Interesting comment, Jerold - I agree, some tools work well for some people and not for others. It's like finding the right pen or lead hardness of pencil that just allows your handwriting to flow. One thing I disagree with, however, is that it's 'not intuitive enough'. It's worth spending time with the dynamic structures - particularly the Chinese Circular Structure - and following the analyses in Chapter 13 of 'Story and Structure' in which it features, to really explore its potential as a means of liberating the imagination and inspiring intuitive approaches. What do you find works best for you?

Sounds great, Lynette. I find the structures useful in releasing imaginative ideas when I'm stuck - one example is applying them to inanimate objects in a scene. Another is to apply them to the reader's journey or story line.

You're welcome, Kris. Hope you find it useful.

You're welcome, Lisa. I explore more applications on Substack (leonconrad.substack.com) and Medium (medium.com/@leon.conrad) if you are interested in going further.

Thank you, Denise. What did you find most interesting/useful?

I purchased a book (I won’t name) where the author demonstrated a process of plotting by use of line drawings. It looks similar to the method used for plotting sentences. It was also too distracting to use as a jumping off point, although still felt more intuitive than the method you describe.

Every serious writer must read about and examine tools and methods that might help them achieve their goals, but not every tool or method works for everyone. So, I think this method is worth being familiar with, but mainly for use in post-draft evaluation. It is not intuitive enough, although perhaps it could be (better) applied to evaluating a story board/index card telling.