A few weeks ago I wrote a blog about books on writing and whether or not they were helpful. My findings were iffy; I thought that to learn to write you need to simply write a lot, yet, I finally found a book that I found to be one of the most helpful tools on writing — even the back cover was helpful.

I just started doing research for my senior project about the narrative structure of film and how it affects the other story elements. I picked up Story Structure Architect, by Victoria Schmidt, thinking I’d be able to pull out a few quotes to help reinforce my argument; never did I think that it would actually be a useful research source. I can’t be blamed though — there are a million “how-to write” books out there, most of them written by failed writers, so how was I to know that I would find one actually worthwhile?!

Schmidt’s book details 5 dramatic through lines, 6 conflicts, 21 genres, 11 structures, and 55 dramatic situations, all in all, a lot of story structure. The best part about her book is when she does eventually give her advice to writers. She never explains how to write and never gives you the rules for writing, instead she asks questions. All her advice is given in a pseudo-Socratic format, which is the best way to explain something to someone. I’ve always found it more useful for a teacher to lead me to form my own conclusions than to force their opinions on me. If you are having problems structuring a story, pick up this book, and it’ll help you realize what you probably already know.