Are We Losing the Plot?

“Begin at the beginning,” the King said gravely, “and go on till you come to the end: then stop.”
— Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland 

I love this quote because at its heart, this is narrative structure. This is storytelling. And it’s simple. 

You could follow the White Rabbit down the hole and come out with one heck of a story. Pun intended. All you have to do is follow the world’s simplest directions for telling a story. 

Yet, it’s not as easy as the King would have us believe, right? Otherwise, everyone would be a writer, and we’d all be wildly prolific. 

In the spirit of keeping it simple, let’s break it down…

What Is Narrative Structure?

A narrative is a story. 

Structure is “the arrangement of and relations between the parts or elements of something complex.” (Source: Oxford Dictionary)

At its core, narrative structure is how you tell...