I’m a rule follower. That person who stops at a stop sign, even though there’s no one around… that’s me. I won’t use the ten items or less check-out line with eleven items, even if I have eleven chocolate bars, and I never return my library books late. Well, there was that one time, but I paid my fines and stayed away from the library for more than a year out of shame.
And yet, I have been known to break a few rules. (Don’t tell my parents. Wait, don’t tell my kids!) Sometimes I knew the rules and made a choice, and I’ll admit, sometimes I just didn’t know the rules.
As a writer, (even if you’re not a ‘writer’) there are an overabundance of rules, and I’m likely to break a few in the approximately thousand words of this post. There are punctuation and spelling rules, formatting rules, rules for non-fiction and rules for fiction. There are rules specific to the genre you write, rules of business and etiquette, marketing rules. And to make it more challenging, every now and then the rules change! One of the most basic rules. Write What You Know.
I’ve told this story before, but here it is.
I never considered myself a writer. I mean I wrote. Writing has been my passion since…well, always, but a writer, or maybe I should say A WRITER was someone special, someone with magical power that could transport you to other worlds, someone who offered you the opportunity to live other lives. I just wrote.
So, at twenty-one years old with a nine-month-old baby, I decided that I had all of the answer to parenthood, and that I’d write a parenting column for our local newspaper, The Butterfield Express. (Why yes, I do write in run-on sentences…it’s also how I talk!)
I wrote several sample columns, walked into the offices of The Butterfield Express, and asked to speak to the editor. That was probably the first rule I broke. I didn’t send a query letter, I didn’t make an appointment, I just walked in and asked to speak to an editor. But I didn’t know any better, and they gave me the column.
The second rule that I broke was – Write What You Know.
I’ll give myself credit for thinking I was writing something I knew, but I’ll admit it was pretty naïve. More than forty years later, after raising three boys you couldn’t pay me enough to write a parenting column. I KNOW that I don’t know.
But I wrote that column, and I’m glad it was before the internet, because I’ll be happy if those columns are never seen again! More importantly, I learned a few things about writing and working with a publisher.
What I didn’t learn was that you didn’t walk into an editor’s office unannounced and ask for a column on a topic in which you really had no expertise, so…
…a few years later, I decided I wanted to write a consumer law column for The Moreno Valley News. Despite having no law degree, no legal background of any kind…unless dating a lawyer counts, and being told no one would give me a law column, I prepared several sample columns and marched into the offices of The Moreno Valley News and asked to see an editor.
Maybe I didn’t learn anything from my first experience, because I made the exact same mistakes. I didn’t make an appointment, and I didn’t Write What I Knew.
But they gave me the column, and I probably learned more from this experience.
The third column I wrote was a cooking column for The Antelope Valley Press Enterprise; no, this time I didn’t walk into the office with an envelope of samples and ask to see an editor. This time, the editor called me by accident. Yes, it was a wrong number phone call, and I took the opportunity to pitch a food column…but I still wasn’t writing what I knew. At this point I had a handful of recipes in my repertoire, and they all contained some flavor of cream of -insert a flavor here- soup. Yes, I got the column, and once again, I wrote what I didn’t know.
Making an appointment to see an editor instead of walking into their office unannounced, is probably a rule that should be followed. I might have gotten lucky…twice.
But, writing what you know is a rule that can be broken.
Writing what you know is intrinsic. It’s going to happen while you write, and knowing your subject well, whether you’re writing fiction or nonfiction gives it depth, and helps the reader to connect with your words.
Writing what you don’t know offers an opportunity to explore things you’re curious about, and build new areas of knowledge, and can help your readers to do the same.
I no longer write for magazines and newspaper, my focus is fiction, and while I definitely write about what I know, and my experiences and those others have share appear in all of my stories, I also write about what I don’t know. It’s the curiosity about the things that I don’t know that make me dig deeper, that send me looking for more.
And if we all wrote what we knew, there would be no vampire stories, no Little Mermaid, Captain Kirk wouldn’t have had what is basically a flip phone today…because they didn’t exist and the writer couldn’t have KNOWN them. It’s our imaginations that build a story.
So, write what you know…and write what you don’t.
What rules have you broken and still won?
About Tari Lynn Jewett
Tari Lynn Jewett lives off Route 66 with her husband of 37 years. They have three amazing sons, a board game designer, a sound engineer and a musician. For over fifteen years she wrote freelance for magazines and newspapers, wrote television commercials, radio spots, numerous press releases, and many, MANY PTA newsletters. As much as she loved writing those things, she always wanted to write fiction . . . and now she is.
She also believes in happily ever after . . . because she’s living hers.
Why writers need it and how to choose the right one.
You’ve felt it. That moment of crushing despair. That moment when you know the story you’ve been writing for months isn’t working. That moment when you wonder if you should toss the story aside or try yet another rewrite. Then the self-doubt pours in, and you don’t know if you should even bother. Stop right there. It’s not talent you lack. It’s not that your idea isn’t story-worthy. Most likely there’s a fundamental piece of storytelling that you’ve misunderstood. That piece? Story Structure. It’s not as arbitrary or simple as it sounds.
What is Story Structure?
Story structure is the way you choose to arrange story elements in an order that best serve your story and your audience. What exactly does that mean?
Most of you want to share your stories with others. And you’re reading this because you want to improve your skills. You’ve likely read a lot about plot and structure and may have come out of that feeling confused or frustrated because you can’t make it work for you. What you need is to take a broader look at story structure.
There are a lot of story elements we can use to tell a story that readers enjoy: genre tropes, plot, character arcs, theme, scenes, and a lot more. The way we present those elements, the order of those elements, affects a reader’s perception of the story in both the basic terms of understanding and emotional resonance.
Some of you will resist the idea of structure. It feels restrictive or forced. That may be true of some people’s definitions of structure, but that’s not how structure works in fiction or in life.
There is structure in life. We are born; we live; we die. Even in the smallest of ways, we live by structure. We sleep. We eat. We act.
I used to brag that I lived an unstructured life. But even an erratic schedule like mine has structure: my day begins, then there’s a middle, and an end to my day.
Structure Is Not Plot
It is crucial that a writer understands the difference. Structure is how we shape and reveal the story. Plot is what happens.
What happens in Cinderella:
Her stepmother and sisters mistreat Cinderella, but she remains kind.
Her act of kindness to the traveling prince leads to a happily ever after.
The Shape of Cinderella
The structure of Cinderella is a linear story told in the third person with rising action in three acts. It is told in order. One thing happens, then the next thing happens. With each action, tension rises until the climax.
Consider what kind of story it would become if it were told in media res—and started with her appearance at the ball?
It could have a dual timeline structure—the traditional story interspersed with what happens after Cinderella married the prince and brought her stepmother to live in the castle.
The shape of Cinderella would also change if we changed the genre to adventure. Or if we changed how we told the story to a first-person singular point of view.
The Five Most Common Plotting Methods
Most people call the five methods listed here plot structures. But they are only part of a story’s structure. Therefore, to avoid confusion, I will call them plotting methods. Here is a brief description of each of the five most common ones.
Three-Act Story
Loosely speaking, this is a beginning, middle, and end kind of structure. Act One is the setup: where we meet the protagonist in their normal environment/life right before an event forces them to step out of the normal. Act Two is the middle. This is where the protagonist tries and cannot return to normal, faces a crisis, and comes up with a new plan. In the end or third act, the protagonist faces off with the antagonist, wins or loses, and settles into a new normal. James Scott Bell has written an excellent book on the three-act method called Plot and Structure.Story Engineering by Larry Brooks or K.M. Weiland’s book, Structuring your Novel, are also very helpful.
Story Examples:
Cinderella,
Outlander by Diana Gabaldon (the original novel and the first season of the TV series),
The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins,
The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown.
The Hero’s Journey
The Hero’s Journey, also called the monomyth or the hero’s quest, is a twelve-part method for plotting stories. A hero goes on a great journey and does great deeds, usually on behalf of his group, tribe, or civilization. The twelve parts include: The Ordinary World, The Call to Adventure, Refusal of the Call, Meeting with the Mentor, Crossing the Threshold, Tests, Allies and Enemies, Approach, The Ordeal, The Reward, The Road Back, The Resurrection, and The Return with the Elixir. You can read an in-depth discussion of this plot-type in Christopher Vogler’s book, The Writer’s Journey: Mythic Structure for Writers.
Story Examples:
The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien,
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J. K. Rowling,
Star Wars, the film
Save the Cat (beat sheet)
Created by Hollywood screenwriter Blake Snyder, the “Save the Cat” technique is a method of plotting that breaks stories down into three major acts and 15 “beats.” Intended as a screenwriting method, many people find it very helpful in writing fiction. Snyder’s book, Save the Cat!: The Last Book on Screenwriting You’ll Ever Need, is highly readable. The examples throughout are film and television examples.
For brevity’s sake, I won’t list all 15 beats here. You can learn more about this on the website savethecat.com or Snyder’s book, or the adaptation for novels, Save the Cat! Writes a Novel: The Last Book on Novel Writing You’ll Ever Need by Jessica Brody.
Story Examples:
(These hit all the beats of this method.)
The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins.
The Martian by Andy Weir
Emma by Jane Austen
The Story Circle by Dan Harmon
Dan Harmon is an American television writer, producer, animator, and actor. He developed the Story Circle when he got stuck writing a screenplay. Harmon adapted the Hero’s Journey to create a simple system for developing stories in any genre. He called it the story circle because he sees good stories as a complete circle. He describes the story circle as holding the “plot embryo.” It is a more flexible blueprint and one that prioritizes character arc and emotional growth more than the more action-oriented Hero’s Journey method.
Instead of twelve steps, it has eight:
A character you can identify with
Who has some kind of need, wish, incompletion that causes them to
Go across a threshold where the story changes direction
The character goes through a set of trials searching for something
Rick and Morty, a television comedy series written by Dan Harmon.
Toy Story, the movie
Harry Potter by R.K. Rowling
The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien
Yes, I’ve included Harry Potter and The Hobbit in two places. Both stories fit both the Hero’s Journey and the Story Circle. You may think that’s because the Story Circle came from the Hero’s Journey. That is right, but that’s not the reason many stories seem to use more than one plotting method. Keep reading for more about hybrid plotting methods.
In Medias Res / Nonlinear
This plotting method drops the reader into the middle of a high-stakes scene without introduction. Flashbacks and dialogue fill in the backstory later. It has a beginning, middle, and end still, but they are not in chronological order. The author weaves events together for an effect. This often evokes an emotional response, like the feeling that it all makes sense in retrospect. In Catch-22, the nonlinear structure represents the chaos PTSD inflicts on sufferers.
Story Examples:
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller,
Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
These methods are suitable for some stories, but not all. Remember, you can change or simplify any of these methods, just as the Story Circle simplifies the Hero’s Journey.
Beyond the Top Five Plotting Methods
Many of our writers here on Writers in the Storm have written about ways to think about plotting. Janice Hardy 5 Paths to Plotting Your Novel. John Peragine wrote about 7 Plot Structures for Pantsers and 7 More Plot Structures for Pantsers. There are mores post here, search for plot. Plus there are hundreds, probably thousands, more if you use a search engine. It's not that one plot type is the only way you'll write a best seller. But without a structure that readers are familiar with, it's unlikely you'll write a best seller. So find the one you understand, or make a hybrid.
How to Diagnose Which Method Fits Your Story
You can figure out which plotting method is best for your story before you write it or after you write it. Most writers instinctively write in the plotting method they read the most. In order to determine which method is best for your story, answer these three questions:
1. What is your core of your story about?
The core of your story isn’t the step by step, or even the theme, though theme is often strongly connected. This question is about the narrative drive of your story. Not all plotting methods fit all narrative drives.
Think about what change or resistance to change is at the heart of your story. If your story is about a transformation, then the Three-Act or Save the Cat methods will work best.
If your story is about a real or metaphysical journey through an unfamiliar world, the Hero’s Journey is the best fit.
If your story focuses on a character who remains the same but reveals their true nature, the in media res or nonlinear method may best serve your story.
If your story is about a community, a culture, or a system rather than a single protagonist, you may find no single method fits well. Try Dan Harmon’s Story Circle to give you more flexibility. Or, try a hybrid approach.
2. What do you want the reader to feel, and when?
Every structure, every plotting method, makes implicit promises to the reader about the emotional experience reading that story will provide. The emotional experience is not the plot. It’s the readers’ feelings. Feelings like the thrill of an emotional roller coaster. Maybe it’s that the reader understands more than the protagonist—or less. Maybe you want your reader to finish the book and feel the ending was inevitable in retrospect—or a genuine surprise.
A tightly plotted three-act mystery or thriller promises rising tension followed by release. A Hero’s Journey promises a genuine ordeal where the protagonist earns a triumph. The nonlinear method promises a puzzle that will resolve into clarity when the fragments suddenly click into place.
If your story does not fulfill those promises, your readers will find your story unsatisfying even if they can’t clearly identify why they are so dissatisfied.
3. Where does your story’s tension lie?
There are three broad areas of narrative tension (and many sub-areas). Most stories contain at least two areas of tension, but one dominates. Which type of narrative tension dominates your story?
Situational Tension
This is suspense in its purest form. The protagonist is in a precarious position—the reader turns pages quickly to learn if the protagonist will survive, escape, succeed, win, etc. As expected, the Three-Act and Save the Cat plotting methods are well-suited for this.
Dramatic Irony Tension
Dramatic irony is when the reader knows something the protagonist doesn’t. The reader’s tension lives in the gap between what the protagonist sees and understands and what the reader sees and understands. Nonlinear plot methods can work well for dramatic irony.
Relational or Internal Tension
Relational tension refers to the interpersonal conflict in your story. Not just between the protagonist and antagonist, but the push-and-pull between family members or team members, or even bystanders in your story. This conflict arises when your protagonist’s concrete goal stands between her and the other person. When you’ve learned to use these relational tensions skillfully, each one amplifies some aspect of your plot or theme or the protagonist’s character arc.
Internal tension is what happens inside a single character’s mind. It results from the character’s competing desires, misconceptions, or emotional needs. For example, in Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, Sam Gamgee’s love for a simple, peaceful life in the Shire is always in conflict with his fierce sense of loyalty to Frodo and Sam’s desire to see the Ring destroyed.
If you still aren't certain which method will work for your story, remember, most authors use a hybrid of more than one plotting method.
The Hybrid Approach
No single method of plotting works for every writer in every story they write. In fact, most stories are a blend of plotting methods. This is one reason stories like The Hobbit and Harry Potter fit more than one plotting method. Typically, even using the hybrid approach, one plotting method will dominate the others. Understanding which plotting methods promise what, and how they work, helps you understand which parts to choose for the best effect in your story.
And plotting methods aren’t the only story elements that create story structure. The point of view (first person, second person, etc.) influences story structure. Supportive elements like theme, setting, tone, and scenes also influence story structure and story promises. These inform the structure of your story to either the delight or disappointment of your reader.
A Word for Pantsers
You absolutely do not need to know what plotting method you’ll use when writing your first draft. You can free-write your first draft without a worry if that works best for you. After you’ve finished your draft, your story will be stronger and a more satisfying read if you evaluate your story, decide what plotting method is best, and retrofit your story with structure.
Retroactive structure can be difficult, especially for a first novel (don’t ask me how I know). But it is doable. The more you understand story structure, the easier you will find retrofitting your stories with structure. Depending on your knowledge and skill, you may need help from a more experienced author friend or a developmental editor.
Put It Into Practice
If you’re having difficulty deciding what plotting method to use, try these two exercises:
Break one of your stories down to see which plotting method comes closest to your natural way of writing.
Break down a favorite read and see which method fits. Most likely, whatever fits your favorite reading material will be the most comfortable method for you to use when writing.
Personally, I break down how a story’s structure by breaking the story into sections by page number. For example, if I were trying to decide if the Story Circle is the plotting method of a specific story, I divide the total number of pages for the story (first word to “the end”) by the number eight (the number of events in the story circle). Then I look to see if what those sections tell me meets the Story Circle method.
Structure Shapes Your Story for the Reader
Plotting methods are one of the key elements that give your story structure, but they are only the beginning. Scenes, point of view, tone—each of these carries structural weight too. Find the plotting method that gives your story the maximum impact on your readers, and you’ll have the foundation everything else builds on.
Next month we’ll talk more about structure and how it works in scenes.
Now I’d like to hear from you…
Do you know what story structure you will use before you write? Do you revise to retrofit story structure into your work? What works for you?
About Lynette
Lynette M. Burrows is an author, blogger, writing coach, and Yorkie wrangler. She survived moving seventeen times between kindergarten and her high school graduation. Her stories weave her experiences into speculative fiction stories that balance character growth with thrilling action and social themes.
Her Fellowship Dystopia series is the story of a young woman of privilege who doesn’t want to lose her identity to the rules of 1961 Fellowship America. She escapes and learns that her government and her family can judge her, one of the elite, an unbeliever. She will be a rebel even if the merciless Azrael hunt unbelievers. The trilogy is complete. Book One, My Soul to Keep, Book Two, If I Should Die, and Book Three, And When I Wake are on sale anywhere books are sold online.
When Lynette’s not writing she avoids housework and plays with her Yorkie. They live in Dorothy’s home state of Kansas. You can follow Lynette on her website or her Facebook page or Sign up for her newsletter.
Image Credits
Featured collage created by Lynette M. Burrows with images purchased from DepositPhotos.
Story Circle image created by Lynette M. Burrows based on Dan Harmon's demonstrations.
You have a draft sitting somewhere. Maybe it's on your hard drive. Maybe it's a half-finished Google Doc you haven't opened in three weeks. Maybe it's an idea you've been carrying around in your head so long it's started to feel like furniture.
And every time you think about actually putting it out there...something stops you.
You've probably told yourself a story about why. You're not ready. It needs more editing. The market's too crowded. Nobody wants to hear what you have to say. You don't have a platform yet. The timing's wrong.
I believed every single one of those stories. For years.
Here's what I know now, after building a readership from scratch, losing everything I built, walking away from my own writing for an entire year...and coming back anyway.
Those aren't the real reason.
The Lie We Tell Ourselves
The story most writers tell themselves is that they're afraid of failure.
Afraid of bad reviews. Afraid of silence...the kind where you publish something and nobody responds. Afraid of being told, flat out, that you can't write. That your story doesn't matter. That you wasted your time.
That fear is real. I won't pretend it isn't.
But for most of us? That's not the actual wall.
I know this because I lived the other side of it. I built a website that drew over 750,000 visitors from 60 countries in its first year. Tens of thousands of registered users. Daily traffic that made no sense for a nobody from Utah with no marketing budget and no connections.
I had an audience. A real one.
...and then I stopped.
Not because I failed. Because something about succeeding terrified me more than failing ever had. I just didn't have words for it yet.
The Fear Nobody Talks About
Here's the thing about failure...you know how to handle it. You've been handling it your whole life. Getting up, dusting off, trying again. There's a muscle for that. Writers are built for failure. Rejection letters, bad drafts, dead ends. We know this territory.
Success is different.
Success means people are watching. It means expectations. It means the next thing has to be as good, or better...and what if it isn't? What if the first one was a fluke? What if you've already done the best work you'll ever do, and everything from here is a slow disappointment?
What do you do when there's no longer a wall to push against?
I'd been used to fighting. Used to getting up one more time than I was knocked down. That was my identity. Take that away...and what am I?
That thought made my hands shake.
So I found ways to slow down. To get distracted. To tell myself I was being responsible, strategic, patient. Meanwhile, the writing sat untouched.
If this sounds familiar, I'm not surprised. Because this is the real fear. Not "what if I fail?" but...
What if I actually succeed?
What Happens If It Works?
Sit with that question for a second.
What happens if you publish, and people love it? What happens if the audience shows up, the comments roll in, and suddenly there are real human beings waiting for your next piece?
Does that excite you...or does some part of you want to close the tab?
I'm not asking to be dramatic. I'm asking because your honest answer tells you everything about what's actually holding you back.
Writers who fear failure avoid starting.
Writers who fear success avoid finishing.
They edit one more time. They redesign the header. They decide the niche isn't quite right. They spend six months building the perfect system for publishing...and never publish. The preparation becomes the point, because preparation has no consequences.
Finishing has consequences. Putting it out has consequences. Being READ has consequences.
And somewhere in your gut, you already know that.
The Day I Had to Admit It
I didn't figure this out on my own. I had to lose everything first.
After my audience disappeared and my writing career fell apart, I spent a year convinced a single critic had been right. That I couldn't write. That I was never meant to be a writer. I pulled every book, every blog post, every piece of content I'd ever made...offline.
It took my wife and daughter to pull me back.
My daughter handed me a box set of books and told me to read them. Said they reminded her of how I wrote. And she was right. I read them in an afternoon.
"That's how you write," she said.
"Whatever," I said.
"Then why not struggle for your own dream," my wife said, "instead of someone else's?"
...I had no answer for that.
What I eventually understood was this: I had never really believed I deserved the success I'd already had. So when someone gave me a reason to walk away from it, I took it.
That's what fear of success looks like in practice. It doesn't announce itself. It just hands you a convenient excuse...and you take it.
How to Know Which Fear Is Yours
Here's a simple test.
Think about your writing. The piece you haven't published, the series you haven't started, the newsletter you've been "almost ready" to launch for six months.
Now ask yourself: if I knew for certain this would fail...would I still write it?
If the answer is yes, you're afraid of something other than failure.
If the answer is no...that's worth sitting with, too.
For me, the answer was always yes. Even in my worst moments, I kept writing. Not publicly. Not for anyone. Just because the stories wouldn't leave me alone. That told me the fear wasn't about failure.
The cure, by the way, isn't a mindset shift or a motivational quote. The cure is a smaller stage.
Start somewhere the stakes feel manageable. Write one piece. Put it in front of a small audience. Watch what happens. Let the evidence replace the assumption.
That's exactly why I started on Substack. Not because it was perfect...but because it was a room I could walk into without feeling like I had to fill a stadium on day one. A place to build something honest, piece by piece, with people who chose to show up.
Just Be You
The last thing my wife said to me, when I was at my lowest, was the simplest thing anyone has ever told me.
"Just be you, my love. Just be...you."
That's it. That's the whole answer. Not a strategy. Not a platform hack. Not a content calendar.
If you're sitting on writing that matters to you...it already matters. The fear telling you otherwise isn't protecting you.
It's keeping you from the people who need to read what only you can write.
Start small. Be honest. Show up.
The draft on your hard drive is already waiting.
So are your readers.
What's holding you back?
If you're ready to build that kind of writing practice with real structure and support behind it, consider our course, Substack for Authors. That's where we help writers stop hiding and start building something that lasts.
About Jaime
Jaime Buckley is the author of the Chronicles of a Hero series and the founder of LifeofFiction.com on Substack. He teaches writers how to build a sustainable publishing practice at JaimeBuckley.com and through the online course Substack for Authors.
