The Foundation of Effective Writing

Using an example of my own writing to highlight the importance of structure

💡 If you want to make your writing and storytelling more effective, this article will help you understand a critical element that should serve as the foundation for (pretty much) everything you write.

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Sometimes, a piece of writing can just feel “off” and you can’t quite figure out why. This can happen both when you’re the writer or the reader.

If you’re just starting out with writing, or perhaps you’re someone who doesn’t write too often, you may find this is quite common.

You can feel that what you’re writing doesn’t quite work, but you just can’t put your finger on the specific problem.

Well, there’s a key element that a lot of writers either overlook, struggle with, or don’t spend enough time on before they start a new piece of writing.

And that element is structure.

Structure is, in my opinion, the foundation of effective writing.

As a B2B content marketing consultant, I advise all my clients to always start with structure when they’re approaching a new piece of writing, for a few reasons:

1. It’s a lot easier to get started if you have a rough, but structured, outline to organise your ideas into.

2. Without any structure in place, your piece of writing will be difficult to write and, even worse, difficult for your readers to follow.

It’s important to note that this doesn’t have to be anything fancy or challenging. I’m not suggesting you go study all the different types of story structure and spend hours planning everything you write.

It can be very simple, but all writing should have some basic structure.

I know it sounds obvious (maybe even a bit silly) when you reduce it down to something like, “beginning, middle, and end,” but you’d be amazed how often structure is brushed over by writers.

Of course, depending on what you’re writing, there are a wealth of different structural frameworks you can use to tell your story. I won’t go into detail on those right now, as that’s a topic for a future article.

Instead, I’m going to use an example of my own writing to demonstrate how neglecting structure puts you at risk of producing a disjointed, hard-to-read story.

And hard-to-read is the key word to think about there.

Why?

Because if you give the audience a negative reading experience, then your writing isn’t effective, regardless of whether it’s a fictional story, an email, or a social media post.

A Case Study on the Importance of Structure

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been editing an old short story I wrote about two-and-a-half years ago, called The Sink Monster.

In summary:

The Sink Monster is about a single mother at home one afternoon when her son is nearly back from school. She suffers from depression and anxiety, and those problems have prevented her from washing the dishes for several days.

The longer she’s let all the dirty dishes pile up in her sink, the more intimidating it’s begun to feel. She’s now developed a mental block against going into the kitchen to tidy up, and she’s been procrastinating all day.

So, she’s in a race against time to pull herself together and do the dishes before her son gets home, because she (mistakenly) feels like failing to keep the house clean for her son makes her a bad mother.

The “monster” in the sink is a symbol for those simple everyday tasks that sometimes feel impossible when we’re anxious and/or depressed.

And the whole point of this story is the protagonist trying to overcome her anxiety, gradually building up the courage to confront the titular sink monster.

I hadn’t read this story since I wrote it a couple of years ago. Back then, I thought it was decent and had a nice arc to it.

But I was so wrong.

It wasn’t badly written, but the reading experience was very frustrating.

And, as you’ve guessed by now, that’s because the structure was all over the place.

Here’s how the sequence of events in the original draft played out:

And this is what that (lack of) structure felt like as an experience for the reader:

There are plenty of problems with this, but the main ones are:

1. Starting with the protagonist downstairs, then having her go to try and confront The Sink Monster, then retreat upstairs, then back downstairs, back into the same room she started in, etc. feels jarring and repetitive for the reader.

2. That back-and-forth narrative also gives the protagonist moments of relief mid-story. But the theme, and the protagonist’s internal conflict, work much better within the story if her stress and anxiety are increasing constantly throughout.

3. The story is building up to the climax of confronting The Sink Monster. Having the protagonist almost do that at the start is a mistake, as it wastes the highest point of tension in the first few pages, leaving nothing to build up to.

I normally plan my stories extensively before I write them. But The Sink Monster was written as a break from my novel, which had become a lot more planning than writing around that time. So, it was an exercise in just drafting a story as it came to me, then figuring out the details later.

But that first draft is a perfect example of why it’s beneficial to have some plan and structure in place before you start writing, no matter what you’re working on.

Anyway, I’ve since edited The Sink Monster, fixing the structure.

Here’s how the new version of the story plays out:

And this is what that looks like now in terms of the reader’s experience:

Doesn’t that feel so much more balanced and fitting for a story of this nature?

Use Structure to Your Advantage

Yes, the new version of the story is a lot more balanced and satisfying for the reader.

But why, exactly?

A few weeks ago, I talked about how I chose a story structure called The Fichtean Curve to write another short story that’s also about a character feeling anxious and uncomfortable.

I made that decision because The Fichtean Curve is nothing but rising, increasing tension building up to the climax.

So, when the focus of the story is a person with anxiety, and your aim is using that anxiety to build conflict and tension all the way through, The Fichtean Curve structure helps to enhance the reading experience for the audience.

And that brings us on to another important point.

You should select a structural framework that will enhance your writing, and allow you to tell the best possible version of your story (if it’s fiction), or to communicate your point as effectively as possible (if it’s non-fiction).

Structure – like other narrative elements such as point-of-view, tense, pacing, and so on – is a tool at your disposal as a writer.

Don’t neglect it to make the writing process quicker.

Leverage it to tell a better story.

The Benefits of Structured Writing

Paying more attention to structure will help improve your writing in several ways:

1. Understanding the structure before you begin writing gives you a proven framework for organising your ideas and planning a balanced story.

2. Having structure in place first also makes the daunting task of filling a completely blank page a lot easier.

3. Choosing a structure that enhances the story you’re telling allows you to produce the best possible piece of writing, and provide a positive experience for your reader.

So, next time you’re going to write something, use structure to help you plan and communicate your ideas in the most effective way possible.

Just start with the basics, then build out from there.

Even if it’s as simple as, “beginning, middle, and end.”

This Week’s Sunset of the Week

When I go out for a walk, it’s actually rare for me to take my phone with me. So, this week’s sunset is going to have to be one from the archives.

Richmond Hill is probably my first or second favourite place to watch the sunset in the UK, Selsey Beach being the other contender.

Here’s an unforgettable one from mid-January this year:

This Week’s Song-on-Repeat

This week we revisit one of the most under-rated songs, with some of the most under-rated lyrics, of the 1990s.

Thank you so much for reading!