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Which novel makes for a good skeleton or blue print for writing your own novel?

Fandomizer

Fandomizer

Control My Mind
Joined
May 14, 2019
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Eastern Canada
Like, whether the setting is modern, historical, fantasy, futuristic Sci fi, dystopian - which novel is just a perfect template on how to write a well constructed story book?

I suppose I would want examples for both third person and first person.

I think my main problem is that with roleplaying I only ever write a few paragraphs at a time and always have a partner contributing to the structure. So I have never developed the anatomy of what a novel's skeleton should look like.
 
I'm not sure I understand the question. You want to write a book based off a story structure from another book?

For me, who had the same problem, I found that making a timeline helped. Put the first plot point and the final plot point on opposite ends of the line. Fill in the line with as many plot points as you can think of as you go from start to end. Then start writing to move along the timeline.
 
Something like that yeah. Like I think it's easier to see what the structure is when looking at films or video games vs books. Like Mass Effect 2 is the best Mass Effect game but it literally doesn't even need to exist. It's the squishy middle part but also a self contained story. Mass Effect 1 could skip right to 3 and do the reaper plot line and ignore Mass Effect 2 entirely. The squishy middle part is important but it's also the most difficult part to do well because it's not necessary to finish the story. It's there to make the story worth writing. But I guess if I used Mass Effect trilogy as a novel template I would want one third or more of my book to be entirely irrelevant memorable background flavoring.
 
Brandon Sandeson's Skyward has a public outline out, and he's a good outliner afaik.
 
While I agree with all you said about ME I don't know if it's a good analogy here. Because while the story is important in video games, there is so much more that makes them enjoyable. Gameplay, visuals, characters. While for a book all you have is really story and characters. As for books, I agree with the Sanderson suggestion. He also puts out his lectures on writing on Youtube if you want to watch them. But since they're for legit college classes they can be a bit lengthy.
 
bodman54 said:
While I agree with all you said about ME I don't know if it's a good analogy here. Because while the story is important in video games, there is so much more that makes them enjoyable. Gameplay, visuals, characters. While for a book all you have is really story and characters. As for books, I agree with the Sanderson suggestion. He also puts out his lectures on writing on Youtube if you want to watch them. But since they're for legit college classes they can be a bit lengthy.
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Yes, his lectures are the best! I've watched them once a year for the past few years, and somehow, I keep learning something new. :)
 
He doesn't have the most beautiful prose or the most layered characters but he's a machine when it comes to writing and he can tell a damn good story
 
There is only one story in the whole world.

A character (or characters) wants something.

Something or someone is preventing them from getting it.

That's it! Succeed or fail, comedy or tragedy or adventure....that's every story ever written. Every story ever told.
 
brenda brunette said:
There is only one story in the whole world.

A character (or characters) wants something.

Something or someone is preventing them from getting it.

That's it! Succeed or fail, comedy or tragedy or adventure....that's every story ever written. Every story ever told.
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I'd love to see you try and do a few very short synopses of popular novels, movies or shows to prove this point, without naming the titles or using proper nouns out of the stories and have people try and guess what novel you are talking about.
 
On a distant planet, a teenage boy yearns for adventure. An old friend invites him to defeat the evil government forces, but the boy only decides to do so when his aunt and uncle are brutally slaughtered. He and his old friend seek out passage to another planet and discover the evil government has created a massive machine capable of destroying whole planets. The boy manages to destroy the machine with some supernatural power.

Easy, right? Boy wants adventure -- gets it. Then he wants to destroy the machine -- also gets it.
 
brenda brunette said:
On a distant planet, a teenage boy yearns for adventure. An old friend invites him to defeat the evil government forces, but the boy only decides to do so when his aunt and uncle are brutally slaughtered. He and his old friend seek out passage to another planet and discover the evil government has created a massive machine capable of destroying whole planets. The boy manages to destroy the machine with some supernatural power.

Easy, right? Boy wants adventure -- gets it. Then he wants to destroy the machine -- also gets it.
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Your synopsis covers more than just "boy wants adventure, evil space wizard stands in his way." It is completely in conflict with your original statement: "A character (or characters) wants something. Something or someone is preventing them from getting it."

Stories are way more than that.
 
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That's the Hero's Journey. Not all stories follow the Hero's Journey, but the Hero's Journey does follow character wants something, something or someone is preventing character from getting it.
 
This is kind of in line with what some others have said, but framed slightly differently--

Identify the conflict. What is it? Is it a person? A group of persons? A natural crisis? An internal crisis? Multiple conflicts?

How does the main character(s) interact with the conflict? Resolve it? Dig themselves deeper and deeper into it? Find friends to try to overcome it? Embark on an actual journey and find themselves along the way?

Once you have that, the rest is just fleshing out the details.
 
ƒeral said:
This is kind of in line with what some others have said, but framed slightly differently--

Identify the conflict. What is it? Is it a person? A group of persons? A natural crisis? An internal crisis? Multiple conflicts?

How does the main character(s) interact with the conflict? Resolve it? Dig themselves deeper and deeper into it? Find friends to try to overcome it? Embark on an actual journey and find themselves along the way?

Once you have that, the rest is just fleshing out the details.
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Exactly!
 
Okay, first question.

Do you usually plot things, or do you "write to explore" -- you don't know where the story is going until you get there. This is known as "pantsing", where you write by the seat of your pants. Honestly I don't know how to help these folks.

So let's say you are a plotter. Here is a classic plot structure--the Three Act Structure

It uses Star Wars as the base example, but most things follow this formula and you should be able to fit a lot of stuff into this.
 
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