Advice on story structure

best advice I have in regards to structuring your story is work backwards know where you want it to end work backwards and then you'll know how you said need to set it up it's very important to expose yourself to as many ideas as possible books can be a treasure trove for great stories reading is the foundation for storytelling it's always a great idea to pick up a book and find a new story it's good to study structure it's good to watch a wide variety of films so that you have some foundation and some understanding of how this would typically go but then it's up to you to invent the new way some of the greatest filmmakers of all time you know I think about Stanley Kubrick for example his his movies are very tightly ideologically structured but they're not necessarily area sometimes or there they're not narrative or there he applies narrative judiciously and he uses narrative as a tool to get you from point A to point B but narrative isn't his focus it's these larger ideological feelings that he has you just have to think about what is very very important to me and I'll give a very brief personal story I became a father late in life I have two young daughters and and so I realized that I have to be a good dad kind of in a hurry I don't have a lot of time so that's on my mind a lot so at home I'm working on a story that well hopefully it's funny it's a little science fiction II but I'm working on a story about parents who try to raise their kids really well in a hurry and in my life the things that I've done that have worked out the best are the things that I've cared the most about and I'm willing to invest the most in and the things that don't feel like work and the things that allowed me to crow because I pushed myself further in their pursuit just jump in do the best you can commit put something out finish something and then just do it again it is really hard to admit that it didn't work but you have to be willing to come in with a wrecking ball and raze it to the ground and rebuild it and if you learned along the way so it will get better each time you're willing to do that but you have to be willing to tear it down and try again you have to fail and get up again in development we always draw the emotional arc on the wall we actually have these painted walls that make them whiteboards and you can just sit and sit in your chair roll up to the wall and draw a big arc and then delineate different points on the arc of what's happening for your character emotionally that gives it a lot of shape it's so important to live in the world live life discover things try things meet new people try whatever you want the world is wide open and that is where our stories come from