I have found the Writing Excuses podcast (and archives) very useful to learn about the art of story writing. One I found particularly useful was episode 10.13 (“Where is my story going?“) on structure. (The episodes before and after it are all pretty good. Series 10 they started making the episodes more like teaching content.) Here is what resonated with me for my goal of creating an animated cartoon series for YouTube.
What is your pitcher?
One illustration from the episode was talking about writing episodes for TV. All episodes have to fit within the same structure – there is very precise timing for the length of content and where the breaks for commercials must be. The shape of the glass pitcher does not change, but what you put into it can change completely – soup, honey, sand, (sitcom, cartoon, news report, etc).
Another example is Howard Tayler’s comics. Again there is a particular length, either for a daily comic strip, or a printed comic book where pages have a specific physical size. The media format constrains the options available for the content.
For myself, I am planning a series of 3 to 5 minute animated episodes (so I can finish them in a reasonable period of time as a hobby). That gives enough time to tell a story with flow. (If I used YouTube shorts, it would be for promotional content or jokes, not the main storyline.) So I need to create an enjoyable story beat in a fairly short period, but which fit into a longer story that the audience can follow.
The big picture
For my case, I have structure across episodes and within episodes. In particular, I have the concepts of seasons where I have a major long term goal. For example, season 1 is about Sam growing from isolation to have friendships. Season 2 then heads off in a different direction, based on those friendships existing. (I may not reveal the concepts of seasons to the audience, but there is a goal in my mind for each season.)
In reality, it’s not quite as simple as season 1 is about Sam as I have an ensemble cast. I have a core group of important characters, not just one. Each character has their own story for that season. Different episodes follow different characters. So the structure of a season has to work out the timeline for each character’s story, then weave them together so different sub-plots can come to the forefront at different times. But the primary story is about Sam, meaning sub-plots must be ordered in a way that the primary plot is not damaged.
So, within a season I plan to have a number of arcs, each arc being formed of small groups of episodes. For example,
- Season 1 from Sam’s perspective is about forming friendships
- Arc 1 of season 1 is Sam meeting Hank
- Then the episodes within the arc are story beats (Hank arrives in town, Sam goes overboard rubbing Hank the wrong way, Hank struggles with a school project, Sam helps him, they form the start of a friendship)
What are the peaks?
Working out the structure can feel overwhelming – where do you start? Start with list of big emotional peaks. Then think through the sequencing of those peaks so that the plot progression for each character makes sense. Once the objectives for each arc defined and the order worked out, drill into the structure of a single arc.
There are exceptions. For example, my first episode I am rewriting to be a single introduction episode. It is not part of a longer arc. Its purpose is to introduces most of the characters and let the audience get a feel for what the series will be like. All techniques are tools. There are there to help, not limit. So while I plan to use arcs, there will be single episodes I plan to slip in between arcs that won’t really belong to an arc, and that is fine. Sometimes it is needed to pace content for a later episode.
Tone
What is the tone / feel / style / genre of the work you are creating. Is it a mystery? A detective story? Sci-fy? Elizabethan? A heist? A romance? A horror story? Is it for kids, teens, or adults? What combination? For example, Mary on the podcast summarizes one of her books as “a Jane Austen heist story with magic”. That description sets particular audience expectations of things that the story will cover. Detective series will leave clues (and some red herrings). A romance story typically goes through stages such as introduction, denial/rejection, realization, acceptance, a try-fail cycle, the climax, and a pay-off (such as a wedding scene) to revel in the new successful relationship.
Once you have your core tones worked out, you need to understand the audience expectations of each, to please the reader. You will raise questions and challenges, with the promise of answering them by the end of the story, possibly with a few plot twists (Luke, I am your father!). So having picked your genre(s), you will have types of content you need to include.
Moments
There were two simple concepts that Howard gave names to: “moments of awesome” and “stand up and cheer” moments (moments of high emotion impact). For animation, I sometimes refer to moments of awesome as money shots – shots that cost more effort to create, but are designed to please the audience from an artistic perspective. Visually they may be a beautiful sunset, a particular close up, a distant shot showing depth and breadth. Ideally these should line up with moments of emotional impact, to reinforce them. The boy leaves the girl for war with a crane shot showing the solider on the rear of a train disappearing into the distance, a closeup off the hero who turns to evil with dramatic lighting, and so on.
Putting it together
So one way to structure a story is to start with the moments-of-awesome and stand-up-and-cheer story peaks. Then think about what sub-plots they belong to, what genre expectations do they imply. Are you making promises as you go through the story? Are you paying them off at an appropriate pace? That then helps you understand how much more content needs to go into the gaps. You want challenges and payoffs spaced throughout the content, not just at the end. This is where sequencing and pacing is important. You want payoffs all through the series, not just at the end. Each episode should be enjoyable in its own right, with bigger payoffs at the end of the arc.
If your story has multiple threads (which is common for larger stories), lay out the big peaks across the overall narrative. Then, once you have the bigger pieces in place, flesh out the outline with greater detail.
Conclusions
Applying the above can help get a project organized. Work out the primary big picture objectives that must be met as a priority. Small subplots can be used, but not at the cost of breaking the overall story sequence. Work out the emotional peaks you want to hit.
As I think about the intertwining of stories and techniques to achieve it, there is actually less freedom and so less to worry about in the overall structure. Rather than “will I have enough content”, I find it becomes “how can I shorten the content to achieve this beat and some other goals”. I have a season-level list of emotional peaks. I then flesh out an arc, making sure the development required for each character during that time is included. Then there is the cycle of a beat. What promises do you need to deliver for each level of the story and plot?
So I am building up a set of documents – global season structure, character development one pagers, arcs and their goals, expectations of genre. These become the supporting content, allowing me to create individual episodes with less risk of introducing concepts too early. Now I just have to get my production technology stack finished – I am down to 50 outstanding issues to address. Great.
Extra Ordinary, the Series 