Oct. 17th, 2011

emmagrant01: (Default)
In this month's Wired, there is an article about Dan Harmon, who is the creator of the TV show Community. The article is about him and his career and the show, but there was this interesting little gem as well. Dan Harmon's basic structure for the plot of an episode looks like this:



I couldn't have put it into such a succinct form, but yeah, this basically summarizes the plot of a good story, IMO. This is what happens in every good fic I think I've ever read.  Of course, the something is usually another person, or the getting-in-the-pants-of another person, but that bit about paying a price for it is definitely part of a good story for me. When I think about the fics of mine that I'm proudest of, that's exactly what happens.  Parts 7 and 8 are usually done in the form of an epilogue in my fics, a glimpse into what "normal" life is going to look like once the characters have returned back to the rhythm of ordinary life again.

I'm thinking this might be a good tool to use when writing, especially when I feel stuck. What do you think?

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