Seven-Point Story Structure, From Dan Wells's Own Talk

Seven-point story structure is an outlining method that plans a story as seven key moments: the hook, plot turn 1, pinch 1, the midpoint, pinch 2, plot turn 2 and the resolution, and it is designed backwards, starting from the resolution. The hook is set up as the opposite of the ending, and the five points between them move the story believably from one to the other.

The method is best known from a talk the novelist Dan Wells (I Am Not a Serial Killer) gave at Life, the Universe and Everything, a writing and science fiction conference in Utah, on 13 February 2010. A recording went up on YouTube in five parts, and Wells has explained it since on Writing Excuses, the podcast he co-hosts. Every quote below is from that recording or from those episodes.

Where Does Seven-Point Story Structure Come From?

Wells didn't invent it, and he has always said so. Asked for his favourite book on story structure, he told the 2010 audience it was the narrator's guide to the Star Trek role-playing game, because teaching people to tell a good story is what a role-playing game sells. His slides were, in his phrase, "shamelessly pilfered" from it.

On Writing Excuses in 2012 he added: "I got it out of a role-playing book, but it's apparently very common in screenwriting." In 2026, on the same show, he put it most plainly: "It is essentially a TV writing formula for writing TV episodes." The name is his: "seven point plot structure, that's my name for it."

Decipher published a Star Trek Roleplaying Game Narrator's Guide in 2002. Wells doesn't name the edition, and the book's own wording isn't something we could check, so this page quotes Wells, not the guide.

What Are the Seven Points?

In story order:

Wells's running example is the first Harry Potter book. The hook is the orphan under the stairs. Plot turn 1 is the news that Harry is a wizard. Pinch 1 is the troll, with no teachers to help. The midpoint is the unicorn in the forest, when Harry decides to stop Voldemort. Pinch 2 is the way down to the stone, where Ron and Hermione fall away and Harry is left alone. Plot turn 2 is the mirror, and the stone in his pocket. The resolution is Harry defeating Voldemort.

He is clear that these aren't the only events in a book. In 2012: they are "seven key moments that are going to move you from hook to resolution." In 2010: "this is just the skeleton."

Much of what fills the gaps, in the talk, is try-fail cycles: the hero tries, fails, and tries again, so the win feels earned. Wells's example is Inigo Montoya in The Princess Bride, who fails again and again before he finally avenges his father. And in the questions at the end he called the seven points "not hard and fast rules", adding that he doubts most authors knew their story's seven points while they were writing it.

Why Do You Start With the Resolution?

Because the resolution decides everything else. Wells, in 2010: "we start at the end because everything in the story leads to that moment." He is specific that it means the climax: "this is not the falling action, this is not the last chapter, this is the climax." It is also why he took the system up: "endings are by far the hardest."

With the end known, you set the hook as its opposite. "One simple trick to figure out where you start is to just take the opposite state." A character who ends strong starts weak, which gives the reader an arc to invest in. In 2026 he called the hook "a mirror to resolution" and said: "I build the story backwards when I use this."

Then the middle. In the 2010 talk he works through the points in this order:

1. Resolution
2. Hook
3. Midpoint
4. Plot turn 1
5. Plot turn 2
6. Pinch 1
7. Pinch 2

The midpoint goes in before the turns because it is the hinge between the two halves. The plot turns come next, because each one carries the story toward a half's end. The pinches go in last, as the pressure that makes each half hard.

What Is the Difference Between a Plot Turn and a Pinch?

A plot turn moves the character toward the resolution, and a pinch blocks the way. Wells, on Writing Excuses in 2026: "a plot point is something that helps them on their journey toward the resolution", "whereas a pinch is something that gets in the way." (By 2026 he says plot point, not plot turn. They are the same thing.)

A pinch doesn't have to be a defeat, but it has to cost something. Wells, 2010: "the main purpose of a pinch is to force your characters to action." The classic second pinch takes away a helper, such as Gandalf in Moria or Obi-Wan facing Vader, so the hero has to act alone. A plot turn doesn't have to feel good either. In the same 2026 episode, Mary Robinette Kowal calls the death of Luke's aunt and uncle "not a success for the character, but it's a push."

Is Seven-Point Structure the Same as the Three-Act Structure?

No, but it fits over it. Plot turn 1, the midpoint and plot turn 2 sit roughly where Syd Field puts Plot Point I, the Midpoint and Plot Point II in the three-act structure. What seven points add is the backwards build and the two pinches, one in each half of the middle.

Wells gives no page counts or percentages in the talk, and says the points don't have to be evenly spaced. In a mystery the midpoint can come early, when the detective takes the case: "it doesn't have to be exactly in the center." That makes it lighter than the Save the Cat beat sheet, which has fifteen beats and gives each a position as a percentage of the book.

He also shows that his Harry Potter outline, with the names taken out, is the hero's journey. His point is that the system isn't tied to it: in the same talk he outlines Pride and Prejudice, Othello and "The Tell-Tale Heart" with the same seven points.

Can You Use Seven Points for Subplots?

Yes. In 2026 Wells said it helps him "assemble side plots really well". In 2010, each plot or subplot "can be mapped out with this system and then you weave them all together." Spread their points out for pace; line them up when you want a big scene. His example is The Matrix, where Cypher's betrayal subplot resolves in the same scene as a pinch in the main plot: Morpheus is captured.

In 2012 he said he finds it "especially valuable in romantic subplots": if two characters have to end up in love, the seven points tell you what has to happen on the way for it to be believable. The 2026 episode's homework is the same: take one subplot, start with its resolution, and sketch the rest. What that subplot is for in the first place, and where it should end, is covered in how to write a subplot.

A Worked Example

Nell leads a search party across the marsh in fog and brings a lost child home. Built the way Wells builds it:

1. Resolution. Nell walks the child home across the marsh at dawn.
2. Hook, the opposite. Since her father drowned on the marsh, Nell hasn't set foot past the village wall.
3. Midpoint. Nell stops following the constable and leads the party herself, by her father's old route.
4. Plot turn 1. A child goes missing on the marsh at dusk, and Nell is the only one left who knows the causeway.
5. Plot turn 2. She remembers her father's rhyme: the causeway posts are notched, so she can feel her way by hand.
6. Pinch 1. Fog comes down. The party splits, and a man goes into the water.
7. Pinch 2. The constable breaks his leg and the last lantern goes out. Nell is alone.

Read in story order (hook, plot turn 1, pinch 1, midpoint, pinch 2, plot turn 2, resolution), the frightened Nell of the hook is the opposite of the Nell who walks home at dawn.

How Do You Build a Seven-Point Outline in Deckle?

Deckle is a novel-writing app, and its Outliner is a board of cards, one for every document in the book, each with a synopsis. Cards can be added in any order and dragged into place, which suits a structure built from the end.

1. Open the Outliner on the Draft and add the resolution first, with Add › Scene. Name the card "Resolution" and write the climax in its synopsis.
2. Add the hook, and write the opposite state in its synopsis. Then add the midpoint, the two plot turns and the two pinches, in Wells's order.
3. Put them in story order. Hover over a card and drag it by the grip at its top right (Drag to reorder) to where it falls in the book.
4. Mark the push and pull. Open one card, make two labels called "Plot turn" and "Pinch" (the pencil beside Status in the Inspector's Properties opens Edit labels & statuses), and set them on the four cards they describe.
5. Switch the Outliner to its list and read the seven rows top to bottom. Each pinch should press harder than the last, and each turn should come from something the reader has seen.

For a subplot, give it seven cards of its own and a label in another colour, then move its scenes in the Outliner until the two threads braid. What happens inside each scene is a smaller question, and scene and sequel is the classic answer to it.

Common Mistakes

• Starting at the hook. The method works because the ending is fixed first. Without it, the hook has nothing to be the opposite of.
• Treating the seven points as the whole book. They are key moments. Wells: "this is just the skeleton."
• A plot turn 2 from nowhere. The last piece should be something already set up. In Wells's Jaws example, the air tank is already in the shark's mouth before Brody sees how to use it.
• Pinches that change nothing. A pinch exists to force the character to act. If the hero would have acted anyway, it isn't doing its job.
• Forcing the points to fixed percentages. Wells gives none, and his mystery example puts the midpoint early. Use the shape, not a ruler.
• Getting the date wrong. The talk most often linked is from LTUE 2010, not 2013 as some guides say. The recording's own description dates it 13 February 2010.

Sources

Retrieved 25 October 2026.

• Dan Wells, "Story Structure", talk at Life, the Universe and Everything, 13 February 2010, recorded and uploaded by S. James Nelson as Dan Wells on Story Structure, parts 1 to 5, YouTube. Quotes checked against the recording's captions.
• Writing Excuses, 7.41: Seven-Point Story Structure, 2012, with the transcript by Mike Barker.
• Writing Excuses, 21.24: Deconstructing the Seven Point Plot Structure, 2026, with the transcript by Mike Barker.
• Star Trek Roleplaying Game Narrator's Guide, Wikipedia, for the book's publisher and year.