Story structures, laid out as chapters

Act One

1. Ordinary world. Show who the protagonist is, what they want and what their life looks like before anything changes.
2. Inciting incident. The event that disturbs the ordinary world and cannot be undone. Everything after this is a response to it.
3. The decision. The protagonist commits to the journey. The door closes behind them; there is no going back to the first chapter.

Act Two

4. New world. First steps in unfamiliar territory. Allies, opponents and the rules of this new situation appear.
5. Rising complications. Each attempt to reach the goal makes things harder. Show the protagonist trying and paying for it.
6. Midpoint. A reversal or revelation that changes what the goal means. The stakes rise and the clock starts.
7. Pressure mounts. The opposition tightens its grip. The protagonist’s flaws begin to cost them and their allies.
8. All is lost. The lowest point. The old way of doing things fails for good, and the protagonist is left with nothing to lean on.

Act Three

9. New resolve. The protagonist chooses a new approach, using what the story has taught them. Gather what is needed for the end.
10. Climax. The final confrontation decides the central question. Make the protagonist earn the outcome.
11. Resolution. The new ordinary world. Show what has changed, in the protagonist and around them, and let the reader breathe.

Act One

1. Opening image. A single scene that shows the protagonist and their world before the change. The final image will answer it.
2. Theme stated. Someone says, in passing, what the story is really about. The protagonist is not ready to hear it.
3. Setup. Everything the reader needs: the protagonist, the people around them, the flaw that will have to change, and what is missing from their life.
4. Catalyst. The moment that knocks the protagonist’s world off its axis: a message, an arrival, a loss, a discovery.
5. Debate. The protagonist hesitates. Should they act? Can they? The question is asked out loud or in action.
6. Break into two. The protagonist chooses to act and steps into the new world of the story. The choice is theirs, not an accident.

Act Two

7. B story. A second thread, often a relationship, that carries the theme and gives the protagonist a different kind of conversation.
8. Fun and games. The promise of the premise. The protagonist explores the new world, and the scenes the reader picked the book up for happen here.
9. Midpoint. A false victory or a false defeat that raises the stakes and starts the clock running toward the end.
10. Bad guys close in. Opposition, inner and outer, tightens. Allies fall away or fall out; the protagonist’s flaw does damage.
11. All is lost. The opposite of the midpoint: the plan fails and something, or someone, is lost for good.
12. Dark night of the soul. The protagonist sits with the loss. This is where they finally understand the theme stated in the first act.
13. Break into three. Armed with that understanding, and with help from the B story, the protagonist finds a way forward.

Act Three

14. Finale. The protagonist puts the lesson into action against the opposition and wins, or loses, on their own terms.
15. Final image. A single scene that mirrors the opening image and shows how far the protagonist has come.

Departure

1. Ordinary world. The hero at home, before the call. Show what they are good at, what they lack and what they take for granted.
2. Call to adventure. A problem, a summons or a temptation that asks the hero to leave what they know.
3. Refusal of the call. The hero hesitates, out of fear, duty or doubt. Show what the journey will cost and why it is still worth taking.
4. Meeting the mentor. Someone, or something, gives the hero the advice, the tool or the confidence they need to set out.
5. Crossing the threshold. The hero leaves the ordinary world and commits to the journey. The rules change on the other side.

Initiation

6. Tests, allies and enemies. The hero learns the new world through trials, and finds out who can be trusted.
7. Approach to the inmost cave. Preparation for the central ordeal. The hero gathers what they need and faces their deepest fear in advance.
8. The ordeal. The hero confronts the greatest danger so far and appears to die, in body, in hope or in reputation, before coming through.
9. The reward. The hero takes the prize the ordeal earned: an object, a truth, a reconciliation. It is not safe yet.

Return

10. The road back. The hero turns for home, chased by the consequences of the ordeal. A new urgency drives the last act.
11. The resurrection. A final test, at the threshold of home, where the hero must prove the change is real.
12. Return with the elixir. The hero comes back with something that heals or changes the ordinary world. Show what it is and what it costs.

Setup

1. The first lead. Introduce the first lead in their ordinary life. Show the wound or belief that keeps them from love.
2. The second lead. Introduce the second lead the same way. Their wound should rub against the first lead’s.
3. The meeting. They meet, and it matters at once, whether as attraction, irritation or recognition.
4. No way. Each lead decides that this cannot happen, for reasons that sound sensible and are really the wound talking.

Falling

5. Stuck together. Circumstances keep them in each other’s company: a job, a journey, a family, a deal.
6. Seeing past the surface. Each lead glimpses who the other really is. The first belief about them cracks.
7. Maybe this could work. A moment of real connection. They start to imagine a life with each other in it.
8. A flicker of doubt. A reminder of the wound. Something small suggests the old belief was right after all.

Retreat

9. Doubt grows. The outside world presses in. Each lead’s fear speaks louder than the bond.
10. Pulling away. One or both leads protect themselves by stepping back, telling themselves it is for the best.
11. Shields up. The old defences return in full. They treat each other the way they did before the meeting, and it hurts more now.
12. The break. The relationship ends, or seems to. Both leads are alone with the thing they were afraid of.

Fighting for love

13. The dark moment. Each lead sits with the loss and faces the wound honestly for the first time.
14. Waking up. One lead understands what the wound cost them and decides to change. The other may need a push.
15. The grand gesture. A visible, costly act that proves the change: the lead risks the very thing the wound protected.
16. Whole-hearted. The leads choose each other with open eyes. Show the life they will have, and what each one had to give up to get there.

1. Introduction: the promise. What the reader will be able to do, know or feel by the last page, and why you are the one to show them.

The problem

2. Why this matters. Make the reader feel the cost of the problem, with a story or a number that lands.
3. What usually goes wrong. The advice the reader has already heard and why it fails. Clear the ground for your method.

The method

4. Principle one. The first idea, explained once simply, then shown in an example and backed with evidence.
5. Principle two. The second idea, built on the first, with its own example and evidence.
6. Principle three. The third idea. By the end of this chapter the reader should see the whole method.
7. Putting it together. A walk through the method from start to finish, as the reader will actually use it.

Making it stick

8. Common obstacles. What stops people, in their heads and in their circumstances, and what to do about each.
9. A worked example. One person or case followed all the way through, including the parts that went badly.
10. Where to go from here. The next step the reader should take today, and the resources for the ones after that.

Before

1. The world as it was. The life, the people and the beliefs you held before the change. Give the reader something to miss.
2. The first crack. The moment, small or large, when the old life stopped fitting. Show it in a scene, not a summary.

During

3. Crossing into it. The decision, or the event, that took you into the hardest stretch. What you expected, and what you found.
4. What it cost. The losses along the way: relationships, certainties, versions of yourself. Be specific and fair to everyone in it.
5. The lowest point. The night, the day or the season when you thought it would not end. Stay in the scene.
6. The turn. What changed, and how slowly or suddenly it came. Credit the people and the luck honestly.

After

7. Coming out the other side. The first signs of a new life, and the old habits that followed you into it.
8. What I know now. The meaning you make of it today, offered to the reader without tidying up the parts that still hurt.