---

Knowing how to structure your story is part architecture, part orchestration. Authors must balance the principles and components of effective storytelling with the reader’s experience of the story—all while maintaining forward momentum to carry readers (and characters!) smoothly and propulsively through its pages.

Structure is your story’s bones, the essential framework that creates and supports the whole. And like a skeleton, it’s not just the bones that create the framework for an organic being, but how they’re put together.

Compelling story is much more than its component parts: It’s not just what happens, but how the story is told that engages readers—as anybody who’s ever been cornered at a party by a clumsy storyteller knows. It’s why listeners, including agents and editors, may glaze over as soon as an author starts a recitation of the characters and plot of their story: What makes the story work isn’t how exciting any of its elements are, but rather how they unfold on the page.

Despite the proliferation of “foolproof” systems, structures, and techniques, there’s no one-size-fits-all or “right” way to structure a story. Finding the most compelling way to tell the story you want to tell means understanding the essential components of effective story, mastering the core principles of story structure, and understanding how scene serves story.

This class by veteran editor Tiffany Yates Martin will teach you how to find what works best for you and your story organically, from the inside out, rather than cramming it into some prescribed external formula or mold, and give you tools that will help you entice readers into your story and carry them seamlessly along on the journey.

This class will cover:

• The core principles of story and structure, and how to use those principles as a framework to craft an effective organic structure for your particular project
• How to determine what makes a scene essential and where it may serve the story best
• Why stories often stall in the middle, and how to avoid mid-book sag
• How to use cause-and-effect to create well-paced stories that avoid feeling episodic, aimless, or dead-ended
• Where you risk readers abandoning your book for good, such as chapter and scene endings, and transitions between storylines and timelines
• Using turning points to guide and amplify story (the joints of your story structure)
• How to construct multiple storylines based on the story, not a pattern
• Considerations for structuring stories with multiple characters, storylines, and timelines
• What to keep in mind when experimenting with non-chronological/non-contiguous storytelling to maintain forward momentum and ensure readers stay oriented and invested throughout

Whether you’re first drafting or revising, a pantser or a plotter, explore how to dynamically unspool your story on the page to keep readers deeply engaged, invested, and affected throughout.

Supplemental materials include

• Story Structure Map worksheet

Who this class is for

This course is primarily focused on adult fiction writing and will center on examples from fiction, but memoirists may also find it useful.

• Authors who want to deepen their understanding of story structure and how to build an effective, propulsive story
• Writers who have developed their stories but feel they’re still not working as well as they could
• Writers who are querying and getting good response, but no offers
• Writers who worry their story stalls out, gets lost, or meanders
• Authors who may be struggling with the best way to tell their story
• Pantsers who want to learn how to frame out their story structure without painstaking plotting in advance to keep their writing on track and ensure a cohesive draft

This class is not suitable for

• Poets
• Short story writers
• Children’s authors (except for YA)
• Essayists

What you’ll receive

How do I attend the live class?

This class uses Zoom webinar technology (see system requirements). You will join through your Internet-connected computer or mobile device. When you register, you will receive information via email on how to join the class. If you don’t receive it within 1 hour of registering, please contact us.

• When: Wednesday, March 18, 2026
• Time: 1:00–2:30 p.m. Eastern / 10:00 a.m. Pacific
• Fee: $25 through March 15, 2026 / $35 if you register after March 15, 2026

The webinar is broadcast via the internet with live audio delivered through your computer or mobile device speakers. The visual presentation is displayed directly from the presenter’s computer to your computer screen. The Q&A is managed through a chat-style submission system with questions read and answered by the presenter for the entire class to hear.

Closed captions are provided during the live class. We use Zoom’s automated closed caption service, which is about 80%+ accurate. We use ElevenLabs to generate a lightly edited transcript, provided with the recording.

Refund policy

If you attend the live class and/or watch the recording, and it does not meet your expectations, contact us for a full refund, no questions asked.

Event Attendance & Anti-Harassment Policy

We strive to provide an environment where all present—whether attendee, presenter, or staff—can feel supported. In order to ensure a welcoming event, here is what we expect from all who participate.

• That the presenter and the presenter’s work be treated with respect by attendees and that all attendees treat each other with respect and a generosity of spirit.
• That attendees will refrain from harassment of any sort including (but not limited to) comments or questions of a racist, homophobic, sexist/sexual, or threatening nature. This includes actions that disrupt or interfere with anyone’s ability to participate. Offenders will be disconnected from the live event.