Nice threads man

Last night I met up with a writer friend (Oh my god, have you seen those straws Pannera Bread uses? They're like freeking paper towel tubes! ) and we talked about outlining and story structure. I've never really understood structure before reading a couple of screenwriting books this year. ("The Anatomy of Story" by John Truby, and "Save the Cat" by Blake Snyder -- both of whom I heard interviewed on podcasts -- John on "Writers on writing", and Blake on "The Writing Show". See literary links.)

Screen writing? -- Yes. Why not? I have no interest in writing a screenplay, but by virtue of the competition in Hollywood those people understand pitches, pacing, and satisfying endings. To boil a story down to a pitch it has to be well structured to begin with. Besides, if, against all odds, your story gets published wouldn't it be handy if it was laid out in such a way that it was easily adaptable?

I've studied several favorite novels by rereading them, listening to them on tape, sometimes up to four times trying to decipher their mojo, (and there was mojo aplenty), but didn't really understand the components of a good story, focusing more on character development, setting, descriptions, dialog -- what was said and what was left for the reader's mind to fill in.

I kind of looked down my nose at outlining. After all, didn't "real writers" just let their characters drive the bus? Now my thinking is that characters must be very alive and given enough leash to take you down interesting, unexpected threads, but by mapping out the major points of your story ahead of time you ensure all those threads are running the same direction to form a rope that pulls the reader all the way through to "the end".