Structure

So what's one thing you learned from writing this book that you didn't know before?

I think one thing I learned from writing this book is that Structure is perhaps more important than I'd ever realised before, if that makes sense.

I have written a dual timeline novel before, but I was much more free with it.

And I think, particularly if you're writing multiple characters and you're writing multiple timelines, planning and structure is absolutely vital.

There's a big difference.

How to keep shareholders happy, how to keep a board happy, how not to set up things, how not to structure a company at the start, how to retain control.

So I think whilst the business was set up for success when I left, I probably wasn't the right person to lead it at that point given the exhaustion of pretty much everyone who was involved at that point.

And look, I was the easy scapegoat and should have been.

There's very few times in life where you have the canvas to build something that is truly remarkable.

And I guess for me, if I was working off a block of land, I probably would have built something sensible.

But because I was working with an already existing structure that was quite magnificent as it was, it was not to the level it is now, but it was already, you know, Graham Ingalls was a great developer back in the day.

And that was his dream home.

What a real learning system looks like.

The US Parachute Association went from 14.4 fatalities per 100,000 jumps to 0.23 over four decades.

They achieved it not through more rules, but by collecting the data, telling the stories, and feeding back to the people who reported, thank you, we heard you, and here is what we changed as a result.

That last part is the whole point.

I can, because it is true.

We lose divers in ones and twos, so it never builds the pressure that forces change.

In the US, there are 350 to 400 general aviation fatalities each year.

They also happen in ones and twos.

And then the final type of outline that I wanna share with you is a persuasive outline.

So I'm gonna give you some different ways to structure out what you're doing if you are trying to write a book that is persuasive.

This is often for my political folks, but can also be really helpful if you're writing any kind of prescriptive nonfiction because, of course, you're gonna have to motivate your reader to actually do the thing you want them to do.

Okay.

Now, when we are thinking of a narrative outline, our goal is to create an engaging arc.

Now, that is not an all choices on the table situation, unfortunately.

And so often I will hear people come to me and say, "Well, I structured my book by breaking it into parts." While parts can indicate structure, they are not on their own enough to support a narrative structure.

A narrative structure rather needs specific points of growth, specific points of conflict, specific points of tension, all the way rising through to our climactic moment that then resolves in a very satisfying way.

If I'm going to start a new entity or,

you know

do you suggest someone sits down with a an accountant or a lawyer to set up their structures or a bit of both because sometimes i see the accountant and the lawyer see things slightly different what's the best way do you think for for a new developer or even an experience developer to be approaching the the setup of an entity i suppose of a new project

We do have combating opinions with accountants all the time.

Accountants want to save you tax and I want to save you risk.

So when we're talking about these JV agreements where you won't want to see a word partnership in it at all because that is that red flag to the ATO.

So you want to hide it and...

I don't really like the word hide it, but we're wanting to restructure it in a better way that works against those partnership obligations.