015 | My StoryWise Structure for Painless Storytelling

Whether you’re penning your first manuscript or looking to take your nonfiction project to the next level, Jeremy shares his own journey—complete with a framework that’s helped him write 30+ novels and countless short stories. Ready to turn your manuscript into a movement?

5 Keys You'll Learn in This Episode:

1. Storywise Framework Unpacked
2. Discover the 4-act structure that provides a sturdy backbone for any story—from novels to nonfiction books.
3. Essential Reads for Writers
4. Get Jeremy’s top book recommendations, including The Writer's Journey, Story Engineering, and Story Grid—each integral to mastering storytelling craft.
5. Bridging Fiction and Nonfiction
6. Learn how the same structure that shapes thrilling stories can also give your nonfiction book resonance and power.
7. Connecting with Readers from Page One
8. Find out why opening with your reader’s journey is the key to meaningful impact.
9. Mapping the Hero’s Journey for Nonfiction
10. See how nine story movements turn information and advice into a transformational experience for your audience.

Fun Fact from the Episode

Did you know I came to storytelling without any formal creative writing training—I developed the Storywise Framework while working as a pastor, helping people process their journeys and discover deeper truths. Proof that your unique background is your storytelling superpower!

Hey, creative Christian, Jeremy Bauma here, and welcome to Christian Author 2.0, the podcast for modern stewards of the written word with insights for your GospelWise author journey.

For 2 decades, I've watched authors struggle with their creative calling. That's why I built the GospelWise author ecosystem, to provide the practical training and high-tech tools you need to thrive. From deep dive insights to specialized apps and personalized coaching, I'm here to help you turn your manuscript into a movement. So stop guessing and start growing your reach with excellence. Let's dive into today's episode and master the path together.

Hey, Christian Creative, Jeremy here with another Author 2.0 insight into the writing process and particularly the storytelling process. And today I thought that I would share a little bit from my own particular process of how I go about telling stories, but especially structuring stories, and a little bit of my own journey behind the trial and error that came from creating this framework and structure that has helped me write the 30-some novels and several short stories later. I'm going to share with you some resources, some books, as well as a bit of that framework to hopefully help you with your storytelling process. So the Storywise framework, as I've framed it, is something that I have developed over the last 10 years or so through trial and error and really just coming at storytelling without any formal background, without formal training at university or writing workshops or instruction beforehand. I came to storytelling as a pastor and a minister who has a heart for our culture and for people's stories and journeys. And in pastoring, walking with people through their own stories, I began to see how stories themselves impact people's journeys and how people process their journeys and their own stories and how the power of story and the power of the pen whether good or bad, can be wielded in order to influence the shape and contours of people's beliefs and their own life direction. I have found that in my own life, and I've seen that in the way just anecdotally culture has shifted and changed and the direction that it has shifted and changed because of the stories that we tell ourselves, the stories that— impact our culture and the contours of that culture. So, I came into storytelling wanting to influence that direction in a way that would ignite faith in my world and connect people to the heart of God and broadcast the gospel in very practical ways.

So, when I decided to sit down during a National Novel Writing Month challenge, I came to the blank page with No clue what I was doing. But beforehand, I had researched a bit about how you tell a story and do this thing called storytelling. The first book that was super helpful was this book called The Writer's Journey, which was actually based around Joseph Campbell's The Hero's Journey, which, if you've looked at storytelling at all, you know that this is pretty much a foundational Structure that has impacted especially Western storytelling, but mostly stories in general, have sort of followed this, uh, flow of the hero entering into an adventure and encountering a number of milestones along the way to come from a world as he knew it and change into a new hero and enter a new world. Based upon what he's learned and experienced. That really set me on sure footing when I came to write my first book, which was this spiritual coming-of-age story based loosely around my own spiritual journey and crisis of faith. So because I was writing a story about this hero, Peter Daniel Young, and his own change and development and journey, that was super helpful in structuring and influencing how I framed my story. Farther along, I started reading much more deeply into how you tell a story and how you structure a story so that it holds together and gives the reader a thrilling, exciting, enjoyable reading experience. The next couple books that I came across were a magical book called Story Engineering, which gave me a lot of the language and structure for my own framework that I have used ever since, by Larry Brooks.

Highly recommend reading that book along with Robert McKee's classic Story, which is another deep dive into the substance, structure, style, and principles of screenwriting. But that screenwriting structure in the 3-act structure is super helpful for storytellers and was vital for me in my own framing of storytelling that I've actually shifted into more of a 4-act structure with the, uh, which I'll get to in a bit as I talk about that structure, that story-wise framework. But that book with an emphasis on screenwriting really gave me the language and the structure for my own framework for telling novel-oriented stories. And then the last one was Story Grid: What Good Editors Know About the Storytelling Process. And this little grid on there is a way to gauge whether or not a story works and how a story is held together. Those books were vital for my own evolution and development as a storyteller, and those, along with some others, Were influential in me developing my own, as I call it, Storywise framework that I have incorporated into this training for you and the template that is included in this course and the Storywise Framing training that you can get if you are so desiring. But this framework is a sort of, as I've alluded to, a 4-act structure that begins with the opening of a character in a setting before he encounters the problem. This formula— character in a setting with a problem— is classic, and mine framework opens with this sort of opening formula where this character is in a setting in the opening scenes, and you use those opening scenes to develop empathy and connection between the reader and that hero.

Who then encounters that problem. Uh, an incident incites this character. The inciting incident hooks him with a hooking moment into the story and then sets him towards this sort of first quarter mark milestone called the first plot point, in which the character is required to make a decision, to jump into the adventure and set sail on this journey. toward resolving the problem, entering into this series of try-fail cycles through the second part into the third part, landing into the fourth part where he begins to resolve that problem that was incited at the beginning. Between the first plot point and the midpoint, 50% mark, is another shifting point, a midpoint shift that changes everything. Turns everything on its head and sets the hero into this more active mode from which he had just been responding in part 2, sort of flailing around and, uh, encountering the antagonist, finding evidence of this villain that he is up against, and trying to resolve the problem, but in ways that are not really successful. It's not until you get to this halfway point into this midpoint and past the midpoint that the hero begins actively attacking. Very active.

He has developed more courage, learned some things along the way, and used that learning, that trial and error, to begin making headway into resolving. Which comes at the second plot point, that third milestone around the three-quarter mark, where the hero is able to then take what he has learned And then bring about a resolution with the climax, confronting the villain, the antagonistic force head-on to resolve the problem, leading to the final end where he succeeds or sometimes fails, but mostly succeeds. Those are the kinds of stories I like to tell. But in resolving the problem, he then is able to take stock of the journey at this validation point. kick back, celebrate, and sort of just have this ahh exhale moment of satisfaction where the reader themselves is able to take stock, sit back, and celebrate everything that they have been able to experience in the story.

Now, I also want to add that this Storywise Framework, as I call it, is not only built for Fiction writers, storytellers, all of you nonfiction writers out there, people who are resourcers, you can use the same framework to add the scaffolding you need to your own nonfiction book. To create a plan using the architecture of these 9 movements within the Storywise framework. to give you yourself a roadmap ahead to write your nonfiction book. Because the bridge, beginning with the opening scene and those big movements, the 3 movements that are crucial to the fiction side— first plot point, midpoint shift, and second plot point— carrying the reader down to the other end where their own story is validated through a final encouragement and ultimate transformation.

That's what you get when you apply this framework to your own nonfiction work. So how would this look?

Let me walk you through it briefly because I think that it would help you connect the dots from what I just described for fiction writers. storytellers, to your own book as a nonfiction writer.

Because the fact of the matter is, your hero, so to speak, is the reader.

So you are taking them on the same kind of journey that a fiction writer, a storyteller, would take their hero on as they bring them from that opening scene through to the end where they validate that journey and offer the hero sort of that final respite of celebration. For your own hero, the reader, how does this look? Well, you are also opening their own adventure where they are at. You've got your own opening scene describing the reader's actual current experience. This is the start where they are movement to build empathy, to make them feel seen, to describe who they are and what it is that they are trying to overcome. Now, there are no solutions, Here, yet you're not offering answers to their problems. You're not solving what they want to overcome. This is all about resonance. And I think this is where most Christian nonfiction books go wrong.

They open with the answer, but that's not what you want to do. You want to open with the reader, the hero of your own book. Leading to the Hooking with Hope movement. This is sort of the inciting incident for your Hero, the reader of the nonfiction book. It stirs curiosity, it's about naming the tension between where they are and where they could be, offering them a vision of the future as well as a vision for their own hopeful future. This setup with the start where they are, the hooking with hope leads to that kind of first quarter mark, the first shift. This maps to the first plot point. This moment in your nonfiction book is the first reframe where you are turning on that first light bulb, offering the first big idea.

Something changes their understanding of the problem itself. Everything changes from this point on for the reader at this first shift moment, leading to the first wake-up call. This is kind of that first pinchpoint moment where you are exposing the real resistance that your own hero, the reader, is facing in their nonfiction journey. That resistance might come as false beliefs, enemy lies, cultural noise. You are naming here the cost of staying stuck, and you want to wake them up to where they're at so that they could get to where they want to be. Which bridges nicely into your own midpoint shift, the load-bearing chapter of Any Christian nonfiction book, the gospel reframe, as I call it. This is where you are turning everything on end again in their own understanding of their problem and bringing about the transformation that they need by offering the central gospel truth that changes everything, anchored in Scripture, of course, as well as whatever theological rootedness your reader needs to overcome the problem that they are bringing to you in this nonfiction book. Everything before this moment is sort of set up.

They are reacting and responding to where they've been, and now everything here flows out from this midpoint where you are empowering them to change, to attack Their problem, to figure out what they need to do to bring about the transformation that they long for. Speaking of change, the next movement that maps to the original Storywise framework for fiction writers, the pinch point number 2 is for nonfiction writers, the cost of change. What will it cost to believe this that you are offering your nonfiction hero and to walk it out? This is about conviction, and the decision point of actually pulling the lever to change their reality is now coming closer. That moment is number 7, the second plot point in that original fiction framework mapped to nonfiction with the final breakthrough moment. This is the aha where scripture lands. A story lands, a practice gets named, and here you bridge them into the climax where they are offered the opportunity to live the change. This nonfiction movement is a conversion of the climax into application where you bring about reflections and questions, prompts, action steps, prayers, even practices to empower your reader To do what the movement says, live the change. Landing with that final movement number 9, the validation for the hero of your nonfiction book with a final encouragement.

You are here painting the after picture. What does their new normal look like and how do they live differently? That's your job at the end of your book. Whether it's a Bible study where you are probably mapping these 9 movements in some way for each passage of Scripture or chapter of the Bible study, or a devotional where you're kind of in a similar vein mapping these movements within that one devotional on that particular topic for that day, or across the spectrum of the book dealing with the particular theme of that book. But if it's a spiritual growth book or a Christian living book or something that's Not as quote-unquote spiritual, but something more earthy, like parenting or marketing a small business. These 9 movements will be handled and touched upon across the book itself. Now realize that these 9 movements are not chapters in and of themselves, but rather they suggest a sort of spine. Again, a framework or The scaffolding to your nonfiction book that is going to help your hero journey the adventure that they are going on with you to overcome the problem that you are promising to solve. And I'll tell you that a nonfiction book that runs this order has a shape that most simply do not.

That's the framework. That's what I have learned in my own storytelling process. And it's a framework that I hope that you are able to enjoy and latch onto and take for yourself to aid your own storytelling, creating a sort of a framework through plotting and preparing beforehand, but also enjoying the discovery that comes from writing, knowing that you have a framework and a structure to give you a satisfying writing experience that is fun, that is also— That is satisfying. Rooted in a framework and a structure that readers will also find satisfying and enjoying. So that's the structure, that's my own journey into how I've come about telling stories over the last 10 years, and I hope that it helps you on your own storytelling journey and that it frames for you how you tell stories and how you can give readers a satisfying read.

That's a wrap for today, but the real work happens inside the GospelWise Author Fellowship, a totally free membership filled with actionable advice and practical insights. For the deep dive articles, tools, and coaching you need to thrive, go to gospelwiseauthor.com/join. Everything we discussed today and the resources to help you implement it is live in the hub right now. So join the fellowship. Grab tools and training, and let's build a lasting GospelWise Author legacy with lasting impact. That's gospelwiseauthor.com/join.

See you next time on Christian Author 2.0 Insights.