(**This is the start of another attempt to set out my approach to debugging and creating story structure. I'm doing this so that people can kick holes in it… I mean give me feedback, enabling me to improve it. As before, the whole thing is tentative and specifically posted in the hope of gathering feedback. Pretend that I’m going “er… I think…. In my humble opinion… it seems” throughout. …)

Fiction is built from nested QABNs, that is units of Question – Answer – But - Now

Good stories of all genres pose questions and answer with a “but… now…”:

• Can John the Dungraker escape his humble station? Yes, but only by defeating the Lords of Evil. Now he must take responsibility for an entire civilization.

…as do good Acts (or Beginnings, Middles and Ends):

• Can John gather and army and rescue the Princess? Yes, but only by revealing his hateful origins. Now he must prove himself worthy of her.

…and Scenes:

• Can John’s army capture the castle? Yes, but not in time to save the princess from a Fate Worse Than Death. Now she must convince him that he is forgiven.

The Question must be compelling, or the reader won’t care.

The Answer-But is really just a bridge to the evil and twisty Now, which should trigger more QABNs - the Princess’s fate is a twist, but if it has no consequences, then it’s irrelevant to the story and the whole QABN falls flat (unless you’re a sparkling stylist).

You can create an effective pulp story by stringing together QABNs in the manner of Edgar Rice Burroughs.

However, the Blessed And Truly Awesome ERB was writing 30K novels. We’re writing 100K genre behemoths, which is where Moves come in…..