Water 7 Saga is my favorite saga in One Piece. It has a complex plot, provides a real test for Luffy to be the captain, offers deep backstories for two important Straw Hat crew members, and introduces Sogeking. I couldn't ask for more.
I think most will agree that the most appealing part of One Piece is the world building and the story itself. Eiichiro Oda is surely one hell of a writer. It would be a fun challenge to break down his story, and analyze it.
Speaking of fiction writing, usually, writers are divided into two categories, pantser and outliner. Or maybe there are some that prefer a hybrid one. I consider myself an outliner. It's hard for me to just meander, typing text without any objectives or goals. Most of my friends are pantsers. They feel that writing fiction with an outline could limit creativity, making it too rigid. I guess it comes down to our personal psychology.
As an outliner, I like to try many methods and frameworks for outlining a story. To name a few: Save the Cat, 8 Story Circle, the Snowflake Method, 3-Act Structure, 5-Act Structure, Try/Fail Cycle, MICE Quotient, etc.
One of these frameworks, and recently my favorite, is called the 7-Point Story Structure. Developed by Dan Wells, I love how simple this method is. It's simple yet can help add complexity to the story at an abstract level.
I want to apply this framework to analyze the plot structure of One Piece, focusing on the Water 7 Saga, since I love those stories so much. Spoiler alert for those who want to read or watch One Piece up until Skypiea. Might be best if you stop read this post here.
The Method
Let's see how the story structure is according to Dan Wells.
- Hook
- Plot turn 1
- Pinch 1
- Midpoint
- Pinch 2
- Plot turn 2
- Resolution
That's the 7 points.
In my opinion, there are some prerequisites before using this method. At the very least, you have to know what your story is about. Compare it to Save the Cat by Blake Snyder; he said that we better not start our first line if we don’t know what our story premise is.
So, let’s apply that. Let’s find the premise for One Piece’s Water 7 saga.
The Straw Hat crew reaches Water 7, where they soon fall into trouble, making enemies with the Franky Family and CP9 of the World Government. The crew also begins to fall apart. On Enies Lobby, it comes to a showdown between the Straw Hats and CP9.
(More or less the story premise, taken from One Piece Wiki.)
With that premise, we can start structuring.
Start at the End
Dan Wells gave us really good advice on planning an outline: start at the end!
By starting our outline with the resolution, it gives us a sense of direction, we know where the story is going.
Now, let's do it, let's start from the end. What is the resolution for the Water 7 saga?
How about this: The Straw Hat crew got Thousand Sunny.
Let's keep it.
Next, according to Dan Wells, we need to move to the beginning part, the Hook. One simple trick is just to do the opposite state because it will give us an arc of progress.
For the Water 7 Saga, the Hook could be: The Straw Hats arrive at Water 7 to find a shipwright who can repair their ship.
With that, so far we have this:
- Hook: The Straw Hats arrive at Water 7 to find a shipwright who can repair their ship.
- Resolution: The Straw Hat crew got Thousand Sunny (and Franky!).
Notice how the resolution and the hook resonate!
We can see that the story moves from point A to point B. Most of the time, this is what we want from a story. Something changes, the plot moves toward some resolution, whether it’s success or failure. The story needs to be resolved.
Now that we have found the resolution and the hook, we will then try to find something in between. Something that is so crucial it flips the story direction. Dan Wells calls this the midpoint. Usually, the midpoint is where the character starts to move from reaction to action.
In the Water 7 Saga, it could be when Luffy (looking much more serious than his usual self) decides to leave the Going Merry. Knowing how the Straw Hat crew loves their ship so much, this is a really sad moment in the story. The Water 7 Saga is indeed full of sad moments. 🙁
Let’s see what we have so far:
- Hook: The Straw Hats arrive at Water 7 to find a shipwright who can repair their ship.
- Midpoint: Luffy realizes that their ship's condition is beyond repair. He decides to leave it.
- Resolution: The Straw Hat crew got Thousand Sunny.
We can see the Midpoint is something that sets us in motion from Hook to Resolution. The other points are similar to this. Let’s take a look at Plot Point 1. This is where something will set us from Hook to Midpoint. Plot Point 2 is where something will set us from Midpoint to Resolution. I hope you get the idea.
Let’s continue our structure. Plot Point 1. Usually, at this point, we will start to introduce the conflict. This is where the story world starts to change, new people are met, and new secrets are discovered. It may be somewhat similar to a call to adventure, or it could also just be confronting new ideas.
In the Water 7 Saga, it is quite difficult to point out where the call to action is, since this saga is so complex and so many things happen all at once. For the sake of simplicity, let’s put our Plot Point 1 at where the Straw Hat crew meets the Galley-La crew.
Let’s see what we have so far:
- Hook: The Straw Hats arrive at Water 7 to find a shipwright who can repair their ship.
- Plot Point 1: The Straw Hat crew meets the Galley-La crew.
- Midpoint: Luffy realizes that their ship's condition is beyond repair. He decides to leave it.
- Resolution: The Straw Hat crew got Thousand Sunny.
We started to see some storylines here. Nice 🙂
Adding Complications
Our structure is still rough because we need to add some complications. In the 7-Point story structure, this is what Pinch 1 and Pinch 2 are supposed to do. And after that, we would need one big push in Plot Point 2.
Let’s work on Plot Point 2. Basically, this is the last piece the character needs to move forward to the Resolution. Dan Wells stated this is the “The power is in you!” moment. This could be the moment when Usopp calls out to Luffy during the fight with Rob Lucci. What a badass “the power is in you” moment when Luffy stands in Gear Second stance, promising that he will never go down.
But, since we already set our Resolution to our plot, it looks like this badass moment could not go in this structure. At least for this particular plot. You see, with the 7-point story structure, you could create or breakdown every plot and subplot with the same method.
Looking at the Water 7 Saga, we could assume this story has several plots. Each can be developed with a 7-point story structure. We can have a 7-point structure plot for Nico Robin, for Usopp, Franky, Going Merry (this is what we are currently doing), Luffy, CP9. Heck, maybe even Sogeking could have his own 7-point story structure.
There will be times where the points from one plot and another subplot collide, and that is when the point of the story becomes more impactful. For example, the badass Gear Second stance we mentioned before could be a Plot Point 2 for Luffy’s plot. At the same time, it could be a Midpoint for Usopp’s plot, a Resolution for Sogeking’s plot, etc. I hope that makes sense.
To find a suitable Plot Point 2 for our structure, we need to identify a pivotal moment that sets the characters toward the Resolution. This moment should be significant.
A possible Plot Point 2 could be the moment when Franky decides to join the Straw Hat crew. This decision comes after a series of events where Franky sees the strength and resolve of the crew during the Enies Lobby arc.
So, let’s see what we have so far:
- Hook: The Straw Hats arrive at Water 7 to find a shipwright who can repair their ship.
- Plot Point 1: The Straw Hat crew meets the Galley-La crew.
- Midpoint: Luffy realizes that their ship's condition is beyond repair. He decides to leave it.
- Plot Point 2: Franky joins the Straw Hat crew.
- Resolution: The Straw Hat crew got Thousand Sunny.
Looks good. But we still need more complications. We need to add Pinch 1 and Pinch 2. These points apply pressure on the characters, forcing them to act and driving the story forward.
Pinch 1 occurs between Plot Point 1 and the Midpoint, while Pinch 2 is between the Midpoint and Plot Point 2.
For Pinch 1, we could consider the moment when Usopp is beaten and robbed by the Franky Family. As this is the event that led to Luffy’s realization (perhaps his first captain-y decision).
For Pinch 2, we might look at the moment when Robin is taken to Enies Lobby. This escalates the stakes significantly, and now we know who the real enemy is: not Galley-La, not Franky Family, definitely not Nico Robin, but The Word Government. We need to fight CP-9 with all our might!
Let’s see the complete outline now:
- Hook: The Straw Hats arrive at Water 7 to find a shipwright who can repair their ship.
- Plot Point 1: The Straw Hat crew meets the Galley-La crew.
- Pinch 1: Usopp is beaten and robbed by the Franky Family.
- Midpoint: Luffy realizes that their ship's condition is beyond repair. He decides to leave it.
- Pinch 2: Robin is taken to Enies Lobby. Strawhats, Galley-La and Franky Family join forces.
- Plot Point 2: Franky joins the crew.
- Resolution: The Straw Hat crew got Thousand Sunny.
Now that’s a structure we can imagine to write. And remember that we can do the same for each plot and subplot. We can see that in our current structure, there is no CP-9, Spandam, World Government, Iceburg, Tom… IMO, each of them will have their own subplots, and at some moments, their story points will collide, creating big moments for the whole story.
This is why I love Dan Wells’ framework. For me breaking down a story into points like this is fun to do and less stressful rather than outlining without clear story points in mind.
We can put each story point into a kanban board too, so we can easily see where the important moments collide from each plot and subplot. I think it’s always a good idea to find a way to keep the story coherent and intact while having so many plots and subplots happening.
The Ice Monster Prologue
If we look at the 7-point story structure that we have now, we can see that starting the story directly with the Hook carries the risk of making the story boring. This is normal since the Hook is a setup for the story. It is the place where the author should slowly introduce many elements. So, instead of beginning with the Hook, consider starting in-medias-res, or we could also have something really interesting happen as the very first event in the story. Perhaps the Yokozuna trying to stop the Sea Train could be our pick for the Ice Monster Prologue.
(Dan Wells coined the term Ice Monster Prologue while he read Game of Thrones. That books, he said, open with exciting monster action, rather than explaining the families, history, kingdom, et cetera.)
Consider this as a pro tips from Dan Wells.
Regarding the One Piece Water 7 Saga here, I’m sure that you could have a different opinion on what event should go to what plot point. I would love to hear it from you :)
Cheers!