Structure is 85% of your story. Never heard that before? Yeah, that’s because I made it up. I don’t think anyone has an exact statistic showing how important structure is, but maybe they should. Structure is essential, even if the math of the thing is not. All you really need to know is that structure is essential to a good story, whether that story is fiction or nonfiction.
You cannot build a story, novel, article, script or even a blog without a framework. The organization that holds a story together and helps it flow from one point to another, all supporting the main theme or throughline, is essential. That structure is what holds your ideas together and guides the words to their correct places.
In my experience, once I have found the framework for a project, I am halfway there. The structure, outline, plot, or whatever you want to call it, allows you to organize your thoughts into a coherent argument, presentation or story.
I can already hear some of you groaning at the very idea of plotting your work, but hear me out. It doesn’t have to be an onerous task or a detailed behemoth that lists every action or bit of dialogue. Structure doesn’t need to be complex to work. It can be as simple as finding the way to present your ideas or story elements in a way to reach your audience. This can be as simple or as detailed as you like. The point is that you need structure to have a story.
Structure not only applies to all writing, no matter what form—novels, short stories, screenplays, scripts, speeches, articles, et cetera, et cetera—but it can take the form that is comfortable to the writer.
The core of any structure is logic—a way a story unfolds so it makes sense to the reader. Think about it. We all know people who tell great stories. They’re the ones always at the center of attention and who can spin a tale about anything and make it sound exciting. I remember listening to my father tell a story about a trip to the local dump that had me howling with laughter. He could turn anything into a story and knew how to turn life into an anecdote.
On the other hand, we also know people who can’t tell even a tiny story without backtracking, restarting, losing the thread and adding in so many facts they lose half their audience before they reach the end.
The difference between the two types of people—those who are born storytellers and those who are not—is structure. The successful storyteller knows how to relay the facts and ideas in a way that engages the audience. They use the concepts of good storytelling—having a beginning, middle and end—to their advantage. They know how to build to toward the end. They know how to withhold key bits of information for an element of surprise or humor. They know how to organize the story for its best effect.
But structure does not have to be a detailed plot (although it certainly can be). It can be a quick list of key points that have to happen in a specific order. Let’s break it down a bit:
Setting Up Your Structure
The first step in creating a structure is deciding which type to use. This will depend on whether you want to do a full plot or a quick guide to help you organize your story, but it goes beyond that too. It depends on what type of story you are writing. A script, speech, short story, novel or screenplay all have their own structure types. So do the various genres of novels—mysteries are not set up the same way as historical novels. Each have their own master structures to follow. The key to finding your beginning structure is to decide what story you are trying to tell and how you want to tell it. Then pick the structure that works best for that type of story. This is true even if your story is about a corporate product or an executive speech. Structure matters across the board for every type of writing and story, even this blog.
Sticking to Your Structure
Once you decide what type of story you are telling and choose your structure, you need to stick to it. Make sure all of your sentences, paragraphs, chapters, scenes flow into that structure and support it. Don’t try to mix structures. For example, if you chose to write a speech in a scene structure where you present ideas and build an image of how that idea would play out in the real world afterward before you move onto the next idea, you wouldn’t want to break that pattern so you could discuss the past. If you want to add that, you would need to build a different structure or modify your structure so that bit made sense in the overall speech. Now this is not to say that every beat or scene within the structure should be the same. It shouldn’t. To do so would be repetitive and lull your audience to sleep. What you do need is to select a structure and work your scenes or beats into that structure in a way that makes sense and propels your story forward. Edit any digressions, ramblings and departures out.
Breaking a structure or pattern is jarring to your audience, which could mean losing them. A lot of structure is setting up an expectation in your audience so they can easily follow along. There is a foundation for the material or story being presented. It isn’t a random string of ideas or scenes. They hold together and make sense. They have story logic. Break the logic, lose the audience.
Finding Your Structure
Spend time on finding your structure. Sometimes this can be as simple as knowing your genre. Romance novels, for example, follow fairly standard structures. Mysteries do too. In each, you know what to expect as a reader—love in the first and murder in the second. Each story moves from the meeting or murder to the happily ever after or identifying the murderer. Other structures are not as easy, but they all require a beginning, middle and ending. They all require character development along the way. They all require a progression of ideas that flow from one to the next in the most logical way possible.
The trick to structure is to figure out how to present your information in the most engaging way. This is hardest in corporate writing where you often have a mass of ideas to present with multiple target audiences. The trick there is to figure out how to present the disparate ideas in a way that makes sense and that addresses the needs of the various audiences you need to reach. Finding the best structure to use is the first and most important step. This can take the bulk of your time as a corporate writer.
Fixing a Bad Structure
When I get called in as a script or speech doctor, the problem is nearly always structural. The original writer tried to impose a structure (or worse, didn’t set a structure at all) that didn’t work and, as a result, the script meandered and never got to the point. The structure failed so the writing and information did too. In these cases, I pull the ideas apart so I can ferret out the structure lying within. That’s the only way I can create a foundation that will support the information being presented. Once I find that structure, the ideas flow logically and my client gets a successful video or speech.
If your writing is lacking a point, pull it apart and look at how you are presenting your ideas or characters or scenes. Are you using story logic? Do your ideas progress from one to the next? Do you have an overarching theme that fits all of the information being presented? Is there a way to reorganize the material so it falls into a more logical pattern?
I once wrote a script for a client who presented their material to me in a specific way, but once I started creating the structure I realized the way they presented the material didn’t work. It was an organization that had gone through a restructuring and the way they had reorganized didn’t match what they were trying to say. I ended up taking their various capabilities and reorganized them, not by type, but by function. Once I did that, their various capabilities fell into three clear areas. It wasn’t how they looked on the organizational chart, but it made it much easier to describe what they did and how to justify funding for their organization. It was only in tearing the material apart that I could find the story logic—not corporate logic, which can be very different. Once I found a new way of looking at their organization, the story fell into place and a clear pattern appeared. That pattern became my structure. The script was easy to write after that and the client loved how clear it was. The lesson? Sometimes you have to impose structure onto things in ways that are new. Your job is to find the logic and let all else fall away. Be true to your structure and it will succeed.
What Else a Good Structure Needs
Structure needs to:
Have a beginning, middle and end
Have an action ending (call to action) or a resolution (denouement)
Flow logically
Make sense for the material being presented
Be accessible for the reader or audience
Exist on paper in some way, even if it’s a hastily scribbled list on a napkin
A clear structure that can be explained
Have Reason