4-Week: The Spine—Your Story's Structure and Scaffolding

Stories—whether they're short, novels, memoirs, essays—are built brick by brick, word by word. But without a solid foundation, a frame, sign posts, scaffolding, both writers and readers can easily lose our way. In this course, we'll help uncover the foundation and structure that is likely already present in your story, but that you may not be aware of, or not adequately using. We'll diagram these structures and look at how understanding and relying on that frame can actually allow you to be more playful, experiment more freely, surprise yourself and your readers more successfully, and build something solid and sturdy that supports the beating heart of the story at the center. Come with a story already in progress, something you know is in need of a spine.