Story Structures for Autobiographical Themes
Asked by June Miller on October 5, 2020
Hello, Jerry,
Thank you so much for your help so far!
I wonder if you would recommend resources for story structures on which to overlay life-story vignettes? My goal is to write a story which answers how my husband developed as he resolved the following:
1) Race Walk: How he integrated his life as a black man while he strove for success, happiness and fulfillment in a culturally white-dominated society.
a. Flaw/Area of Development: He faced barriers to be true to himself (e.g., to maintain and express his black identity) while he maneuvered his way through a culturally white-dominated society.
2) Spiritual Walk: The juxtaposition of how he sought Christian growth, material success and personal fulfillment as while he dealt with the obstacles of trauma, racism, etc.
a. Flaw/Area of Development: He faced challenges to integrate his spiritual growth into his life as he strove for material success and personal fulfilment, and dealt with trauma, racism, etc.
Jerry's Answer
June, I actually believe employing a story structure intended for novels would work for a nonfiction effort like this.
Dean Koontz’s Classic Story Structure
This is the structure that changed the path of my career as a writer.
It catapulted me from a mid-list genre novelist to a 21-Time New York Times bestselling author.
I’m a Pantser, not an Outliner, but even I need some basic structure to know where I’m going, I love that Koontz’s structure is so simple. It consists only of these four steps:
1. Plunge your main character into terrible trouble as soon as possible. Naturally that trouble depends on your genre, but in short, it’s the worst possible dilemma you can think of for your main character. For a thriller, it might be a life or death situation. In a romance novel, it could mean a young woman must decide between two equally qualified suitors—and then her choice is revealed a disaster.
And again, this trouble must bear stakes dire high enough to carry the entire novel.
One caveat: whatever the dilemma, it will mean little to readers if they don’t first find reasons to care about your character.
2. Everything your character does to get out of the terrible trouble makes things only worse. Avoid the temptation to make life easy for your protagonist. Every complication must proceed logically from the one before it, and things must grow progressively worse until….
3. The situation appears hopeless. Novelist Angela Hunt refers to this as The Bleakest Moment. Even you should wonder how you’re ever going to write your character out of this.
Your predicament is so hopeless that your lead must use every new muscle and technique gained from facing a book full of obstacles to become heroic and prove that things only appeared beyond repair.
4. Finally, your hero succeeds (or fails*) against all odds. Reward readers with the payoff they expected by keeping your hero on stage, taking action.
*Occasionally sad endings resonate with readers.
I know the whole of that above seems afield from what you're planning -- in essence, a memoir. But ignore the fictional references and see if your husband's story cannot be overlaid by it.