 Hello and welcome back to my channel. My name is Jackie and I'm an aspiring writer who is currently attempting to map out three different book ideas using the anatomy of story. And as I was editing this video I just realized that I had no introduction because originally I hoped to put premise and structure together but my premise video ended up being 40 minutes so that wasn't going to happen. So in this video I'm tackling step two of the process which is John Truby's seven elements of story structure. So we're now going to remind about five weeks to when I started this process. I have now moved on to step two of the anatomy of story which is structure. And I have some thoughts on this chapter. The positive, it is a really easy chapter to get through. There are seven key points you need to address and Truby describes them and then there are exercises. So that was really nice especially when I compare it to some of the later chapters in the book which are very theoretical like symbols or they just have a lot of lengthy examples like scene weave where he's broken down a number of films or television episodes scene by scene. So that is useful but it feels like a real slog to get through it. So this was nice and straightforward. The cons, one is that I don't think structure is the best word to describe this title because it isn't really about how your book should be organized. It's more these are seven key elements that your book needs to address or your story needs to address in order to be a good story but that's obviously not a big deal. He can call his chapters whatever he wants but if you're looking at this chapter expecting to get into plot and outlining it's not really at that stage yet. Then the final element which could be a pro or a con is after you've gone through the seven elements you need to include and then at the end of the chapter there's the summary slash list of steps you need to follow. It isn't just finding those seven elements. It's sort of you find the seven elements and then you need to go back and do other stuff which I think the way it's structured works really well but if you're expecting it to be straightforward following the chapter content you might be a little bit disappointed or frustrated. So what are the seven elements? The first one is weakness and need. So this is your protagonist's weakness and need at the beginning of the story. Number two is desire. Desire is distinct from need in that need is something almost fundamental to their character as we meet them at the beginning of the book that they need to address in order to become their best self and to get everything they want. So one of the examples in the book is from Tutsi where the need is Michael has to overcome his arrogance towards women and stop lying and using women to get what he wants whereas his desire is the woman he's fallen in love with. So the desire is like the goal or the objective that the character wants to go after but they're never going to be able to achieve it unless they address the need first. Number three is the opponent and if you've seen some of my past videos on trying to figure out my antagonists you'll not be surprised that I was quite looking forward to this one. Something to keep in mind with this current exercise is that the next chapter is on character so that's going to get into protagonist antagonists opponents and so on in far more detail. This the main point he makes is that your opponent and your protagonist should be going after the same goal so it's sort of starting with the most fundamental important thing you need to address and then in the next chapter we'll start fleshing it out. Four is the plan. So what's the plan the protagonist will follow in order to achieve their desire? Five is battle which as someone who writes fantasy and soft sci-fi and actiony type of things I love. Six is self-revelation so this is the moment when the character realises they need to change in some way usually to address that need I mentioned earlier and it's only through this self-revelation that they become the person they need to be who can defeat the opponent and then seven the final one is new equilibrium so we're at the end of the story now and what is the new normal and how is that different from where the character started so those are the seven key steps of story structure and when it comes to the exercises at the end of the chapter the way he recommends doing it is one start with a list of different story events so this is just almost brainstorming what are all of the initial ideas you have about what could happen in your story then two put them into a rough order and three look at your seven steps oh good then once you've looked at the seven steps you need to look at the psychological and moral self-revelation so that's step six in the seven and the point he makes here is rather than just having like a psychological revelation so something that tells him something about himself try to make it a moral one as well and the distinction is a psychological need and revelation is something that just affects the character whereas a moral one is something that affects the people in the world around them so for example let's say my need is to stop eating chocolate so I can be a healthier person this is a psychological need because it isn't having a detrimental impact on the people or the world around me now if my need was something like I need to get past my drug addiction because my drug addiction is having a detrimental impact on my family I'm stealing money from the shed bank account I'm lying about where I am people are up all night worried about me I'm bailing on my commitments you know that is more of a moral need because it is having an impact on the people and world around them so the revelation is what's the revelation that gets them past that then once you've looked at the revelation you go back to the need at the beginning of the book because as you can see in the examples I just gave they go hand in hand and from here you actually start moving through the seven steps sort of for a second time so revelation step six go back to step one which is the need then the next thing he says to look at the problem and the desire so problem what's not working in your character's life desire what do they want to achieve or get or change and from there it just follows the rest of the step so opponent plan and battle so the way this is organized it forces you to go through the process twice which I don't think is a bad thing especially when you want to make sure you're really focused on the revelation and the need but it did sort of surprise me when I was looking at this last night I went what didn't I already do this so something to be aware of when it comes to me and where I'm up to in the process so I started this for the first of my three ideas my fantasy hot mess which has already been drafted and what I've done is the first three bits of that exercise so I listed the story events but they were already in order because I've written the book and then I did my seven key elements of story structure so this is what I have now and I think it's going to be interesting to contrast this to when I do it again focusing on the self revelation and need if you're not interested in me going into a whole lot of detail about this project I'll put a timestamp somewhere and you can skip ahead something else to keep in mind is that this book did have actually four point of view characters when I read it last time but now I've narrowed it down to three so I've sort of done this for all three of those characters now context this is a late Victorian early Edwardian era fantasy with some steampunk elements I'd like to make more steampunk elements if they can fit mainly because I like the fashion which I know is a very bad motivation but the outfits are cool anyway the world is a university city sort of like Oxford that's extremely powerful in the global political landscape maybe just European political landscape I need to figure it out so first character is Peri she is a university student who is majoring in engineering and magic hates magic loves engineering she's also exhibiting at the international exhibit second character is Aubrey he is the third son of the king who also has magic skills has been locked up for them for all of his life and sort of tried to escape but didn't quite succeed and now is like on a mission for his father which takes him to this city Deremon and then the third character is one of the masters at the school who is a magic master and very very angry about events that happened approximately 20 to 30 years before the book started and he is intended to be the antagonist so weakness and need for Peri her weakness is blind faith her belief in Deremon the superiority of science and her distaste for magic and history her need is something I struggled with and the more work I do I'm not sure how much I need this character in this book but I love this character so I'd love to make it work so her need is she needs to learn to question the current system and respect the world outside of science to question marks I sort of said to reach full potential which I don't love because it's very vague or to break free from the prison she's created for herself so I thought and that could work prison could work as a symbol for this book because like there is a literal prison underneath the school um there that's where the climactic battle scene happens and so I like the idea that she's created this prison for herself in the rigidity of focusing on science and engineering in the future and letting go of the past and that also works well with the other characters because Aubrey's literally escaped from being locked up for the last 15 years 11 years I don't remember long time and I think Jairadin who's the antagonist he's also in a bit of a prison of his own making so that could work Aubrey weakness arrogance suspicious only relies on himself believes everyone is out to get him need needs to learn to trust and rely on others in order to achieve his goal and there's also this element of he needs to trust others to prove he too can be trusted the goal proving himself to his father by himself more freedom escaping from constant surveillance which is sort of buying himself more freedom and then Jairadin ambitious and angry too angry to appreciate what he has and need needs to let go of his anger to be free from Daruman and experience love again I hate that wording but oh well I've actually continued this for like sort of the main cast of characters but we'll be here all day if I do that so we'll stick with the point of you ones okay desire Perry to get recognized at the exhibit to buy her freedom Aubrey to buy his freedom from his father by delivering the McGuffin which I need to name Jairadin to destroy rain who's another character and everything he stands for so this is a little challenging because these goals don't really line up which is one of the challenges I have with this book and that they might like they're all in the same world but do they need to be part of the same story then opponent so mentioned Jairadin and the big challenge here is how do they all want the same goal and I think I mentioned when I was looking at premise the idea of pitting them against each other as fighting over the soul of Daruman very much like Batman and the Joker fighting over the soul of Gotham and the way that works is Jairadin the antagonist he wants to return it to what he considers to be its former glory Aubrey wants to hand the keys to the city to his father the king for more power for Perry I'm sort of thinking like it's a prison but it's her prison like almost like I don't know it's hers it's her home she grew up there she even as she wants to escape in some way she still loves it and wants to keep it safe there's also the idea that she wants to save it for rain who's the other character I mentioned earlier who's sort of her father figure in this book um and then I was also brainstorming like maybe she wants to leave the city but she still believes in what it stands for because it's this city that's like the pinnacle of science and engineering and technology and looking at the future and progress and that's everything she believes in plan so the plan hasn't really changed it's Aubrey and Perry team up to find the MacGuffin which is sort of the metaphorical key to Daruman and power in Daruman when they realized that Jairadin has sort of obtained it he hasn't directly bit his sort of gotten in cahoots with the person who has it um and learn more about his plan they decide to stop him so it's sort of they have one plan which is get the MacGuffin and then that turns into stop this guy battle I have nothing to write here I've written this I love the battle scene um I in fact the battle scene is one of the things I kept from the original draft that I did back when I was 19 or 20 and I like rewrote it a little bit but I love the choreography and the epicness and the rawness of it so yeah battles love them self revelation so self revelation is a challenge and this is where I can see the benefit of the exercise like sort of doing it backwards next so starting with self revelation and then going back through the process again because what I've got here is for Perry Daruman isn't pure good it's built on destruction and ruined a lot of good I've written it ruined a lot of the good and the bad I don't think that's what I meant to write she needs to draw on both science and magic to triumph rather than blindly pursuing the future and enduring the past Aubrey basically building trust between him and Perry um he doesn't need to do everything alone he can trust and rely on others and Jairadin I haven't done a revelation because he's not going to have one or at least not until too late that's why he experiences a downfall because he gets so wrapped up in what he believes that he never has that revelation of seeing what he has and you know he can actually have a good life despite of everything he's lost um and then finally new equilibrium so they've saved Daruman but they have the knowledge that it isn't the utopia that they thought it was so from here I need to go through and do the rest of the steps so revelation and then go through the process again and then I need to try this for my other two books but I would love it if you could comment on this video now and let me know like does this sound like a good story to you or does it sound like a mess because I was writing like I was working on this and thought oh I'm getting excited about this story again and I'm starting to think like it could be a good story but obviously there are still elements I need to figure out so I'd love to know your thoughts now when it's in this state I've been trying to go through the rest of the structure steps for this idea and I keep running into trouble when I get to the desire stage so I've actually started going through it twice now and I've done the self revelation I've done the weakness and need problem and then desire and I'm okay with the revelations I think I'm just going to focus on psychological ones rather than moral ones because it's my brain isn't big enough to do moral ones as well but also I feel like trying to focus on moral ones as well at this moment is causing more harm than good it's stopping me from making progress rather than helping me get to the next step so I'm focusing on psychological revelation which I'm fairly happy with what I've got for the two main characters then weakness and need I'm okay with that as well problems I'm okay with that too and then I get into desire and the main issue I have is that because the revelation weakness and need and problems are all things inherent to the characters and their lives in general when I think about desire I think about what they want in general when no the desire is supposed to be the thing that they want in the book and I don't really know how to approach that so if I talk about their desire in general well peri like iterations include how can I innovate how can I create new technology how can I bring the science and knowledge and government of this city to the rest of the world or how can I escape from this city and build a life of my own where I'm not constantly in the shadow of this institution where I've lived my entire life so all of these are you know real desires for her but they're not what the book is about so I'm in this position where originally the book is sort of originally about how do we get the MacGuffin and then it's how do we stop this guy who has the MacGuffin and I keep trying to bring it back to that and go okay how can I link these desires into that how can I make like her desire that's the initial springboard and then it turns into what the plot is and I don't know if that's the best way to be doing this because the point of this exercise is to figure out what's wrong with this book and whether there's hope and if I keep reverting to the existing story that defeats the purpose but if I don't do that then I'm not actually sure what the book's about anymore I'm not actually sure how these characters become part of the same story so I'm struggling a little bit and I'm not sure what to do so I mean part of me thinks maybe I should just try doing two stories one where I sort of weave it into the existing plot which is MacGuffin then bad guy and one where I just go okay let's talk about these characters desires in general and see where it goes. This is going to take a while hello it has been a while and not because I spent so long working on the other book but because I've had a lot of freelance work on over the past I think seven weeks now so it's actually been over a month since I last looked at the structure exercises from the Anatomy of Story and I haven't actually continued working on my seven pieces for my fantasy hot mess book so now the freelance work has slowed down a bit I am still working on a project but thankfully the clients agree to an open deadline so I can be no more relaxed like I am still working on it but I'm not having to do it in every hour outside of my day job so now I want to continue with the structure exercises for my DID mystery book which is a brand new idea that doesn't have anything yet and my happily ever after super villain tries to take over heaven book which I tried plotting out last year for NaNoWriMo but didn't end up writing and the good news I guess is that I couldn't sleep tonight or last night last it's the same night so I couldn't sleep I've been up since midnight I gave up trying to get back to sleep around two it's three a.m now so I've got plenty of time before Drew wakes up to get this done it has now been 35 minutes and I've actually gotten through both of the other ideas so I guess I was going to say it's surprising how quickly you can do book outlining exercises when you haven't written the book yet but in hindsight that isn't actually that surprising because for the book I'd already written there was a whole lot to unpack and figure out whereas there's nothing in these ones yet so naturally it's going to be faster so here's what I've got for the DID mystery book her weakness is that she is scared of being out of control and she tries to control everything so rigidly that she's unable to handle when things don't go her way and her need is that she needs to be able to accept her altars in herself and the reason I feel like being in control freak works is because like think about being in a body that you're sharing with say seven other people and they might take over without warning if you are the one who is in the body most of the time you're probably going to want to avoid that it's probably going to be really scary especially when you have no idea what's going on when you're not the one at the front so I think that works and that ties in well with how I want the altars to each be finding out different clues about the mystery and ultimately working together to find the culprit the problem is that one of her altars has witnessed a murder and she needs to clear her name so then the desire is to find the murderer and clear her name the opponent is the killer who's going to let her take the fall for his crime the plan I think will be in two phases so the first one will be she is like desperately trying to stay in control so she can find all of the clues and figure out this mystery the second phase is to start finding ways to communicate with her altars so they can start working together and put all of the pieces together the battle is confronting the killer and trying to get a confession out of him the self revelation is the idea that she doesn't need to be scared anymore that she and her altars can work together they can find systems to work together and they can find a new equilibrium and then of course the final stage is new equilibrium so that's the point where she has accepted herself in her altars she's healthier and happier the killer's behind bars so I'm not sure how long that took to go through that but I'll bet you a hundred bucks it was shorter than going through the previous book so you can see why this exercise was much faster when going through it with a new idea for the second one happily ever after I actually went back and looked at some of the videos that I filmed for nano rime last year because I'm away at the moment this is why the background is unusual and I forgot to check the notes about happily ever after before I left and because the first stage of the structure exercise is listing out different scene ideas I wanted to see what I already had what was a bit disappointing is that I didn't really have much and seeing the videos made me remember oh yeah this is the reason why I decided not to write about that idea for nano rhino because other than the setup I really couldn't think of anything so I realized that for this idea I'm basically in the exact same position I'm in for the DID mystery one so I listed a couple of different scene ideas and then got into the seven key points of story structure and to give you context for who I'm referring to here when I say villain I mean the main character of this story this is the villain who's been sentenced to hell and wants to take over heaven when I say hero that's not the hero of the book it's just one of the heroes from heaven who sort of works as a social worker I guess in hell um so there is a villain character and a hero character but the villain is the protagonist and the hero is like one of the opponents slash sidekick so just for clarity so weakness and need our protagonist weakness is having an ends justify the means mentality not surprising for a villain so he doesn't care who he hurts to get what he wants also has no sense of personal responsibility um he sees himself as a victim he doesn't think he deserves to be in hell he was just his villain he was doing his job and that's that he shouldn't be punished for doing his job his need is he needs to learn to consider others and the greater good desire wants to get into heaven and he actually feels entitled to it he has paid his dues he was just doing his job now it's time to experience his reward the opponent so there are two major opponents I think one is the system which doesn't really believe that villains can change and it doesn't give them the support or resources to change I'm not sure if this system needs to be embodied by a character so I think that's something I'll be looking at when I get into the character exercises which come after structure and then the second opponent is that hero character I mentioned so the social worker this is someone who's an opponent because like they lock horns they clash but also like a sidekick in fact I think there's a I can't remember all of the terms because it's been over a month since I read this chapter but there's there are like a couple of different ally characters and there's a fake ally but I think there's also like a fake opponent who is opposing the main character before they're greater good they're pushing them to be better so that's who this person is for the plan again I think this is going to be a two phase one so the first phase is how can he like gain the system how can he level up through hell until he gets to heaven and then I think the second one is you know he realises does he even need to play the system can't he just stage a coup the battle this will be a literal battle a battle for heaven where he's forced to change his ways I'm not sure what the moment of revelation is going to be like whether it's going to be he sees the damage his caused or whether like he sacrifices himself for the hero character for self revelation there are a few here but they're all wrapped up in the idea of transitioning from being a bad guy to a good guy so if there's value in being the good guy the ends don't justify the means other people have value too surprisingly and also there's hope for reform so how to change the system so it's possible for others to improve a new equilibrium is a new afterlife system that's focused on helping people improve and the villain takes on the social worker role what's interesting about this is that I did come up with this idea last year it was before I saw the last season of the good place I don't know if it was out yet or if I just hadn't watched it yet and it's basically like if you haven't watched the end of the good place mute me for the next three seconds but it's basically the end of the good place where they come up with a new system for the afterlife that encourages people to improve so I'm not sure if that's a problem I don't think so because the execution will be different but yeah it's interesting how different creators can independently arrive at the same idea so that brings me to the end of the structure step in the anatomy of story and I'm feeling pretty good mainly because it's been over a month now I've got them back into it but in general I think if this was the only structure step in the book I would be a little worried I'd feel like everything was very vague and I didn't have a very good outline but I feel okay because there is a different plot step later in the book where you expand these seven steps 222 and I think by then when I've already done the character work and I think moral journey and symbols all come before plot so I think once I've got all of that in place I should have a lot more to work with when it comes to fleshing out the plot so all in all I feel like I've made a good start I do have the basics here I do need to flesh them out obviously but yeah I'm making progress which is the main thing so I hope you enjoyed this video if you did as always please give me a big thumbs up remember to subscribe leave a comment below with how you're going with your work in progress I think this video will be out either right before Nana Raimo starts or once you've just started so let me know how your preptober went and what you're planning to do for your Nana Raimo project and if it started by then how it's going other than that I will see you next time bye