Quote:
Originally Posted by gmw
A good thought if you want to write horror. 
I tend to think that what you learn from the many theories of story construction is best applied to reviewing your work, than to trying to construct a new story. Write it first, don't get distracted on the technical detail (much easier said than done). Then, when you have your story, come back and look at it again with an appraiser's eye - does it have the shape it needs to work? If not, start prodding it into shape. |
I don't doubt that following structure does help in revision, but if you have at least a basic idea of what structure is before you begin to write the story I'd guess you can save a lot of time that would be wasted revising stuff that would already be in some semblance of shape if you only had taken the time to sketch out at least a rough outline before hand. I read an article by a writer (Ivan Izo) online where he discussed how he does it.
1. First there is the story idea in 1-2 sentences.
2. A synopsis which lists the major events in the novel in several paragraphs.
3. A bullet outline where he writes down chapter by chapter what he expects will happen (1-2 sentences per chapter)
4. The full outline with each paragraph being equal to one scene. Or one paragraph per chapter if it's a fast paced story line.
He figures a full outline should be one 10th of the finished novel in length. So if you shoot for a 50k (200 page) novel that would be about 5k words (20 pages). He also suggests if you revise the outline (which you may well do) that you put the revisions in red so they stand out from the original (un-revised) parts of your outline.