Comments on: In Which The Author Contemplates Structure

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thanks for the workshop on RD, and for this wonderful article!

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bet fair poker — Wed, 02 Mar 2011 14:09:46 +0000

I just followed the link from your recent Romance Divas workshop Is that what you mean by organic… that you write according to structure, style, themes, etc. that you’ve absorbed, rather than planned out?

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By: we are ugly, but we have the music » scribbling damselfly » deborahkalin.com

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 22:09:37 +0000

[...] Diana Peterfreund talks about the four-act structure: I am a fan of the four act structure. I think envisioning your story like that is one of the easiest ways to avoid the “sagging middle.” Even if you do it naturally, going back and making sure that this is what you have done can often help you avoid later complications from bad planning. (I’m a big planner, by the way. BIG.) [...]

By: Work in progress «

Work in progress « — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 18:18:57 +0000

[...] been thinking a lot about this after reading (and re-reading) Diana Peterfreund’s essay about the four-act structure. I decided that GR is going to have three parts: a short Part I (Act I), a long Part II (Acts II [...]

By: Diana Peterfreund Blog | Structural Problems

Diana Peterfreund Blog | Structural Problems — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 13:31:15 +0000

[...] A question in the comment thread of my post on Four Act Structure: [...]

By: Anne

Anne — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 15:42:42 +0000

I’m looking for thoughts on this…do you think it destroys the structure to include a “mini” four-act structure after the main conflict of the story has been resolved? In the story I’m working on, following the characters initially resolving their main issue, additional complications arise that lead to a second “mini” crisis/climax/resolution. Both parts of the plot fall so neatly into the 4-act structure, I can’t see how to re-organize into just ONE 4-act structure. Does this destroy the idea of the 4-act entirely, or is it acceptable?

By: Kathleen MacIver

Kathleen MacIver — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 14:42:54 +0000

I just followed the link from your recent Romance Divas workshop (I’m reading through it late.) and found this article. I found myself laughing to see that this is EXACTLY what I ended up doing in my book! When you mentioned these four acts, at first I wondered, “Do I have four acts?” “What’s the difference between the crisis and the climax?” But then you mentioned four settings, and I realized, with shock, that I’d done exactly that, and that made me say “duh!” because my crisis and climax were oh-so-obvious. It just struck me as funny that someone who doesn’t know me from Adam and has never read my book can show me the structure of it so easily.

Is that what you mean by organic… that you write according to structure, style, themes, etc. that you’ve absorbed, rather than planned out?

Anyway… I’m kind-of a panster, in that I have to sit and write scenes as they come to me in order to get to know the character. If I just sit and think, I end up with disjointed stuff that doesn’t flow well. The result would sound too contrived. But if I put the character as I know him in a scene and see where that scene takes me, then I end up discovering new things about his character, his motivations in life, what things he’s up against, etc.

But THEN, as I discover all these wonderful things, I have learned that I must go back to the beginning and write the story all over again… scrapping a lot of what I wrote, because it was “discovery” writing, and writing the scenes as the reader needed to see them.

I honestly don’t know if this is how lots of writers write, or not, but your discussion of plot on RD and here is helpful. I’m using it to make sure that I got everything in there right during the re-write.

Anyway, thanks for the workshop on RD, and for this wonderful article!

By: Sean Ashby

Sean Ashby — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 21:50:00 +0000

Four acts, eh? Very interesting, thank you! I'm learning so much more about structure than I ever thought existed. I just read an interview over at Writer Unboxed with Blake Snyder about his book "Save the Cat".

He's a screenwriter, but the same principles apply to novels, I think. Anyway, he breaks down all stories into only 10 basic, fundemental stories (using movies as examples, natch). He says that if you model your story around these "primal" story arcs, you'll connect with and engage the reader every time.

Ever read it, or ever heard of approaching stories in a similar way?

Again, thanks for the post!