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Lesson 11

Structuring your plot cut away what doesn’t belong

Lesson 11 Case Study: Structuring the Plot

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I normally take the first few sentences that, David Mamet says at the start of his video lessons. Today, I just listened and used one from the center of the video and one at the end.  I laughed at each one.

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David loves structure. I have a thing for disorganization.  I wondered how I could come together with Davids teachings.   I can. He tells us to see the structure at the start, watch it move through the middle the end, Act 1 -Act 2- Act 3.  Watch for change.  See the weight of the knife. How does it change?

Structure is very important, I mean I think a lot about structure. And I think about our greatest western philosopher. I think a lot of you guys have already beat me to the punch, when I say of course it was, Daffy Duck. Because Daffy Duck asks the essential question of philosophy which is “Say what’s going on here, anyways”

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People said, Michelangelo’s statue of David, Right, pretty cute. And they say, my God how did you do that? He said, I just looked at this block of marble and I cut away everything that wasn’t David. And so, I grew up like everyone else thinking my God how brilliant. Until I realized, that what he was really saying, was buzz off.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_(Michelangelo)

One reply on “Structuring your plot cut away what doesn’t belong”

I’m more of a pantser myself, so during my first book, I didn’t focus on structure. But, after a long editing process, and many revisions on that book, I learned the lesson of hybridization. In book 2, I added structure from draft two on. It helped me so much. I kept the organic nature of my writing by still pantsing my first draft, but added the rise and fall of pacing a tight structure brings during subsequent drafts. I’m really proud of my second book, and it took far less time.

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