Storytelling Exercises

A brain dump of exercises to level up my writing

Interactive Exercises to Learn Story Structures

  1. Structure Mapping Choose a favorite book or movie. Identify how it fits into one of these structures. Create a visual map or outline of the story's events according to the structure.
  2. Structure Switching Take a simple fairy tale and rewrite its outline in three different structures. How does the story change?
  3. Beat Board Creation Using the Save the Cat beats, create a physical or digital "beat board" for a story idea. Use sticky notes or digital cards to arrange and rearrange story elements.
  4. Hero's Journey Diary Write a series of diary entries from the perspective of a hero going through Campbell's 17 stages. Focus on their emotional journey.
  5. Seven-Point Story Speedwriting Set a timer for 30 minutes. Quickly write a story hitting all seven points of Dan Wells' structure. Don't worry about quality; focus on hitting the structural points.
  6. Freytag Pyramid Drawing Draw a large pyramid. For a story idea, fill in key events at each stage of Freytag's Pyramid. Visually seeing the rise and fall can help internalize this structure.
  7. In Media Res Challenge Start a story at its most exciting point. Then, outline how you would reveal earlier events throughout the narrative.
  8. Nonlinear Narrative Puzzle Write scenes from a story on separate cards. Arrange them in chronological order, then experiment with different nonlinear arrangements. How does each change the story's impact?
  9. Kishōtenketsu Four-Panel Comic Create a four-panel comic strip that follows the Kishōtenketsu structure. This visual medium can help understand how this structure works without relying on conflict.
  10. Structure Mash-up Combine elements from two different structures to create your own. Write a short story outline using this hybrid structure.
  11. Three-Act Structure Trilogy Develop a trilogy where each book represents one act of the Three-Act Structure. Outline how the larger story unfolds across the three books.
  12. Fichtean Curve Crisis Creation For a story idea, brainstorm a series of escalating crises. Arrange them along a curve, ensuring each is more intense than the last.

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