Structure guides -- or how to confuse yourself as a writer.

I started writing as a teenager — not knowing a thing about writing. I’d have a great beginning, then my enthusiasm would fade and I’d never finish. Classic discovery writing. It was a great case of I didn’t know what I didn’t know.

Flash forward a few (mumble … 30 … mumble) years, and I’m finally getting serious about making something happen with this writing thing.

I discover plotting. Well, I say that, but I’d heard of it before — in college, we’d call it outlining — but that seemed too … stoic … for creative writing. Plotting sounded more mysterious. Along with that came this thing called structure. There were actual ‘formulas’ to follow? Cool!

As I made writing friends, I discovered everyone has a different way of plotting their books - some were extremely detailed, others were more loose, but all had a sort of roadmap to follow. So, I decided to learn some of these techniques. I found a podcast all about structure, tried to meticulously plot a story … and got frustrated.

In my mind, this was basically writing the story. Might as well just write the darned thing! I set that attempt aside, to shred later.

I read about the “snowflake method” —which seemed to make sense, until I tried to apply it to my writing. I think I’d set up some sort of mental block after that first method, because this just didn’t work for me either.

I tried a website called “Tome” that had you answer questions about the story you have in mind and by the end of the questions, you would have a complete outline ready.

Nope. That didn’t work either. The questions were too general, or went in directions that didn’t pertain to the story I wanted to write.

I tried to just write down in bullet points what I wanted to happen, and that worked … kinda. The fact I knew where I was going helped when I came back to the computer after a long pause in writing. But what I wrote felt underwhelming, and I ended up adding more “stuff” to the story after the fact.

Then I heard about this thing called “Saves the Cat”. I bought the book, thinking at the very least I’d have something to refer back to. I have to admit, it was a little hard to wrap my mind around at first. I didn’t know what the story beats actually meant. But each beat was clearly described, with plenty of examples, making them almost clear. I’m sure I was being dense, but as I kept reading, and followed the expanded examples in the back of the book, somethings started to make sense.

A lot of sense.

I wrote my last book, following the Saves the Cat method, and it made the plotting process so easy. I had a clear roadmap I could follow that built the story in a way I had never done before. Of course, if you asked my co-writer, he’d say I had good bones, but the rest needed more “fleshing out”, but he’s kinda wordy, so we can ignore him (a little).

I’m now reading Saves the Cat writes a YA novel, as that’s mainly what I write. The book is tailored for YA books, but the story beats are the same. I might actually be learning something here. Go figure.

I do recommend Saves the Cat for anyone who finds plotting a chore. It’s turned me from a pantser to … ok, let’s not get too crazy here. I still love to discovery write, but now that I have a little more of a skeleton to work with, I can be more spontaneous without getting way off track. And it’s not so rigid that I can’t deviate a little and get off track that way.

I’m still learning — and that’s a good thing.