The Story Symmetry framework is the foundation of my book, Story Symmetry. I wrote this book back in 2015 after reading about 80 books on story craft and writing ten fiction books of my own. I wrote it to parse together the patterns I was finding in craft books and develop my own framework for telling good stories.
I made the Story Symmetry framework for me, but it was easy to share this with the world. My passion for all things publishing is largely documented across my two series because I process information through communication. But something amazing happened after I shared it…It started helping other people, too.
This book and its follow up still have many of my best reviews ever across all the books.
And the biggest reason for this book’s resonance was my 9-part storytelling framework, broken down into detail. I originally called it the Smarter Storytelling framework, but when I needed to rename it to distinguish it, I realized that the way I see story craft is very symmetrical.
Inner journey and outer journey
Fatal flaw and key motivation
Connected energy and grounded energy (when working with a romance story)
And thus, the Story Symmetry framework was born!
Before we get into the specifics of the framework, I want to give you the larger picture. My framework has 5 layers that feed into each other:
As you can see, the framework consists of a variety of storytelling elements and the relationships between them.
Each relationship is represented by arrows and goes both ways, and each one is numbered for convenience.
As we go through each storytelling element in the next several sections, you’ll want to keep in mind what you know so far about your story. My goal isn’t to tell you what the right decision is for your story, but to help you make consistent decisions all the way through based on where your story is at right now.
You can start anywhere in this framework. You can start in three different places and fill in areas to connect the dots of your story. For now, we’re going to discuss things in order, starting at the top.
The 5 Layers
There are five layers to my framework:
Layer 1 - The Design
The Design layer is where a lot of the magic happens, because a big part of what keeps your story in alignment is theme. In the Design layer, we’ll define the concept, premise, and theme of your story and discuss the relationship between them.
If you look at any modern mega-hit story, its success is predicated on how closely it sticks to its primary or unified theme. This is something I hope to demonstrate to you in the examples. The center of the Story Symmetry Framework is without a doubt the theme—we’ll dive deep into this topic, as the theme can and should be carried through the entire story to create the deepest emotional impact.
Journaling Prompt: Have you worked with theme, concept, premise, and other high-level storytelling elements? What can you learn by studying Layer 1 - The Design?
Layer 2 - The Surface
The Surface layer is the stuff you sell to the reader—your characters, your plot, and more. In the Surface layer, we’ll talk about genre and what it means for your plot, so you can be thinking about this early on. We will also get into the groups and characters in your story and start fleshing out your cast and major conflicts.
Lastly, we’ll tie the Surface layer back to the Design layer so you can see how these storytelling elements interact with each other!
Journaling Prompt: Have you worked with tentpole moments, groups, characters and other high-level plot and character storytelling elements? What can you learn by studying Layer 2 - The Surface?
Layer 3 - The Conflicts
The pulsing beat of every story lies in the conflicts. In the Conflicts layer, we will dive deep into fatal flaws and external motivations for each of your groups and characters. I’ll explain how to create false beliefs and goals that form character arcs for your story and truly start to give it heart.
Finally, I’ll show you how to work backwards from these concepts to fill in your 4-Part Structure with a rich and rewarding sequence of events that makes up your plot. No more murky middle of your story!
Journaling Prompt: Have you mapped out character arcs, motivations, goals, fatal flaws, false beliefs, and other medium-level storytelling elements? What can you learn by studying Layer 3 - The Conflicts?
Layer 4 - The Representations
In the Representations layer, we’ll look at everything we’ve already discovered about your story and tease out the many ways to better express it. We’ll discuss symbols, metaphors, motifs, and more.
So many authors stop at the first three layers. But by putting all of these thematic elements in place, you’ll easily connect the first layer to the fifth layer of your story all the way through, like pulling threads through five swaths of material to weave a quilt.
If there is one takeaway you’ll get from this book, it’s that theme is the connective thread that makes your story magical. You’ll see in dozens of examples across several genres throughout this book how this works.
Journaling Prompt: Have you worked with thematic elements? What can you learn by studying Layer 4 - The Representations?
Layer 5 - The World
In the World layer, we will figure out the world that these characters live in. We will look into background, history, and more for each of the thematic elements defined in Layer 4.
This is the last layer, the base of the entire operation. Not all of it will make it into the book. But, like anything, tying up this loose end will strengthen your story.
Finally, a word of warning if you think you can ignore this layer just because you are writing something contemporary. I’ll show you how even contemporary stories need to build their worlds. There may not be wizards and vampires and kingdoms, but you’ll still need to know the backgrounds and histories of your characters, and more.
Journaling Prompt: Have you worked with worldbuilding and setting elements? What can you learn by studying Layer 5 - The World?
The Relationships
One of the ways this book is structured differently than others of its ilk is that I focus heavily on the relationships between two storytelling concepts.
So, for example, if you already have your protagonist figured out, I want you to be able to translate the information you already know about him to his fatal flaw, to the groups in your world, and to the larger theme of the book.
Then, you can translate each of these three pieces into more pieces, connecting through the framework along the arrows as you go.
Before you know it, you’ll have a strong sense of your story at every layer, because every decision you’ve made is in alignment with all the other decisions.
There are nine relationships outlined throughout this book, and I give you solid guidelines on how to get the two storytelling concepts in alignment for each relationship. This, I hope, will allow you to start with any area of your book that you want and move up, down, left, or right to discover and learn more about your story.
The nine relationships are:
Idea to Concept to Premise
Concept and Premise to Theme
Concept and Premise to Tentpole Moments
Themes to Groups and Characters
Groups and Characters to the Fatal Flaw
Fatal Flaw to Motivation
Motivation and Goals to Tentpole Moments
Fatal Flaw and Motivation to Thematic Elements
Thematic Elements to World
If you follow the trail these relationships create, you’ll find that your story is in deep alignment. What does that mean? It means your characters match their character arcs, which matches your theme, which matches your plot, which matches your world.
This creates an experience for the reader.
It’s like walking into an expensive department store—for example, Nordstrom. The lights match the layout, which matches the product, which matches the pricing, which matches the customer service. Shopping at Nordstrom is a very different experience than shopping at a big box retailer like Walmart, which is a different experience than shopping at a primarily online retailer like Amazon.
When your story is in deep alignment, it simply works. More importantly, it really works for its target audience, just like Nordstrom really works for its customers.
In this book, I emphasize relationships between the storytelling elements because I know that all of your decisions need to be consistent for the story to have a major impact on your reader. As you go through the book, I’ll show you example after example of huge bestsellers where this is the case. And, as homework, you can go through your own favorite stories to see each of these layers at work, all operating in unison.
Here are some more challenges and questions novelists face when using this framework:
Can I use the Story Symmetry Framework for a series/novella/short story/serial?
The framework is meant for novels, but you can adapt it for other story lengths fairly easily.
For novellas and short stories, simply use a condensed version, plotting only the key tentpole moments.
For serials, because of the way they should end on cliffhangers, use everything up to Part 4 of the 4-Part Structure. Then, in the next episode, resolve the last cliffhanger and start again. The order for episode 2 and after is essentially, Part 4, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3. This creates that rising tension that is not released by the resolution!
For a series, you may want to plot an arc over the entire series, then do an arc for each individual book. Start at the highest level and get the story right there. Put the tentpole moments of the highest level arc at the ends of each book.
Harry Potter is a fantastic example of this. There’s a reason that Voldemort returns (and Cedric Diggory dies) in Book 4. It’s the Reversal for the series! Although the series arc is in place, each book also still fulfills its own self-contained and full story arc. I call this story recursion. You repeat the process on just a small part of your original process.
Do I have to get all of this right to build a story?
I don’t think perfection is necessary or even achievable for most authors. There’s plenty of room for error in this framework. I believe that if you get 70-80% of this framework correct, you’ll have a damn good novel that makes sense, resonates, and delights readers. That’s fantastic and plenty to build an author career on.
I also don’t think all of these rules apply at all times. It’s just a framework. If something else works for you, go for it! There’s nothing hard and fast here. All I’ve done is pattern-matched a boatload of information to help you better understand story architecture across a variety of mediums. However, there is no “right” answer. Attempt to use the concepts and the journaling prompts throughout the book, but don’t try to force your story into the framework if it just doesn’t make sense. Take what you can from this to improve your storytelling craft, and leave the rest!
What about being too heavy-handed?
Some people don’t love what fashionistas would call matchy-matchy (e.g. a handbag that matches a pair of heels that matches a headband) and some people do. This framework is really more for people who prefer things to line up. Remember, the basis for this framework (and the theme of it) is deep alignment. That by its nature means that the story elements match.
If you prefer something more “realistic,” then this framework will come across as heavy-handed in parts. Specifically in Layer 4 - The Representations, you definitely don’t want to overdo it and give everyone a symbol, a saying, and so on. It will come across as trite.
All of that said, I do believe that most authors will do best to get their story in deep alignment. This is the best way to create commercial work. Maybe someday it will make sense to break all of the conventional storytelling rules, but for the most part, we should leave that to the Stephen Kings of the world.