Close Call

Alex, you almost gained an email from me. I got so lost in trying to map out my story structure I was starting to see grid patterns when I was looking away from the screen.

I think I've figured things out now using a little common sense and reading between the lines.

And in the end, I think I've got it.

My act 1 lined up with a good climax already in place - right where it was supposed to be.

I got a little confused with the placement of the midpoint before the midpoint climax and which column it was supposed to be, but I reverted to scenes within a sequence, within an act to figure out where the midpoint should be and found my sex at sixty arrived too early (no male comments here please). So I need to add two scenes to get it on track, or, if going by remaining scenes, it's spot on being exactly the midpoint between the beginning of act 2 and the final climax. (I know - typical male looking for a way to excuse the early arrival).

Going by scenes again, my final act should only be around 12-15 scenes. Structuring things out as suggested, I was missing 5 scenes, and when looking at the grid structure, some of the missing scenes to allow me to get from here to there, were painfully obvious.

So all in all, so far the storyboarding structure and formula suggested by Alex works. Obviously you may need to massage it a little, but you don't want to go too far away from an obviously proven, and more importantly, accepted method.

Now strangely, I've only storyboarded half my plot. The second half feeds off the first and now that I've laid it out, I can see what needs to go into it. I can see where the planting and payoffs are going to go, the foreshadowing. I can pluck and swap and play til my little black heart is content.

Very cool.

Go read Alex's writing suggestions and give it a go. If you're struggling to get words on a page, use it as a time out. Convince yourself you're still doing something worthwhile for your book even though you're not actually writing. It shouldn't be too hard to convince yourself because you will be doing something important for your book.

If you're a pantser instead of a plodder, good luck to you; I couldn't work that way. For the rest of us - you too Ben - go and give it a go.

Speak soon

BT