Here is one for my writing pals, from something posted on FM MB, probably to scold me for writing pieces that do not conform.
Well, what I did there was "Fiction" rather than "a story", but it occurs to me that very little of what I write conforms with this pattern.
Generally, I am a 1, 2 and 3 girl. Sometimes I jump right in at 2, and let the interplay between the characters tell something of the background. Then, there is not always a denouement, and rarely a total resolution.
I am posting this because I have never seen it spelt out like this, which shows that I have never been taught creative writing, I guess.
Maybe that is no bad thing?
Maryanne
Not all Stories have such Structure
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Comments
Conformity is greatly over rated.
Some of my stories, especially in the other genre I write, begin with 3 or perhaps the crisis that precedes the climax and then jump back to 1 so that the first half of the story is done in flashback to explain how the protagonist arrived at that point. The falling action (4) can sometimes pass rather quickly and then I use a prologue to wrap up loose ends (5).
"How Do You Walk in Those Things?" jumps all around. It starts at 3, falls back to 1 and then jumps to 4 skipping 2 all together. 5 is wrapped up in a single sentence, "I think she thought I wouldn't have the courage. NOT!" and the rest is left to the readers imagination.
Hugs
Patricia
Happiness is being all dressed up and HAVING some place to go.
Semper in femineo gerunt
Ich bin ein femininer Mann
Rules are guides for the perplexed
I remember back in day, when I was a small writer, I had to write uphill in the snow for a mile every morning. My stories were not great. A good friend told me that nothing happened in my stories; that no one changed between the beginning and end. It was true. I thought that the situations I described were interesting in themselves, but there was no conflict, no growth (or even deterioration).
This kind of diagram gave me a handrail to lean on. I tried writing stories following that structure: with a vamp in the middle and the characters sliding off the end, and it did help.
Once I'd gotten the lesson, I forgot about the framework. It's like learning to drive with a manual transmission: in the beginning you need some frightened adult shouting, "Let out the clutch! You're stripping the gears!" but once you get it, they can stay home while you wheel around on your own.
I admit I'm just a sandlot writer, so I'm no authority, but I have read a lot of stories, REAL stories by people you'd have heard of, and they aren't set up like that diagram. I think you'd have a real challenge if you wanted to find a well-known story that fits that diagram.
Anyway, my point is that such a diagram might help someone who is struggling to figure what they might or could be doing with their stories, someone who is trying to understand why their stories don't work or why they get stuck, but as a description of stories in general, it really doesn't measure up.
- io
Chart
On that chart, I probably use 2-3-5. Maybe one day I'll get it right.
Melanie
Chart
On that chart, I probably use 2-3-5. Maybe one day I'll get it right.
Melanie
Not the only valid structure …
I'm waiting for my copy of "XDM2e - Extreme Dungeon Mastery, 2nd edition". There is a whole chapter on story structures. After all, a RPG adventure is just a stroy in another guise, so the same priciples apply. And yeah, there were quite a few more than just the simple 1-2-3-4-5 that you have shown above: they handled 4 different basic structures as examples and you can bet, that there are loads of variations – all valid in their own right, just as every story may be similar to those that have been written before but may (and should) be unique in some way.
I Agree with Rigid
There are many ways to tell a story.
The main faults with the diagram you've shown are:
The diagram suggests an exposition dump at the beginning of a story. While this might have worked in Hollywood eighty years ago, today's readers will lose patience. They want story . . . Now.
Exposition should continue throughout a story and often key exposition is part of the denouement.
A good story will have challenges --- not a challenge.
A good story often includes a villain and helpers for both the hero and the villain.
The diagram suggests a climax at mid-point. That would be like one of this tedious films with a half hour of celebration after the battle is won. The climax should occur about 95% through the story.
The denouement and resolution are often one.
Jill
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
I agsree.
For my money, the story after the climax, the falling action and resolution are really one thing and should be able to be wrapped up in a single chapter.
Hugs
Patricia
Happiness is being all dressed up and HAVING some place to go.
Semper in femineo gerunt
Ich bin ein femininer Mann
RPGs and storytelling
RPGs are a great way to learn storytelling, especially if doing long campaigns. Typical structure would be action/adventure with the DM trying to pack a bit of everything into each session: dialogue opportunities for character expression / interaction, investigation/mystery aspects, travel montages, and of course climactic combat. Then if doing many sessions it's a trick to have the entire campaign follow a pattern where the peaks build to smaller climaxes which in turn lead up to the major one at the end.
Of course they can also be run in what we used to describe as the avalanche method: characters start out, climb a hill, and something explodes to trigger the entire mountain of snow to collapse around them and chase everyone down the hill at breakneck speed, needing to dodge tree after tree and hop over stone after stone, always one minuscule step in front of total disaster until they reach the bottom gasping for breath with their backs against a wall of debris-filled snow while they look at each other and say, 'holy crud. we survived??'.
Which is usually when the mega-earthquake hits... ;)
But the skills of managing pacing of scenes, knowing when they are 'done' and the narration should move things along, tricks to maintaining tension while still providing room for character growth, all of that can be acquired with experience - provided the group actually wants storytelling and not a mechanical 'dungeon crawl' forged from just throwing dice at things while doing stats accounting.
In Medias res
Back in high school English, they mentioned a different structure -- more like 3a, mix of 1+2, 3b, and then 4+5. The term for that is "in medias res" (in the middle of things -- I knew my high school Latin would come in useful.) It's been around a long time; IIRC, the Odyssey is like that.
Then there are the stories that don't bother with 1 or 2, they just leave you to fill in the blanks. They'll often leave out 4 or 5, too. Especially useful for portraying confustion.
BTW, as I see it, a "story" doesn't need to have a particular structure. All it needs is a narrative thread that strings the actions together. (By the end, at least.)
And there are plenty of stories where the protagonist isn't changed by the end. (Sometimes that's the point.) More important: is the reader "changed" by the end?
boring
I think that it would be incredibly boring if every story had to follow the same pattern.
I tend to rush into 2 then 3.
I tend to rush into 2 then 3. As most of my stories are self contained, 1500 to 2000 words I don't waste to much time on 1. That gets deleloped in 2 and 3.
I saw the comments on you releasing your stories once a week on FM. I don't get what "not good" problem is? Where the hell do they get off telling you when to post. If they don't appreciate your work, don't read it.
Leeanna
Story structure
Robert McKee's book Storyand his seminars, is one of the big influencers among screenwriters and many novelists who follow his structure diagrams. When you learn them, you'll recognize the same structure in movies and books. Others swear by the Save the Cat series, especially Save the Cat Writes a Novel.
But for folks who like diagrams, however simple or complex, wander through these Google Images: Story Diagrams
A college writing teacher I had used a different approach. First pick a novel, with two requirements:
1) The book must be popularly successful among mainstream readers. Think Dan Brown and not Charles Bukowski. In other words, not avant garde or experimental or that year's "cutting edge".
2) You must like the book, because you're going to spend a lot of time with it!
Simply, list the plot points as they occur. "She walks into his office and says a man is taking advantage of her sister", "That night his partner is killed", etc. (Yes, it's The Maltese Falcon) Note which points are positive, negative, and when. And diagram it any way you want; one writer I know uses a long roll of white butcher paper horizontal on his wall; his work-in-progress looks like a seismograph).
Separately, write sketches of the characters: "Sam Spade is a private detective with a strong distrust of cops and other authority figures. His treatment of women often appears thoughtless, if not outright disrespectful" etc.
Note where plot points and character intersect.
Do the same for three novels and follow your structure.
There; you've just been spared a semester and couple of thousand bucks ...
Story Structure
Many moons ago, I pursued an MFA at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts. I hunted it down but it got away, only receiving a flesh wound. I did take a couple of semesters of Screenwriting with Michael Casale (he worked with David Lynch and Mark Frost on "Twin Peaks" and other projects). We spent a lot of time in class debunking the popular story structure books out at the time from Robert McKee to John Truby to Carl Sautter and back. Stephen King and Richard Price dropped by to speak to the class and they both swore that the most important elements were narrative voice (or POV in a screenplay) and emotional resonance (i.e. that the characters acted like real human beings might given that specific set of circumstances). My favorite memory of that class was getting the opportunity to speak to King about our favorite sci-fi series, "The Outer Limits." To be honest, Mick Casale's best advice was something he learned as an architectural student in Minnesota. As opposed to Saarinen or Gaudi, the design principle real working architects endorse is "form follows function." If you sacrifice function for the sake of form, then you'll be left with a house that looks incredible but will have some unusable spaces. Unless you're Thomas Pynchon or James Joyce, the best structure is that which tells your story in the most accessible and fluent way.
Just my 2 cents...although NYU charged me a hell of a lot more :)
Hugs,
Sammy
I really liked your comment on story structure
Thanks for sharing that -- I enjoyed the whole thing, from the debunking to the emotional resonance and so on.
hugs,
- io
Architectural Fiction
I am from a family with a background in construction and I have always believed in functionality having its own beauty, but you have to admire Gaudi's adventurous approach.
Although I try to vary my styles most often by having the storyteller an odd person, but I cannot escape my functional approach and my focus on the narrative and the characters.
I know that some writers love to dwell on descriptive prose - the flowers in the garden and the feeling of stockings against freshly shaved legs - but people will know that I like to paint the picture that tells the story, generally in as few words as possible.
I also like the background to emerge from the narrative and I don't mind stopping just the other side of the climax.
There are plenty of examples of that in stories and in movies.
I do remember watching the play "Waiting for Godot" which I thought was brilliant - it had no beginning and no end. It was just a slice of life with clearly defined characters. You might say that it was not a story at all, but it was absorbing and it was definitely art.
In architectural terms I suppose it was a bare piece of land leaving the designer to stand and imagine what cold be built.
I had hoped that this image might provoke a discussion and I am glad that it has.
Maryanne
I saw that clown posting on
I saw that clown posting on the board about your stories Maryanne. I also saw yours and others replies. I noticed he didn't seem to be an author but felt everyone posted stories for his benefit only.
You keep doing you Maryanne as you have your own style of writing. If everyone wrote the same it would be boring. Yes there are styles of writing I don't like and I scroll on by but unlike that clown I understand that is ME who doesn't like the genre which is mine and not the authors fault. There are several authors I love reading but they also have some work which is not my style so after sampling I move on and don't try to discourage the author.
Keep on writing girl
Cheers
Amanda
Perhaps the best thing to
Perhaps the best thing to look at would be this - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hero%27s_journey (maybe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hero's_journey - depending on browser)
Keep in mind, this is a HEROIC journey. This is one well known and quoted structure that appears in heroic fantasy/mythology from Beowulf, the Kaevala, through the Greek/Romans, Egyptians, and even "The Hobbit".
The point is that it is types of stories that follow similar structures. A slice of life, story, for example, has no real beginning to end other than 'getting up in the morning' to 'going to sleep at night'. There may be conflict, but it's the same ongoing conflict that so-called normal people have. Death of a Salesman is a slice of life story, despite being depressing as all get out. Grapes of Wrath can be called a slice of life story as well.
Depending on the type of story you write, you can have all sorts of events mixed up, without harming the story. You could also end up writing an atrocious story at which even a Mary Sue would turn up her nose. The core of most stories is that there must be some sort of engagement that enables motion forward. Otherwise, you're writing an inventory. That engagement can be the AnyMan moving through life, it can be the heroic fantasy, it can be the 'dragged to the depths of Hell' (See Death of a Salesman above).
I'll get a life when it's proven and substantiated to be better than what I'm currently experiencing.
Not all structures have such a story
When I was studying English Literature and Langwich, I honestly and without exaggeration had one teacher for every idea of what was behind every story.
There was one Marxist teacher, and for him, every story was about class struggle.
There was a teacher who bought into the whole nonsensical, overly-complicated Joseph Campbell "everyman a hero" template.
There was another who was so Jungian that they found archetypes around every corner.
And honest to God, there was a Freudian who found daddy issues and penis envy in the most harmless narrations.
I pretty quickly realized that you could pick ANYTHING and say that EVERY DAMN STORY ON EARTH fit your mold.
After weeks of going from one to the next, it became clear to me that you could say that anything was the key to story telling.
As Benjamin Franklin observed, the fact that we're rational creatures means that we can rationalize anything.
You could write tome after tome of literary criticism demonstrating that every story is based on the process of bread baking, or sausage making, or whatever the hell you like.
I called this principle a dog is like a tree. (They both have bark.)
The idea that story-telling has ONE TRUE STRUCTURE and can be reduced to a pattern, bothers me to no end. Maybe it's because I'm not a great writer. But I see no reason to limit myself to writing stories that conform to any particular pattern UNLESS SOMEONE IS PAYING ME TO DO SO.
- io
The thing is, if you limit
The thing is, if you limit yourself to Heroic Fantasy! The Epic Adventure! types of stories, Joseph Campbell is right on the money. These are the tales found in the Old Testament, Beowulf, The Song of the Nibelungs, the Kaevala, some (many) of the Indian subcontinent works, and so forth. Even King Arthur. (Unless you're talking about the anarchosyndicalist commune) Those stories were composed, often over centuries, to serve the same type of audiences, and so a common structure developed to entertain. There are likely tens of thousands of stories we'll never know about, because they weren't widespread enough to get to a civilization that could write them down. Heck, even the various stories from native american indian tribes follow that same structure of rise, fall, struggle, and Win The Girl At The End. (or whatever you want to call the prize).
Yes, there are other story types (I outlined a bunch in my post above), but many people want to go for the Epic Tale - and diverging too far from what people are used to is a drastic step. It may work, it may not.
Oh - BTW. Many of the early forms of those tales WERE raunchy as all get out. Heck, even Shakespeare is full of innuendo. Sex jokes were probably the earliest ones told, other than maybe schadenfreude. Sex sells. Look at Jupiter/Zeus. I'd be that when the bards told his stories, the taverns were packed.
I'll get a life when it's proven and substantiated to be better than what I'm currently experiencing.
Literary Critical Follies
Depending upon your point of view, you could say I was fortunate to study literature at a leading institution of higher learning in the early '80s, the hysterical apex of post-modernist French philosophy and cultural criticism. You know, deconstruction and all those other buzz words. I did have the pleasure of having Jacques Derrida actually say "phallogocentrisme" to me personally in his Algerian-inflected French accent. Yes, the French talked a lot about "phallus," not the primetime soap opera about oil magnates in Texas. Many of us preferred a less meta view of literature and language and counted ourselves in the Michel Foucault camp of historical and political inquiry. That is until it was confirmed that Foucault was, as our colleagues across the pond would say, a poofta. We threw our hands up in the air. The French were really obsessed with phallus. It was a lot more pleasant to discuss philosophy with Cornel West. Brother West must have sussed me out since he once asked me to babysit his 4 year old twin daughters while he and his wife attended a Teddy Pendergrass concert at Madison Square Garden. Was I that obvious?
Hugs,
Sammy
A Swing and a Miss
One of my American Lit professors was a completer perv. He could find an element of crude sexuality in any novel.
On one of the tests, I had trouble coming up with an essay answer so I let my mind go where I thought his twisted brain would find most enjoyable. Too bad he had a grade student grade those tests.
Jill
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
The joy of not giving a d**n
Writing just for the fun of it, without any ambition to be a serious author, and devoid of any schooling in this area is quite liberating.