The Skeleton Draft
Navigating a path from start to finish of a novel can be hard for both plotters and free-writers; enter the Skeleton Draft.
The Skeleton Draft is an idea-dump. Maybe you outlined the novel using a story structure such as the Hero’s Journey or any of the five, seven, seventeen or twenty-four point methods. Or maybe you have a scant clue of your story without a real structure in mind. The Skeleton Draft is a means to dive into the story and explore characters, conflicts and events without getting hung up on prose before you really have the idea worked out. …
Dan Wells’ Seven-Point Story Structure came from the author’s 
All story structures include turning points and plot points. Whether it has seven, 
Can you write certain 
After sentences, 
Controversial opinion coming up: bridging scenes don’t exist. The notion of a ‘bridging scene’ came from a comment on a previous topic on 
As the link between individual sentences and whole chapters, you have to know how to structure a 
Working through a reverse outline of Book One, I’m breaking down the action of the novel as part of the story edit. The revelation of this exercise is there are more scenes in each chapter than I thought.
Discovered a new aspect of writing craft this week while looking at story structure: the First Quarter Debate powering our story opening.
What is scene structure in fiction? It’s exactly the same as the structure for the chapter and for the whole story. Scenes are the building blocks of story; you can treat each scene as a short story in itself. But it has to have a satisfying structure in order to keep the reader turning the page.