Creative Writing For Dummies, 2nd Edition

Chapter 9

Setting Up a Solid Structure

IN THIS CHAPTER

Making breaks in your work

Starting at the beginning, going through the middle, and reaching the end

Presenting your work in time

Some writers structure their piece of fiction, play, or book before they even begin to write, while others apply a form only after they complete a first draft. But any piece of writing, whether a short poem or massive novel, needs a structure: plays are divided into acts, poems into verses, and novels into chapters. Any piece of writing needs a beginning, a middle, and an end – and it must start and end somewhere.

However, where to make your divisions isn’t always clear when you first start writing. In this chapter, I help you make structural decisions for your work.

Dividing Your Work into Chapters and Parts

Pick a book – any book – off your shelf. Look at how the author has structured it. Maybe the text is divided into parts. Count the chapters and see whether each part contains the same number. Check whether all the chapters are roughly the same length, and whether the book has lots of short chapters or a smaller number of long ones.

In a long poem, look at how the verses are arranged. In a ...