Narrative Structures: Essential Techniques for Plotting, Pacing, and Creating Unforgettable Stories

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As humans, we grow up consuming story. Books, television, movies, theater; even just listening to a yarn from a friend.

We experience story so much that we internalize the way that story works. We understand innately what needs to happen, and when something is out of order or isn't present then something will feel off about that story, even if we can't put our finger on why.

Many times when we sit to write, we don't consciously try to follow a 3 or 4 act structure; it just happens naturally because it's what our subconcious expects us to do even when we don't know why.

In this training, we are going to talk about story structure, and how we can fit stories into the various structures that have proven themselves over the years and decades and even centuries or millenia. By having an understanding of how narratives work, we can find the holes in our own stories or help plan out our stories from scratch.

The session covers basic definitions and distinctions between some key terms we'll need to understand to have the conversation, and then moves into the different types of story structure and what types fit into each category. Along the way, we'll share examples of stories that fit into each one, and will talk about some different narrative techniques that we can use to change things up and keep things interesting without breaking our story.

Be sure to download the slide deck from the resources, as well, as we've included a number of additional slides that don't appear in the live presentation with some specific details about the major structures and archetypes.


Training #559

241205
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