1. CHAPTER 3 STRUCTURE AND SETTING STORY

2. THE WAR ON CLICHÉ What will you create that they haven’t seen before? The writer does not know the world of his story. Knowledge of and insight into the world of your story is fundamental to the achievement of originality and excellence.

3. SETTING PERIOD: a story’s place and time. DURATION: a story’s length through time. LOCATION: a story’s place in space. LEVEL OF CONFLICT: the story’s position on the hierarchy of human struggles.

4. The Relationship Between Structure and Setting A STORY must obey its own internal laws of probability. The event choices of the writer, therefore, are limited to the possibilities and probabilities within the world he creates.

5. CREATIVE LIMITATION Create a small, knowable world. The smaller the world, the more complete the knowledge of the writer, therefore the greater his creative choices. Result: a fully original story and victory in the war on cliché.

6. RESEARCH Memory: “What do I know from personal experience that touches on my characters’ lives?” Imagination: “What would it be like to live in my character’s life hour by hour, day by day?” Fact: Feed you talent.

7. CREATIVE CHOICES CREATIVITY means creative choices of inclusion and exclusion. No matter our talent, we all know in the midnight of our souls that 90 percent of what we do is less than our best (p. 78).