Okay, so last week we talked about tension. How to use it, what it is, and how I define it. Now that we’ve gone through that, let’s talk about this new method of story crafting I created accidentally for the conference while planning my talk on story structure.
Yes, I did plan it late at night.
Yes, it was like a day before the conference.
Yes, I have ADHD. Hush.
The point of this (haha, not sorry) story craft method isn’t to necessarily give you another type of outline to do. Can it be used that way? Absolutely. Must it? No. The intention here is more to give you pieces of the constellation that is your story so you can figure out where to go next. You can use this to guide your outlining or you can, if you’re a discovery writer, use it to know what the next tension point you’re aiming for is as far as structure goes.
As I’ve talked about before, story structure falls in patterns. Tension rises and falls in approximately the same pattern every time as far as major story events. This pattern remains the same across various story structures and is nigh-universal. It’s not exact because there are, of course, outliers and also certain storytelling methods (such as indigenous storytelling) don’t always follow this pattern.
(Before anyone asks me about books written a hundred years ago or more, yes, I know there are different ones, but there are also many that do conform to this pattern as well.)
So what is the pattern?
That’s simple:
As you can see, there are, at minimum, five points plotted on this track. They are:
- Opening
- Catalyst
- Midpoint
- Finale
- Closing
These five points are the same regardless of what story method you look at. And the pattern of rising and falling tension resembles (but is not identical to) Freytag’s Pyramid. These points will exist whether you use the Snowflake Method, the Beat Sheet, Romancing the Beat, the Three Act Structure, the Five Act Structure, or any of the other myriad methods out there. The reason being that these are essentially system- and structure-agnostic.
So why Star Point?
That’s best explained in the following graphic.
As the graphic displays, you have tension rising from the opening all the way through to the midpoint. While the finale and catalyst may not be perfectly equal in terms of tension, they both should have a fair amount of it, and then you have the closing point. I went with a star because rather than a perfect representation of tension, it is an easy visual we are all familiar with.
The Points And Their Function
The way I have this set up is even if you are a discover writer (aka “pantser”), you should know at least a few things about your story. While you could narrow this down even further than these five points if you were so inclined, the intent here is to help you know what is the next moment of tension you need to write to. So, how do we make this happen?
When you’re planning your story (even if it’s a very loose plan), you should know at least these five moments of it. If you know them, you can kind of write between them and play Connect-The-Dots with the book rather than just having to keep this large, amorphous concept in your head at all times. Even if you’re not a plotter (which I definitely am), you should at minimum know how your story starts, what draws the characters into the story, the midpoint (or highest point of tension in the whole book), the finale, and the ending. To give a quick description of what, exactly, each of these points are, I’ll give you a rundown:
- Opening
This is, as it sounds, the starting point of your story. It’s your opening scenes where you establish the characters and their world before everything changes. It’s Bilbo Baggins in the Shire with a bunch of Dwarves in his house he doesn’t want prior to the realization the he’s going on the journey. - Catalyst
The point where the character dives into the plot of the story and becomes part of it. While you can break the catalyst down further as per the Beat Sheet’s excellent guidance, I decided to stick with a slightly broader definition. To continue with the Hobbit, this is the moment Bilbo goes running after the dwarves. “I’m going on an adventure!” - Midpoint
Both in terms of word count and in terms of story structure, the midpoint is peak tension of the story. While the stakes might not be at their culmination, the tension must be highest here. It’s when the Bilbo and the dwarves are captured by vicious goblins in the mountains, and Bilbo finds the One Ring. - Finale
As one might expect, this is the big showdown with the “final boss”. It’s tense, but not as tense as the midpoint because during the showdown, you roughly know what to expect. It’s not always a fight, but in the case of The Hobbit it’s when everyone bands together to take down Smaug and then to slap Thorin for being a jerk. Yeah, I said it. Thorin was a jerk. - Closing
As a mirror to the beginning the ending should show how far the character has come and what the difference is between the starting and now. It’s wrapping everything up neatly (we hope, cliffhangers not included), and tying up the last threads of the main story. If you’re writing a series, the ending is going to be a little different, but I’m not going to get into nitpicking that right now. With The Hobbit, it’s Bilbo returning to the Shire to live out his life and write his story while enjoying a dwarfless Bag End.
Those are great and all, but how do I use them?
All right, all right, keep your trousers on. You use them by either writing out those points prior to starting and knowing roughly what each entails or you can just start in writing and know what point you’re headed to next. Either of those methods works. Now, you can always add far more points to this and go full Beat Sheet on it, or you can say “the heck with it, I’m only planning out my opening, midpoint, and closing. There’s no wrong way to go about it, but if you find yourself stuck, you might need to add a few more points to work between.
This really is more of a structural concept than an outlining method, however. It’s designed to help you understand how, at its base, stories are structured. You can then use that understanding in whatever format best pleases you.
If you have any questions about this method, please refer to my far more in-depth video from the Neurodivergent Publishing Conference!
