Super Structure: The Key to Unleashing the Power of Story (Bell on Writing)

by James Scott Bell

Structure takes the story you have in your heart and mind and transforms it into a narrative that readers can fall in love with.

I love this idea that you can load your fuzzy story onto a train that’s going somewhere and the internal structure of the train helps to organise the story and make it effective as a narrative. Anyway, I think that’s what it means.

"Feeling tells you what you want to say. Technique gives you tools with which to say it."

Those craft tools are what I need. Great to have things set out so clearly.

Occasionally, for breathing space, have something good happen. But use that good to lead to something bad.

Got it. Too many good things happening to the protagonist is boring. Bad stuff shapes character in a way that is interesting and keeps the reader engrossed in the story.

The biggest changes we make in our own lives occur when we are thrust into a crisis.

Oswald Chambers says crises don’t make character, they reveal it. But character development is continual and incremental, and each decision sits on the development of character from the last choice made.