SEEKING STRUCTURE

 

Structure is the first aspect of building a story. It’s also how we frame coherent thoughts.

This post speaks of how crucial it is for writers, specifically of memoirs.

Books like SAVE THE CAT in all its variations give not only rough, but very detailed story beats.

If you’ve read the original, written specifically for screenwriters, you will never see most movies the same way. You’ll recognize these story beats, or turns, clicking in like clockwork.

At least for me, all genre stories begin to read the same.

The mini surprises lie in the specifics, but never in the rising or receding action/tension. The cat gets saved with numbing predictability.

Good story structure is a safety net. But please don’t be a slave to it.

Who am I saying this to?

The storyteller, of course. The storyteller in me.

DOES ANALYZING OTHERS’ WORK MAKE A YOU A BETTER WRITER?

 

One of the many gifts of being a beta reader is learning how a story hits the spot (or doesn’t) on the reader’s end. I have gained as much from being a Beta as from being the one who received feedback from another.

 

There is another form of reading, one cultivated in academia, that imposes analysis on renowned books. The philosophies behind different forms of analysis are super-imposed on the text. I’ve done my share in school, and have never found it to help my writing. For that matter, I haven’t found those who excelled in literary analysis to be strong writers of original fiction. I have personal friends I will never name who fit into this category: strong academic background, and their original fiction suffered from the indoctrination.

 

One may argue, reading this article, that any analysis of others’ work is beneficial when forging with your own story. I will not deny this can and does happen. But as a rule, effective original fiction is intuitive, and the analyzing mind needs to go into lower gear, like a barely audible background hum, in order to tell a story well.

 

Another pithy way of saying this, paraphrasing Dr. Seuss: try to forget what you learned in Rule-going School. Let the intuitive life force flow. Get on the boat, and let it sail down the river, only occasionally resorting to use the oars.

©Geraldine Aikman