Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    The Monster Novel Structure Workbook: How to Plot Without Getting Stuck
    The Monster Novel Structure Workbook: How to Plot Without Getting Stuck
    The Monster Novel Structure Workbook: How to Plot Without Getting Stuck
    Ebook105 pages2 hours

    The Monster Novel Structure Workbook: How to Plot Without Getting Stuck

    By R. B. Fleetwood

    5/5

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    If your novel is a circus, plot structure is what holds the tent up.

    Keep your tent taut with The Monster Novel Structure Workbook, an illustrated system for structuring your novel's plot.

    Includes:

    • 21 Story Beats - Forget theories that only provide 3, 4, or 7 beats. Monster Novel Structure takes a granular approach so you're never lost.

    • 9 Examples - Learn from popular books, movies, and even Shakespeare! See structure in action—and how to "break" it successfully.

    • 8+ Downloads - Bundled with your purchase are downloads including charts, worksheets, and even a Scrivener template.

    Ideal for visual learners, The Monster Novel Structure Workbook turns abstract theory into easy-to-digest illustrations. Plotters, pantsers, and anyone revising a novel will appreciate this practical guide to narrative structure for modern audiences. Buy your bundle now.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPooblisher Goat
    Release dateSep 15, 2018
    ISBN9781386040286
    The Monster Novel Structure Workbook: How to Plot Without Getting Stuck

    Related to The Monster Novel Structure Workbook

    Related ebooks

    Language Arts & Discipline For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Beat Sheet Or Cheat Sheet?

      May 5, 2022

      If you’ve not yet encountered the Save the Cat! books you will, because the original book Save the Cat! The Last Book on Screenwriting You’ll Ever Need (2005) proved so successful it led to a franchise which now includes at least seven volumes, inclu

      8 min read

    • Article

      Pantser Or Plotter?

      Jan 29, 2022

      When you write a story or a novel, you’re undoubtedly focused on turning out a good one. That’s the product. But what about the process? Are you a so-called plotter, one who creates summaries and outlines before clicking out your story or novel? Or a

      10 min read

    • Article

      A New Approach To Outlining

      Oct 29, 2022

      WHEN I WAS ABOUT 12, I PLAYED baseball in the street with a group of neighborhood kids. None of us knew how to play; the point was to have fun. One day while we were playing, a girl who lived in a big house on the corner – Jenny, I distinctly remembe

      5 min read

    • Article

      Maggie Stiefvater

      Oct 18, 2021

      Maggie Stiefvater
      11 min read

    • Article

      Subplots Aren’t Secondary

      Jun 19, 2019

      Subplots Aren’t Secondary
      6 min read

    • Article

      Trope: My Favorite Dirty Word

      Oct 18, 2021

      Trope: My Favorite Dirty Word
      7 min read

    • Article

      The Time Is Now Writing Prompts and Exercises

      Oct 10, 2018

      Suggested Reading:The Story Cure: A Book Doctor’s Pain-Free Guide to Finishing Your Novel or Memoir (Ten Speed Press, May 2017) by Dinty W. Moore The director of creative writing at Ohio State University and author of a number of books of literary no

      2 min read

    • Article

      Set the Hook With Great Beginnings

      Oct 18, 2021

      As a novice fisher, I’ve only caught a few fish, but I’m already thinking about better ways to hook more. Likewise, as a writer, I think a lot about how to write beginnings that will hook readers. Just as fishing advice abounds, so too does writing a

      4 min read

    • Article

      Mastering Plot Twists

      Dec 12, 2022

      Mastering Plot Twists
      8 min read

    • Article

      The Donald Maass Craft Library

      May 21, 2019

      “What makes novelists successful is storytelling,” Donald Maass says. He’s written a number of books to help writers understand the art of storytelling: “Writing the Breakout Novel breaks down the technique of plot layers, meaning multiple things hap

      1 min read

    • Article

      Getting Creative With Reality

      Oct 1, 2020

      What do H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald, Notes on a Small Island by Bill Bryson and Tall Stories and Wee Tales by Billy Connolly have in common? They all belong to the increasingly popular genre of creative non-fiction writing. When creative non-fic

      6 min read

    • Article

      The First Five Pages

      Jan 7, 2021

      The First Five Pages
      5 min read

    • Article

      What Physics Can Teach Us About Writing Fiction

      Mar 6, 2018

      Sometimes writing fiction feels to me like that oft-used image of a godlike creator: the man pulling the strings of the marionette, orchestrating each fine movement from above the stage. One string might be character, another plot, a third setting, a

      6 min read

    • Article

      The Art Of PLOTTING

      Jul 9, 2022

      Writing a novel is a huge challenge. Not only must you create relatable, compelling characters who grab readers, but you also need to nail down a storyline that does the same thing. Readers want adept storytelling, with scenes that move, lives that c

      8 min read

    • Article

      Firing Up Fiction

      May 21, 2019

      Firing Up Fiction
      5 min read

    • Article

      Romance Writing Academy

      Dec 18, 2021

      Romance Writing Academy
      3 min read

    • Article

      Character, Know Thyself: The Essentials Of Character Awareness

      May 8, 2019

      Early drafts are an exercise in getting to know your character and her story—you are, in essence, telling the story to yourself first so that you can figure out what to add or omit when fine-tuning the story for readers. I encourage you to pen more p

      8 min read

    • Article

      How Do I (Quickly) Write a Screenplay?

      Apr 12, 2021

      A majority of budding screenwriters toil away for years on a screenplay and wonder if there is an end in sight. They’re lost in plot and character and have written themselves into a corner. Their first 20 pages are a slog, the second act is vapid, an

      5 min read

    • Article

      Online Screenwriting Classes with Industry Professionals

      Dec 21, 2020

      The world of the feature film is booming and you are gushing with ideas. TEN WEEKS TO YOUR FEATURE FILM will give you the tools to get the ideas out of your head and into a completed screenplay by introducing you to the methods that professional scre

      1 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for The Monster Novel Structure Workbook

    5/5

    1 rating1 review

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 5/5
      I found this really helpful. I helped me clarify in my own mind which way my novel was going.

    Book preview

    The Monster Novel Structure Workbook - R. B. Fleetwood

    THE MONSTER STRUCTURE WORKBOOK:

    How To Plot Without Getting Stuck

    R.B. Fleetwood

    Copyright © 2018, 2020 R.B. Fleetwood

    All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

    The advice and strategies found within may not be suitable for every situation. This work is sold with the understanding that neither the author nor the publisher are held responsible for the results accrued from the advice in this book.

    bronwenfleetwood.com/monster

    Chapter One: Setting Up the Pins

    How Best to Read This Book

    What's Included in the Bundle

    The Examples

    Some Caveats

    Chapter Two: Novel Lingo 101

    Some Definitions

    About Your Characters

    Main Character

    Antagonist

    Chapter Three: The Beats-Explaining Each Step

    Breaking Down the Monster Chart

    Tent Poles and Gaps

    Act I

    1) Hook

    2) The Ordinary World 1

    3) Inciting Incident or Call to Action

    4) Refusal of the Call

    5) Convincing/Commitment

    6) The Ordinary World 2

    7) Turning Point 1

    Act I Questions

    Act II, Part 1

    8) Exposition 1

    9) Pinch Point 1

    10) Exposition 2

    11) Midpoint

    Act II, Part 1 Questions

    Act II, Part 2

    12) Approach Begins

    13) Pinch Point 2

    14) Approach Continues

    15) Turning Point 2

    Act II, Part 2 Questions

    Act III

    16) Last Chance

    Climax

    17) Antagonist's False Win

    18) Dark Moment/Doubt

    19) Hero's Realization/Sacrifice

    20) Win/Resurrection

    21) Denouement

    Act III Questions

    Chapter Four: Floating Beats and Other Novel Anomalies

    What's a floating beat?

    MC's Flaw

    Save the Cat

    Antagonist's Desire

    Desiring the Antagonist

    Pet the Dog

    Reality Check

    Chapter Five: Example Stories

    Why These Stories

    The Girl With a Pearl Earring

    The Hate U Give

    Jade City

    The Lion King (1994)

    Macbeth

    The Sound of Music (1965)

    The Wizard of Oz (1939)

    Chapter Six: How to Use the Monster

    Where to Start?

    Using the Monster as a Pantser

    Using the Worksheets to Plot Your Novel

    Using the Scrivener File

    Outlining & Chapter Breaks

    BONUS: Estimating Word Counts

    When You Have Multiple Main Characters or Major Threads

    Using the Monster for Revision

    Calculating Percentages

    About NaNoWriMo

    Chapter Seven: Resources

    How to Download the Files

    The Downloads

    Books on Writing Craft

    Websites to Follow

    Chapter Eight: The Wrap-Up

    I owe a debt of thanks to...

    Reviews Are Thank You Notes

    About R. B. Fleetwood

    Notes

    Chapter One:

    Setting Up the Pins

    Writing a novel is, to put it mildly, challenging. It's downright hard. It can take years of your life, stretched across multiple phases: planning, drafting, revising.

    It's easy to get mired in the nitty gritty. Enthusiasm may carry you through the first however many pages, but at some point you run out of vision. What happens next? How? Why? Where are these characters going?

    Writers often refer to the Muddy Middle of novels, otherwise known as Act II, or everything between the Beginning and the End. Setting up your story and knowing how you want it to end are a cinch compared to filling two hundred pages with... what? Stuff happens, but what stuff? In what order? How do you make any of it matter and not bore readers?

    The solution to this dilemma is novel structure. And no, I don't mean the super basic diagram your high school English teacher drew on the board.

    This diagram is Freytag's Pyramid¹. It's a highly simplified explanation of how stories operate. But it's just that: simple, and novels are anything but simple. The pyramid is missing a ton of steps, and everything is out of proportion. The Pyramid implies that there's an equal amount of time spent leading up to the Climax and coming down from it. Who ever heard of a Climax that takes place right in the middle of a story? While Freytag's Pyramid is useful for the basics, it doesn't help when you want to construct a novel of your own.

    To construct a novel with its myriad moving parts you need something that echoes the novel's complexity—without itself being complex.

    In other books on writing craft, many, many people have tried to simplify novel structure to its barest elements. They wind up with something that looks a lot like Freytag's Pyramid, with only a handful of steps. They are trying to conform to absolutely every story ever.

    But a novel isn't absolutely every story ever, it's a novel. Novels are a particular kind of story. And while they do follow a pattern, a structure, that you can learn and apply to your work, the novel will never be the same as a short story or a TV series or an anecdote.

    So let's stop trying to be all things to all stories. Let's focus on novels.

    I developed the Monster Novel Structure Chart and Workbook after exhaustive research and much gnashing of teeth. I studied fiction in college and went on to read over seventy-five writing craft books and countless short articles about structure, not to mention all the actual novels I read, all to immerse myself in the study of novel structure.

    I found that while everyone agreed structure was essential, very few people agreed on what elements belonged in that structure, never mind what to label them or how to apply them. They focused on a small handful of story beats, and they called them different names, with different definitions. For example, I would think I had a handle on Turning Points only to pick up another book and learn that they defined Turning Points in a completely different manner. I struggled to understand the Inciting Incident. What was it, really? Over and over again I read about how important it was, but I couldn't explain it to save my life.

    There were commonalities across the different terms and usages, so I began compiling my notes and cross-referencing. I continued to seek out more sources and layered in their wisdom.

    Then I used my skills as a professional graphic designer to translate those notes into something visual. I'm a hybrid learner, and my capacity for understanding words on the page had been reached, I needed a way to see what I was dealing with. I needed to organize the information in another way, so I could understand how each beat acted in relation to the next.

    Thus was born the Monster Novel Structure Chart. (You can see the whole chart in Chapter 3.)

    This chart clarified so much for me. I could see at a glance how urgent a beat was. I could see approximately how far into the novel it should fall. I understood why everything worked.

    Using the Monster I've plotted the overarching structure of novels in a matter of days. I've revised to create stronger, better books. The people I've shared the chart with have also had successes, coming to understand their stories on a deeper level. 

    What has to happen for the biggest emotional impact? The Monster will tell you. It will guide your creative instincts toward a better story. You won't lose the vision you had for your book, instead you'll shape it like a sculptor into its best artistic form.

    As the Monster² began to coalesce in my brain, I kept thinking, "I wish someone had just told me about this."

    Reader, I'm here to tell you about it. I don't want you to wade through all the information I did, extracting minute kernels of gold from heaps of craggy boulders. I don't want you to spend years laboring over index cards and outlines, wondering where you went wrong and why the story isn't working.

    The tool is here. It's in your hands. I'm including all my side tools as well, downloads which you can purchase with the ebook or separately. I want you to be ready.

    Let's make story magic together.

    This is an image-heavy book, so you'll want to view the ebook on a color screen. I don't recommend reading it with any kind of color filter, like a blue-light blocker.

    Ideally, you should have a printed copy of the chart and the worksheets in front of you for reference at all times. This way you can make notes on them and compare what's written to the graphics. Instructions for downloaded the materials are provided in Chapter 7.

    Images are included in this ebook, at a reduced resolution. You can tap on an image to see it isolated, and zoom in.

    In the next chapter we'll talk a bit about the characters who are crucial to your story, the protagonist, or Main Character, and the Antagonist.

    In Chapter 3 we'll look at the Monster Chart and then all 21 beats that make up your novel, one at a time. This section also includes questions to ask yourself as you work, and the questions are included in

    Enjoying the preview?
    Page 1 of 1