NaNoWriMo is upon us again. I don’t think I’ll be trying to hammer out a novel, but maybe I’ll finish up that kid’s book I’ve been sitting on.

As I’ve been planning my next project, I’ve been thinking (again) about the various storytelling frameworks that I’ve come across. Many of these contain similar concepts, but I think all are different enough to be useful.

So without further ado, and in no particular order, here are five of my favorite teachings on story planning.

Dan Harmon’s Story Circles

Dan Harmon is the creator of the TV show “Community.” This borrows heavily from Christopher Vogler’s “The Writer’s Journey,” which in turn borrows from Joseph Campbell’s “Hero Journey.”

• Story Structure 101
• Story Structure 102
• Story Structure 103
• Story structure 104
• Story Structure 105
• Story Structure 106

Story Structure (Larry Brooks)

Larry’s written several novels and integrates lots of storytelling ideas from the screenwriting world.

• Story Structure — Just Possibly the Holy Grail of Storytelling
• Introducing the Four Parts of Story
• Milestones Along the 4 Part Storytelling Road
• Five Missions for the Set-up of Your Story
• The First Plot Point
• Part 2 – The Response
• Wrapping Your Head Around the Mid-Point Milestone
• The Part 3 Attack
• The Second Plot Point
• Pinch Points
• The Final Act
• Epilogue… the Fine Print
• The Single Most Powerful Writing Tool You’ll Ever See that Fits on One Page

5 Act Structure (a la Shakespeare, via Film Crit Hulk)

It’s no secret. I love Film Crit Hulk. His all-caps manifestos are fantastic.

• The Myth of 3-Act Structure

Jim Butcher Style Planning

Jim Butcher pens fantasy novels. He has plenty of writing street cred, with 20 novels published, also had a TV series made from one of his series. He has a (apparently now-defunct) livejournal where he used to lay down some of his thoughts on writing. The part that deals with planning a story is actually the last one “Putting it all Together.”

• Introduction
• Story Craft
• Conflict, Logical Response and Point of View
• Story Skeletons
• Characters
• The Great Swampy Middle
• Scenes
• Sequels
• Story Climax
• Putting It all Together

The Snowflake Method

This was my first introduction to story planning/structure of any kind. It’s an excellent way to write a novel.

The Snowflake Method

Templates

I built some little templates to help me out when I’m planning a new story.

Here they are in two formats: plain text and as a WriteMonkey plugin. You’ll have to make a donation to WriteMonkey to unlock the plugins ability, but I think it’s worth it.

• Story Planning Worksheets – Zipped .txt files
• Story Planning Templates – Zipped WriteMonkey plugin. Just unzip the file then copy the “Story Planner Templates” folder into your WriteMonkey’s (ver 1.5+) “plugins” folder. Next time you start WriteMonkey, hit Ctrl+F10 to insert the story planning text. I like to insert it into the repository so I can use it like a story bible.