STRUCTURING A NOVEL
I
recently decided that the first part of my novel would be stronger if I
reordered some of the material. I believe the changes I've made achieved this aim.
However, I also needed to consider the structure.
I
wrote this story using a four part structure. Part 1 introduces the character
in their ordinary world and includes the Inciting Incident which occurs within
the first 30 pages. At the end of Part 1, something happens which launches the
MC into Part 2. In this part the MC responds to events and this leads to the
halfway point where a decision has to be made. This is sometimes
referred to as the Recommitment. When the MC enters Part 3 they stop reacting
to events and actively go on the attack. This culminates with the Crises, which is the darkest moment for the MC. In Part 4 the tension drops
slightly as the MC goes through the scenes which lead to the Climax. After this point the story is essentially over and enters the dénouement
phase.
Whilst
the changes I made didn’t alter the structure, I was left with a slight imbalance
in terms of word and page count for each part. I looked again at some of the
material I’d taken out and looked for places where some of it could be put back
in. This led to a little more restructuring and actually produced a better balance
than I'd had.
Another
way to plot the events in a novel is to use a 3 Act Structure. Some time ago I
came across a 27 chapter outline for this, which I also use. I’ll write more
about that in another post.
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