The concept of story structure might feel restrictive but it can enhance your creative freedom as a novelist. It can help you protect your story’s integrity, streamline your writing process, and boost your confidence, all through an understanding of how and why stories are shaped the way they are. I’d advise that you learn to harness these techniques, no matter what type of writer you are. Think of structure as the technical scaffolding and underpinning of a story that allows you to take control without veering off into the wilds. It maps out key story building blocks, using the three-act structure or The Hero’s Journey, plotting the shape of the plot and character arcs, with interweaving cause and effect.
Every writer will have their own process of writing that suits them but, whether you’re a planner or work more intuitively, having that understanding of structure should always strengthen what you already have. Mapping a story against the three-act graph can allow a writer to see if a story can be sustained within the entire length of a novel before they even begin writing it. It sounds hard but it’s easy once you know how, and authors can spend five minutes seeing if a story shape can work. They may not have all the answers from the off, but it acts as a cradle. Then, as their story unfolds, they can fill in the gaps in the right places.
Once more experienced, many authors will have a strong intuition to recognise if they’re going down the wrong route for their story, but they may not always know why or how to fix it, and it could stop them from progressing. Knowing how to map out the story diagnostically can help a writer see what’s missing, or if a tension point is in the wrong place. That’s not to say that you can’t let your story take you off in a completely different, unanticipated direction that you hadn’t envisaged before starting out. The difference is that, by having an understanding of key structural supports, it will let you explore ideas freely while simultaneously shaping the story into something compelling, with satisfying highs and lows.
As an editor, one of the things I commonly hear published writers say is that their first book took forever, and it was a real labour of love. And, with hindsight, they always say that they wish they had understood structure before they started Book One because, since then, their writing process has changed completely. When going on to Book Two or Book Three, they approach ideas and their story in a more confident, focused way. It’s like climbing a mountain; they’re not going to zigzag and meander – they know the shape and can go up the mountain and back down again confidently. That’s how the story shape should be and feel. And that knowledge is what saves writers valuable time in the long run, because it’s a life-long skill worth investing in.