In this week’s episode, JP and Crys have another special guest! Zach Bohannon, author of the Dead South series and co-author of the craft book, Three Story Method, with J Thorn. As members of The Author Success Mastermind, JP and Crys have had plenty of opportunity to grill J and his personal approach, but this is the first time they have had the opportunity to torture question Zach.
Question of the week: Do you use Three Story Method? If not, what do you use? Share your answer here!
Don’t miss our weekly check in on Patreon (it’s public!) where we talk about what we’re currently learning, any thoughts we missed in last week’s episode, and our plans for this week!
Show Notes
Brian McDonald: You Are a Storyteller podcast
Tarot Story Episode 1, Episode 2
Take Off Your Pants by Libbie Hawker
Transcription
JP: Hello friends. This is episode number 62 of the Write Away Podcast and it is September 22nd, 2021 as we are recording, we’re still on the road! This Is JP Rindfleisch with my cohost…
Crys: Crys Cain.
JP: And we have a special guest today. It is…
Zach: You’re my special guests, cause we’re in my house.
JP: That’s also accurate.
Zach: Zach Bohannon.
JP: Hello, Zach Bohannan. How are you doing?
Zach: Good. How are you guys?
Crys: We’re stuck in your house.
Zach: I know. We’re all like, I wish people could see us all like grouped together in front of my desk, but it’s okay.
JP: We’re huddled in front of a microphone.
Zach: But it’s all good.
JP: Indeed. So today we want to talk about Three Story Method and how each of us use it in our writing.
Crys: We have the special insider view. Zach Bohannan is one of the authors of Three Story Method, along with J Thorn, who many of you that know we’ve been working with through The Author Success Mastermind. So now we’re going to pick Zach’s brain about how he uses Three Story Method.
Zach: Yeah.
JP: So right off the bat, how do you use Three Story Method?
Zach: Does your audience know what it is?
Crys: They should. But for any newbies Three Story Method is a plotting structure overall. I would say.
Zach: That’s a good way to describe it.
Crys: Trying to bring story down to the most basic pieces that you need. Cutting away all of the fat.
Zach: Yeah, I think that’s what I think that’s a good way to put it.
We take your concept from idea to draft to start doing your book. We’ve tried to do it in the most simplest of terms. You asked how I use it. It’s evolved some. I pretty much use it exactly as we have it in the book, but it’s iterated and stuff.
It’s a blend of where it really came out of was when J and I are on the books we’ve collaborated on. We do our different worldbuilding events. We were using another methodology and we’re like, that’s not really what we do. Let’s put down what we do.
I use it pretty much down to the T. At a minimum, I definitely use the 3 Cs, which is conflict, choice, and consequence. Of course, as you guys know.
Crys: Do you use it on your global level? For your overall series and your overall story?
Zach: Typically, yes. With the series I’m working on now, I did not do a global series level conflict, choice and consequence. I can’t really tell you why I didn’t do that.
I think with this particular series I wanted to not… I think I wanted to have a little bit more wiggle room and have more of a pantsers’ journey, let’s say.
But on a global level for each book, I that’s where I start with those nine scenes and have my conflict choice, and consequence for each act. And then of course I have them on a scene level as well.
Crys: I’ll give just a quick overview of conflict, choice and consequence for anyone who has not read the book yet.
Conflict tends to be synonymous with your inciting incident for either your book, your act, or your scene.
Choice is self-explanatory it’s the choice your character has to make to move from the beginning of the scene to the end of the scene.
And consequence is the fallout.
Zach: And out of those three we always say the choice is definitely the most important.
I think when writers write, they naturally have a conflict and then lead to a consequence. And I think that usually they have some sort of choice in there, but by sitting down and actually thinking about that choice and going through several and actually making it difficult can make your books a lot more compelling for the reader.
Crys: When I’m reviewing scenes, because I do a service through The Author Success Mastermind, that’s called a Scene Analysis, using Three Story Method, the choices, what we’re always looking for, and the thing that we are deepening, because are your characters making the strongest choice or the toughest choice?
Do they have two really difficult options in the scene? And is there a way you could make them more difficult?
Zach: Oh, absolutely. Can you take it to the next step?
We always talk about that because again, like a lot of times writers will have a choice, but a lot of times it’s an easy choice where the reader’s automatically going to be like, okay, I know what they’re going to do.
And even if the reader… The example J and I always uses The Matrix. The red pill, blue pill scene is probably one of the best written scenes in any movie ever, as far as having a very strong conflict, choice, and consequence.
We all know that Neo is going to take our, remember which color pill, the red pill to learn more. Everyone knows that, but on a character level, that’s a difficult choice for him. As a character. And as a human being, if you put yourself in his shoes, that is a very difficult choice.
I can keep my life the way it is, or I can risk losing all that, but find this thing out and find out what the Matrix is.
It can be something that the reader is going to know, because obviously if he took the blue pill, the story ends. But again, it’s still a difficult choice from his perspective. So it’s a very strong choice.
JP: Almost every scene has a choice that the character goes through, but obviously you can’t start off the novel with your most difficult choices.
Zach: Yes.
JP: Because otherwise you’re at a level 10, and where do you go from there? So when you are crafting a story, how do you ramp up the choices as it progresses through the story?
Zach: You’re correct. You’re not going to have your most difficult choice at the beginning of the story. You’re more than likely you’re going to have your most strong conflict at the beginning of a story, because that is what’s gonna move your story forward. We talk a lot about obstacles and there as well. Having obstacle scenes. But yeah, you want to just progress and your choices are going to get more difficult as the story goes and.
Most of the time, your hardest and strongest choice is going to be in the third act.
I’ve seen instances where it can be in the second, but usually it’s going to be in the third, at the climax of your story and really gonna drive the end of your story. Because again, like you were saying, JP, that is your that’s the moment you’re leading up to. Your story is that final act choice.
But having those obstacles through, that tough middle build that we all go through, the middle of that book is really going to drive it to that big choice and consequence there at the end.
Crys: You said there that the choice tends to be towards the end of the book, and that was one of the hardest things for me to grasp on the global level of Three Story Method. Because when my brain sees three things, my brain just wants to put the space them equally apart. Yep.
So my brain would be like, okay, there are three acts. Therefore the conflict goes in the first act choice goes in the second act and consequence goes into the third act.
And that isn’t how that story actually goes.
Zach: A hundred percent. Yeah. They’re in every aspect of your story, as you guys know now.
Every act should have all three of those things. Every scene should have all three of those things. I can see what you’re saying.
When you say even, is it like, maybe I took it the wrong way, but are you someone who’s also used a four act structure before?
Crys: No, I don’t know. I don’t know if even came out in my mouth and I meant equal parts.
Zach: I got, yeah. For some reason I was thinking symmetrical until you explained it, but I just want to ask anyway. Because that was another big thing in the book and I still feel this way.
I think that a lot of people will try to use that four act structure. And I think a lot of reason for that is because it’s just hard to get to that middle build.
That’s where I think having really strong obstacles scenes in your middle build will help drive your story and of the tension and get you through to the end where you can get to that big choice and consequence in that third act.
Crys: Yeah. I like the synchronicity of three as just historically and artistically… threes are great numbers.
Zach: That’s what we talked about in the book. Most things come in threes, when you think about it, Yeah. It’s just… three really is like a magic number.
Crys: JP, do you use three story to plot your overall structure?
JP: Yeah. So basically the day that I learned about what was originally Story Levels, which is now Three Story Method, I went insane and I was able to plot out a couple of things really quickly because I have that macro micro thing that I like to do.
So immediately, I was like, okay what’s the overall story structure for a whole series?
And then what if I broke those down? So let’s say we did a six book series. What do books one and two, three, and four, and five, and six look like through the three act structure? Within two days, I had a potential series that I still have hiding somewhere else.
This method has been the easiest for me and scalability, like on what level I want to look at.
Crys: I do not use it to plot my stories. I use it on the scene level all the time. But for some reason… I think it’s because I need… I need more steps to get me…
I need the more complicated versions to get me from beginning to end. And when I’m looking at a big story, the whole story, it’s really hard for me to connect the conflict ,choice and consequence on a grand level. But on a scene level it’s so helpful for me.
Zach: I’ll tell you one interesting thing, I do this different than J, at least. J might be different now, but I know when we’ve outlined in the past with Three Story Method, we’ve used the 3 Cs as the outline.
When I’m outlining, I just write a summary of the scene. And then when I go sit down to write that scene, then I come up with the 3 Cs in that moment.
It’s weird. Cause I feel like you probably could just do the 3 Cs in the beginning, but I think for me it’s more… I want just a generality going into it and I feel like if I had to come up with conflict, choice, and consequence for every scene before I start writing the book, I’m probably not going to have a strong choices, and I can do it more in the moment when I’m in the story and I see where things are going. It’s a lot easier for me to come up with those there.
Crys: I do the same.
JP: Yeah. It’s very refreshing to hear, because I do the same for sure, with the project that Jeff and I are doing for the serial I’ll write that summary and then I’ll come back to it later and I’ll do the 3 Cs, once I’ve got a better grasp on some of the closer aspects that are coming up.
Zach: Well, and here’s the thing too… you don’t have to… the methodology, we laid it out the way we did, and that’s pretty much the way we use it, but you can adjust it to do it your way. It’s one of those things.
I tell people, even if you’re a pantser and you don’t want to do any of the other stuff, when you think about it, if you just come up with those 3 Cs on a scene level and then come up with those 3 Cs for your nine main scenes, that’s nine scenes in your book. That’s a lot. You might have 50 or 60 scenes in your book, so that’s a lot of pantsing you can do inbetween.
Crys: Do you mind explaining what the nine main scenes are? Cause we did not…
Zach: The nine main scenes, and it’s really 12 is we put in the book because we also have the three obstacles scenes for the middle of the book, but it’s just your conflict choice and consequence for act one, act two, act three.
Those are your nine tentpole scenes. 12, again, including the obstacles. And even the obstacles you can have, you could have more than three of those.
All the obstacles are in your middle act. They drive your middle act. Cause that’s where your character is really hitting a lot of struggles and growing and learning and trying to drive through to get again, to that last act where you’re going to have your big climax with your big choice.
Crys: Yeah, I find that I don’t always write the 3 Cs for my scenes. If my scene is pretty clear, I’ll just go ahead and write it. When I have trouble, I turned to the 3 Cs.
Zach: I do that sometimes.
Crys: And then when I’m working with other authors, we’re often applying the 3 Cs after the fact, which is how a lot of writers will work naturally. They either are pantsers and they’re applying analysis after the fact, or they’re not familiar with Three Story Method and they’re looking to learn it. And so we’re applying it to their work.
Zach: And you totally can do that. You can totally use it as an editing tool and do this, the editing process.
J and I didn’t design it that way because we hate wasting words. Our whole idea is we would rather do a little bit more work in the beginning.
I do not like editing. So the idea of having to go back and change a whole scene, because I didn’t put a good enough choice in when I probably could have just put a little more work in the beginning and thought about it, just gives me shivers.
I hate wasting words and wasting time. But you can absolutely do it like that. You can absolutely use it as an editing tool. And we know people that do that.
JP: I definitely do that with my co-writer sometimes I’ll take his scenes and I’ll retroactively do a 3 Cs even though we proactively did one.
I’ve found that has been very influential on making sure that we’re hitting those powerful choices in those scenes and finding out where we can ramp up. J does his diagnostics and he does use Three Story Method, which it’s convenient when we use it in the front end, because in the back end, we already have a shorthand with our.
Crys: Yeah.
JP: Which has been very helpful.
Zach: Well and I think Chris said too that’s a really good, some people, if they don’t know, Three Story Method, the best way for them to learn it is in that editing process. And then they go, oh, okay. Now I see, maybe now I can apply this the next time that I’m outlining.
Or even, like we said maybe you don’t want to outline. And you just, when you sit down and write your scene, you sit there and think about those 3 Cs and do it on that level. Yeah.
There’s other kinds of ways you can use this.
Crys: So it’s been a year and a half since Three Story Method came out.
Zach: I didn’t even realize it’s been out that long.
Crys: I looked it up before we started. I’m prepared. How has your idea of Three Story Method grown? Is there anything that you would like to add or would have changed?
Zach: I think if we were going to do like a second edition type thing, which could happen at some point. I think one place that, I think J would agree– I know he would, because we’ve talked about, is the character section.
I think that our approach to character at the time was pretty bare bones and we looked at it from an approach of… I never found it useful when authors would recommend do this big character questionnaire. When you ask like 40, a hundred questions, like what did your character wear to prom?
I think that stuff really can lead to resistance. Where you’re never going to get to the point where you’re writing your book, because you’re worrying about what flavor ice cream your character likes.
But I think we were too bare bones on character.
And especially I’ll give a shout out with a lot of stuff that we’ve learned from Jeff Elkins, the Dialogue Doctor, and also from JD Barker, who does Writers, Ink podcast with me, who’s really focused on character and really has had J put a big focus on character.
I think the character section could very much have an upgrade.
Like I said, we might do that at some point, so maybe we’ll write a whole Three Story Method book on character. I don’t know.
JP: Shout out to Jeff because he has a more recent tool that was released that includes both Three Story Method and character development in an excel. We’ve been shifting our work over on our serial on that and it has been very interesting. So I highly recommend it and it’s a free tool for anyone out there.
Crys: Specific link in the show notes.
JP: Indeed!
So one thing that I noticed about scenes that I really have noticed a lot within serials is that the choice and the consequences are like, back-to-back, right at the end. And sometimes a lot of writers will put multiple choices leading up to a bigger choice that then feeds into that consequence.
It’s been really interesting to see scenes that either don’t have a consequence or they end in a cliffhanger. And I’m just curious on your thoughts.
How adaptable Three Story Method is to the scenes that don’t always fit the script?
Zach: Great question. And I don’t write serialize fiction, but I do write pretty fast paced genre fiction where I try to keep the reader reading and very oftentimes, and this is very common, the consequence of your scene also becomes the conflict of the next scene. They’re one and the same.
You might not end up having a different conflict for your next scene because you end on a hard cliffhanger. And I think you can apply that same thing to serials.
All three of those elements are going to be there, they’re all part of storytelling. And I think that’s something that. It’s really important to point out.
I think most writers are doing this naturally. If you read enough and you’re writing you’re more than likely have all these elements in your story. What we try to do is get you to sit down and really think about them so that you can make them better.
We naturally do the most predictable thing or the thing that we’ve seen in a movie a hundred times or whatever. I think that you will automatically go to those, like cliches you’ve seen in a movie or the easiest choice you go to a very cliche conflict.
But if you sit down and think about it, you can take it several steps deeper and think a little more about it. So I went off on a tangent there, but I think I kinda answered your question.
JP: The one thing that I want listeners to know if they are considering this as that Three Story Method is adaptable, you don’t have to do all three, that’s the baseline.
As with story, there is always variability. And that’s the part that I like the most about this as it’s just so adaptable.
Zach: Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. I totally agree with you.
Crys: I’m going to put a blatant plug for JP’s other podcast, which is why he’s been reading a lot of serial fiction, and that’s The Serial Fiction Show.
JP: Before we end though, I want to talk about some of the other aspects about Three Story Method and some of the conversations that I’ve heard with J, especially around theme and armature.
I really like the conversations that I’ve had around theme. And I’m just curious, what your thoughts are on theme and then like how that interplays with Three Story Method and how that interplays with your own writing.
Zach: Yeah, we were talking about this privately a little bit ago. Theme is one of those things that for a long time, I did not think it was something you could come up with before you wrote your story. I always thought that was just something that came to you or the reader decide where it was, or you’re not going to know the theme of your story’s done.
And I’ve come to learn that’s bull crap. I feel like my stories are way better now that I have theme. I told you guys, if you look right there, I have the theme for… not right there. The one in the middle is the theme for my Dead South series. At any time I’m stuck, I go to that and I think about it.
Tying everything back to theme, if you’re stuck or whatever, just come back to your theme. I’ll give a plug through Brian MacDonald’s work, when you talked about armature, that’s a term that he, I believe coined, or has made popular at least in our space.
But I think that theme is crucial. What are you trying to say? We’re all writers, we’re trying to say something. And so what are you trying to say? And always come back to that.
Crys: When I first started writing, trying to write to a theme would have been far too overwhelming.
Zach: I agree.
Crys: I think that is definitely for most writers. Some writers know what that is right away. For most writers, that’s going to be a level up once you’ve learned how to tell a scene, when you’ve learned how to start and end a story.
Once you’ve done that a couple of times, then you’re ready to see, oh, these are themes that I have inadvertently put into my stories. Now I’m ready to do that on purpose.
JP: I would definitely say that you can always go back and edit and find out what your theme is. And you’ll know if there are scenes that don’t apply to this theme, because if you’re reading it with this emotion, this feeling in mind, and you’re getting to these certain scenes and you don’t feel it, that scene probably doesn’t belong there, or it can be hyped up into focusing towards your.
Zach: And on that too, another thing you can do, if you’re a newer writer and you can do this with Three Story Method in general, is use it to write a short story. I think, just piggybacking off the theme thing, if it feels overwhelming, let’s be honest if you’re a new writer, the idea of writing a novel is overwhelming enough.
Think about the theme for a short story and then how that story with with five scenes have your conflict, two obstacles, a choice, and a consequence. And that can be a really good way to practice the core stuff from Three Story Method as well.
Crys: Listeners might remember that when JP and I did our Tarot stories, which he has written, and I still have not, we pulled three cards and that was for conflict, choice, and consequence built on the Three Story Method.
Also, because he’s written his, I am going to have him give me a deadline of when we are going to put this on our Patreon, and then I will have mine done. So if you would like to read the results of that you can join our Patreon. Link will be in the show notes.
JP: What else is in the works for Three Story Method? What are some of the topics that you want to hit that you haven’t hit in the original that you are looking to expand? The Three Story world on?
Zach: The Three Story Method brand is interesting because J and I own it as a tandem, but we have agreed to let each other do our own separate things with it.
So I won’t go too much into what he’s working on, even though one of his partners is in the room that he is working on some stuff on. So maybe you, if you want to talk about that, you can.
Crys: Not yet! It’s secret still.
Zach: Mine should be a secret, but I’ve already been public about it. So I might as well just say it even though I don’t have a release date or anything yet.
I am planning a Three Story Method for Series book. I’m working on it. I have done some work on it. And it’s going to be exactly that. It’s going to be using Three Story Method to plan out your series and hopefully it will be sometime in the next…. in the near future, it will be available.
Crys: He’s like, oh, I’m not going to put a date on that one!
Zach: But I have started working on it. So it will come. I’m confident that one will we’ll get out there.
Crys: I’ll go on record as a volunteer for your global level resistant learner.
Zach: Okay.
Crys: Slash beta.
Zach: You heard it here, folks.
JP: I’ll stay silent for now.
Zach: Hey, I’m reading your series. Your book so…
JP: Fine. I’ll read it. Just kidding. I would love to read it because I am a crazy series Three Story Method person. So…
Crys: I was going to say you are a Three Story Method ho, but…
JP: I was going to as well, and I corrected myself.
Crys: It’s all right. We know.
Zach: I wish I would have called you a Three Story Method ho.
JP: Now it just sounds derivative.
Zach: I’ll get you the t-shirt.
JP: Great. I love it.
Crys: What question should we ask our listeners, JP?
JP: I’m curious if one, if they use Three Story Method and how that has impacted their writing. And two, if they don’t, what method do they use? And I’d love to know.
Crys: Wonderful. We will be reading for our book club this month.
That’s coming up all too fast, it feels. We’re reading Take Off Your Pants by Libbie Hawker.
Zach: That’s awesome book.
Crys: It’s excellent. And we will be recording on a Tuesday this month, October 12th. So if you would like to join us for that live recording, you can join our Patreon, the link will be in the show notes and we look. Forward to talking to you next week, where we will not actually be in the same room once again.
JP: That’s unfortunate.
Crys: Oh wait, big announcement, JP! What did you do today?
JP: Oh, no! I was like, what is this?
And so… it’s not like we’ve been talking about van life for forever. And it’s not like Zach had just conveniently had a friend who is selling a van and it’s not like it was convenient that I bought it.
Zach: Three streets over from my house.
JP: Van life has expanded.
Crys: This is now the van life podcast.
Zach: I was about to say that. This is going to be the van life podcast.
JP: We’re really taking the “away” part in Write away.
Crys: That was my goal.
All right. Thanks Zach for joining us.
Zach: Yeah, thank y’all. Thank you for having me. And you’re welcome for having you in my house.
Crys: It’s our house now.
JP: Yes, it’s our house now.
Zach: It’s your house for a night at least. So it’s all good.
Crys: All right, bye.
JP: See you later.
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