A Quick Note on Novel Writing: Turn Your Ideas Into a Published Novel in Fiction Writing for the Novice Writer

 

A Quick Note on Novel Writing: Turn Your Ideas Into a Published Novel in Fiction Writing for the Novice Writer

 

by Ryker J. Phoenix

 

 Many of us have had an idea for a novel at some point in our lives, but few of us have actually taken the steps to turn that idea into a finished manuscript. However, with the right tools and techniques, it is possible to take your idea and turn it into a novel that will captivate readers and potentially even get published. Here are some key steps to follow:

1. Discover Your Dramatic Elements

Every novel needs some key dramatic elements to keep readers engaged. This might include conflict, mystery, suspense, humor, or romance. Take some time to consider what elements will be most important in your story and how you can incorporate them effectively.

2. Create a Premise that Sells

Your novel's premise should be succinct and compelling, capturing the essence of your story in just a few sentences. This premise will be used to pitch your novel to agents and publishers, so it's important to get it right.

3. Develop Interesting Characters

Your characters are the heart of your story, so it's important to develop them in a way that will keep readers invested in their journey. Consider their backstory, motivations, and flaws, and make sure they are fully fleshed out before you begin writing.

4. Construct Your Novel in Three Acts

Most successful novels follow a three-act structure that includes an inciting incident, a middle section that builds tension, and a climactic resolution. Make sure your novel is structured in a way that will keep readers engaged throughout.

5. Learn How To Write Effective Scenes

Scenes are the building blocks of your novel, so it's important to learn how to write them effectively. This includes using sensory details, dialogue, and action to create a vivid and engaging experience for the reader.

6. Explore Viewpoint, Voice and Tense

The viewpoint, voice, and tense you choose for your novel can have a big impact on how it is received by readers. Consider experimenting with different options to find the right fit for your story.

7. Add Conflict, Mystery and Suspense

No matter what genre you're writing in, conflict, mystery, and suspense are key to keeping readers engaged. Consider how you can introduce these elements into your story in a way that feels natural and compelling.

8. Polish Your Manuscript

Once you've completed your first draft, it's important to take the time to revise and polish your manuscript. This might involve cutting unnecessary scenes, tightening up dialogue, and ensuring consistency throughout.

9. Develop a Marketing Plan

If you're hoping to get published, it's important to have a marketing plan in place. This might include researching agents and publishers, building an online platform, and networking with other writers and industry professionals.

10. Get Published!

With the right combination of hard work and persistence, it is possible to get your novel published. Keep honing your craft, seeking feedback, and refining your manuscript until it is the best it can possibly be. And remember, even if the road to publication is long and difficult, the satisfaction of seeing your story in print is well worth the effort.

 

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A Quick Note on Character's Internal Dialogue in Fiction Writing for the Novice Writer

 

A Quick Note on  Character's Internal Dialogue in Fiction Writing for the Novice Writer

 

by Ryker J. Phoenix

 

 

CraftWhy Quality is Not About Talent

Last month in this column, we talked about the importance of Quality in the Success Equation.

If you want to be a successful novelist, your writing must have high Quality. And my definition of Quality is “how well you delight your Target Audience.”

So how do you create a novel of high Quality?

You might think that great novelists are born, not made. That you need native writing talent, and lots of it. That you either have it or you don’t.

But none of those is true.

Writing skill is mostly learned, not inherited. Just like all other skills.

Let me commend to you a book that revolutionized my thinking a couple of years ago when I first read it.

The book is titled Talent is Overrated.

I’ll admit that when I first saw this book title, it raised my hackles. I read the first chapter of the book just to convince myself that the author had no idea what he was talking about.

Why was I so offended by the title?

Because we all like to think we have inborn talent that makes us special.

And it’s true that different people are born with somewhat different levels of inborn talent. The gifts God gave us. Or the gifts our genes gave us. Or the gifts the uncaring universe thrust on us by chance. Or whatever you think is the source for “inborn talent.”

But it’s just a fact that inborn talent is vastly overrated. Decades of research have shown that most of what we thought was inborn talent is actually learned.

Want proof?

The Amazing Case of the Polgar Girls

In the 1960s, a Hungarian educator named Laszlo Polgar went looking for a woman to marry who would do an experiment with him. He wanted to raise several children who would all be world experts in some chosen field. Any field. He wasn’t sure which.

Incredibly, he found a woman named Klara who agreed to marry him and join in this experiment. In due course, they had three daughters—Susan, Sophia, and Judit.

When Susan reached the age of four, they settled on chess as the field they would pursue. Laszlo was only a mediocre player, and Klara knew even less, but they began teaching Susan the game intensively.

Intensively. They homeschooled the girls and spent all their available time training them in chess, using the methods Laszlo had developed as an educator.

The short version of this story is that the oldest daughter, Susan, became a grandmaster at the age of 21. She ultimately became the second-best woman chess player in the world. (Why only the second-best? Keep reading.)

The middle daughter, Sophia, did almost as well, reaching the rank of sixth-best woman in the world.

And the youngest daughter Judit? She is the youngest person ever to become a grandmaster (at age 15, several months younger than Bobby Fischer did it). She became the top-ranked woman in the world, ahead of her older sisters. And she was ranked for years among the top ten grandmasters in the world, the rest of whom were men. (If you’ve seen the recent Netflix miniseries The Queen’s Gambit, you know how sexist the chess world was when these amazing young women were growing up.)

The Polgar girls became chess prodigies by the same path that all chess prodigies got that way—using something called “deliberate practice.”

Which is covered very extensively in the book Talent is Overrated.

What About Tiger Woods?

You might be thinking that chess is one thing, but what about golf? Don’t you need amazing physical talent to excel at golf? What about Tiger Woods?

In the book Talent is Overrated, the author makes a strong case for what he believes made Tiger a superstar. And it wasn’t inborn talent. It was deliberate practice.

What About Mozart?

Surely Mozart must be different? Anyone who’s seen the movie Amadeus will be certain that Mozart was nothing but natural, raw, incredible, extraordinary inborn talent.

Nope. Mozart wasn’t born a musical genius. His father drilled him in music from a very early age. Mozart apparently became Mozart through deliberate practice.

Deliberate practice is the secret sauce of every superstar’s superpower.

What is Deliberate Practice?

And what is deliberate practice, exactly?

If you’re worried that it’s just “hard work,” then stop worrying.

When we hear the words “hard work,” we normally think of long, boring hours of awful, joyless drudgery.

Deliberate practice is not that.

Deliberate practice is much harder.

The good news is that deliberate practice is NOT boring. The bad news is that deliberate practice is still not fun. It works because it constantly challenges you to do just a bit more than you’re capable of doing.

That’s why it’s not boring—you’re constantly stretching yourself. And it’s also why it’s not fun—stretching yourself is not comfortable.

I’ll try to summarize deliberate practice in just a few words below. But I won’t succeed. Because it would take a book to really do it justice, and you already know the title of that book: Talent is Overrated.

Here’s a very rough summary:

Part of deliberate practice involves practice, obviously. But superstars practice differently than the rest of us. Superstars analyze what’s working and what’s not working. They break it down into parts. They practice the hard parts obsessively. They may have a coach help them on the hard parts. And they constantly try to do a bit better than their best.

That’s the best I can do in a few words. But I highly recommend you read the book. It’ll change how you think about talent. I’ve got links to all the major retailers on my website here.

Also see:

• Using Internal Dialogue To Reveal Character
• How to Write Internal Dialogue: Dialogue Formatting Guidelines

 

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A Quick Note on Elements of Fiction and How to Use it in Fiction Writing for the Novice Writer

 

A Quick Note on Elements of Fiction and How to Use it in  Fiction Writing for the Novice Writer

 

by Ryker J. Phoenix

 

Fiction is the art of storytelling, and it can take on many forms and styles. Regardless of the genre or style, all fiction contains certain key elements that are essential to creating a compelling and engaging story. These elements of fiction include setting, plot, character, theme, and point of view.

The first element of fiction is setting. The setting of a story refers to the time, place, and circumstances in which the story takes place. This includes the physical environment, the social context, and any cultural or historical factors that might be relevant to the story. Setting helps to create the atmosphere of the story and can often play a significant role in shaping the plot and character development.

The second element of fiction is plot. The plot refers to the sequence of events that make up the story. It includes the conflict or problem, the rising action, the climax, and the resolution. The plot is the backbone of the story and is responsible for keeping the reader engaged and interested in what happens next. A well-crafted plot should be suspenseful, surprising, and ultimately satisfying.

The third element of fiction is character. Characters are the people or creatures who inhabit the story and drive the plot forward. They can be protagonists, antagonists, or supporting characters, and they should be fully developed with their own unique personality traits, motivations, and goals. Good characters are relatable, engaging, and realistic, and they should undergo some form of transformation or growth over the course of the story.

The fourth element of fiction is theme. Theme is the underlying message or idea that the story conveys. It is often expressed through symbols, motifs, or recurring images. Themes can be universal, such as love, death, or identity, or they can be more specific to the story’s context or setting. Themes help to give the story depth and resonance and can provide the reader with insights into the human condition.

The final element of fiction is point of view. Point of view refers to the perspective from which the story is told. It can be first-person, third-person, or omniscient, and it can have a major impact on the reader’s experience of the story. Point of view helps to establish the narrative voice and tone, and it can also be used to create suspense, ambiguity, or dramatic irony. The choice of point of view should be deliberate and should serve the needs of the story.

In conclusion, these five elements of fiction – setting, plot, character, theme, and point of view – are essential to the craft of storytelling. They work together to create a well-crafted, engaging, and meaningful story that resonates with readers. Whether writing a short story or a novel, understanding these elements of fiction is necessary for creating a compelling work of literary fiction.

Also see:

• 7 Elements of Fiction: ProWritingAid's Expert Guide
•  The 10 Key Elements of Fiction
   

 

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Organization: Your Production Plan by Randy Ingermanson | Advanced Fiction Writing

Organization: Your Production Plan

 

by Randy Ingermanson 

 

Advanced Fiction Writing

 

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In the January 2015 issue of this e-zine, I wrote an article titled “The Success Equation,” which spelled out my ideas at the time for why some authors are successful and most aren’t.

Over the past six years, I’ve honed those ideas by teaching them at conferences and by putting them into practice in my own life.

This year, in this e-zine, I’d like to walk you through my ideas as they stand right now. I’ll teach you what I’ve been doing since 2015.

I recently wrote a blog post, “The Success Equation,” that briefly summarizes the five factors that drive success.

Two of the factors that drive success (Target Audience size and Quality) have to do with your writing craft, and I’ll begin the discussion of those in this month’s Craft column.

A third factor that drives success is your Discoverability. This is a large topic and is going to take months to cover. We’ll get started in this month’s Marketing column.

A fourth factor that drives success is your Production, and that’s the subject of this column.

The fifth factor that drives your current success is something you have absolutely no control over--the success you’ve had in the past. You can’t change the past. But you can change the future, by taking actions now in the present to make today more successful. Because today is the yesterday you won’t be able to control tomorrow.

Why Production Matters

What is Production? It’s the speed that you publish your books.

If all other things are equal, the author who publishes five books per year is going to do better than the author who publishes one. And the author with ten books published in past years will do better than the author with only one, because some marketing methods only work when you have several books published.

That’s why your Production matters. If you want to be more successful, do your best to maximize your Production.

You might argue that the Quality of your work will suffer if you publish five books per year. That’s true for some authors and not for others. I would never tell you to publish shlock, just to publish fast. I don’t write five books per year, for three reasons:

1. I have a day job that consumes half my time. It’s a fun job that I love, and it pays well, and I don’t see any reason to give it up. I get to do science, and I get to write code, and they actually pay me! What could be better?
2. The books I write are huge. The last novel I wrote was 180k words. My current work in progress weighs in at over 240k words.
3. The books I write take a lot of research. My readers know that I connect a lot of dots. That’s my superpower, and my readers like that, but connecting dots takes a lot of time. I try to spend several weeks per year doing on-site research for my books. Time spent on research is time spent not writing. It is what it is.

So how do you set your production rate and then live with it?

Your Production Rate

The two factors you need to look at are these:

• How long does it take, realistically, to write a book?
• How many hours do you have in your time budget per week?

Once you know those, you can figure out a reasonable production rate.

For myself, once the research is done, I can write 500 to 1000 words per hour. So a book of 200k words would take 200 to 400 hours to write. And it would take another 200 hours to edit and polish.

My current time budget for writing fiction is one hour per day, every day of the year. As of this moment, I have a streak of 506 days in a row, writing one hour per day. (The only exceptions are when I’m sick or traveling. Every other day of the year, I work. That includes Christmas. And my birthday. And weekends.)

Once you know how long it takes to write a book and how many hours per week you write, you know your optimal production rate. In my case, let’s say the book will take 500 hours at 7 hours per week. So that’s about 72 weeks. Which is why I can’t publish even one book per year.

A Production Plan is a Production Habit

If you want to boost your Production, you need a Production Plan.

And a Production Plan is just another name for a Production Habit. A famous writer once said, “I write when the spirit moves me … and the spirit moves me every day.”

Stephen King writes 2000 words every day. That’s over 700k words per year. That’s Production, and that’s a key element of his success.

Your life will change amazingly if you create a Production Habit.

So how do you do that?

You do it by making it ridiculously easy:

1. Make a firm promise to yourself that you’re going to write every day of the week for at least 5 minutes. (You get to decide whether that means 5 days per week, or 6, or 7.)
2. Back up that promise with an accountability partner. If you miss even one day in a given week, then you owe your friend a $50 Amazon gift card. (It doesn’t have to be exactly $50. Make it a number that will sting, but won’t impoverish you.) You should have no problem finding a friend who will agree to be your partner on this.

You might argue that 5 minutes per day is too easy.

Yes, it’s easy. The easiness is the point. 5 minutes per day is perfect when you’re starting out. Because when you’re starting out, the value is not in the 5 minutes. The value is in creating the habit.

After you’ve spent 30 days doing 5 minutes per day, your habit will be pretty well in place. Then ramp up the time commitment to 10 minutes. Or 15.

Then after another 30 days, ramp it up again.

At a certain point, you’ll reach your natural limit for the number of minutes you can work in a day. For me, at this point in my life, my natural limit is 60 minutes. I don’t have more. So I make every minute count. Make yours count too.

A year from now, when you look back on your Production for 2021, you’re going to be astounded at how much you’ve achieved.

Astounded. Next year, this time, you’ll see.

Homework:

• How many words do you plan for your current novel? (50k to 100k is a typical range.)
• How many words per hour do you write, on average? (500 words to 2000 words per hour are typical.)
• How many hours do you estimate it would take to write your book and edit it and polish it? (Some writers need as little as 100 hours; others might need up to 500.)
• How many hours do you think you can budget each week for Production? (Most professional writers are producing new content between 5 and 20 hours per week.)
• Now do the math: How many books can you write in a year? (1 to 5 are typical.)

Please note that it’s OK to not be in the “typical” ranges quoted above. The point of the exercise is to define a Production rate goal that works for you, in your life situation

 

About The Author

Randy Ingermanson is a theoretical physicist and the award-winning author of six novels. He has taught at numerous writing conferences over the years and publishes the free monthly Advanced Fiction Writing E-zine.

 

 Randy Ingermanson Books at Amazon

 

More Advanced Fiction Writing

Why Every Author Needs a Vision Statement by Randy Ingermanson | Advanced Fiction Writing

 

Why Every Author Needs a Vision Statement

 

by Randy Ingermanson 

 

Advanced Fiction Writing

 

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 In the Organizing column for this month, I mentioned a couple of factors in the Success Equation that have to do with your Craft. Here they are:

• The size of your Target Audience.
• The Quality of your writing.

I hope it’s clear why these are factors in your success.

It’s easier to find True Fans of your books if you’re writing for a large Target Audience. So a large Target Audience makes your marketing easier.

And people in your Target Audience are more likely to become rabid fans of your books if your Quality is high. (I define Quality to be “how well you delight your Target Audience.”)

Note that different Target Audiences like different things, which means they define Quality in different ways.

So your first task is to define your Target Audience. (This doesn’t take long, and we’ll tackle this today.)

Then your second task will be to increase your Quality. (This will consume you for the rest of your life, but there’s a process for improving your Quality, and we’ll discuss that next month in this column.)

Who Is Your Target Audience?

I define your Target Audience to be the set of people who would like the kind of book you’re writing, if only they knew it existed.

So your Target Audience is much larger than your set of True Fans. When you start out, you have zero True Fans, but you may have millions of potential True Fans—people in your Target Audience. As your career moves forward, people in your Target Audience will find your books and become your True Fans.

It’s tempting to think that your Target Audience is nothing more nor less than readers for your category.

So if you write mysteries, for example, you might think that your Target Audience is “people who read mysteries.”

The problem is that this is too vague. There are a lot of different kinds of mysteries. Readers who like police procedurals might not like cozy mysteries, and vice versa.

So it’s important to ask what separates the mysteries you write from all the other mysteries in the world.

Maybe you write mysteries set in Kenya. Or mysteries featuring an eccentric British detective with an addiction to cocaine. Or mysteries where the detective is a cat.

Think hard about what makes your novels different.

Can you define a subcategory that your novel fits in? Or a subsubcategory? One with maybe only a few authors in it?

Once you’ve done that, you’re ready to write your Vision Statement.

Writing Your Vision Statement

Vision Statements have a bad reputation. They became popular a few decades ago in the buzzwordy business world, and they are notorious for being vague and useless.

Don’t write that kind of Vision Statement. Write one that’s precise and useful.

If you’ve identified the subsubcategory that your novels fit in, writing your Vision Statement is now very simple. Just fill in the blank below with your subsubcategory:

“I want to be the best writer of <your subsubcategory> in the world.”

That is certainly precise. Why is it useful?

Because it helps you make the hard decisions you’ll face in your writing career.

If you launch one or two or three books in your subsubcategory, and if they don’t sell like lightning, your agent and/or your editor is going to call you one day and say, “Hey, I just had this great idea. Your books aren’t doing as well as we’d hoped, but we think it would be cool if you wrote this other kind of a book that is selling really well.”

It’s possible that’s a good idea. Your agent loves you after all. Your editor loves you. They’re both looking out for your success.

But the odds are high that it’s actually a bad idea. Because neither your agent nor your editor is you, and they aren’t the person who has to write the book. If you write a book that you’re just not that interested in, you’re going to be miserable, and the book will very likely sell even worse than the books you wrote already.

So your Vision Statement is there to help you decide whether to say “yes” or “no.”

If the book they ask you to write fits in with your Vision Statement, then it makes sense to say “yes.”

If it doesn’t fit your Vision Statement, then either say “no” or change your Vision Statement so it matches what they asked you to write. (The polite way to say “no” is like this: “That sounds like it would be a super book, but it just doesn’t fit my Vision Statement, and I don’t think I could write it the way it should be written. So thank you, but I have to reluctantly say no.”)

A Tale of Two Books

Once upon a time, my agent called me and suggested a book I might write. (This was long ago, when I still had an agent.) I didn’t have a Vision Statement then, but I do now, and the book matched my current Vision Statement exactly. I wrote that book and it’s the one book of all the books I ever wrote that makes me happiest.

Another time, that same agent called me in a conference call with my editor, and they suggested another book I might write. The proposed book didn’t match my current Vision Statement at all. But since I had no Vision Statement at the time, I lacked any reason to say “no,” so I decided to give it a shot. It did sound like fun. Almost a year later, I delivered the book, but my editor rejected it. I rewrote it and delivered it again, and the editor rejected it again and cancelled the project. And I paid back the advance. I worked on the book again a few years later, planning to indie-publish it. About that time, I finally developed my Vision Statement, and I realized the book didn’t fit in. At all. It was a fine book. It was a good story. But it was a diversion from what I really wanted to write. So I decided not to publish it.

Brand Confusion

When every book you write fits your Vision Statement, your True Fans know what to expect. You are the author who writes the kind of book that your True Fans love. Bit by bit, you grow your set of True Fans, and you deliver the goods, over and over and over.

Suppose you then write a book that doesn’t fit your Vision Statement. Many of your True Fans will like it, but a fraction of them won’t. Because a fraction of your True Fans just don’t like that particular kind of story.

And now you’ve committed the sin of “brand confusion.” You’ve led them to believe you write one kind of book, and then you sold them something else, and they only learned it was something else after they bought it and started reading.

Imagine you walk into your favorite ice cream shop and order your favorite flavor of ice cream. Because you really, really, really want ice cream today. Your special flavor. And they take your money and hand you … a pizza. That would be weird. You didn’t come in for pizza. You came in for ice cream. Pizza is fine. You probably like pizza, but possibly you don’t. Either way, you suddenly don’t trust them quite so much. You expressly ordered ice cream, but they gave you pizza. What will they give you next, and will you like it? Now you aren’t sure. Next time you want ice cream, you’ll go to a shop that gives you what you ask for.

That’s brand confusion.

You don’t like it when somebody does that to you. Treat your readers the way you want to be treated yourself.

Your Vision Statement will protect you from brand confusion. Write your Vision Statement and stick to it.

Homework:

• What is the main category you write? (Romance or mysteries or thrillers or SF or fantasy or whatever.)
• What is the subcategory within that main category?
• What is the subsubcategory?
• How many competitors do you have within that subsubcategory?
• If you have more than 10 competitors, can you refine your subsubcategory even more—until you have fewer than 10 competitors?
• Define your subsubcategory as precisely as you can. What kind of readers would love that exact kind of book?
• Now write your Vision Statement. “I want to be the best writer of  in the world.” Print it out and hang it where you’ll see it every day.

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About The Author

Randy Ingermanson is a theoretical physicist and the award-winning author of six novels. He has taught at numerous writing conferences over the years and publishes the free monthly Advanced Fiction Writing E-zine.

 

 Randy Ingermanson Books at Amazon

 

More Advanced Fiction Writing

A Quick Note on Anton Chekhov’s “Gun Theory” and How to Use it in Fiction Writing for the Novice Writer by Ryker J. Phoenix

 

A Quick Note on Anton Chekhov’s “Gun Theory” and How to Use it in  Fiction Writing for the Novice Writer

 

by Ryker J. Phoenix

 

 Anton Chekhov is widely regarded as one of the greatest writers of the 19th century, and his contributions to the field of literature are still studied and admired today. One of Chekhov's most famous and enduring contributions to the craft of writing is his "gun theory," which has become a cornerstone of modern storytelling.

Chekhov's gun theory is a simple but powerful concept: every element in a story must serve a purpose. In other words, if a gun is introduced in the first act of a play or story, it must eventually be fired by the end of the story. Chekhov believed that every detail in a work of fiction should be necessary and integral to the plot, and that any element that does not serve a purpose should be removed.

This approach to storytelling is deceptively simple, but it has profound implications for the way that writers approach their craft. By forcing writers to consider every detail in their work, Chekhov's gun theory helps to create stories that are tightly constructed and free of extraneous material. This in turn creates a sense of inevitability and coherence in the story that draws the reader or audience in and makes them invested in the outcome.

Chekhov's gun theory also has important implications for character development. By insisting that every character, action, and detail must serve a purpose, Chekhov encourages writers to create characters who are fully realized and who act in ways that are consistent with their personalities and motivations. This attention to detail and consistency helps to create characters who are believable and who engage the reader or audience on a deeper level.

The gun theory is not just limited to physical objects like guns, but can also apply to any element in a story that is introduced but not fully developed. This could include a character's backstory, a particular setting, or a plot point that is introduced but never resolved. By insisting that every element in a story must serve a purpose, Chekhov encourages writers to create stories that are tightly constructed and free of loose ends.

Of course, like any theory of writing, Chekhov's gun theory is not without its critics. Some argue that it can lead to formulaic, predictable stories that lack spontaneity and surprise. Others argue that it places too much emphasis on plot at the expense of character development or other elements of storytelling.

Despite these criticisms, however, Chekhov's gun theory remains a powerful and influential concept in the world of storytelling. Its emphasis on purpose, consistency, and coherence has helped countless writers to create stories that are engaging, meaningful, and memorable. Aspiring writers would do well to study Chekhov's gun theory in depth and to incorporate its principles into their own work.

Also see:

• Writing 101: What Is Chekhov's Gun? Learn How to Use Chekhov's Gun In Your Writing
   

More Quick Notes for the Novice Writer

 

The Bedtime Story Model by Randy Ingermanson | Advanced Fiction Writing

The Bedtime Story Model

 

by Randy Ingermanson 

 

Advanced Fiction Writing

 

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There are two common ways people organize ideas—the top-down method and the bottom-up method.

The top-down method starts with just one simple idea and expands it out in stages, adding more and more detail until the whole story is fleshed out. Fans of my Snowflake Method will see instantly that the Snowflake is a classic top-down approach to developing a story. But it’s not the only way.

The bottom-up method starts with the whole story, or at least a big chunk of it. But to sell this to an editor or an agent or a reader, you’ve got to be able to explain in just a few words what the story’s about. So the bottom-up approach keeps summarizing and summarizing the story into smaller and smaller chunks until at last, you’ve got a one-sentence summary or a logline or a pitch sentence that you can use to sell your story.

That bottom-up process of summarizing and resummarizing is hard. You have to figure out what’s important and what to leave out. But it feels like it’s all important!

So how do you decide what to leave out?

I’ve found it helpful to use a clever tool created by Pilar Allesandra, the “Bedtime Story” template, which helps you summarize the Three-Act Structure of your story in just a few paragraphs. The template was originally described in her book The Coffee Break Screenwriter. This book is packed full of good ideas and templates for making progress on your screenplay, 10 minutes at a time.

I originally found the “Bedtime Story” template online at the StoryFix blog, in a post by Art Holcomb from years ago.

The entire template appears in Art's blog post, and I then bought the book The Coffee Break Screenwriter by Pilar Allesandra, because it has dozens and dozens of other useful templates for organizing your story.

Let’s review the Three-Act Structure and then see the Bedtime Story model in action. The Three-Act Structure breaks your story up into four parts of roughly equal length. Yes, four parts, not three. We’ll see how that works shortly

Act 1

The first Act of your story introduces your character and their life situation, reveals some problem in their life, and ends with a First Disaster that impels the character to commit to the story.

An example I’ve used many times is the original Star Wars movie (now numbered Episode 4. In Act 1, we meet Luke Skywalker, a young farm boy who dreams of joining the rebel alliance, but is tied down to a dull job working for his uncle. When his uncle buys two droids that escape, Luke goes after them and meets Obi-wan Kenobi, who invites him to go help rescue Princess Leia. Luke initially says no, but then he discovers that his aunt and uncle have been murdered by storm troopers searching for the droids. So Luke agrees to join Obi-wan Kenobi on a trip to Princess Leia’s home planet.

Here’s the Bedtime Story template for the first act. As a homework exercise, you can fill in the blanks with the storyline from Star Wars or for some other favorite movie that you know better:

Once upon a time there was a ____________________( main character) who was ____________________ (character flaw). When ____________________ (obstacle) happened, she ____________________ (flaw-driven strategy). Unfortunately ____________________ (screw up). So she decided ____________________ (goal) and had to ____________________ (action that begins a new journey).

Act 2A

Act 2 has two parts, roughly equal in length. In Act 2A, your lead character pursues a defective strategy, runs into obstacles, meets some allies, and ultimately hits a Second Disaster that forces the story lead to rethink their strategy.

Continuing the example of Star Wars, in Act 2A, Luke and Obi-wan Kenobi hire Han Solo and Chewbacca to transport them on the Millennium Falcon to Princess Leia’s home planet, Alderaan. On the journey, Kenobi tries to teach Luke to use The Force, but Luke is having trouble giving up rational control to some spooky unseen Force. When they reach Alderaan, they find the planet has been obliterated by a giant Death Star. A tractor beam sucks the Millennium Falcon into the Death Star. Kenobi sets out alone to cut power to the tractor beam. Luke and Han go on a crazy mission to rescue the Princess. But Darth Vader intercepts Kenobi and they have a light-saber duel, which ends with Vader killing Kenobi.

Here’s the Bedtime Story template for Act 2A. As a homework exercise, you can again fill in the blanks:

In order to take this action, she decided to ____________________ (strategy). Unfortunately ____________________ (obstacle) happened, which caused ____________________ (complication)! Now she had to ____________________ (new task) or risk ____________________ (personal stake)

Act 2B

In Act 2B, your lead character makes a new and better strategy, which they then pursue for the rest of the story. However, the obstacles only get bigger, and the Act ends with a Third Disaster that now forces the lead character to commit to one last desperate attempt to end the story.

In Act 2B of Star Wars, Luke and his friends escape from the Death Star. Darth Vader sends out Imperial ships to pursue them, but our heroes fight bravely and defeat their enemies and escape. Princess Leia insists that they must go to the secret rebel planet, where she intends to hand over the droid R2-D2 with the complete plans for the Death Star. She hopes that the rebels will then find a weakness that they can exploit to destroy the Death Star. They reach the rebel planet safely, and only then do they discover that they’ve been tricked. Vader’s men had planted a tracking device on the Millennium Falcon, and now the Death Star has followed them to the home solar system of the rebel planet. It’s only a matter of hours before the Death Star will destroy the rebel planet, and with it the Rebellion.

Here’s the Bedtime Story template for Act 2B. As a homework exercise, you can again fill in the blanks:

Where she once wanted to ____________________ (old desire) she now wanted ____________________ (new desire). But how could that happen when ____________________ (obstacle)? Filled with ____________________ (emotion) she____________________ (new action). But this only resulted in ____________________ (low point).

Act 3

In Act 3, your lead character commits to a decision to end the story. The stakes are high, but your lead character is now a stronger person than they were at the start of the story, and they have a chance to win. It’s only a slim chance, but they accept the odds and risk everything to win or lose.

In Act 3 of Star Wars, the rebels know that the Death Star will destroy their planet shortly, unless they can destroy it first. They could scatter to the far corners of the galaxy, but this would end the Rebellion, because without a home base and communication, they would have no way to continue fighting the Empire. They decide to stand and fight the Death Star. Using the plans supplied by R2-D2, they detect a small weakness in the Death Star’s defenses, and send out every possible fighter ship to attack it. After a wild battle, with many rebels killed, Luke Skywalker finds enough of the Force inside himself to launch a photon torpedo that destroys the Death Star.

Here’s the Bedtime Story template for Act 3. As a homework exercise, you can again fill in the blanks:

Fortunately, this helped her to realize ____________________ (the solution)! All she had to do was____________________ (action using new lesson)! Using ____________________ (other characters), ____________________ (skills) and ____________________ (tools from the journey) she was able to ____________________ (victorious action). Unfortunately, ____________________ (final hurdle). But this time, she ____________________ (clever strategy)! This resulted in ____________________ (change of situation)

A Template is a Guide, Not a Master

I hope it’s obvious that the Bedtime Story template is just a guide to help you in focusing your ideas into a sound Three-Act Structure. It will tell you what to remove from your summary, and it will suggest what to leave in, but you may need to change the wording to fit your story.

The template is not something to follow slavishly. Your story is your story and it has its own inner logic. The Bedtime Story model is just a way to help you summarize your story in a couple of hundred words that reflect the classic Three-Act Structure.

Once you’ve done that, it shouldn’t be hard to trim it further, to a one-paragraph summary and then ultimately to a one-sentence summary that will serve you forever as your selling tool.

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About The Author

Randy Ingermanson is a theoretical physicist and the award-winning author of six novels. He has taught at numerous writing conferences over the years and publishes the free monthly Advanced Fiction Writing E-zine.

 

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