What are the elements of narrative structure? Where should your novel begin? What is the resolution? What are the narrative questions you should ask yourself before writing the book? Do you need to outline? This and more!

1. PLOT

2. The Craft Of Writing
You start with an Original Idea.
You figure out your protagonist,
antagonist, and core conflict (conflict
lock.— on next slide)
Remember to stay open-minded to
possibilities.

3. Conflict Box
Protagonist
Conflict
Protagonist
Goal
Antagonist
Goal
Antagonist
Conflict
A separate slideshow on this available at
www.bobmayer.com/workshops

4. Research
Research your characters.
Research your setting (place & time).
Research your plot.
Research produces possibilities.

5. Narrative Questions:
Characters
Who is my protagonist? What is his goal?
What is his motivation for achieving that
goal?
Who is my antagonist? What is his goal?
What is his motivation for achieving that
goal?
How does this bring them into conflict?

6. Narrative Questions:
Characters
Does my story collapse if I remove the
antagonist?
If I remove my protagonist, what happens?
What is at stake?

8. Narrative Questions:
Characters
The key to the previous slide is something I
focus more and more on after three decades
of writing.
I write. I let the characters roam and follow
them along.
I can always go back and adjust, but I’ve
found that trying to ‘direct’ where they go
makes it seem forced and unrealistic.
I call this ‘streaming’. Allowing my
subconscious free rein.

9. Narrative Questions: Theme
What is my intent?
What tone do I want to achieve in my
story?
What will be my resolution?

10. Narrative Questions: Theme
For Agnes and the Hitman, Jenny
Crusie and I decided we wanted a
Grosse Pointe Blank type of theme/tone
to the story.

11. Narrative Questions: Plot
What point of view will tell the story
best?
What will be my setting? (Time and
place)
What are the pieces of my narrative
structure?
What is the climactic scene that the
entire book is driving toward

12. Narrative Questions: Plot
What point of view will tell the story
best?
What will be my setting? (Time and
place)
What are the pieces of my narrative
structure?
What is the climactic scene that the
entire book is driving toward

13. Book Dissection
Do you need to know your ending?
Writers debate this.
It’s a personal choice, but if you know
your conflict lock, you should have an
idea.
If what happens is a surprise to you, the
good news is it will be a surprise to the
reader!

14. Book Dissection
Scene Action Purpose
1 Lucy on bridge Intro protag/Antag
2
Wilder out of
chopper
Intro main
secondary/foreshadow
climactic
3 Tyler in swamp
Up stakes, proxy of
antagonist
4
Lucy with Daisy &
Pepper, Nash
Foreshadow community
5 Wilder with Bryce Begin community

15. BOOK DISSECTION
Is you do something like the excel
spreadsheet on the previous slide,
you now have a book outline.
You delete the action column and
use the purpose column. Your
action is unique to your story and
characters.

16. OUTLINING
How do you organize your life?
Daily and overall?

17. Outlining
How you organize your life, is how you will
organize your book. If you understand that
you can change it, if need be.
Bottom line: Get it out of your head. No one
can see what’s in your head.

18. Outlining
Use whatever external format works for your
creative process. Scrivener, Excel,
Narrative, journaling, index cards, crayons,
stone and chisel; whatever works.
WRITE IT DOWN IN SOME FORMAT, even
if it’s the first draft!

19. Outlining
Do you have to outline? NO.
Your creative process and/or genre can
make a difference:
Thrillers/Suspense/Mysteries usually rely
more heavily on plot.
Science Fiction/Fantasy usually needs
world-building.
Literary/Romance rely more heavily on
character so plot might have to follow out of
character.

20. Outlining
Research develops your outline.
Use the pieces to make the whole.
Consider bookends (time, space, event,
character).
A bookend is a start point and an end point.

21. Outlining
Arc from inciting incident to climactic scene.
Use the narrative structure.
Details drive the story.
Use whatever format/process works for you.
Ongoing process.

22. Outlining
I used to focus more on plot in outlining.
Now I focus on character for my ‘outline’. I invent a
cast of characters. Get to know them.
Then introduce them to a problem and let them
have at it.
For example: Lonesome Dove. Larry McMurtry
introduces us to a great cast in Chapter One. Then
Jake Spoon rides up and mentions Montana.
Thus we have a Pulitzer Prize winning novel as
they travel to Montana and all they encounter along
the way.

23. Plot
Plot is a character trying to resolve a problem.
The characters’ motivations drive the plot toward the
climax.
Time is linear. Usually.

24. Plot
The five element plot structure in the next slides is just
a template. You can lay it over other types of structures
and it matches up relatively strongly.
For example, when I wrote with Jenny Crusie, she liked
doing four acts with three turning points.
But they corresponded with the five element structure.
Do you have to follow this?
Of course not.
It’s craft. We want to be artists.
But know the craft before you break the rules.

25. Narrative Structure Elements
Initiating Event.
Escalating Conflict.
Crisis.
Climax.
Resolution.

26. Narrative Structure
Initiating Event
Escalating Conflict
In
Crisis
Climax
Resolution
TIME: THE FLOW OF THE STORY
S
U
S
P
E
N
S
E

27. BUT!!!
Initiating Event
Escalating Conflict
In
Crisis
Climax
Resolution
TIME: THE FLOW OF THE STORY
S
U
S
P
E
N
S
E
The
History
of
Setting?
Problem?
Characters?
before
the novel
begins!

28. Back-Story
The stuff that happens before the
story starts.
The calm before the storm.
Be careful of info dumping it in
your story.
You can’t use your opening of
the book to ‘set-up’ the book.

29. Flashbacks And Memories
The two are not the same.
Flashback= what happened.
Memory= what someone remembers
happening.
Memory is tainted by all that happened
after and what someone wants now.
You must make sure the reader knows
when they enter and leave a flashback or
memory.

30. Initiating Event
Opening scene does one (or perhaps both) of
two things:
Introduces the protagonist.
Introduces the problem.
This decision tells the reader which is more
important.
The next scene does the other.
Where you begin writing does not necessarily
equal the beginning of the book.

31. Initiating Event
Can you have a prologue?
Yes, despite many naysayers.
It’s a scene out of time sequence with the rest
of the story.
It introduces some essential piece of backstory
that is so critical to story it needs to be shown.

32. The Initiating Event
The place where things change, the fight starts,
the balance has been upset.
The hook.
Beware flashbacks and memories in your
opening scene. If it’s so important you have to
go back in time in your opening scene, then
perhaps open with that flashback/memory as a
prologues.
First sentences are important.

33. First Sentences

34. PLOT
Why now?
What’s changed?
Why today? Why not yesterday? Or
tomorrow?

35. PLOT

36. The Opening Scene
If your opening scene often mirrors the
climactic scene, just at a lower level, then
perhaps you can’t really write the exact
opening scene until you get a draft done?
The biggest thing to do is:
Start the damn book and write it!
You can always move your opening
forward or backward in time afterward.

37. The Opening Scene
The first scene is important.
Your opening scene often mirrors the
climactic scene, just at a lower level.
Sometimes the opening scene is the
protagonist vs. antagonist and the
antagonist or a proxy wins.

38. The Opening Scene
Your protagonist, as he/she is at the
beginning of the book would most likely
fail if suddenly thrust into the climactic
scene.
If they are going to have arc, then by the
end of the book, they are different in
some aspect.

39. Escalating Conflict
For both the protagonist and the antagonist.
A series of progressive complications that
ups the stakes.
The stakes get higher, the suspense rises,
and the pace of the story gets faster.

40. Crisis
The darkest moment, when it looks as if
all is lost.
The protagonist reaches the point where
she has to make a decision, usually fight
or flee.
The decision leads to a course of action
and it shouldn’t be an obvious choice.

41. Crisis
Note that there are often many moments
of crisis in the novel where choices have
to be made.
This is the one though, that leads to the
climactic scene.
The inevitable confrontation with the
antagonist.

42. Climax
The choice comes to a conclusion.
The Protagonist versus the Antagonist
and one wins.
Both are on stage. No proxies.
The solution to the problem introduced
in the inciting incident.

43. Climax
You only get one climactic scene.
The climactic scene is often the same or a
mirror image of the opening scene, just at a
much higher level.
The protagonist has changed from who she
was in the opening scene to the point where
she can win (if you want arc).
As soon as you finish reading a book, go
back and re-read the opening chapter.
Out of the climax, comes the resolution.

44. Resolution
The emotional pay-off to the reader.
Should be one, short, last scene.
All subplots should have been closed out
prior to the climactic scene, usually in
reverse order from when they were
introduced (or will go in your series).
A return to stability or a new reality.
We SEE the change in our protagonist.

45. Resolution
The end is more important than the
beginning.
What do you leave the reader with?

46. Narrative Structure
Initiating Event
Escalating Conflict
In
Crisis
Climax
Resolution
TIME: THE FLOW OF THE STORY
S
U
S
P
E
N
S
E

47. DON’T LOOK DOWN
Lucy rebuffs Nash
and Wilder saves
Pepper
Lucy realizes something criminal is going on;
Wilder is attacked.
Realize Nash will kill;
Lucy & Wilder bond.
Showdown, High Noon Style
Fly off into the
setting sun
S
U
S
P
E
N
S
E
TIME: THE FLOW OF THE STORY

48. Looping and Tightening
Everything is important.
Try to use every incident multiple times.
The more you do this, the tighter your
story becomes.
Don’t have “throwaway” scenes or
characters.
Close out loops.

49. For more free slideshows on
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go to:
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50. How to
write the book
How to
be an author
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