your story. Show normal for him, show what he wants in life, then rip his hopes and dreams from him with an awful situation that turns his world upside down. The situation and objective will differ from genre to genre.
2. As your character tries to get out of the trouble, he only makes it worse. It has to keep getting worse and worse. That kind of tension drives the readers to turn the page obsessively.
3. His situation has to get so bad that it appears there's no hope and he'll never succeed.
4. Suddenly, because of everything the character has learned from the conflict, he figures out a way to overcome his seemingly insurmountable trouble and succeed, achieving what he wanted which resolves the conflict of the story. The character needs to do this in either a very clever way or a very powerful, heroic way. And if at all possible, what really makes the moment the character has his realization powerful is a major twist that the readers never saw coming. I've written a chapter on how to do that effectively if you need some instruction on it.
Follow that general story structure and you just about can't go wrong. That will really give your story the tension it needs to drive the readers through it like they're addicted.
The bigger the stakes, the bigger the tension and drive to keep reading. Just make sure the obstacles the character runs into are believable and make good, logical sense. Otherwise, the readers won't believe it and that destroys tension and engagement for them.
Okay, full disclosure on this chapter: I got this from an email a bestselling author sent out, so I don't want to take credit for it. However, in other chapters of The Art of Writing, I actually do share all of these techniques. But I like how quick and easy they're laid out in this quick chapter.
Hope this helps!
And as always, if you liked this chapter, please vote for it!
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The Art of Writing: How to Write Bestselling Novels
Non-Fiction[New chapter posted every Friday] Would you like to learn how to draw your readers in with your blurb and your opening lines so that they feel they have to keep reading to find out what happens next? Would you like to learn how to craft characters w...
