Category: structure

Okay, I’ve been dancing around this one for a while, but let’s do it.

Let’s talk about structure.

I think the first thing we need to address is that there are many, MANY types of story structure. If you think of a house, we can talk about its internal structure, but that could mean we’re referring to plumbing, heating, electrical, the actual 2×4 framework, the insulation, or even just the way walls and doors are laid out in the floorplan. All of these are the structure of the house, yes. But we understand that swapping out a circuit breaker isn’t going to fix some clogged pipes, and it’s definitely not going to make a shorter path between the bedroom and the living room. Different structures do different things in different ways, and the ways to implement or fix one don’t necessarily work for the others.

When we talk about structure in writing, it’s the same thing. There’s dramatic structure, narrative structure, three act structure, and more. And some of these have multiple names depending on what school of literature your professors were fans of. And like with a house, we need to account for them all, but they’re definitely all their own thing. And like with a house, we can’t apply the fixes for one to another. What works for this probably isn’t going to apply to that.

And this is why I end up having a problem with a lot of guru types announcing you have to this with structure or you never have to bother with that for structure or sometimes just saying… well, nonsense. It’ s really clear a lot of them have no idea what they’re talking about. I saw someone once arguing that three act structure is outdated and there’s no reason you can’t have five or seven or twelve acts. Which sounds really cool and whoo-hoo we’re breaking rules, especially if you’ve got no idea what three act structure is…

Point is, there’s a lot of folks out there talking about structure who have no idea what they’re talking about and you should probably ignore them and what they say.

With that said… let me talk with you about structure.

I’ve mentioned a lot of this stuff here before, and I’ve done this three part lesson or lecture or whatever you’d like to call it before, too (about six years ago). So if you’ve been reading the ranty writing blog for a while, you’ve probably seen some of it or been referred back to it. I figure it’s never a bad thing to revisit stuff, maybe update some examples, explain things in new ways.

Over the next few weeks, the three forms of structure I want to blather on about are linear structure, narrative structure, and dramatic structure. All of these interact and work with each other, and it’s my personal belief that all three of them have to be strong if I want to tell a strong story. If you want a quick, thumbnail explanation of them–

Linear structure is how my characters experience the story.

Narrative structure is how I, the author, decide to tell the story

Dramatic structure is how the reader gets the story

There’s a little more to it that that, but I’ve found this is a good, quick way to think of them.

So this week we’re going to talk about linear structure. Again, simple version, this is how my characters experience the story. Remember how I mentioned different names for things? Well, the Russian literary term for this is fabula. Another term you may have heard for this is continuity. It’s the line of events from past to present. Thursday leads to Friday which leads to Saturday and then Sunday. Breakfast, coffee break, lunch, dinner. Birth, childhood, college years, adulthood, middle age, old age, death.

If you like, remember I’ve mentioned Watsonian and Doylistic a few times? Things happening within the story as opposed to things I’m doing to the story? Linear structure is a Watsonian thing. I’m still choosing the characters and events, sure, but the linear structure happens entirely within the story.

Now, I mentioned all of these forms of structure are really important, and I’m tempted to say linear structure’s the most important (although I don’t want to pick favorites). And there’s a simple reason for this–most of us are experts when it comes to linear structure. Linear order is how we experience things all the time, every day. We’ve been studying this form of structure our entire lives.

This is why it gnaws at us when somebody knows something now, but doesn’t know it later. We pick up on it when ages don’t quite line up. We tend to notice when effect comes before cause, even if it’s subtle. Even if the story gives these elements to us out of order, our minds tend to sort things back into linear order. Because it’s how we’ve been taught to deal with the world. Things that don’t match this universal structure rub us the wrong way, even if we don’t always realize why.

Another way to think of linear structure is a timeline. And it also lets me point out a key aspect of this. If you’ve ever watched a procedural show or a detective show, it’s really common for the characters to take the various clues and incidents and break them down into on a chalkboard or whiteboard. Maybe they stick up some photos, too. And they all go in the order they happened– 4:08, 4:15, 4:16, 4:23, and so on.

Now, that key thing to keep in mind? It doesn’t matter what order the detectives discover the clues in. If we first learned the maid was here at 4:16 and then later on we learn the butler heard the gunshot at 4:08… well, it may sound silly to say but the gunshot still happened first. Learning about them out of order doesn’t change the order the events actually happened in.

So if I’m writing a story—even if I’m telling the story in a non-linear fashion—there still needs to be a linear structure. And the linear structure needs to make sense. Because readers will notice if it doesn’t.

A good way to test the linear structure of my story is to just arrange all the flashbacks, flash-forwards, recollections, frames, and other devices in chronological order. Pull apart my outline or notecards or whatever I’m using and just… put the story beats in order. Simple, right? The story should still make logical sense like this, even if it’s lost some dramatic punch at a few points (more on that later).

If my story elements don’t work like this—if effect comes before cause, if motivations get really weird, if people know things before they learn them—it probably means I’ve messed up my linear structure. I got so focused on doing clever, out-of-order things that nothing works in order. And—not to keep hammering this point—but people will notice this. They have to. It’s how our brains are wired, to put things in linear order.

There was a show I watched a few months ago that had a non-linear gimmick. Lots of flashbacks in every episode. And not all to the same period. Like, if the episode was set on Friday, we might start with flashbacks to Wednesday afternoon, but then move on to Monday morning flashbacks, and then some from Thursday night. And then the next episode is Saturday, but it flashes back to Tuesday and Wednesday morning and maybe also Thursday night, but for a different character.

On one level this was fantastic and I loved it. But as the show went on… it started to gnaw at me. And I found myself analyzing the show more than watching it, trying to figure out how this flashback and that flashback lined up, especially if we were saying the current episode was set Sunday morning. I talked to a couple friends who were watching it and discovered they were all having the same issue. Started good, but as the show went on the structure became more and more problematic.

In the end, the story didn’t make a lot of sense when you put it in order. There were just too many weird issues that didn’t line up. And it messed up a lot of the characters, too. The way they’d act and react, things they say (or not say). It was all being done to preserve big reveals later in the show, rather than being natural dialogue “now.” Once it was all in order, it was obvious the characters didn’t have any reason for the way they were acting or talking.

Y’see, Timmy, no matter what order I decide to tell things in, my characters are experiencing the story in linear order. And their actions and reactions, their dialogue and motives, they all have to reflect that. If halfway through my book Wakko flashes back to what happened a month ago, this isn’t new information for him—it happened a month ago. So everything he does or says before the flashback should be taking that information into account in a natural, believable way.

I know it sounds pretty straightforward and… yeah, it is. Linear structure is going to be the easiest of the three forms I blather about over the next few weeks because it’s the one we all know. Also, it’s just a logical, objective thing. There isn’t a big debate to be had about whether or not Thursday comes before Friday.

And yet, people still mess this up all the time. And mistakes with linear structure are almost always because of narrative structure.

But we’ll talk about that next week.

Until then, go write.

Let’s start with a question. I’m guessing most of you have read a Sherlock Holmes story or three, yes? Seems like everyone ends up going through the first dozen cases or so at some point in their lives. So let me ask you something about them.

Why did Doctor Watson live with Sherlock Holmes?

No worries if you don’t know. I want to talk about the answer a bit. Truth is, this is a trick question because there’s two very different answers.

One answer is that Watson moved in with Holmes because he’d just returned from abroad (Watson was a retired soldier and battlefield medic, as some of you may know) and, well, he needed to find an apartment in London. A friend put him in contact with Sherlock Holmes, who needed a roommate, and the two found each other agreeable enough and bam, a legendary duo was born.

But…

Watson also moved in with Holmes because Arthur Conan Doyle (still a few years out from being “Sir”) needed a reason to explain why the two of them were always together. Since Watson was going to be narrating these stories, it gave him an excuse to be there when Homes had a third-pipe breakthrough. When Holmes woke up early with a solution, Watson was just in the other room. This meant Doyle didn’t need any odd additional exposition to explain how/why Watson knew things he otherwise wouldn’t be present for. He was an active witness for everything.

Now, I chose this particular example for a reason. There’s a pair of terms that’ve been drifting around for a while– Watsonian and Doylist (or sometimes Doylistic). Essentially, they refer to the different reasons things happen in a story. On one level, they happen because the characters are responding to plot events, making decisions and being active participants in the story. But on another level, things happen because I—the author—have structured and plotted the story in such a way that it passes information to the reader and gets certain specific reactions from said reader.

Let’s pick apart the first few chapters of one my recent books– The Broken Room. I want to talk about meeting Hector and what happens in the bar. And why it happens.

When we meet Hector it’s mid-afternoon and he’s already had a few drinks because he’s a guy with a lot of regrets and guilt he’s trying to forget. He’s chosen this particular dive bar for safety/security reasons, because Hector’s trying very hard to live off the grid, but old habits die hard. Especially when you’ve maybe got good reason to be cautious. When little Natalie walks up and starts talking to him, he’s immediately suspicious of who she is why she’s here because… well, nobody should know him (see all those previous points). When he realizes she’s at least somewhat on the level, and hasn’t eaten in a few days, he orders her some food because he’s a halfway decent guy. And when the men show up to claim her, Hector’s gut reaction is not to trust said guys (again, see above). Then there’s a moment where Hector’s weighing his own desire/ need to stay under the radar against… well, two guys harassing a little girl. And then he beats the crap out of said guys very quickly and efficiently, because that’s how Hector was trained to deal with problems.

All good in-character, in-world stuff, yes?

Now, on my side of things… I began with Hector half-drunk in a dive bar in the middle of the day because it immediately tells you he’s a bit of a burnout. Right there on page one. But there’s also all these little hints about the kind of person he is as we’re giving a description of his average morning and his tactical analysis of the bar. It’s the kind of stuff that makes the reader intrigued about who he is (or was). When Natalie shows up, it’s more analysis, we’re getting a stronger sense of who Hector is and how he views the world. And again—it’s intriguing. We’re immediately understand this guy comes with a lot of backstory. Getting Natalie some food is basically a “save the cat” moment. It’s him doing something decent early on that he didn’t need to do, reinforcing in the reader’s mind that Hector’s a good man. Finally, when the two men in suits show up, it’s Hector’s big moment. Now he’s given a chance to step away and go back to his normal life and instead he’s making an active decision to become part of the plot.

There’s two and a half chapters roughly broken down for you. The Watsonian reason why Hector is doing things. The Doylist reason he’s doing things.

When I’m reading something (or maybe watching something) that’s just not working for me, one thing I ask myself is what is the storyteller trying to do here? What reaction is this chapter/ scene/ interaction/ line supposed to get from me? What information is it trying to get across?

I think it’s important to be able to answer these questions. Last time I talked about how it’s fine to break the rules as long as you have an actual reason for breaking them. This is kind of the same thing. If I want to do a weird structure or have a horrible protagonist or an odd way of doing dialogue, that’s cool. There are a bunch of stories out there that went against the norm and did some amazing things.

But…

There’s also a lot of stories out there that went against the norm and did… well, nothing. They end up being boring, erratic, confusing, or just plain bad. And I think it’s because those storytellers didn’t know why they were doing things. Their only reason was… they wanted to? They saw someone else do it in a book and just decided to do it in their own completely different book. They just… thought it’d be cool because they were doing something different?

Y’see, Timmy, I need to know why my characters are doing things, and their reason for doing things need to make sense, on some level. But this also holds for me as the author, I need to know why I’m doing things with my story. What I’m hoping to accomplish. How I expect my readers will receive this structure, that format, those creative choices.

And like most things in life, if I’m just doing it to be cool… it’s probably not going to be cool.

Next time, tis the season and all, so I thought I’d talk about Leatherface, UberJason, and Frankenstein.

Until then, go write.

So, rather than talk about writing, I wanted to spend a few minutes talking about doctors.

I’m guessing most of us have dealt with a doctor at some point in our lives. I know I’ve dealt with a bunch. General practitioners, sure, but I also had a long bout with a nose and throat specialist that ended with… well, a lot of stuff cut out of my head. I’ve also seen doctors for a pair of knee injuries that I’ve talked about once or thrice. And another doctor for one of those, well, men-over-a-certain-age examinations. And one of those led to another specialist doctor, and another surgery, where I believe a few other specialist doctors were in attendance.

That’s not even counting dentists and orthodontists. People like to make jokes, but they’re doctors too. When I finally fought my way out of poverty, well, my mouth was a mess. I hadn’t seen a dentist in over a decade. I’d had one tooth actually crumble in my jaw. Another one cracked in half. I probably count as a cyborg with all the metal and ceramic in my head now.

Plus, I had a high school biology teacher who was very firm that we call him doctor, not mister. He had a doctorate and he wanted to be sure everyone knew it. And I mean, most of my college professors were doctors. English literature, comparative literature, astronomy, art history, anthropology, and more. Hell, I had one anthropology TA who had his doctorate, he just couldn’t get a better position, job-wise.

Oh, and my friend Mary (credited in the back of several books) is a doctor, and she puts up with so many bizarre questions from me about drugs, injuries, zombies, stuff like that

Point is, I’ve known a lot of doctors. You probably have, too. We all understand that doctor can mean a lot of different things. I don’t want an art history professor operating on my throat, and I probably have a better understanding of early American literature than my proctologist, even though he’s got a doctorate and I don’t.

And there’s nothing wrong with this. We’re not putting anyone down, we’re just acknowledging that doctor is a term that can mean a lot of very different things. The advice my dentist gives about, well, dental matters is not going to apply to art history. And vice versa.

Okay, yeah, I’m really talking about writing.

Structure is one of those things people talk about a lot, but so often it’s clear (to me, anyway) they don’t really know what they’re talking about. They’re that guy whining that their art history professor can’t treat cancer or Jill Biden isn’t really a doctor. They’ve chosen one definition for structure and they discard (or mock) anything that doesn’t meet said definition. One example I see a lot is folks railing against three act structure, but I’ve found most of them don’t seem really clear about what three act structure is. Especially in relation to other types of structure.

Structure can be confusing in writing because there are so many different types. Three act structure is a thing, yes. But so is dramatic structure. And linear structure. And narrative structure. And network TV shows and movies tend to have a four or five act structure (or even six in some cases) but that has to do less with storytelling and more with how many ad breaks said network insists on.

I think the problem some folks have is that when the idea of three act structure got more or less loosely codified, it became something they could point to. Especially people who… well, didn’t know what they were talking about. What was supposed to be guidelines suddenly became RULES. Solid, well-defined rules, which meant I could now say you were breaking the rules or following them.

The problem was, they were trying to apply the rules of three act structure on television’s five act structure. Or they’d insist narrative structure had to follow the rules for linear structure. Which, again, is like insisting Jill Biden isn’t a real doctor because she doesn’t do open heart surgery. Which would also apply to Dr. Mendelsohn, the guy at UCLA who spent several hours poking around inside my neck and skull, as mentioned earlier. He’s clearly not a real doctor.

(He is. He’s fantastic. Honestly saved my life)

Anyway… my point is, structure is a big umbrella with a lot of things under it. And if we want to get good at this, we need to understand the differences between them, but also how they work together to create a good story. I can’t just take one type of structure and say this is the only one that matters. Especially if I’m applying the basic rules of another type of structure to it.

Think of it this way (to use our doctor analogy again). Your body has a digestive system. And a nervous system. Circulatory, endocrine, skeletal, so many systems. We understand they’re all separate things that operate in different ways. The rules of one don’t apply to another.

But we also understand all these systems need to work together. Even on our basic, layman’s, non-doctor level we can see the places they overlap or brush up against each other. How changes to this one will affect that one.

And that’s how stories work. We’ve got several types of structure, each with their own individual rules, each working in their own way. But they rub up against one another, and this structure is going to affect that structure. Making some blanket, universal edict that covers all of them just shows I don’t really understand any of them.

And I need to understand them if I want to tell good stories.

Yeah, I’ve mentioned a lot of different types of structure. There are links to more detailed posts about almost all of them. Which also means I need to go clean up at least four or five older posts so they don’t look too chaotic when you click on those links.

Anyway, next time… I wanted to talk about getting the last word.

Until then, go write.

I wanted to talk a little bit about horror today, as I tend to do around this time of year. More I thought about it, though, I was having trouble thinking of an aspect or angle of horror I haven’t done before. Sometimes more than once. I’ve talked about sub-genres of horror. Talked about monsters. Talked about the victims.

So then I thought I’d talk about the mechanics of horror. But even that’s tough because of the wide and varied sub-genres. I’ve mentioned this before. The horror of Frankenstein is not the horror of, say. Experimental Film by Gemma Files which is not the same as Bradbury’s Something Wicked This Way Comes and none of those are The Devil’s Rejects. Depending on what kind of horror I’m aiming for, I could be trying to do some very different things. Which means different rules and guidelines and expectations.

And this made me think, of course, about comedy.

Structure-wise, comedy’s a lot like horror. It’s got many levels and subgenres. It can be subtle and nuanced or in-your-face blatant and over the top. It’s really common for people to like one form of it but not another. I  also think they’re both something that’s kind of ever-present in our lives, on some level or another. There’s a lurking dread or a potential for laughs in almost any situation.

I made what I thought was a semi-clever observation about comedy a while back, and I think the same parallel holds for horror as well—scary is to horror the same way notes are to music. One is made up of the other, but just having a bunch of those components doesn’t automatically make the bigger thing. Just taking a big pile of “scary things” and dumping them on the page doesn’t mean I wrote a horror story, in the same way that, well, having a big pile of meat and bones doesn’t automatically give me a person.

See? That was kind of creepy, right? So is this post a horror story now? No, of course not. No, not even if I add a jump scare. Or is it? Maybe as we keep going you’ll realize how I’ve lulled you into this false sense of security and then maybe you realize… you’ve been in this horror story all along.

Also, it kind of matters what’s in that pile. I can’t just have a big pile of bones, especially the same kind of bones. A big pile of skulls definitely isn’t the same thing as a person. I also can’t mix in random horse bones or gorilla muscles or insect DNA. I can’t just shove anything in there and expect to end up with a working person (or horse, or insect). And even when I get all those components right, they can only go together a certain way. These bones go here, those muscles connect there, that part… okay, look, that’s kind of optional. You can put it in or leave it out at your discretion, just remember what you did with it.

This might seem kind of boring, just putting together a person. Makes it sound like every person we make is going to be like every other person. And on some level… yeah, they are. There are a lot of basic similaritiesbetween people, but there are a lot of differences, too. Yeah, even on this basic constructional level. And even more so once we get to know them.

Also, quick pause before we move on. Please don’t get confused by my use of a body as a metaphor for a story. If I’m writing horror, yeah, obviously mixing horse parts with human parts can be an element in a great story. Mixing in some insect DNA has been the basis of several great horror stories. But that’s talking about things in the story, not the structure of the story itself. To fall back on said metaphor, that’s me focusing on an individual bone and saying there’s absolutely nothing wrong with it while ignoring the fact said bone is in a pile of meat that used to be a person.

Or that I’m trying to tell you is still a person…

So, anyway, how do I do this? How do I figure out which parts I’m going to sew together into this new person a.k.a. story? Which ones do I want in there, which ones need to be in there, and which ones… okay, look, the antlers are cool, yes, but people don’t have antlers. No antlers!

Okay. maybe very small antlers.

A lot of this is going to depend on two things. Knowing what I want to end up with and general empathy. The first one’s easy. Once I know what kind of horror story I want to tell, it’s easier to choose the parts I need to tell that story. Yeah, there’s some general stuff I’ll need, but after I’ve got the rough framework there I can start fleshing in (so to speak) all the little details and elements that are going to make this story unique. And this can be a multi-step process. I don’t need to get it all right on the first try, I can go back through and shape the story to better be what I want it to be.

The second part, general empathy, is a little tougher. As I’ve said here once or thrice, I can’t tell you how to have empathy. But it’s sooooo important in horror, because I need to know what my audience is expecting and I need to understand how they’re going to receive these elements in my story. Is that person being sprayed with blood and gore and slime supposed to be horrific? Awful-but-funny? Mildly erotic? Am I sure my readers are going to take it the way I intended it? Because having a beat land wrong can really kill the flow of my story.

And that would be… well, horrible.

So there’s some quick thoughts on horror. Should be easy for you to swallow, now that they’ve been deboned and cut into little bite sized chunks. Yeah, some of them are still moving, don’t worry about that…

Narrator: And as they choked down the morsels, they realized… it had been a horror story all along.

Next time, we could probably talk real quick about NaNoWriMo.

Until then… I’m not letting you out of the room until you swallow every last piece of this.

I mean, hahahahaaa, go write. That was it. Go write.