The easiest way to fix a BROKEN STORY.

Write, finish, and publish an incredible novel that readers will love with my advanced Story Coaching program. Find out more & apply here: jedherne.com/coaching
I made this video for those of you who are feeling stuck with your story. There's nothing more disheartening than feeling like your book is broken - like the characters and the plot just aren't coming together the way you wanted. I hope the principles in this video can fix that. Enjoy!
⏲️ TIMESTAMPS:
0:00 - Introduction
1:55 - The main character's arc
3:42 - The 3 P's
4:53 - Theme
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🧑 ABOUT ME:
Hi! My name's Jed. I'm a fantasy author with three published novels and a bestselling video game. On this channel, I draw from my 10+ years of writing experience to help you become a better writer.
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(Note: I don't always get a chance to reply to every email. However, I do my best to read as many of them as possible, and it's my preferred method of communication.)

[@damariuswingfield2144]

I've always considered the following: 1. Write the premise. 2. Write an ending to aim for but will be susceptible to change. 3. Read and write a synopsis up to the point where you're stuck or finished. 4. Cross out things that don't need to be there. 4. Decide the chronology of the events you haven't crossed out. 5. I just go back to pantsing. Note: My first novel isn't complete yet. Just something I thought of.

[@Vitearys]

just did that with a reeeaally long fic i'm writing and it helped! Thank you

[@damariuswingfield2144]

@@Vitearys No problem. Always welcome to help.

[@keithg460]

I also have found that if I am having trouble plotting, I get so much further by pantsing. Just the act of writing it out will tell me where the characters want to take the story, and it doesn't take long for that to generate ideas for where to take it. I don't have to pantz more than a couple chapters to get the plotting back on track. Another useful tip is to start with the ending. What all is happening? Then answer this question: what mist happen, or what conditions must be met, to cause this ending to happen. Basically, the ending is the Effect, now you must determine the Cause.

[@kimshawwrites]

Happy to see this video! Currently got a broken story 13 years in the making 😅

[@Jed_Herne]

You can fix it :). And if not - it's all a learning experience to make you better for the next one.

[@joso7228]

Every writer has 'one broken story' that never quite gets finished. Every singer has 'one broken song' that never quite makes the album. Just put it aside and dream about it on a rainy day - and who knows....

[@Mahlak_Mriuani_Anatman]

Goddamn

[@Mahlak_Mriuani_Anatman]

​@@joso7228concur

[@joshuastclairmusic]

Brandon Sanderson's workshops on Fantasy Writing saved my book

[@guygallivanting]

Coming to the end of writing the first draft of my first book…I can’t even remember what I’ve written but know it’s going to need lots of fixes. Stories in the head and what’s on the page is something I can relate to. Thanks for the vid, Jed. Just bought The Thunder Heist and looking forward to sinking into it on my holiday in a few weeks!

[@Jed_Herne]

Awesome work on finishing the book! That's a massive accomplishment. Hope you enjoy The Thunder Heist :)

[@AN-jz3kf]

Sometimes it flows like a stream, sometimes it's like hacking your way through a jungle

[@cosmicprison9819]

Great points, but even though I’ve done all these things - in fact, they’re the things that got me started on my current story in the first place - it doesn’t prevent me from getting stuck in the middle. The story just became bloated - I basically developed worldbuilder’s disease for characters. All of these characters arose from and struggle with one aspect of the overarching theme. And because I wanted to avoid flat side characters, I fleshed them out so far that I could easily spend the first 200 pages just creating the setup for everything that comes later. But I can’t spend the first 200 pages making promises to the reader - I need to give them some progress, or they’ll tune out before the first payoff. So I started cutting down my first act, to make sure the inciting incident occurs somewhere between page 50 and 70. Some of these scenes, I thought, I could easily place later in the story. But even though they’re no longer delaying my inciting incident, they’re now clogging up the second act. And if I remove them altogether (I put them back in and pulled them out again several times), it feels like ripping a piece of the story’s soul out. I’ve read some books by authortubers that had good pacing (Abbie Emmons’s “100 Days of Sunlight” and Jenna Moreci’s “The Saviour’s Champion”). It was easy for me to get through these books, even though neither is within my genre; conversely, with Brandon Sanderson, I fail to even get into the books, even though fantasy is a favourite genre of mine. The problem with the well-paced books by those two indie authors, though, is that the only characters that are remotely fleshed out are the main couple. And even those weren’t particularly memorable to me. Also, as is often the case with romances, there is basically no worldbuilding whatsoever. It seems like you really have to sacrifice a lot for what’s considered “good” pacing, in our modern age of shortened attention spans. 🤔

[@keithg460]

Maybe you could make it nonlinear and add those scenes as flashbacks. As long as they bring up important points to the narrative, then they are worth including. Or include the inciting incident earlier, either by changing it and adding it in such a way that the reader knows about the villain in the background doing their evil scheme (but it just takes a while before that intersects with the Protagonist), or by doing a large portion of it as a flashback or wind up. Hook of an opening chapter. 48 hours earlier... Etc I don't know what the story is about, but maybe you could even do side books focused on the other POVs. Each one could have an arc, even have their own bad guy, and then each book will only focus on their backstory which will eliminate the bloatedness.

[@cosmicprison9819]

@@keithg460 Thanks for your ideas. 😉 There are already a bunch of flashbacks in the story - and those are even harder to position correctly, since in theory, they can go anywhere. The only restrictions are when to reveal which background information to the reader, and which previous allow for better transitions into the flashbacks than others. (But those transitions can be adapted, anytime a flashback scene is moved around.)

[@jamesmcdude2239]

Tbh when i started writing i didnt even look up any advice and so far the main thing ive learned is that i have no idea what i am doing. Thanks for this video it will help me salvage the dumpster fire.

[@Jed_Herne]

Ha, happy to help!

[@jamesmcdude2239]

@Jed_Herne I didn't even know that themes were important. I thought themes were for like philosophical writers, lol. My first draft had no theme, and no character arc for the Mc. It was just a sequence of events that I thought were cool 💀

[@Mahlak_Mriuani_Anatman]

​​​@@jamesmcdude2239similar fate, but i started out on a lot of advice, tips, ai, flow state, then i let loose, work darn well for me,.......... I think

[@user-hb8rk6je1u]

Excellent and informative video! I lost the motivation to try to write my book, but your videos have helped with that.

[@Jed_Herne]

Glad I could help!

[@eveningstarwall7909]

As a person who loves to tell stories and write them thank you for making videos like these that allow me to identify how I can fix and improve my stories.

[@ashwinipethe4222]

So much clarity in one video... This was truly awesome... Keep them coming....

[@Christine-ep1cq]

Let's get this guy to 100k subs!

[@nyx019]

Thank you for making these videos. While I have heard many of these things before, other channels stretch each single tip out to a 15 minute video. This is just plain easy to understand. Thanks!

[@luisdall5575]

Great video Jed. A lot of great takeaways for writing a book, even if your story isn't broke.

[@constancegoldwing5867]

Yes! Just what I needed before bedtime. Thanks Jed!

[@Jed_Herne]

You're welcome!

[@jasperreps]

G’day Jed. Just came across your channel and wanted to quickly say great work! Looking forward to going back over past videos and seeing your new content 🤙

[@Jed_Herne]

Thanks Jasper, enjoy!

[@mbzelmo]

Fabulous Advice! People who've read some of my book love my style, my creation fo characters et all, BUT- - the question I was asked yesterday in our local writers group was-- I don't really see an arc here, I can't tell where your story's going. So as a beginner I was unclear as to all the points you reference in this video. THANK YOU. for helping me fix my broken story!

[@m.j.johnsonbooks7856]

Excellent job explaining the core reasons for understanding theme. You should upload the audio of your videos as podcasts. I would love to re-listen to these while driving to work. Also- loved the music choice 🤙

[@Jed_Herne]

That is actually something I've been thinking about for a while - I'll have a serious think about that And cheers for the music note! That's actually one of the longest parts of my editing process - just getting the music right. I never know how much people notice/care so always good to hear that it helps.

[@XVendevion]

This was another awesome video to watch. I appreciate you continuing to make videos. I will try to implement these components in my story so it can be really good.

[@Jed_Herne]

Best of luck with the writing

[@XVendevion]

@@Jed_Herne Thank you

[@ROMANTIKILLER2]

Great pieces of advice, I found them particularly helpful. I am in process of re-editing (in fact, largely re-writing) a novel I wrote in my early 20s, which I think it has all the right elements and yet it did not fully click. I thought it was only a matter of superficial worldbuilding, but it has probably more to do with connecting the main character's arc to the core theme of the story, which is there but young me had never really elaborated to much on it.

[@joshuastclairmusic]

Great video Jed! I just started seriously working on my second book this week and it's a major step up from Book One, and you've given me some great things to think about, especially in the outlining process. Also, I'd love to see a video on Worldbuilding!

[@Jed_Herne]

Awesome stuff Joshua - great work on moving onto the second novel.

[@ericbreau]

Good guidance on theme, GJ.

[@Jed_Herne]

Thanks, Eric

[@ericbreau]

@@Jed_Herne I wish others were so clear and gave relatable examples. lol Keep up the great work.

[@mageprometheus]

Thanks Jed. I agree with all this, another great video. I like using all these questions along with the enneagram. John Trudy is a master and his new 700-page masterpiece on genre, Anatomy of Genres, is excellent. I also like a lot of the tools used by the screenwriters, like reverse cause and effect, and the 36 dramatic situations. There are so many gems to be found on the Film Courage channel hidden within the 5.4k videos. Crazy.

[@Jed_Herne]

Film courage is a great channel - and I can't wait to check out Truby's newest book at some point

[@MengtheMinor12]

Oh my god, this guy guessed me!

[@5BBassist4Christ]

I've been going over a mass-revisioning of my book. I was deep into the history and mythology of the world, and eventually came to view much of it as ridiculous, generic, and over-the-top. However, I loved the characters and the concept too much to leave the world. So I started getting deep into my character's heads, writing new characters, getting rid of unnecessary characters, and then started exploring the society of the world. What are the different political views of the different characters? Why do they hold these values? How do these values clash in this world? What arouses these disagreements? What propagates them? What are the consequences? How does society react to these consequences they have created? How does this shifting landscape effect the core-characters? I had to cut down to the point of the story being unfunctionable, -which gave me the opportunity to rebuild from the ashes a better story that feels more alive.

[@brianedwards7142]

I binged Gilligan's Island over Chrissie and Sherwood Schwartz did a commentary on the pilot where he revealed the moral theme of the show that we all gotta get along in this world or we all go down. Gilligan's Island!

[@johannageisel5390]

Hm, seems that my biggest problem (as always) is the themes and how to put them into plot. Plotting is my greatest weakness. :( And creating conflict that isn't resolved with a simple talk. ... Or I create a conflict that cannot be resolved at all without the story becoming depressing. Urgh.

[@stgr6669]

Thinking about the example: If that queen tries to make up for the loss of her son by letting a lot of others lose their sons, she can't be a protagonist to sympathize with, in my opinion.

[@XX-sp3tt]

6:47 And I rejected that answer. I go for the much harder answer.

[@naomiuchiha0906]

I have a character, and I am not sure if I can have his Want and Need and if they make sense together. After the Death of his parents (Ghost), he both wants to find the killer, of whom he believes is a vampire (Want). And his Need so far is to accept himself. Bc we'll learn that it was him that killed them and he subconciously created this monster he can project his Self Hate onto. Acceptance is a big theme in my book. But the problem is, I don't know if his Revenge arc makes sense with his outgoing and bubbly personality; and how do I give him a reason to pick his revenge up again, after he has decided that it is too dangerous to pursue? Maybe too many questions, idk

[@scloftin8861]

Why can I follow instructions to write a stupid thesis, but I cannot make my brain work with directions to write fiction? The more of these vids I watch, the more I figure I shouldn't be writing. and the characters come screaming back into my head ... writer, yes. Saleable? Apparently not.

[@barbedheart]

Great video, but your description of theme sounds more like motif, a concluding statement is not a theme but a moral. Theme is a Wilder Vincent and indeed more abstract, no?

[@user-qh1mm2ri5e]

Что если я не могу расчленить желания и нужду?

[@cosmicprison9819]

My main character defends something that the antagonist is trying to take away, rather than pursuing something that she doesn’t have yet. Hence, all of these examples of characters proactively pursuing something (especially when it’s just some in-world MacGuffin) don’t really work for me. Sure, I could turn the whole society into yet another dictatorship from the outset, so that my protagonist can pursue a freedom she doesn’t have, rather than defending a freedom she does have. But that would make it too easy for me to strawman my antagonist’s position into something atrocious. I wanna show how her beliefs are prone to sliding into tyranny in the first place.

[@Sisanf]

A great way Jane Kalmes on KZbin broke down "want" and "need" in a story is "acute pain" and "chronic pain" (I could be paraphrasing). Acute pain being the external thing the character deals with now and chronic pain being something that existed long before the story began, that the character is forced to confront during the story.

[@greyestplayer]

I disagree with how you interpreted your client's theme To me, it sounded like their theme was "Everyone has different beliefs and intentions, but we're all interconnected, [so we should still be respectful to those who think differently from us]" The part in square brackets wasn't said explicitly, but I think that's what your client was implying. I didn't hear the entire conversation you and your client had, so I can't know for sure "It's impossible to live your dreams without crushing someone else's" sounds antipodal to what I think the intended theme was. Rather than being about accepting differences, this theme sounds like it's about refusing to compromise on differences so you can get what you want It's not my intention to insult you in any way, I just disagree with this part of the video. Sorry if I misinterpreted anything you said

[@jyjaeskz]

Yet it's still something people can agree or disagree with.