RELEASE WEEK POST 5!
STRUCTURE ME THIS
I saved this post until the last day of the week to hopefully give people enough time to read “Bad Princess” before this went up. If you haven’t read the book yet, you might want to wait—this post is about the structure I used for the story, and by design, it’s a little bit spoiler-y. I tried to think of a way to talk about structure without discussing the plot, but that turned out to be mostly impossible.
If you’re not familiar, I use a basic (and very well-known) three-act structure for most of my stories. There’s an Inciting Incident (which is the moment that gets the story rolling), the First Act Turning Point (which is kind of the moment where there’s no going back), the Mid-Point (when something shifts and sends the plot in a new-ish direction), the Second Act Turning Point (aka the climax), and the Resolution. I broke this down in some of the On Writing posts on my website, but I basically use the “big” romantic moments as the turning points in my stories, and here’s how that worked out with “Bad Princess”:
Inciting Incident (15%): Brinley and Finn get caught red-handed in the library. If they kiss but don’t get caught, there’s no story!
First Act Turning Point (25%): Wedding night. If Brinley and Finn don’t get married, they can still go back to how things used to be. I’ll be honest—I really didn’t want to write a wedding scene, and if I had, it would have been exactly the same as every other royal wedding. So I skipped to the “after” part of the wedding, and the unexpected: a bawling princess bride on her happiest day.
Mid-Point (51%): The trip to the dungeon. The farther Brinley and Finn descend beneath the castle, the more they shed their “royal” images and reveal their truer selves. That’s why the sex happens at this point—they’re at their most vulnerable and honest. And it changes the story from “will they-won’t they” to “yes they will” and makes them a legitimate pair instead of two individuals simply stuck together.
Second Act Turning Point (72%): The party at Castle Lenora, and the egg. This is the moment that jeopardizes everything, for everyone involved, and forces them to make choices that will determine the outcome of the story. I think it’s important that this happen at Finn’s home, because it finally gives us some insight into Finn and his upbringing, and helps us better understand his choices to date, and the choices he’ll make going forward.
Resolution (the rest): What happens after the party, the choices, and the results of those choices. You know how Coke has those different bottles during the summer? When I was writing this I randomly grabbed a bottle from the cooler and it said “Saving the Princess.” That inspired a certain white knight idea and influenced the ending of the book. Thanks, Coke!
(Not a structural thing: The Brinley kicking bricks idea was inspired by a memory of my sister when we were younger. She thought I was standing on the other side of the wall so she came whipping around and kicked it as hard as she could. I was, of course, on the opposite side of the room, so I saw the whole thing and nearly died laughing.)
So that’s the structure I used for this book! I didn’t necessarily know how the moments themselves would play out, but I knew what types of events they needed to be, and where in the page count they had to fall to keep me on pace. If it’s not obvious, I kind of love talking about this stuff, so feel free to offer your comments (or questions, or suggestions) below.
And…that’s it for the release week posts! Thank you so much for being part of this release, and, as always, thanks for reading. :)
I saved this post until the last day of the week to hopefully give people enough time to read “Bad Princess” before this went up. If you haven’t read the book yet, you might want to wait—this post is about the structure I used for the story, and by design, it’s a little bit spoiler-y. I tried to think of a way to talk about structure without discussing the plot, but that turned out to be mostly impossible.
If you’re not familiar, I use a basic (and very well-known) three-act structure for most of my stories. There’s an Inciting Incident (which is the moment that gets the story rolling), the First Act Turning Point (which is kind of the moment where there’s no going back), the Mid-Point (when something shifts and sends the plot in a new-ish direction), the Second Act Turning Point (aka the climax), and the Resolution. I broke this down in some of the On Writing posts on my website, but I basically use the “big” romantic moments as the turning points in my stories, and here’s how that worked out with “Bad Princess”:
Inciting Incident (15%): Brinley and Finn get caught red-handed in the library. If they kiss but don’t get caught, there’s no story!
First Act Turning Point (25%): Wedding night. If Brinley and Finn don’t get married, they can still go back to how things used to be. I’ll be honest—I really didn’t want to write a wedding scene, and if I had, it would have been exactly the same as every other royal wedding. So I skipped to the “after” part of the wedding, and the unexpected: a bawling princess bride on her happiest day.
Mid-Point (51%): The trip to the dungeon. The farther Brinley and Finn descend beneath the castle, the more they shed their “royal” images and reveal their truer selves. That’s why the sex happens at this point—they’re at their most vulnerable and honest. And it changes the story from “will they-won’t they” to “yes they will” and makes them a legitimate pair instead of two individuals simply stuck together.
Second Act Turning Point (72%): The party at Castle Lenora, and the egg. This is the moment that jeopardizes everything, for everyone involved, and forces them to make choices that will determine the outcome of the story. I think it’s important that this happen at Finn’s home, because it finally gives us some insight into Finn and his upbringing, and helps us better understand his choices to date, and the choices he’ll make going forward.
Resolution (the rest): What happens after the party, the choices, and the results of those choices. You know how Coke has those different bottles during the summer? When I was writing this I randomly grabbed a bottle from the cooler and it said “Saving the Princess.” That inspired a certain white knight idea and influenced the ending of the book. Thanks, Coke!
(Not a structural thing: The Brinley kicking bricks idea was inspired by a memory of my sister when we were younger. She thought I was standing on the other side of the wall so she came whipping around and kicked it as hard as she could. I was, of course, on the opposite side of the room, so I saw the whole thing and nearly died laughing.)
So that’s the structure I used for this book! I didn’t necessarily know how the moments themselves would play out, but I knew what types of events they needed to be, and where in the page count they had to fall to keep me on pace. If it’s not obvious, I kind of love talking about this stuff, so feel free to offer your comments (or questions, or suggestions) below.
And…that’s it for the release week posts! Thank you so much for being part of this release, and, as always, thanks for reading. :)
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Thank you, I'm glad you liked the post! It's so nice to know someone read it. ;)
Julianna wrote: "Thank you, I'm glad you liked the post! It's so nice to know someone read it. ;)"Your Welcome. I've only read 4 of your books, but I've really enjoyed them.
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