#story engineering

Story Engineering and the Six Core Competencies

Oh, Andre Chaperon what have you done?

After buying Andre’s course ‘Autoresponder Madness he inadvertently introduced me to ‘The Hero’s Two Journeys by Michael Hauge, which has led me to learning more about storytelling and screenwriting.

As a consequence of this journey I recently bought Story Engineering by Larry Brooks and would like to share with you some of the points I learned or better…

Ask yourself:

-What is the primary mission or purpose of this scene for the larger story? How does it move the plot or character arc forward?

or, if that is too abstract, try answering some of these:

- What is the key takeaway from this scene? What does the reader learn? - What is the main new piece of exposition/information it conveys? - What is the “sweet spot” of the scene, the core image or exchange of dialogue or action or reveal? - What emotions do you want the reader to feel?

Basically, WHAT IS THE POINT?

Then it becomes a puzzle to solve: how can you make that point? Trim away bits that have nothing to do with the point. (Save them in a scrapbook file if it’s hard to cut them. Maybe you can use them elsewhere.)

by Larry Brooks

[...] How do we make our novels work?

When we read a novel, we have no idea how the author got there, how the words actually reached the page in the order they did.

And so, using a sea of craft textbooks, workshops, online forums and word-of-mouth resources, we are mostly on our own to determine how the novel we are writing will actually get written.

And here is where the room divides. [...]

A seductive trap awaits the new writer here. Because when you hear a famous keynote speaker at a conference say something like “I can’t wait to get to my office every morning to see what my characters will do today,” it’s easy to think you’ve just heard the Holy Grail of storytelling, the golden key to your own optimal process.

Certainly what works for Stephen King does indeed work… for Stephen King. That and only that is beyond debate. Unless you are Stephen King, with his experience and innate story sensibilities. Even then, his process may or may not be your best choice. Truth be known, while King is the most famous pantser on the planet, his first drafts are very much like the evolved outline of many a successful story planner [...] A lack of this understanding is why so many new writers too often write themselves into a corner or need a dozen drafts to reach a professionally high bar.

The more you know about story craft, the better your process will be. You’ll likely use some of both approaches along the way. And you’ll need fewer drafts to get there.

But what is this engineering?

If you google “story engineering” you’ll quickly see that I’m not the first person to think of writing a story as a kind of engineering. I imagine that this seems strange to people who think of engineering as being more about calculation than creativity.

Let me describe to you the three fundamental things that I got out of my first Computer Science class. I think you’ll see immediately how these…

Yeah, I'm going to add one more reason you should read it.

Even if you don't write--even if you just read, or watch shows or movies--you should read it. Because Larry Brooks has a brilliant grasp of story structure and if you read it you will be able to do wonderful things with those stories you engage in that other people write. You'll be able to predict plot twists, understand decisions made by the writers, pick out things that are flawed or don't belong for whatever reason, and you'll be the most helpful person on the planet to your friends who do write.

I...

I've finished the sections on five of the six core competencies.

I have the tools to plan and write a story.

I can finish planning Diary of a Monster.

I can plan my fanfics.

I can write anything in the shortest time I need.

I can cut out a massive chunk of editing time.