I don't understand how to structure a story

I've tried and failed to write things for years. My scenes are good my dialogue is generally excellent, my characters generally breathe as people.

But people told me for years I was pantser because my stories themselves were unstructured. But the truth is, I'm not a panster, I need to understand how to build a story bit by bit. Point by point, colored by numbers, before I can actually finish something. And the truth is the three-act structure is something I don't really like, because while a classic, it's been done to death, and hacks basically use it, particularly the "Dark Night of the Soul" to unnecessarily kill off characters and create stuffed in the fridge moments which I loathe.

The problem with me is that I believe realism is the point of a story, and if I don't treat the characters as real, I might as well not write because the characters have no power, and are just Marionettes of the narrative, or as Wisecrack put it in the What went wrong? on the Star Wars Prequels, the characters have no agency and are little paper boats pushed along where they need to go. This for me creates huge problems of character and drama bloat that are antithetical to anything resembling a tight story structure. While I find really tight story structures to be shallow, story structure shouldn't be so flabby you bore or overwhelm the reader.

The basic problem is that books may or may not help. Ideally I'd like apprintceship or mentorship because even using fanfic as a crib doesn't work in getting me to actually make a story, and not just a bunch of scenes that happen. But if there's a good book on by the number story strcuture assembly for the aspiring writer, I'd love to give it a shot.

@InkFinger

Good advice, I'm sorry for not replying sooner but I guess I didn't set notifications so please I need a counter-response. This problem cannot be solved by showing a scene. My scene are well written, the characters believable, etc etc. I need help with structure, I need to understand what scenes to write and how to assemble them into a narrative and not just shit that happens.

I was in a writing group several years ago where we did 20-page reviews and light workshops every two weeks. I was amazingly productive, the story went nowhere, stuff kept happening. In this case, it was a Fallout 3 fanfic where I spent 15 or so chapter dealing with one trip across DC, which is basically a post-apocalyptic Stalingrad. At the time I felt it necessary to show how utterly dangerous the city was and how you could literally find a firefight every two blocks and how my characters who almost certainly be dead if they didn't have A. A police escort and B, the Police wartruck.

So what happened? I showed how utterly broken this world was and my characters get to the aircraft carrier city and even the semi-sociopathic one who likes fighting and killing was coming down with PTSD after nearly dying SEVERAL times. Did I need to go into that much detail? And how in the world could I cut it down if I wanted too?

The basic story, which I dunno how long on paper was gonna be like this:
1. Kids get exiled from Vault, have to find dad to bring back to Overseer or he'll get impatient and execute their mom instead
2. The long LONG quest to find dad.
3. Find Dad, use local powers to intimidate Overseer to not have his Vault unsealed without his permission.
4. Enclave (bad guys) shows up and brutally genocide the mutants terrorizing the Capital region. Everyone cheers
5. Enclave hires kids to clean up Horrific hotel, girl finds out she's a latent psychic, Enclave tries to use her to mind control entire region, she esapces
6. Goes to Point Lookout meets very old hero has Lovecraftian religious horror facing down of both evil Old Gods and also the evil psychic who corrupted the hotel and wants to possess her
7. Enclave showing true colors, the brother comes back, finds sister
8. Make deal with Techno Knights no one likes because they are post-American and don't even have the pretense of wanting to work within democratic institutions
9. Convince the Semi-decent Encalve colonel to defect to local government, screws over Techno Knights because they are Americans, and Americans don't do feudalism. So America Fuck Yeah! Except the Enclave, they're dirtbags.

THat's the whole long-form, and the story I wanted to do was 1-4 and subvert expectations of anyone who's played because th Enclave are welcomed with open arms and it's either them or the Techno Knights or giving killed by the mutants. And unlike stupid video game writing, they are smart enough to capitalize on this.

Problem was, to find out where their dad went they needed to find the location of another Vault. the location of which is in one of two places: the Overseer's computer or Vault-Tec in the most overrun section of DC and I couldn't think of a smart way to get them there because I'm not very creative and having someone else do it....well, if you've played Fallout 3, every problem in DC basically boils down to why not hire a Ghoul (long-lived mutant) to walk to all the objectives in DC cause the big stupid Supermutants usually leave the ghouls alone because they can't be turned into supermutants.

So why are my young fully unmutated protagonists doing ANY of this instead of a Ghoul cop with a Stealth Boy (limited invisibility cloak)?!

Then the worldbuilding fails structurally and I know it's fixable but I need help from someone who does worldbuilding but is also knowledgeable of Fallout lore and I can't find one.

I feel like Westinghouse flopping on Direct current. I know I gotta retool to Alertating current but I need the help of Telsa to make the transition.

At this poitn I give up and don't try to write anything for three years because I hate alcohol and can't get Dutch courage to face the page like Hemmingway.

Structure problem is that I can't create orginal narratives on my own. I might say, wanna write a western but I dunno what, I dunno when, I dunno involving what characters or why. Just I'd liek to write a really cool western. And I'm like....I need some grit to give this pearl form. And thus I'm here.

Tazlima said:

Let me tell you a story about originality. I used to think I had zero originality, because no matter how I tried to come up with something unique, it seemed like someone had already done something similar in some way shape or form.

Then I read an essay by Tommy Wonder on the nature of originality, and realized I had completely misunderstood the concept.

Click to expand...

Can you link or give me the title of the essay?

Also I understand the notion of it being in the toolbox, the problem is while this is explained to me, I don't intuitively see it applied to stories I read. People tell me it's following this structure and I guess the arguments are logical, but I don't see stories that way. For me, stories are never artifice, they are.....counterfactual documentaries, then events happened in another universe, but not here. The only artifice is the editing (which CAN include musical numbers) but still on some level for me, every story is a shaggy dog story, all stories are just a chain of stuff that happened and they happened to happen that way, they didn't need to happen that way.

I feel like I'm kinda tone deaf or color blind, it's like rhythm in poetry, I can sorta sense it if it's distinct enough but I could never follow a beat structure because I can't recongize beats in individual words, soft and strong almost always sound alike to me.

Drascus said:

The three act structure by itself isn't that limiting. That doesn't mean you have to use it, but it's not a straitjacket.

There are tons of ways to talk about three act and what's going on but at it's most basic you have:
Act 1 - We meet everybody and figure out how they relate to each other and what the problem is
Act 2 - Our characters interact, try to solve the problem, but aren't able to generate lasting success. They usually learn more about the problem.
Act 3 - They finally have the tools to solve the problem and they do that.

That's it! It's just a way of structuring your story that has reliably produced satisfying stories.

If you feel constrained by plot and structure it's probably because you are more of a character-driven writer. Instead of starting with plot and structure, start with character goals and motivations.

You have characters that want things, and you hopefully have reasons that they can't have those things. Ideally for character driven writing your antagonist has goals and motivations that oppose the main character. It's fine though if it's more of a "character vrs the world" story.

Okay, so now we have a main character that wants something, and she can't have it. How would this character specifically go about trying to get what she wants? Probably a bunch of different ways. Pick the most interesting one!

What could go wrong with her plan? Great, now you have some climaxes. Scenes where her plans will be interrupted and she'll have to struggle for what she wants.

How could she resolve the issue once and for all? Again, pick the interesting way. There's your act 3 climax.

You now have the bare bones of a 3 act structure, but it's all character driven, it comes from what the characters want to do. Sub plots come from the supporting cast doing what they want to do, and are interwoven into the main narrative.

Maybe you'll do this and find that 3 act doesn't fit the story that has come out of your character's decisions, that's fine too! Just make sure that the story will feel satisfying. Tell the cliff notes version to someone and see if it sparks interest or falls flat at the end.

Click to expand...

Such great advice! Problem is character(s) in the story I want to write want different things. Like in my New Vegas fanfic:
Courier doesn't quite know what she wants, or rather she wants what she can't have.
She's an Ex-Vampire it's 100 years after the apocalypse, she wishes she'd died in the apocalypse not outlived everyone she ever cared about.
She doesn't really carer about people here, not out of contempt or malice but because they are the also-rans, but she keeps doing the most dangerous jobs imaginable so someone young and stupid doesn't die doing them instead. She might not value them, but she knows they have value
She's upset that even overcoming vampirism left her with a weird kind of immortality that means that yes, she's living the life of a vampire anyway. She doesn't drink blood or burn in the sun but she's numb from outliving everyone
She can't form romantic relationships because she's fiercely loyal to her dead husband, whom she pans to continue her marriage with him when she gets to the afterlife. Thus it's not fair to string someone else along because she's desperately lonely.
She wants to fix the world without becoming a political leader because she says how old evil vampires used that to tyrannize everyone younger than themselves, something she still has nightmares about....but the youngins has.....not ruled well. Her fear of becoming a tyrant is getting people killed in front of her eyes. And for a chaotic good character that a metamorphosis she's terrified to make.
SHe wants to keep the Arizona Roman Legion LARPers from raping and murdering their way across Nevada while making as much money off their protection money other so she can be a silent angel investor in the economic recovery of the American southwest.
Also, she's about to lose her shit with her foster daughter. She's 35, she needs to stop fucking around, stop fucking drinking, settle down and get married. New ovaries are expensive but more importantly, she's a decade too old to be this young dumb and full of cum.

The problem isn't the lack of plot here, the problem is that everything went wrong in Clark county and she needs to fix it yesterday or the LARPers are gonna sweep in and nail everyone to a telephone pole.

I have introspective character needs, in the midst of an easily preventable disaster she didn't cause but she has to clean up or others will die young. It's not that she is the only person who can fix this stuff, but if other fix it conventionally, lots of people are gonna die in the process. So....Chronic Hero Syndrome combined with MASSIVE survivor's guilt.

See that? It's a huge 15 car pileup and it gets worse in that I have MULTIPLE ways to try and resolve this, the conventional way, the demon way, the dream walking way, the flashback way, her ghouled werewolf sister way, not to mention the way the plot of New Vegas with it's DLC she ALSO has to deal with an idiot who wants to nuke both the LARPers and the American restorationists they are fighting for control of Hoover Dam. And every time I wanna write I either have no idea or it's got more finicky moving parts than a German tank.

This is WAY WAY too busy, I was hoping structure could help me pair things down. Maybe it's the wrong thing. Certainly I was hoping learning structure would help me figure out the missing chunks from other semi-complete plot threads.

InkFinger said:

This seems to be the long pole in your tent, and everything else is subservient. Which means that each adventure falls in line with getting through this. It would be easy to get lost on all the rest of what you are describing, but anything that wanders from the long pole without purpose should be cut, no matter how good it is.



This is a bold comment. Video game writing is the new long form story telling, and it blends script writing and long form prose. Look at the games you love and the ones you hate, you'll see the same reasons that you find in any other form of storytelling.

Fanfic inherits the world build for it. You don't get to world build, only world borrow.

Find the story that you want to tell, and work on it from there. If you ask someone else to come up with the narrative, then it's their story, not yours.

Click to expand...

I'm hearing what you say. But with that said:

Yeah I get the thing about videogames being the long-form WHEN DONE WELL. But the new owners of Fallout, Bethesda, welll.... they're writing is pretty awful and their world building worse. I love Fallout 3, but mostly for the mods, but the narrative has always left me wanting.

See I don't value originality, cause I don't believe in it. Fix fic is the only reason I'd ever want to write, but if you know Fallout 3, this story I'm presenting is pretty far away from the original narrative, so much so that without specific names it's becoming it's original just from retweaks.

Also I don't understand that attitude about fanfic. Author's intent i not important, nor their vision. What matters is that world and making sure it runs as realistically as the premise allows. An author cannot do what they please, even they are bound by the rules of the world as it would actually have to operate, to default to do so is to crack the facade.

Also, if you want to critque something like poor worldbuilding or flawed characters, I'd think you have to keep the narrative as close as possible so others can do a side by side comparison to see how things can be done better/more consistently/more realistically.

That's one of the frustrating things is I'm sorta bound by the narrative of Fallout 3, because I could make my own story with the story elements, but it wouldn't show how to fix the problems of the original nor why they should be fixed in the first place.

in the end, I don't want to tell a good story in and of itself, I want to get people to think and use this thinking to make better, more nuanced and fair narratives themselves. Because stories are how we understand the world and simplistic narratives make for simplistic people.

Goshawk31 said:

A question on openings:
I sometimes open short stories with a quote from a key character. A recent example:
“Hey, cuz! Does this mean I’m off your shit list?”
With a foolish grin, I collapsed onto my leather sofa, etc
I've been severely dinged (on another writer website) with the admonition that you should NEVER open a story with a quote. I don't agree, and ignored that advice, but I would like to know what some of the folks here think about it. Thank you!

Click to expand...

Actually, I don't think that's a quote, that' just dialogue. Quotes are from people outside the context of the story like how the Stand, at least the miniseries opens up with TS Elliots the Wasteland. But there's it's a very chilling opener, primer for the REALLY BAD THINGS you're about to see.