Working With the Three-Act Story Structure… With a Series

[whaley]

See the title. I like the three-act story structure, when you apply it to character development – Abbie Emmons explains it very well. But my next project is first of all, a series, and second of all, each book is probably going to be rather long. I’ve written almost 10k over the past few weeks – the actual story, not the outlining, oops – and I’ve barely scratched the surface, to be honest. I’m feeling really good about it as a practice series, but I want to actually outline it, and I just can’t. Figure. It. Out.

For example, when I try to outline the Inciting Incident, I can’t seem to find an actual point in the story where that happens, because it’s so gradual. And the event isn’t necessarily pushing either protagonist out of their comfort zone in the first place. They respond well, and the story just pushes off from there.

Like, literally, the story takes place over 3-4 years.

And like I said, it’s going to be a series. That just makes it more complicated.

What am I supposed to do? None of the events correspond to the three-act structure very well, and even if they did, I can’t tell because they’re so gradual.

• This topic was modified 1 year, 11 months ago by whaley.

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[whaley]

If not all of that makes sense, I can clarify.

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[MineralizedWritings]

@whalekeeper

Oh, interesting! I haven’t heard much about that plot structure. My 2nd book is a bit like that, and I find the hero’s journey is the best plot structure fit for it. It just slowley gets harder over the course of the book. Idk, remember you don’t have to follow one super close.

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[Esther]

@whalekeeper

I’m pretty sure I know which kind of story structure you’re talking about. I think I’ve seen it before.

Let’s see here…

So when I outline (which I’ve only done once, and I plan to do again) I like to plan it out chapter by chapter. Which does change a lot. I didn’t really follow a story structure, (like I probably should have), but maybe just write out in a few paragraphs or a few pages a long synopsis of your story. Now that you have the whole picture, you can choose what to keep or what to get rid of. You can also place the inciting incident and so on. Since your story takes place in a 3-4 year block, the inciting incident may not be one or two chapters. It’s okay if it’s gradual. Just remember that you don’t have to follow an outline for an outline to the T.

Also, I know of one author, Ally Carter, who I believe plots her books by using a storyboard. She write the scenes that she wants to happen on notecards and pins them up or lays them out. That way, she can move stuff around, take stuff out, add things in, while still seeing the big picture.

So those are my two cents. 🙂

I hope any of that helped! Good luck! 😄

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[Gwyndalf the Wise]

@whalekeeper

What you said makes sense. =)

Heh, I have the reverse of your problem… I have too many events in my series (especially the first book) that could be the inciting incident…

Maybe to help with yours, you could have one inciting incident for each book in your series? I would think where ever the story pushes off would be the inciting incident, but I don’t know.

Hopefully this helps/pushes you in a helpful direction.

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[Otherworldly Historian]

@whalekeeper

It sounds like you are talking about a Freytag Pyramid.

 

I can maybe give advice on that but could also give some general plotting advice.

The first part I will say is that you don’t need to stick exactly to a Faytag pyramid but it is definitely helpful. Ultimately I find it easier to think in terms of multiple Faytag pyramids put together like a mountain range. (I am sorry if this is a little unhelpful/confusing). What I mean by this is think in terms of your story will have expositions, rising actions, climaxes falling actions, and resolutions. There will be some bigger and some smaller ones.

(That may not be very helpful)

The second part I will say is just some general plotting stuff that I have used/found. One method I have found is basically taking all of your plotlines and figuring out all of the important moments/secrets/achievements. I find this helpful because at least for me I need to have an idea of where the plotline is going. Then you can outline how all of these are strung together with a chapter-by-chapter summary.

I would also recommend trying to find a ‘voice’ for how your narrators (speaker in first person or the main MC (could be MCs if multi-narrative) in third person. What I mean by voice is basically the voice through which your book is told (which usually reflects the ‘narrator’ character). This is seen in how stuff is described and what the character thinks. Some authors (and this is totally fine if this is you) use their own voice for this part if telling 3rd person stuff but I have also seen books where the way the story is told is reflective of the ‘narrator’ MC (this is especially apparent in multi-narrative stuff).

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[GodlyFantasy12]

@whalekeeper dunno if it’ll help, but have u ever looked into Save The Cat Writes a Novel? It totally changed my writing life! I use it  ton and love it!!

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[whaley]

Thanks guys. I just like having a strucure, but maybe I need to look outside the box 🙂

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