My favorite books on writing: Book Review of Steven James’ “Story Trumps Structure”
Author Christina Suzanne Nelson recommended this book to me, and I’m so glad she did!
This book was packed with lots of good information, too much to cover in a blog post, but here are my three biggest takeaways:
It’s not that stories don’t need structure, but that structure needs logic. To quote a classic, “‘The king died and then the queen died’ is not a story. Try ‘The king died, and then the Queen died of grief.'”
If the hero loses an umbrella, don’t give him another one. Instead, whip up a tropical storm and hand him something priceless he has to keep dry.
Every scene in a story needs to proceed logically (but also unexpectedly) from the scene before. Every event needs to trigger another event, or it doesn’t deserve it’s spot on the page. It’s really that simple. So if you write a scene, and at the end of that scene, nothing has really changed, don’t write it, summarize it.
Tension must escalate. If you have a car chase in chapter one, the climax in chapter 45 should be, at the very least a car chase with a ticking bomb, or a helicopter chase, or a chase that is also a race to the burning barn where the grave goods stolen from an Ancient Egyptian tomb have been hidden. If the robber escapes, don’t catch him unless doing so causes a worse problem.
Stop solving your character’s problems. If the hero loses an umbrella, don’t give him another one. Instead, whip up a tropical storm and hand him something priceless he has to keep dry.
I highly recommend Story Trumps Structure. Chapter 23 alone would make it worth the read!
