In 2011, I was attending a writing course. The tutor introduced me to the concept of writing structures, possibly for the first time. I immediately found the whole thing to be disturbing, upsetting and depressing. I'm sure most of you find things like the mono myth, the hero's journey and the circle to be helpful and you're grateful they exist but I never did. And no this is not just concerns about writing becoming unavoidably repetitive and generic. And yes I've been told that these structures are flexible and able to be coated in anything we can imagine. But that doesn't make me feel better about it. To me, a big part of the joy of writing was the freedom it gave. A world in which you could do anything, free from the all the limitations of reality. But people say that these writing structures must be followed if a story is to be good or even considered a story at all. To me, this means that not only are we not so free in the world of writing but it is actually less free then other aspects of life in general. That if I write, I HAVE to write according to these structures, I can't miss a step or element or otherwise divert from the structure or the story won't be good. Just as surely as messing a program's code will leave it malfunctioning and buggy. That we are not free to write as we want if we want people to like our work. I expressed my feelings to my tutor, he asked me why I was so bothered by this. And I told him that, to me, it meant humans were robots. For a long time I've been bothered by the idea that we might be essentially machines, following our genetic programming, our sentience nothing more then chemistry and neurology. To me, this whole thing about writing structures suggests that's true. That we will only every respond positively to a very specific story structure. And if it's not written according to that structure, we will reject it as surely as a pc will reject a file that's not properly formatted. That we are locked into these particular structures and there's nothing we can do about it. And something that's always baffled me is why do we need these structures anyway? So many books I've read and documentaries I've seen have praised these structures to the sky, treated them like gospel and their creators like saints. But I don't remember any of them saying exactly why these structures work, what it is they do for a story or why humans find them favourable. Why is it similar elements and structures are found in a culture's stories even when they developed completely separate from each other? Why is is that stories need to follow these rhythms and shapes and include particular elements? What is it in us that makes us respond to these patterns and elements? What would happen if I wrote something that didn't conform to these structures? I think my tutor said simply "The same reason all cars these days are built with the same shapes, because they work." Well frankly that's not good enough for me, I need a deeper explanation. And his implying that it is a matter of science the makes the structures work didn't help. I've been meaning to ask these questions for some time. what finally prompted me to do it was coming across this video on Youtube talking about Dan Harmon's circle. Saying what a profound work of genius it is, how every story is basically this. He says how life itself marches to this rhythm. What rhythm? Where does he get this idea from? I've never noticed any of these rhythms he claims to exist. So to reiterate summarise, I'd like to ask you to answer these questions. Where do these structures come from? Why do respond to them? Why do writers keep using them? Are we bound to them forever? Can't we be free of them? What would happen if we didn't keep to them? And yest I've heard they are flexible. The circle came up in a Rick & Morty episode and they said "We don't have to any of this it's just a guide." But due to my autism, I have a black and white mentality, everything's either 100% true or false. I can't tell guidelines from strict instructions. And it's hard to think that these structures are optional when everyone's praising them, treating The Writer's Journey like the bible of writing and making videos where they don't mention that anything is optional.
No one says you HAVE to write to these structures. It is simply that, if you are telling a story, you WILL end up telling a story that fits those structures, so why not think about it from the very beginning? You will fit the three act structure - you will have a setup, confrontation and conclusion. These are generic terms that don't literally mean, for example, that your hero must have a big fight with someone. Another name for them would be - beginning, middle and end. Some people start their story at the end and then go back to the beginning, but they're all there. Writing structures are not proscriptive, they're descriptive. In other words, they're an analysis of how stories are written, not an instruction as to how to write stories.
Apologies in that case. I can see why it would be difficult for you, but there're few things in the universe more gray than writing/art/creative process. It's all very loose and interpretive, but all stories fall into some kind of basic story structure. I don't put much credence into all the various methods and narrative models and pop-academic crap that will teach you to be a writer in 30 days or anything like that. There are great lessons and tidbits to be found in all of those things and I've studied the shit out of them, but to me it's always been fairly intuitive. If I were you I would ignore all of it and just write things. Who cares what method you're using or not using so long as you're having fun?
Ashley, speaking as a fellow Aspie, I found comfort and guidance in the 'structures' because they made sense to me. (My chosen 'structure' is the Save the Cat! beat sheet). Before I started using a 'structure', I wrote fan-fiction. (Yes, yes - I know. But it was only an exercise, since I was starting out. And no, I didn't write myself in as a Mary Sue. Aggh! The horror!) Anyway, even back when I was writing fan-fiction, I could see the benefit of having a structure: a beginning, middle, and end. But I had no idea how to do this, which meant that after I decided to write something more serious, my writing suffered because I was writing random scenes and ideas as they occurred to me. I was pantsing my writing (i.e. "writing by the seat of my pants"). This is fun, but it's also limited. About 8-9 years ago, I started using the "Save the Cat!" beat sheet, as well as an outline. This allowed me to define in advance the hero/heroine, the supporting characters, the antagonist, and the timeline, as well as write chapter summaries and scene summaries, which could be as long or as short as I wanted to make them. This helped me immeasurably: rather than limiting my writing, it meant that I now had a guide to work from. I could look at the plan and say: OK, in chapter 1, my hero is doing ABC and XYZ, because that'll help him achieve his goal. If (while writing chapter 1) I decided that I wanted my hero to do something slightly different to the plan (e.g. because it's funny), there was nothing stopping me from doing that, as long as it made sense and the hero was still pursuing the same goal. I'm not saying that you have to use a plan, if you're not comfortable with it. I only think it might help you, that's all.
Because that's just naturally how stories are structured. Even if you didn't actively think about them that way, that's how they work out. Even Hemingway's six-word story: "Sorry soldier, shoes sold in pairs." Setup: Soldier goes into shop. Confrontation: Soldier tries to buy one shoe. Conclusion: Soldier can't buy one shoe, because shoes are sold in pairs.
You're a pantser, same as me. My notion of structure is really light touch, almost a one-line summary. The rest of it I like to discover - freedom, as you say. Too much planning and I also find that depressing, but I know it works for others.
More or less inevitable in the broad sense, yes. For the same reason you can't build a house with a roof on the bottom and the basement on the top and the paint inside the drywall and the driveway on the ceiling. Now, that doesn't mean you have follow the academic steps and pre-fab all the pieces before you put the story together. Not at all. But any story you write, by whatever steps/process you follow, will invariably conform to the general superstructure of a story by definition. Think of it like a sandwich. You don't need to go culinary school or peruse academic dissertations to know that the meat and cheese go inside the bread and not the other way around. Or that the vegetables are probably grouped together and not interspersed with the meat and cheese. And that the condiments are spread on the bread instead of rolled over each individual component. Just by virtue of having eaten sandwiches before, you know how they're supposed to be structured. Writing is the same way. If you've read stories before and produce one of your own, it's going to look a lot like the structure they teach in school, even if you've never studied it. Nor do you need to study it to produce the same product. Actually, that's not too bad an analogy: stories are sandwiches. The basic universal structure is stuff inside bread. The academic bells, whistles, and other crap is how you assemble and order the things inside the basic structure, though it will essentially look and taste the same no matter the finer details.
Homer's analogy is very apt. *nods* Ashley, if you are interested in seeing how a structure works, may I recommend the "Save the Cat!" method? It's not difficult to learn, and it's very, very helpful. I studied it along with Jessica Brody's book "Save the Cat! Writes a Novel", and it helped me write eight novels so far, plus the 9th one I'm writing now. Here's Jessica introducing the method, in very simple terms, in about 10 minutes: And if, after having watched this video, you want to see more ... feel free to download the starter kit, which is available here. Again, if you're not interested in planning, feel free to ignore me. (I don't mind, honestly). But if you'd like to see an easy-to-learn planning method, then perhaps "Save the Cat!" can help you as much as it helped me. Anyway, I've been writing about this for too long, so I'll shut up now. (Sorry)
course it is possible to just write a stream of consciousness with no plot or middle or end, but no one probably yourself included will want to read it complicated books also may have more than three acts, or be a series of threes..if you think of something like the long firm each part has its own begining middle and end but they also tell a larger story
Recommend Carl Jung. Bit of a rabbit hole. Theory follows practice. If enough people wore strawberries instead of earrings for long enough, theories would emerge to explain the practice. That doesn't mean you have to wear strawberries yourself. You could wear pineapples, or any other fruit or vegetable of your choice. Developing a theoretical understanding is a long game, but you kind of have to learn the rules to become meaningful in breaking them.
I was also the type who couldn't really stand structures. I wrote my first project without anything in mind but a few ideas and a bunch of character sheets. And I found that what the others above say is true. Your story will inevitably fall into some kind of structure. Mine did. I didn't understand the three-act structure in any way shape or form. Not at first. But when I started learning about it later on, I realized that my first project fit it perfectly. It isn't as if I hit that structure perfectly in the first draft. No, no. The story didn't feel right at all at first. I couldn't really grasp why. But I followed my feeling. And after about 8 whole drafts, it finally felt more like a proper story. Turns out, this was because I hit that structure. That's how I tend to learn. Theory is something that I'll have a hard time grasping. But when I get some practical experience, I can use that experience to understand the theory and put it into perspective. The "experience" came from my first project in this instance. You may still wonder the why. Why do these structures work so well? Some people above said that it's just naturally the way it all works out, which is true. Everything abides to the laws of our universe. Nothing can go against that. We have to go back to the very roots of this dramatic structure, which started in ancient Greece. Aristotle said that every story has a beginning, a middle, and an end. It's impossible not to. A story must begin. Why? Because it must abide to the axis of time. That's why there is also a middle and an end. Even if your story is open-ended, that's still an ending. The end is the end. That principle is where the three-act structure is based from. The three acts represent that beginning, middle, and end. If you have trouble thinking about structures right now, think about that. Then try to work your way up. I'm not very qualified to talk about this subject but I thought I'd give my two cents.
@Ashley Miller - have you written any completed stories (preferably short ones)? If so, I have a way to demonstrate what I said above.
Elemental flexibility would become implicit as you examine stories that exist, seeing what they do and do not contain, rather than taking instruction.
Essentially because it always has ever since story telling became a thing the preference has been for the tale to build towards an ending. If you don’t want to do that don’t but it will result in most readers finding your work lacking as it leaves them with unanswered questions it’s a question really of psychology or philosophy not one where we can give you a neat answer in a forum post… the short version is that the human psyche in general prefers it like that. also on a wider note all of life operates on a three act structure we are born, we live, and then we die. We get up in the morning, do stuff, and go to bed at night. Every task we complete big or small has a beginning a middle and an end. In that context why is an aimless question, it just does
I don't so much have a problem with structure. My problem is the idea we are all bound to the same univeral structures over and over. I find that unacceptable.
We're not bound to them. We fall into those patterns because they work. As I said above, if you have a work that you've written, I'll prove it to you. No need to post the story on the forum either.
Perhaps you could describe which alternative story structure you would like to use artistically people sometimes use a flow of consciousness approach where there is no structure and they just write whatever thought occurs, but that’s not a model that lends itself to getting readers outside of the high lit art for its own sake approach
It’s also worth saying that something like the hero’s journey is not a structure in the same way as the three act structure it is instead a description of one sort of plot, Hemingway posited that there were 7 basic stories that describe all of human endeavour. The march of technology and discovery probably adds another couple but the basic point remains that there are only so many types of story that anyone can tell.
But why do they work? Why do we fall into them? Can we write something without them and still write something good?
Well I suppose maybe one where the character is already pretty good and fully developed and so doesn't change or grow. One where 75% of the time everything's going wrong and the characters are struggling to over come it. Or where, near the end, everything's at it's worst before the triumph. But in general I'm talking about freedom. Are we only ever capable of responding positively to the same basic plots? Doesn't that suggest we're all robots?
Those work as well. I have written stories of that kind, as has my favourite author, Jack Vance. But they still fall into the three act structure. No. Because stories may be variations of the plots in a very broad sense, but they all have their own unique characteristics and execution. What Hemingway meant was that all stories fit into these plots in a very wide interpretation of the word.
They work because they fulfil the needs we humans have when engaging with a story. We want to find out what happens next. If we don't find the premise interesting, we stop listening or reading. We want an emotional payoff at the end of the story, and for that to occur, we have to care about what happens during the story. I take it that as you haven't answered my question, you haven't written a work that you want to use to try and further understand the idea?
