<aside> 👉🏼 Click Duplicate to import this into your own Notion workspace. You can delete these instructions from there if you wish. Rename each version of this template for your stories, and duplicate a new one for each story. Then you can move the documents around as you create your book.

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<aside> 💡 All books need stories—even the most academic, textbooky ones. We learn through stories; there is no other more effective way to share information. Every story follows the same basic framework—miss out an element at your peril.

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<aside> ✍🏼 Use this template to plan your stories and make sure you’re using all the story elements. Don’t worry about telling a perfect story just now; get the notes down and make sure you know what goes where. This is as relevant for a book of essays as it is for narrative non-fiction, or self-help, or how-to, or fiction.

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I’m going to use the word “hero” throughout; I mean the main character of your story. It might be you, a client, or a fictional character

Beginning: Get the reader’s attention

  1. Context + backstory

    Introduce us to the hero’s world and circumstances. Who are they? What’s their world like? What are they doing?

  2. Catalyst + inciting incident

    What changes in the hero’s world? Something happens. Perhaps it’s dramatic, like a job loss or bereavement or pregnancy. Or perhaps it’s small, like a new hobby or a person comes into their life, or they get a pet.

Middle: Show the challenge

  1. Challenge

    Because of this change, the hero faces a challenge or a problem to solve—and a choice to make. What are they going to do? What are the options, the pitfalls, the potential consquences?

  2. Change

    The hero makes a decision, decides what path to take, and makes a plan to overcome their challenge and solve the problem.

End: What’s changed?

  1. Resolution

    What’s changed in the hero, their world, and their worldview? If nothing changes, we have no story. The resolution should be challenging to the hero and to the reader, pushing us to see things differently.

Examples

The Matrix

  1. Neo is living a boring, mundane life as a computer programmer, clocking in, clocking out, going home, and spending all his time online. He can’t help feeling like there must be more to life than this.
  2. He gets a strange message via his computer—then a knock on the door and an invitation to a party. He goes clubbing, meets some interesting people, and is invited to meet Morpheus, a mysterious figure who’s legendary in the computer underworld.
  3. Morpheus gives him a choice: take the red pill and learn the unsettling and life-changing truth about the world, or take the blue pill and carry on with his life as before.
  4. He takes the red pill, goes down the rabbit hole, and discovers the world is not at all what it seemed—and is now embroiled in a war with machines to save humanity. He resists it, learning more along the way, tempted to go back, struggling with his new understanding, not quite believing all this. He finally embraces who he is and what he’s capable of, realising that he has to power to make real changes within the Matrix.
  5. He sees the world for what it truly is, and vows to do what he can to free humanity.