The Journey of Writing Book.6 - PART.1: STORY BOARDING - (TCE+011)

Pfff, STRUCTURE?...Lame! Unartistic! Only the utterest morons would need *screeeeeching sound*...what was that? D*mn It's getting dark. Now where's that lighter? Hey, you guys there?...guys?....

1.Fear of Story Structure.

Story Structure?

Templates?

The Hero’s Journey?

I too was grossed out. I too fought to get away. I am still fighting. I pushright to the edge. I probably push too hard. My inner artist ego tries to stray away from the story formulas as much as possible. I need to break free. I need to riff. I need to fly into the sweet empty darkness.

Where I’ll either live or die forever.

Like a tightrope walker.

F u NNNDd aaaa MENnnn tals????

More experienced writers would smirk. They’d say, oh yes, here we have another “creative” writer.

Another “innovator.”

And another funeral.

In the words of Steven Pressfield:

“Pffff, story structure is such uncreative, lame, formulaic bullshit—am i right?

WRONG.”

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2. When you actually get down into the weeds of fiction…

You start to realize, this is a monster of a task—writing this big book.

You’re going to need some priorities.

Not all those who wander are lost, sure.

But not all of us are JRR Tolkien with their 30+ whatever years of deep medieval literature study and scholarship and publishing and a knowledge of words broad enough that you literally work on the dictionary…you know…in your spare time. (Oxford English Dictionary)

I like to “pants it” (Steven King was a Pantser) as much as the next guy. I love just jumping into writing something lucid, and often do, but my point is:

Story is like a mutual map that people use, if the map isn’t helpful, people can’t use it, they can’t get where they need to go.

You gotta get a map

Of course, it’s just a suggestion….you can do whatever you want.

Walk off into the woods without a map, sure.

I heard Chuck Panchik (author fight club) say once if you’re going to be a writer there’s nothing me or anyone else is going to be able to say to stop you.

Just don’t say i didn’t warn you.

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3.) It was good knowing you.

When you don’t know the structure.

When you don’t have a map.

You could die.

You could REALLY want to write a novel, and you’re all full of hopes and dreams (like a new birth), and in a manic flurry you start writing the novel or story or even just a poem, and as the days pass your will starts wearing down and then you experience ever-increasing nagging self doubt and anxiety and little dopey failures and feelings of flatness and anticlimax and cringe and eventually the crushing false guilt of spending all this time writing something that you don’t know if it’s going to work out or not.

And almost like the sweet acceptance of death, you let it go.

Almost like…you did the right thing…

You stop writing the book.

It dies.

You don’t bring it up anymore. Your friends who you feel like an idiot for telling them you are writing a book—they don’t bring it up anymore.

Your significant other is thankful that phase is finally over.

You return to normal life.

You’re a good boy now.

You die.

And it’s okay, sometimes they die…

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4.) Staying Alive = Structure = Map.

Here’s my structure for Book 6.

I prefer a story board kind of method i first heard from Blake Snyder Screenplay book “Save the Cat”

With this approach, I like that I can see everything all in one place.

Like a map.

Here’s Draft.10 of Book.6

Want to see a fuller version and a breakdown of the board?

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