Let Your World Inform Your Structure

One of the most difficult things to figure out in the early stages of a writing project - in my case, at least - is the structure. That is, the order in which things happen, what happens onscreen and what off, and how much time each of those things takes up in terms of the overall story (a loose definition of the word 'structure' as it relates to writing, but a serviceable enough one for this post).

Something that writers might want to take onboard when grappling with this particular obstacle is letting the world of the story inform the structure.

What made me think of this was recently watching the film Frost/Nixon. To base a film on true events presents all sorts of structural challenges (see: every biographical film ever made), but what Peter Morgan, Screenwriter Extraordinaire had in his favour was that at the core of his film was a series of interviews. The rest of the film simply fell into place around those interviews; the first act leads up to the first interview, the second act is the bulk of the interviews, the third act is the final, climactic interview.

This can be seen in series' of films. Each Harry Potter story, for example, is one school year at Hogwarts, beginning with Harry in the 'real' world and ending with the end of the Hogwarts school semester. It also works for TV shows; each of the first three seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer ends with the end of the school year at Sunnydale High (the structuring became a little muddier after that. The show also became not-as-good. Coincidence?!).

The West Wing's overall plotting was in part determined by the necessity of having elections within their fictional world, and the amount of time that would take; each season of Scrubs details a year in its characters' lives, and presents their professional progression accordingly; Slumdog Millionaire's whole story is wrapped around the rigidly planned events of a prime time game show.

In each of the above examples, while the challenges of structure aren't taken out of their writers' hands entirely, they are made immeasurably easier by taking into consideration the structures already inherent in their fictional worlds.

In my case, I'm currently working on a feature film script set in the world of suburban football. That setting easily gives me a structural outline to work with; the first act is the beginning of the football season, the second act the bulk of the season, the third act is my home team's grand final. Bam! With that out of the way, I can work on each character's individual arc within that.

This theory, of course, doesn't work with all stories. It may also be that while your fictional world does present you with structural guidelines, you have to dig a little deeper to find them.

When it does work, though, it can be hugely helpful. And if you find sitting down at your desk and Getting Writing Done as difficult as I do, you'll probably take all the help you can get.