Structure is the backbone of all good stories

 

I read an interesting article the other day titled “The Two Pillars of Novel Structure”.

The author, James Scott Bell, likened the use of structure in a story to a suspension bridge, guiding people safely across a ravine below. The article covered the basics of beginning, middle and end with some nice examples from well known books and films.

He also had some checklists that I also thought you might find helpful. I do love a good checklist.

A good beginning (pillar one)…

1. Have you given us a character worth following?

2. Have you created a disturbance for that character in the opening pages?

3. Have you established the death stakes of the story?

4. Have you created a scene that will force the character into the confrontation of Act  two?

5. Is that scene strong enough—to the point that the lead character cannot resist going into the battle?

6. Does the first Doorway of No Return occur before the 1/5 mark of your story?

A good ending (pillar two) …

1. Have you created a major final crisis or setback the lead must overcome?

2. Alternatively (or additionally), have you presented a clue or discovery that is key to the story’s resolution?

3. Does this final Doorway of No Return make the resolution possible or inevitable (or both)?

I know it is a bit different when writing memoir; you can’t change the facts to make the story more exciting. But you can be selective about what you include. You can choose to include only the parts of your life that serve the book and leave the rest behind.

If a story lacks structure people end up confused. If your readers are anything like me, they will have a backlog of books to turn to if yours gets too hard. Make it easy for them. Hold their hand across the ravine.

What does everyone else think? Do you think structure is essential to a good story?

In defence of memoirs

I read an interesting article recently about whether people think memoirs are self indulgent. To be honest, I happened upon the post because I typed in the words, “are memoirs self indulgent?”

It is something the voices in my head are constantly whispering to me as I slog away at the first draft of my own memoir. Self indulgent. Self serving. Who do you think you are?

Illustration copyright Matt Clare at Mono Design

The general consensus on the site seemed to be that the people who didn’t like memoirs had problems believing that others could remember with perfect clarity conversations they had 30 years ago.

Fair point.

I liked Katie L’s response to the topic… “First, as opposed to autobiography, which is told chronologically and must be strictly accurate in terms of dates and events, memoir is a literary retelling of real life events. It is more concerned with “emotional” truth than historical accuracy. This doesn’t mean that a memoirist can just make stuff up, but it’s okay for scenes and conversations to be dramatized for literary effect, so long as the emotional content remains true and it’s basically consistent with actual events. Like fiction, memoir is concerned with literary themes and is crafted with a strong narrative arc (at least good memoir is).”

I have loved memoir ever since I read Helen Keller’s autobiography in primary school and have read hundreds of memoirs since that time.

I feel this genre offers readers a rare chance to deeply explore the way another person has lived in and thought about the world. Opportunities to have these conversations face-to-face don’t happen often enough for my liking.

The real-life forces that shape a person have always been a personal obsession of mine. I have studied counseling, kinesiology and soul-centred psychotherapy (among many other things) because I am desperate to understand why people behave the way they do.

Whether or not someone is able to perfectly recall the exact words another spoke does not diminish a memoir for me as long as I can feel the emotional honesty in the telling. For me, memoir is all about personal truth. It is the way someone remembers people and conversations, inherently influenced by their own agendas, prejudices and emotional state at the time.

I've always been a big fan of Socrates' assertion that "The unexamined life is not worth living." I love that people have examined aspects of their life intensely enough that they have been able to come up with 80,000 words on the topic.

What does everyone else think?