On Writing: STORY STRUCTURE (Part 2)

Part 2 of STORY STRUCTURE (Part 1)

The Eight–Point Structure applied to YA Dystopian novel DIVERGENT

 

*CAUTION-CONTAINS SPOILERS*

Stasis

Normal life of Beatrice/ introduces her society/ the problem

Trigger

Picking Dauntless

Quest

Going to Dauntless/ discovering what it is like to be Dauntless/ Meeting Four

Surprise

Finding out she is divergent/Getting beat up at practices/ Learning to fight/ eventually learns how to win a fight/ Finding out her mother is divergent

Critical choice

Chooses to fight back and win the contest to become a Dauntless

Climax

She's almost killed/ her mother dies/Four loses his mind/she finds out who the antagonist/ fights/witnesses many people dying

Reversal

Things are still bad. Even though her mother is dead she's still moving on. Reversal is basically how the character is like when everything is wrong because right after the climax things aren’t automatically get better.

Resolution

Enemy is deterred (for now), Trice and Four are safe, and she is not at all the same person she was in the beginning of the book. Sets up for the next book.

Question:

Do you ever notice the structure as you're reading a book? If not, try to look for the 8 points the next time you read a book so you have a good idea of how it's done. You can find these structure point in almost every novel you read.

On Writing: STORY STRUCTURE (Part 2)