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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/47343
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/47343
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Read about and learn story structure. This is not to plot your story, but to understand the types of writing in each part of a story. I break the 3 act structure into four equal parts; each of which has a middle point, which is a kind of turning point. So basically, we have four segments, with four middles, gives 8 parts that are roughly equal in length; within 5% of the total story. Below MC is Main Character, or if there are multiple main characters, the Main Crew.

Act I: Begin: The MC and their Normal World are introduced. Act I Middle: The Inciting Incident; something happens that upsets the Normal World, but the MC tries to solve this problem as if it hasn't. That doesn't work. The ramifications of the Inciting Incident grow more complex, until ... Act I: ENDS, Act II Begins: The inciting incident has escalated so much it drives the MC out of their normal world, into a new world, reality, journey, quest, whatever. In Act II beginning, the MC recognizes this is a New Threat that must be defeated lest it destroy them, even if what they are protecting is just their one child suffering from a disease, or the World from a dictator, or the whole Galaxy. Act II: Middle, and END here the problems get more complex, complications get introduced, perhaps there are failures, but they are learning some important things about solving the problem. ACT III: Beginning, Middle: Now things start to become simpler, the complications start to unwind, or be resolved, either violently or diplomatically. Act III: End, Act IV Begin: The last piece of their puzzle is revealed, the key to resolving the book-wide Dilemma that began with the Inciting Incident. But they still don't know how to solve it. Act IV Middle: They reach the point of No Return: This is the final battle, or the expending of their final resource, or it is time to use the magic amulet and you get only the one chance. There is uncertainty here, they are putting everything they have on a roll of the dice that may go wrong. Or on a battle they may lose. Or the Wizard bets his life on a spell he's never gotten to work. Or in a real-world story, the woman bets her life on luring the killer into a trap, or the con-men play the final risk-it-all con on their evil sucker. The dramatic confrontation.

Act IV (and story) ENDING: In my stories, they win the final battle, and return to their Normal World, or more accurately in my stories return to their New Normal, in some way better for the adventure. More mature, or in love, or somehow improved.

### Judging whether what you write is nonsense.

Knowing what part of your story you are in, you need to decide if what you write is conveying what that part is for. If you are writing the beginning of a story, then ignoring blood and guts is likely to be very unrepresentative of a "Normal World." Maybe it is, I don't know, but I suspect you are rushing the action to try and have an impact.

Learn to critique your own writing. The biggest problem beginning writers have is relying on **their own memory** to fill in the gaps in the story as they read. The only way you can critique your own writing is to leave it alone for a few weeks (write other parts), and then read it with fresh eyes. If you find yourself struggling to remember why you wrote something or what the context was: You have written badly. A reader doesn't have the benefit of your memory, 100% of the context **must be written.** If you can't make sense of what you wrote without relying on your memory, then others can't make sense of it, and that is the definition of "nonsense."

As for test readers: I never engage a test reader until I have finished a story, the whole thing, and I never ask them to review a segment more than once. Unless they say a scene seems to drag, then I'll cut and ask them to review the edited scene.

I think you are too anxious to receive positive feedback, not anxious enough to receive negative feedback (or even resentful), and you just need to be more patient if you want to be a writer. Most professionals take about a year to produce about 120,000 words; that is 10,000 per month totally completed and edited and reviewed to death. That's about 400 a day, working 25 days a month; that is 300 work sessions. Now most don't write just 400, they write 2 or 3 times that. I often write 2000 words in a day. But self-editing, self-critique, deletions and restarts bring the average down to 400 completely done words per day.

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