John Truby’s The Anatomy of Story: 22 Steps to Becoming a Master Storyteller will potentially change your life. You need this book, if you haven’t read it yet! His surgically precise analysis of story cuts deeper than what you would normally find in any other how-to writing book on the market. His industry knowledge will forever change the concept of three-act structure for the reader, and offer you 22 steps to a more masterful story. My copy of this book is underlined to death. Initially I found this mentioned in a conversation about screenwriting, but my thought was that anything which works for the screen can also potentially work for a novel. With a short story, as he mentions, you may not run through all 22 steps he lays out, but you may hit on the first 7 at least. Outside of his 22 steps, there’s a lot of other interesting concepts and analysis mentioned throughout the book that might activate your creativity in some new way.