CONCLUSION

 

LET ME TELL you the story of three novels.

One I wrote before I had any notion of story structure. One I wrote as I was discovering structure. And one I wrote years later.

The first two books share a similar fate, and that fate can pretty much be summed up with one word: revision. Lots and lots of revision. I loved these stories. I poured my heart and soul into them. But they didn’t love me back. They were like wild birds, caged on the page, but fighting back at every turn.

My subconscious story sense (my gut instinct) told me loudly and clearly that something major was wrong with both of these stories. So I’d tweak this and tweak that. But I just couldn’t get them to work. I didn’t yet possess enough conscious knowledge of story structure to be able to understand where the stories were going wrong.

So I’d tweak, edit, and rewrite yet again.

The result was exhausting. While writing the first of these books, I became so overwhelmed I found myself wondering if writing would ever again be fun. While writing the second book, I came to a point when I finally had to admit the story wasn’t working and I didn’t know how to fix it. It became the only novel I ever quit on after completing the entire draft.

But in between that rocky education period of Book Two and that marvelous new understanding of story structure in Book Three, something changed.

That third book was one of the best writing experiences I’ve ever had. It was the fastest outline, fastest first draft, and fastest revision process I’ve ever experienced. Partly, that was probably due to the story itself. Every book, after all, is its own unique journey. But, mostly, that was due to the fact that, for the first time ever, I actually understood how to piece together a story that worked.

And, just like that, writing was fun again. Boy howdy, was it fun again.

Structure should never be about trying to force our stories into a box. Structure is about creating a framework to support our ideas—and then letting our imaginations fly free.

I hope you find this workbook and the structural principles it presents to be the key to your best stories yet. Grab a pen, start writing, and unlock the possibilities!

 

K.M. Weiland

November 2014