Structure

Structure is essential to creating a narrative that has a beginning that pulls the reader in, a middle that creates turmoil and obstacles for your protagonist and an ending that gives us a climax and pay off. But I don't believe in setting out to create this structure in order to make the story succeed. All good stories will NATURALLY fall within these structures. Mythologist Joseph Campbell states we globally have only ever told seven stories, we just change these seven stories as we evolve. He created the Heroes journey, which maps out a twelve step structure that takes the hero on a journey towards an adventure, thus a story, this map can be studied on the back drop of any successful film narrative
and it fits perfectly. However most life changing narratives fall into this same structure, it's just that we are sometimes still figuring out the payoff's!!