Lovely Bones - Understanding Structure, Part 2

It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they executed the Rosenbergs, and I didn't know what I was doing in New York. I'm tired and out of ideas on how to open this post, so totally stealing one of the best first sentences  in modern American literature, because Thursday. It's a great first sentence, full of chaos and heat and the imminent mortality of that whole time. A gutting sentence, truly. But we're not here today to tread in the visceral, we're here today to talk more about bones.

Refer to the skeleton you created yesterday. Just the skeleton. The actual piece, whether it's one of yours or something you've read recently, should be far, far away from you right now. Take a moment to jot down a few notes - what do you like about the structure? What irks you?

Now, on the skeleton itself, make three changes to your structure. This is just an exercise, these aren't changes you're actually going to keep, and remember, we're not making actual changes to your piece of writing. We are simply imagining alternatives to what you have mapped out in front of you right now. If you've got a diagram that's continuously escalating, much like the classic plot structure, try carving a little plateau into the side of that mountain. If you've got a diagram that looks like a flatlining heart monitor, try building in a couple of peaks and valleys. Don't think about what these lines need to represent in your piece. Right now the only goal is to change the physical diagram you've created. We're basically just drawing lines that are different from the lines we drew yesterday.

Choose your favorite of the three changes. Grab your original document, locate the part where you need to veer off in order to incorporate the structure change, and put the document away again. Now, rewrite for 10 minutes, creating the structure change. Anxiety-provoking? I know, but..

1. You can always just delete it.
2. We're not touching the original document.
3. It's only for 10 minutes.
4. Even if this exercise causes you to realize that your piece does require major rewrites, better now than later.
5. You can always scrap the entire thing and start over.
6. Tomorrow's Friday.
7. Puppies and Halloween exist in the world together, even if the relationship is tenuous.