Writing Advice: “The Lie,” and What it Really Means
Welcome to the 600th Storyfix.com post.
There’s actually been more than that, but I pulled a bunch of the early articles down when Story Engineering was published, so the two tools (tool boxes, actually) would fit together better without much on-the-nose overlap.
Today’s post is a recent email exchange with one of my story coaching clients.
She wrote last week to update me on her progress, and to share her recent experience working on the story with another writing coach she’d heard about, who in that process found herself morphing from an avid structure disbeliever into an enthusiastic advocate for the principles of story architecture, which leverage story structure at their very core.
Bear in mind, I’m talking about the writing coach here, not my writer friend/client. Who was, and remains, a believer.
I hear a lot about this, have since Day 1 of this journey.
Credible, even famous writing “gurus” are everywhere who advocate story development as a totally organic, impossible-to-successfully-plan process. And sometimes, often in fact, the outcome — to the ears of an eager writer hoping for some inspirational guidance — is toxic and dangerous.
Because it is, by and large, a lie.
At a conference recently I heard the somewhat famous keynote speaker actually brag about not knowing how his scenes would end, how glorious is the experience of coming to the keyboard with an unfinished scene and “seeing where it goes.” To just “write about these characters” as thoughts spilled out of his head.
Sounds romantic, yes? Brilliant even. We sit there in awe and hope that someday we, too, can pull this off.
There’s a post on another website (it’s up right now, not gonna link to it, but it’s a BIG honkin’ website that is really a portal for guest posts, almost exclusively), with an article by the site owner (unpublished) advocating “improvisation” during the writing process. In it is this line: “Because there is no map that can help us get our idea or story onto the page.”
That is wrong, of course. It’s a lie, actually.
A big, naive and toxic lie, one that gets traction when famous authors (which that blogger isn’t) lay claim to cluelessness as a process, sometimes going further to say or imply that “planning” a story can’t possibly work, and/or that it robs the writing process of it’s joy.
In this moment is where an understanding of “planning” and “structure” begin to be seen as the same thing. Which is also a lie.
The term I just used here, admittedly with a bit of snark in it — “Clueless” — is also a lie, in this context. Because those writers aren’t clueless, they’re just not recognizing what it is that they know before they sit down to write a novel. It is the implication that what they know doesn’t help them upfront — that it is their improvisation, rather than craft, that makes the magic — that is The Lie.
There’s even a book out now on this very thing, from my publisher in fact, entitled: Story Trumps Structure: How to Write Unforgettable Fiction by Breaking the Rules.
It’s good stuff, too, I’m happy to link to it, even when the Forward (by a guy who writes books very much like mine) takes an overt shot at Story Engineering, and thus, at me. Which is ironic, as I’ll explain in a moment.
The book is good. It’s just that the title is a lie. Story doesn’t trump structure, story IS structure.
Structure gets all dressed up with a list of other aspects and essences of storytelling… which, in that book, are EXACTLY the same things I write about in both Story Engineering and in Story Physics. We are in raging agreement about everything relative to how to make a story work.
When something isn’t working in a novel, it is often a structural issue. Perhaps created that way via improvisation and the discarding of “rules” (not my favorite word, either; I prefer principles). When that issue is recognized, and a revision ensues from that recognition, guess what is happening: the story is being moved closer to the standard benchmarks of classic structure, away from the discarding of them toward — perhaps kicking and screaming, but probably just in blind ignorance — toward the very craft that was always available from the very first moment of inspiration and idea-chasing.
That title is part of The Lie. Because it implies that departing from craft to chase down improvised in-the-moment options will get you there. Yes it will… but only if the new direction actually enhances craft, not the other way around.
Here’s what’s going on: these writers, these gurus and keynote speakers and famous authors talking about their process in interviews, are simply putting out there what is true for them, but short-changed by a limited perspective (they aren’t thinking all that deeply about what drives their story development process, it’s much more fun to label it improvisation or inspiration or fairy dust shooting out the rear end of some cloud-dwelling muse… when in fact, it’s all just craft — story physics — framed as something miraculous.
Truth be told, just about everyone, including me, who writes books on “how to write stories” is saying the same basic things. We try for our own slant, something fresh, and a clearer vocabulary to provide easier and clearer access to the process. But the principles are there, call them what you wish.
Like gravity. Like the passage of time. Like swallowing something toxic. Nothing trumps the physics that govern the experience of being here. That’s true in the creation of our stories, as well.
The truth is that the elements of story physics, rendered through structure, are non-negotiable.
Don’t tell me that Stephen King, the supreme poo-bah of pantsers, doesn’t know what makes a story work. He knows.
And when you know those things as well as he does, then perhaps you no longer need to think about them — to plan your story — as you improvise and explore your story idea from the very brilliant seat of your pants. Until we own that ability, then the extent to which we just “make it all up as you go along” without regard for story physics is the extent to which we will, we must, revise. And when we do that, we are heading back toward the heart of story physics, in most cases exemplified through the very structure that was so cavalierly disregarded in the first place… for the draft that didn‘t work.
That’s not a lie, that’s the absolute truth. Every time.
Here’s what my client send me, excerpted, about her experience with her structure-averse story coach:
Last year through an online writing course, the instructor they assigned to me did not believe in structuring at all. I don’t even want to tell you how much this online course cost, but I lost all my money because I was structuring my novel using your tools. She just wanted chapter one!!
So I would send her scenes to keep her off my back but I told her I needed to structure my Parts or Sections before I sent her anything in order, yada yada. She was extremely supportive of (her title) but wanted me to put butt in chair and just write, for crying out loud! Pretty soon, she became so discouraged with me and I became so behind in my assignments that I was dropped from the course.
She told me in an email that she wanted to continue to be a part of my journey in this novel and asked if I would I be interested in having her helping me outside of the course. I told her yes, but that she would have to wait for me to nail the structure, via an outline. She told me that she would – adding that she “didn’t believe in it” – but the story was worth waiting for.
I honestly didn’t care whether she believed in it or not. I knew it had to be structured.
WELL! I finished my beat sheet and wrote the first 4 scenes almost immaculately – she read them and said – “Genius!” She finally understood! and is praising Story Engineering. She is AMAZED at the results! She now understands how I was able to write the scenes so quickly and with everything they needed! She is now a true believer!
One thing that impressed her so was that (title) is COMPLICATED. And my Prologue (1), Opening Scene (2), Scene 3 and 4 were dynamite for a strong foundational and beginning. (I also used your advice on putting Martha into peril in the opening scene, which she thought was so cool!)
Anyway, this instructor will edit my scenes for me – I will try and have the manuscript draft by the fall. I am now on a glorious roll, and finally, am able to do what I love best (writing), and to do it with freedom that only Story Engineering can provide. I promise to keep in touch with this work in progress.
And here was my short response, also excerpted:
First thing… it was great affirmation for you to hear the “other” instructor so excited about your story. It really is special, and worth all the bumps in the road and the time it takes to make it right. I’m so happy to hear you are re-energized on it.
She isn’t the first writing instructor out there who “doesn’t believe” in structure as a process tool. Thing is, ultimately, those instructors, by definition, MUST believe in structure after the fact, because structure is ALWAYS present in a story that works.
So what they’re really saying is, “I don’t think I understand it, I don’t think I can do it, I don’t believe there are targets and criteria to shoot for, and because I’m willing to revise and revise – in fact, because I believe it is unavoidable — I believe I can do this any darn way I want. And oh by the way, after I do it that way, I’ll just revise and revise until I get it right.”
What they fail to add is… “until the story finally aligns with the optimal structure, which was waiting all along… I just had to find it on my own terms.”
Disbelief: the epitome of “act now and apologize — and repair — later.”
Nothing wrong with that. Write how you need to write. Just recognize the reality of what’s really going, the truth about the creative process you’ve chosen.
If you don’t possess the necessary craft to recognize when something isn’t working, and then what to do about it when you do, then odds are the feedback that alerts you to the fact will come from an agent or a publisher. Or if self-published without an honest editor, from readers.
And by then it’s too late.
The thing that’s always available, waiting to help you get there at whatever point you let it in, is structure. Which is indeed that supposedly non-existent “roadmap” leading you toward an effective story.
Nothing about that statement is a lie.
Writing Advice: “The Lie,” and What it Really Means is a post from: Larry Brooks at storyfix.com
The post Writing Advice: “The Lie,” and What it Really Means appeared first on Storyfix.com.
