The Write Structure: The Timeless Storytelling Principles Great Writers Use to Craft Stories Readers Love

by The Write Practice, Joe Bunting

Great books don’t happen by accident, but by writers who understand, consciously or unconsciously, principles hidden within the best stories. These common-sense principles are easy to learn, but they drive the success (or failure) of best-selling, award winning novels and films. Now, with The Write Structure, writers can learn these principles and quickly apply them to their own writing projects. Using simple, universal terminology and easy-to-grasp visualizations, The Write Structure uncovers the hidden truths of the best stories, allowing new and advanced writers to better understand their own stories and make them better. If you want to write a bestselling book or a screenplay ready to become a major feature, purchase a copy of The Write Structure and turn your story ideas into finished, published works. Click buy now and start learning these hidden story principles today.

Genres: Writing, Nonfiction, Self Help

218 pages, Paperback

Published September 19, 2021

Reviews

[Geoffreyjen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Overall, I found this a useful book, both a good synthesis of the subject matter and many tips on using narrative structure in practice. Bunting makes a point of the fact that he is building on the work of others to come up with a kind of "universal handbook" for structuring a novel. There are, however, some caveats. First of all, although he claims to be exhaustive, the current active discussion on non-western narrative structures is entirely absent. It may be possible to fit the Heroine's Journey into this framewok, but not, I think, the Asian four-act structure called Kishotenketsu, nor the structures that come from African folk traditions, nor cyclic structures, all of which are increasingly being examined by contemporary writers as alternatives to mainstream narrative structure. Second, I find the author rather too cavalier with instructions on writing practice, as if any mode of operation could be applied universally to everyone. Third, I find many of his analyses to be over simplified.

On the plus side, the importance of determining the central dilemma (with its subtle distinction from the notion of conflict), the role of values in determining plot arcs, the catalogue of (some) arcs, and the catalogue of types of inciting incidents, these are all useful. When I read books about writing theory, I always get a feeling of warm fuzziness (maybe its the academic in me that likes theory), but when I turn to apply the theory, the warmth vanishes and I am often at a loss on how to proceed. This book offers some hope for applying the lessons, as long as one doesn't buy into the whole process as laid out here. Recommended, but with some reservations.

[Jon Howard · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really informative

I don’t know if this is an early or first edition of this book. The content is excellent and there’s a LOT of useful information here but ironically for a book on wiring it could do with a lot of editing and spellchecking.

[Aniek · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really liked this book, very useful. Gave me the necessary handles to start tackling my second draft. Thank you!

[Peter A · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book, written by the creator of The Write Practice website, presents the author’s view of what it takes to write a successful book, namely a focus on structure. This focus is based on many years of experience both writing and working with other writers.

He makes a compelling case for using core values. It is the movement of those core values during the course of the narration that make a moving story. Also, he relates those values to key human needs and shows that those key value map onto key types genres, for example

Need: Survival
Value: Life versus Death
Genre: Action, Adventure Stories

Through the use of several graphs, he shows the key types of story arcs, the change of the level of the value scale against the narration of the story, e.g., if the scale is life versus death is on a vertical scale, then as death is more likely the graph dips. It is this change over the course of the narration that the author claims changes a sequence of events into a story.

What I found very interesting is a study the author referred to, by researchers at the University of Vermont, that analyzed over “4,000 of the best novels from the Project Gutenberg library” (p 46), with the claim that six basic shapes dominate these story arcs. See Reagan A, Mitchell L, Kiley D, Danforth CMD, Dodds PS. The emotional arcs of stories are dominated by six basic shapes. EPJ Data Science (2016). 5:31. https://cdanfort.w3.uvm.edu/research/...

Another major section of the book introduces six elements of plot, that appear at various scales of the book, at the scene level up to the entire arc of the story level. These include exposition, inciting incident, rising action, dilemma, crises, and denouement.

Penultimately, the author talks about how to apply these concepts in writing and editing of a manuscript. I look forward to attempting to implement these concepts in the near future.

Finally, the author repeats what others have said, namely separate the writing of the first draft from perfecting the story. Using the tools ahead of time can help you if you get stuck, or can strengthen the story in an edit.

Overall, an interesting and useful addition to the books on how to write books, both through providing a conceptual framework for thinking of your story as well as practical suggestions to implement those concepts.

Note: This is a beta version of a living book, which has typos. The author admits that and made it available on Amazon to receive feedback to improve future versions of the book.

FB: A valuable contribution to the literature of writing stories, focusing on story arcs and structure. The author provides a conceptual framework for thinking of your story as well as practical suggestions to implement those concepts.

[KR · Rating 4 out of 5]

Overall, this book was incredibly helpful!

The tone of the book was a little self-promoting at times, and a little repetitive at other times (though one could argue that this is helpful for learning). There were a few editing shortcomings. And despite claiming to be a descriptive story analysis approach, it does try to suggest a specific writing process at times (which I wasn’t as interested in).

But all of that is easily forgiven.

I’ve always been a bit uncertain in creative writing classes. Alright, so there’s a plot diagram, and tensions are supposed to rise towards the climax. But what does that *mean*? Even then, I was pretty sure that tension isn’t just action or a protagonist’s stress levels. This similarly muddled climaxes for me — the point of highest “tension.” Sure. We’d go over the definitions of plot elements, but that one issue never felt clear.

This is the first time that those answers have been clear; that the idea of rising and falling tension has truly made sense to me and seemed genuinely analyzable and actionable. For giving a better understanding of modern western story structures, this book is an excellent resource.

For that alone I think I’d give the book four stars. For all of the rest that the book contains, even some of the stuff that’s less helpful to me personally, I’ve bumped it up to five.

[Laura · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Write Structure is a book every aspiring writer should start out with. Joe Bunting makes learning HOW to write well easy to understand and gives you practical, engaging advice about maintaining reader interest by structuring writing to keep it moving and to engage readers in your words so they want to turn the next page to continue reading. I've been working with Joe's book for over a year now, and my writing has improved tremendously. If you're a first-time author, I highly recommend The Write Structure. There are other how-to writing books out there, but many are complex and assume the writer already possesses a great deal of knowledge that isn't critical to know when writing that all-important first draft. Joe gives easy-to-follow guidelines and a wealth of information concerning planning your writing. Don't miss this one if you're considering the novel you've always wanted to write!

[Clyde Wonder · Rating 4 out of 5]

A decent read on writing. I don't know if I would follow all the advice. Still, the principles are reasonable and, being a "plotter" when I write, the formulas for defining a book idea, outlining, and ultimately plotting were not bad.

This is a tough book to write. It's hard to break fiction writing down into a one-size-fits-all "formula." And though I saw some benefit to the rules laid out, I also remembered many books that broke them (including in my own writing).

Is that wrong? I don't think so. I like to see these rules as guidelines. Structure can be very helpful in framing a book. I like the idea of a road map, something I can check as I work my way through a project, confirming I'm staying on track.

I don't know that I'll follow the structure presented exactly, but reading about structure definitely makes me think structurally when starting a new book. That makes this book worth the read.

[Taryn Moreau · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of the most comprehensive books on structure I’ve read, but it was very clear, and it takes its own approach to planning a novel, starting with the dilemma and value of one’s story to build on. I found the later chapter on what to do if you can’t pin down your story’s value especially helpful.

I’ll see if this book helps me actually plan a novel more successfully than some other approaches I’ve tried, but it’s definitely worth reading for anyone who’s looking for a first or better novel planning process. It’s more flexible than many while still providing a lot of guidance.

[Lara Steinke · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Writing Structure is motivating and practical. Joe Bunting explains the importance of dilemma in a plot and how, without dilemma, there is no story, just a series of events. There is a detailed explanation on why commonly taught Freitag's pyramid doesn't accurately describe most of the plots out there and how to achieve a better understanding of structure.

[Jonathan Fox · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great read. I thought it got to the point and was easy to understand. Joe Bunting lays out a flexible framework that will work for whatever story you want to tell. I keep this book on my desk for easy reference.

[Sandy Juker · Rating 5 out of 5]

An invaluable guide. I refer to the story structure and principles in this book constantly as I write my own suspense novels.

[Sonee Singh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Practical, educational, and with clear examples. It’s a little too structured for my taste but I understand the reasoning.

[Matt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good book on novel writing with an emphasis on planning and outlining. I learned a lot and will use the info going forward in the future.