Chapter 17 — Exercises

Story is a skill you build by shaping real material, not by admiring theory. These exercises are mostly writing and structuring tasks — beat outlines, hooks, loglines, show-don't-tell translations — with a few shoots and cuts to make the structure land in footage. Do them on the projects you are actually building; the story you outline here becomes the spine of Project 2.

Exercises are graded by effort and depth:

• ⭐ Warm-up — a few minutes; locks in a concept.
• ⭐⭐ Core — the real practice; do as many as you can.
• ⭐⭐⭐ Stretch — deeper or more ambitious; where the biggest gains live.

Model solutions and critiques for the starred and odd-numbered exercises are collected in Answers to Selected Exercises at the back of the book. Attempt each one before reading its answer — a wrong attempt teaches more than a right answer you only read.

A. Seeing structure (Eye & Ear Training)

No camera needed — just your attention and the retrieval you built in the chapter.

1. ⭐ Find the two act breaks. Watch any 2–5 minute video (an ad, a vlog, a doc clip). Note the timecode where Act 1 ends (the inciting incident arrives) and where Act 3 begins (the turn toward resolution). Write the arc in one sentence: what is different at the end than the start? (Answer discusses what to look for.)

2. ⭐ Hook autopsy. Open a feed and watch the first five seconds of ten videos. For five of them, name the hook type (question, in medias res, striking image, bold claim, promise, character) — or write "no hook" and say what they wasted the seconds on instead.

3. ⭐⭐ The open-loop map. Pick a video that held you to the end. List three questions it made you want answered, and mark roughly when each opened and closed. If you can't find at least two open loops, why did it still hold you — or did it? (Answer provided.)

4. ⭐⭐ Chronology vs story. Find a video that is told in strict time order ("then… then… then"). Diagnose whether the chronology is the best order or whether a different order would build the arc better. Propose one specific re-order.

5. ⭐⭐⭐ Frame Log — the story week. For seven days, add one story observation per day: a hook you admired, a beat that turned, a "show don't tell" moment, or a video that dragged (and where its beats were too far apart). At week's end, read them back and name the one pattern you now notice everywhere. (Guidance provided.)

B. Reading beats and sequences (Read the Sequence)

6. ⭐ Name the beats. Re-read FIGURE 17.3 (the search-box love story). Label each of the six beats as setup, complication, turn, or resolution. Which beat is the hook, and why does it work in five words? (Answer provided.)

7. ⭐⭐ Diagnose the beat map. In FIGURE 17.6, the A-story carries facts and the B-story carries feeling. Write an A-beat and a B-beat for one act of a profile about a school-bus driver who has driven the same route for 25 years. (Answer provided.)

8. ⭐⭐ The missing turn. Here is a beat list: "She opened the bakery. It did okay. She hired staff. She retired." Diagnose why it is a list, not a story, using the but/therefore test. Rewrite it as a spine with a real turn. (Answer provided.)

9. ⭐⭐⭐ Critique a real arc. Take Chapter 1's Case Study 1 (the Up montage) and map its beats onto the three-act diagram (FIGURE 17.2). Where is the inciting incident? Where is the climax? Write the logline in one sentence. This connects two chapters — do it carefully.

C. Structure and outline (the core writing work)

10. ⭐ The one-line logline. Write a logline (who + what they face + what changes) for three videos you could make this month. Keep them to one sentence each. If a sentence won't come, you don't yet know the story — note that.

11. ⭐⭐ Fill the spine. Take a real person you could film and fill in the seven-line story spine (Once upon a time… / Every day… / Until one day… / Because of that… / Because of that… / Until finally… / And ever since then…) with true beats. Mark which blank was hardest to fill — that is usually your structural hole. (Answer discusses the common empty blank.)

12. ⭐⭐ But / therefore. Take any four-beat chronology from your own life (a project, a trip, a job) and rewrite it so each beat connects to the next with "but" or "therefore," never "and then." Notice how the rewrite forces you to find causation. (Answer provided.)

13. ⭐⭐ Three acts for a testimonial. You're making a 45-second testimonial for a bike shop. Write the three-act beat outline: the normal + the problem (Act 1), the complication (Act 2), the resolution/change (Act 3). Lead with a hook that is NOT "I've been a customer for years." (Model answer provided.)

14. ⭐⭐⭐ Two structures, one subject. Take one subject (say, a community garden) and outline it two ways: once with the place as the arc's subject (what changes about the garden) and once with a person as the subject (what changes about a gardener). Which is the stronger video, and why? (Answer discusses the trade-off.)

15. ⭐⭐⭐ The reality-arc pivot. You planned a video about a shop's grand reopening (your A-story). On the shoot you discover the real story is the owner training her nephew to take over (a B-story that showed up). Re-outline the piece around the truer arc — and say what you'd need to shoot that you hadn't planned. (Answer provided.)

D. The hook (write openings that earn the seconds)

16. ⭐ Delete the throat-clearing. Here is an opening: "Hi everyone, welcome back to the channel, before we start don't forget to subscribe, so today I want to show you how I fixed my leaky faucet." Rewrite the first spoken line as a cold-open hook. (Answer provided.)

17. ⭐⭐ Five hooks, one video. For a single video idea, write five different hooks — one each of: a question, in medias res, a striking image (describe it), a bold claim, and a promise. Then pick the strongest and say why. (Model answer provided.)

18. ⭐⭐ The buried hook. You interviewed someone for three minutes and their best sentence came 2:10 in. Explain, in production terms, why that's normal and what you do about it in the edit. Reference the "shoot for the edit" principle. (Answer provided.)

19. ⭐⭐⭐ Recreate It: the search-story. Recreate the structure of FIGURE 17.3 (Parisian Love) for a different small arc of your choosing (a first apartment, learning to cook, a job hunt) as six beats — but you may only "show" through implied evidence (searches, objects, screens), never dialogue. Write the six beats and mark the hook and the resolution.

E. Show, don't tell (translation)

20. ⭐ Adjective to evidence. Convert five of these tellings into a shown beat you could shoot: "generous," "exhausted," "brand-new," "beloved by regulars," "meticulous." (Answer provided.)

21. ⭐⭐ Cut the redundant narration. A script reads, over a shot of a woman kneading dough: VO — "Here she is, kneading the dough." Diagnose the problem and rewrite the VO to say something the picture cannot. (Answer provided.)

22. ⭐⭐ The feeling and the proof. For an interview line — "I've done this thirty years and I still love it" — list three B-roll shots that would prove the feeling the words claim. Which one is strongest, and why? (Model answer provided.)

23. ⭐⭐⭐ Shoot This: a trait without words. Film 30–60 seconds that make a stranger conclude one true trait about a person or place, using only behavior and objects — no words spoken or on screen. Show it to someone and ask, "what's this person/place like?" Log whether they named your trait unprompted. (Self-critique guidance provided.)

F. Fix the story (diagnose and prescribe)

24. ⭐⭐ Fix the flat middle. A 3-minute doc has a strong open and a strong ending but "sags in the middle." Name the two most likely structural causes and the specific fix for each. (Answer provided.)

25. ⭐⭐ Fix the all-middle video. A client video "just starts talking about the product and then stops." Diagnose what's missing at each end (Act 1 and Act 3) and prescribe one beat to add at each. (Answer provided.)

26. ⭐⭐⭐ Fix the spoiled ending. A video opens with "This is the story of how we saved the shop." Explain what this front-loading destroys, and rewrite the opening so the same information becomes a payoff instead of a spoiler. (Answer provided.)

G. Structure drills and cuts (Structure Drill & Cut This)

27. ⭐ Structure drill. For each scenario, write the hook type you'd use and the one-sentence arc: (a) a 30-second product ad; (b) a 3-minute nonprofit profile; (c) a 60-second how-to. (Model answers provided.)

28. ⭐⭐ Cut This: reorder to the arc. Take footage you already have (or the coverage from Chapter 1's exercises) and assemble it twice: once in the order you shot it, once re-ordered to lead with your strongest beat and build to a change. Note which holds better and why. (Guidance provided.)

29. ⭐⭐⭐ Cut This: find the hook in an interview. If you have any interview footage, pull the single strongest sentence and build a 20–30 second cut that opens on it, then fills in the setup afterward (a mini in-medias-res structure). This is a preview of the paper edit in Chapters 29–30.

H. Interleaving (mix earlier chapters)

30. ⭐⭐ Story meets shot list. Take your three-act beat outline from Exercise 13 (or your Project 2 spine) and, using Chapter 16's shot-list idea, list the shots each beat needs — including the show-don't-tell B-roll. You've just turned a story into a plan. (Guidance provided.)

31. ⭐⭐ Story is the boss (Ch.1) meets coverage (Ch.7). For one beat of your outline, name the coverage (wide/medium/close-up + one insert) you'd shoot so the edit can build that beat's small arc. Tie each shot to what the beat needs. (Answer provided.)

32. ⭐⭐⭐ Treatment from spine (Ch.16). Using your finished story spine and logline, write the one-paragraph treatment for Project 2 (Chapter 16's format): concept, tone, arc, and why anyone watches to the end. This is the document you would hand a collaborator or client. (Model answer provided.)

I. The project spine

33. ⭐⭐⭐ Project 2 — draft the arc (the Production Checkpoint). Complete the chapter's Production Checkpoint in full: the logline, the A-story and B-story, a 5–8 beat three-act outline (ordered for the arc, connected by but/therefore, with the hook marked and a real change at the end), and one show-don't-tell shot per beat. This is the single most important page you will write for Project 2. (Model answer + rubric provided.)

J. Synthesis and teach-back

34. ⭐⭐ Teach it back. In about 200 words, explain to a beginner why "even a testimonial is a story," using open loops, the three-act shape, and one concrete example (the flooded-basement testimonial or your own). Teaching a concept is the strongest test that you own it. (Model answer provided.)

35. ⭐⭐⭐ The structure autopsy. Take a video you made before this chapter (or one of the chapter's examples). Score it 1–5 on five axes: hook, arc (is there a real change?), beats (too far apart?), show-vs-tell balance, and ending (a resolution or an outage?). Name the lowest score and the single edit that would raise it most. Keep the scores; re-grade the same video after Part VI. (Guidance provided.)

36. ⭐⭐⭐ Same ore, three arcs. Take one subject's raw material (yours, or Case Study 2's bike-shop ore) and outline it three ways: as a "man in a hole," as a "wrong turn," and as a "quest" (the arc shapes in key-takeaways). Which shape fits the truth of the material best, and how can you tell a true fit from a forced one? (Answer discusses fit.)

37. ⭐⭐⭐ Three scales of the same story. Write your Project 2 as a one-sentence logline, then expand it to a Chapter 16 treatment paragraph, then compress it to a six-word "poster line." Moving between scales forces clarity about what the story actually is — if any scale fights you, the story isn't found yet. (Model answer provided.)

When you've done these — especially the outlining and the trait-shoot — you can look at raw material and see the story inside it. That is the eye Part VI's edit chapters are built on. Next, Chapter 18 takes your story and shot list onto a real set and shows you how to run the day.