Craft: Story structure
This is going to be a short one, as I have course work pending for uni. In fact this is me putting off the course work, but I can only justify a short one.
So, moving on to the topic, Story structure, what is it? Why is it important?
I could get all meta about it and draw parallels between life, and the universe but no one needs that. So story structure is all about expectations.
We as readers and writers are conditioned by all that has gone before. Things have a start, they have middle and they have an end. But there is more than that. Those three stages don’t cover much of anything, as significant things happen in each of the stages.
In the start we have the introduction to the conflict, the characters, the world. We establish the rules. We set up everything.
The middle is the inevitable. It is where thing play out, we explore, we angst about what the hell is going on and why we should care.
The end, it the resolution. Its the pay off on caring. Hopefully.
That is it in a nut shell, but we could go deeper. What is this rising action thing I have heard so much about, I hear you ask.
Well, its been covered by many more insightful than I. You could Google and see what comes up. But as with some many things in art, in writing, it means something different to every one. To me, it is the increase in investment. Things happen and start pulling you along, dragging you through what could be a quite boring book.
Stories have structures because everything does. Play with them at your peril, for they are there for a reason. We need them. A reader wants to be surprised, and entertained but they also want to be lulled with the familiarity that comes with the structure, the reassuring sense of home. Its what draws us back to the old fairy tales.
If any of you feel like a bit of homework, yeah, I’m sharing the pain here, you could look at some of the classics and see what structures they follow and break. See what draws you in and repulses you. You might find out something about yourself.
