I'm a planner and I've never thought of my story in terms of acts, pinch points, or whatever. Like BayView, the story unfolds and leads to a climax naturally... probably because I've read enough books to know how it's done, even if I've never read a how-to-write book. My plan is a simple spreadsheet with chapters down the first column, and others showing the main events that happen (few bullet points), where the tension/conflict comes from, and that's it. When does the first act of my book end? Dunno. I'm sure it has one.
Continuing the analogy to skyscrapers, it is possible to follow all the rules of skyscraper construction and still build a skyscraper which doesn't turn a profit. It is much harder to ignore all the rules of skyscraper construction, build the skyscraper out of rubber cement and popsicle sticks, and make a profit.
Sure. The antagonist might be a weather storm. The first pinch point might be a description of a dirty child clutching a ripped and torn teddy bear, lost and confused, in shock and staggering down what looks like a warzone. Her house has been leveled and you just know her family is all dead.
A common theme in the pantser v. planner debate seems to be "if you're not doing it my way, you're doing it wrong." At least among beginning writers. I think writers with more experience realize both approaches work fine for their respective authors. With new writers, I feel it's a way to try to impose some certainty on the uncertain prospect of getting into writing, so there is a lot of comfort in "OK, I'm doing things X, Y, and Z the right way, so I'll be OK."
Pantsers sell books and turn profits. Some of them are on the bestsellers list. But, that doesn't mean that they are ignoring the 8 pivot points. Several pantsers in this thread have said that they build plot architecture during the editing process.
If your way of thinking about writing (or whoever's way that you've discovered and are now feeling evangelical about) works for you, that's great - enjoy it! But I really don't think it's a universal truth for everyone.
Also, the skyscraper analogy is flawed. It's reductio ad absurdum. It assumes that without a degree in structural engineering a person will absolutely reach for blatantly incorrect materials and procedures. One does not need to be an engineer to know that concrete and steel are part of the process. In the same way, anyone who enjoys reading novels has come into contact with them in their finished, fully actualized form. From this one can deduce a feel for what's going on in a good book and what goes on in a crappy one.
A lot of good books don't follow those pivot points mentioned above. It's a common way of writing certain types of stories, but if you look at writers like Peake, Wolfe and Delaney is SF/F they don't always follow it. Also, Angela Carter. And of course a lot of literary fiction ignores them. You don't have to use them but they're a successful approach to mainstream commercial fiction.
If you read back, I did say it is possible to do it by instinct developed by reading a lot of stories which have good plot structure.
This is flawed as I never said that a person must be trained to use good plot structure. I explicitly said the opposite.
No, it's not. The skyscraper analogy is about using the rules of skyscraper construction. At no point does it deal with how those rules are learned.
The oddest point for me on that list is the midpoint being where the protagonist stops being reactive and starts taking the lead. I'm pretty sure most stories have protagonists who take a mixture of proactive and reactive actions throughout. Some protagonists are clearly more proactive than others too. I suspect most get a higher proportion of proactive towards the end, and I'm sure you can point to works where there's a clear switch in attitude, but a specific point right in the middle where they must switch from one to the other seems an odd requirement, unless I'm not understanding the point.
All I know is the way I write works for me, that's all I need it to do. At this point I just enjoy writing and I'm not worried about getting an agent and a book deal to land my work on a best seller list. I'm not even worried about the Podunk Times Mediocre Seller list, I just want to write.
I don't really believe in structure in a formal sense. I think it just doesn't help writers to tell them 'this way or not at all'. It's how you get generic books with no character that are entirely disposable. That doesn't mean writers shouldn't know about this stuff but structures are just tools. Sometimes you're writing a very straight project where your aim is to tell a rollicking yarn and then you can use a simple structure. Sometimes you'll be writing a complex character piece with no obvious antagonist and there's no reason to force that story into a box it doesn't fit in. More on topic - How do I make sure I hit pinch points? I don't. Not when I'm writing anyway. I simply do not worry about any of this while I'm writing. When I come back if I feel that there is a problem with pacing (which is really all that the structure is helping you hit anyway) then I'll fix it then. It's easy to cut things down, it's just as easy to string things out. I over write everything anyway, I have no fear of big re-writes or cutting 80k out of a project. It's just not a big deal to me. So that's how I handle it. I just don't think about it in those terms. I can understand why people do like to stick to structure; there's nothing wrong with that. It's just about style and process. For me I couldn't do it. I need the freedom to explore in any direction when I write because otherwise it's just not interesting to me; but I can totally understand why other people do it the other way around. In the end, just do what fits with your process. If you want the space to explore, explore. If you don't, don't.
The bottom line for storytelling, I think, is that it's a mystical experience, no matter how it's approached. Even planners, when laying out ideas in a structured manner, grab them from some unseeable, unknowable realm. (speaking about his song, Yesterday) It was my most successful song. It's amazing that it just came to me in a dream. That's why I don't profess to know anything; I think music is all very mystical. You hear people saying, 'I'm a vehicle; it just passes through me.' Well, you're dead lucky if something like that passes through you. - Paul, from The Beatles Anthology.
And there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. Please understand that, when I make a comment about writing, it is almost always about selling books to the extent of making a living. It is not about people who write just for the enjoyment.
I don't disagree with that. The sophistication of our tools is something has lifted us above other animals. Where I do disagree is that I don't believe that using tools (or, as I've called them "rules") condemns us to cookie cutter stories. That seems to be the answer most people have given. Actually, that makes a lot of sense to me. I've tried to do that and the story came out flat as a pink canoe, but do what works for you.
I guess that's an slightly more interesting question - Why not use the tools that are available? For me at least it's because (at the risk of sounding overly up myself) specific tools lead you to making specific things those tools are good at making. If the only tool I give you is a saw then you're going to cut everything I throw at you. Now, I'm not going to say that tools are useless, that writing is some mystical exploration that tools get in the way of. But I do think that if the first thing I do on a project is decide there has to be incident x at point y even before I know anything about the characters and the plot and and how they fit together then that's going to imprint something on what I'm writing. Not intentionally trying to sound pretentious but until I'm most of the way done I don't know if I'm trying to make a chair, a canoe or a spaceship. I don't know what tools are even going to be helpful here. Sometimes I need a hammer, sometimes I need a saw or a welding torch and yet other times I need three hundred milligrams of morphine. These all have their place, but their uses are somewhat distinct and while not mutually exclusive it is important to find the right one and not leave marks from the wrong one.
I do periodically try to write according to an outline - never anything as formulaic and rigid as the one described here, but at least my own version of one. And the writing I produce sounds stilted and mechanical. Instead of writing what makes sense for the characters and the setting and the conflict, I'm trying to conform to an external set of expectations. Maybe it does make sense to refer to architects and gardeners instead of planners and pantsers. As a gardener, I have to be sensitive to the materials I'm working with and prune and encourage them to grow in the way that will be most pleasing. I don't want to cram them into a predetermined structure and try to hammer them together.
Even gardeners have rules they have to follow - rules which regulate sunlight, water, manage and control pests, etc.
