Story Structure – Narrative Arc

[Rigor Mortis]

I love this discussion!

You may have spoken too soon!

I don't argue with many of the points raised above. Any story with a beginning, middle and end should be written with a beginning, middle and end in whichever order fits the purpose. Not all stories necessarily follow that trajectory, or may do so in more oblique terms. I've seen it argued that such essentials serve to define what is a story and, by deduction, not all prose is a story. That's ok too. It can still be compelling and that's what makes writing worth reading.

Whatever way you organise it, your written piece starts somewhere and ends somewhere with other stuff in between that either lends it coherence or gives the incoherence meaning or meaningful absence of meaning. While it's been said that the idea of "character arc", "precipitating incident", "conflict" and "resolution" aren't prescriptive, they still conjure even visuals that can be hard to escape.

Of all the elements of writing in things that I read, plot is of least interest, unless it's so painfully awful that it ruins the other elements. "Resolution" is a word that catches in my throat wherever it's used, including storytelling. Character arc is another, almost like a character might undergo change in the same way that physics determines the flight of a ball.

What was the question again? Story structure with elements as posited may reach a larger audience but that shouldn't inhibit people from just writing the story as they imagine it, as they believe it should be written. I'm of the view that good writing asks more questions than it answers, in any case.

 

[Louanne Learning]

Not all stories necessarily follow that trajectory, or may do so in more oblique terms. I've seen it argued that such essentials serve to define what is a story and, by deduction, not all prose is a story. That's ok too. It can still be compelling and that's what makes writing worth reading.

But we are defining what a story is. A story must have a point. What is the point of the story? If there is no point, it all adds up to a scene, or a series of scenes, or some good descriptive writing. Compelling, sure, but I'm not sure that without a point it is a story.

While it's been said that the idea of "character arc", "precipitating incident", "conflict" and "resolution" aren't prescriptive, they still conjure even visuals that can be hard to escape.

I don't see them as limiting terms, but rather guides. The way that they can be applied are limitless.

"Resolution" is a word that catches in my throat wherever it's used, including storytelling.

But then how does a reader get satisfaction from the story? A story can't just float off into nothingness. It has to have a conclusion.

Character arc is another, almost like a character might undergo change in the same way that physics determines the flight of a ball.

I don't see it this way. There are way too many variables to introduce into a story.

but that shouldn't inhibit people from just writing the story as they imagine it, as they believe it should be written.

Of course, but they should still tell the whole story.

I'm of the view that good writing asks more questions than it answers, in any case.

I like this.

 

[Rigor Mortis]

A story must have a point.

But why? Ok, just being a bit mischevious there, but sometimes the point can be the difficulty in working out what the point is. Absurdist humour fits the brief to be determined "story" but may not have any clearly defined "point" other than this life is absurd.

I don't see them as limiting terms, but rather guides.

Again, things resonate differently for different people. Those words have meaning, whether or not they're to be taken literally. I find that underlay to be oriented towards limitation.

A story can't just float off into nothingness.

Unless it does? If a story has to have a point, and then has to have a resolution, it's at risk of becoming a fictionalised doctrine as prescribed by the author. There's lessons to be learned and this is what you should learn. I prefer an author to evoke rather than prescribe. We can call it a sliding scale with many points of departure for different authors.

Of course, but they should still tell the whole story.

Over on what we used to be, I referenced a reading of Beckett's "Watt", beautifully rendered by Barry McGovern and available for free on Spotify, at least on this side of the big water. I'd encourage everyone to give up an hour to listen to it. Even if it bugs the life out of you, it's only an hour! Thinking about it, it's like Beckett freezes time and the whole story is related in examination of few random incidents, with a rhythm that's poetic. Story telling tends to be far more rational and narrow than real life, leaving out the bits that conflict with the arc and resolution. I prefer it to include those bits, even if it spoils the ending.

 

[Louanne Learning]

the point can be the difficulty in working out what the point is. Absurdist humour

I'm involved in a roleplay over on WF.com and the genre of our roleplay is "bizarro." It's a lot of fun to write - to be weird and whacky and absurd.

I suppose I understand what you mean - having each reader take their own meaning from it, but the writer plants the seeds.

may not have any clearly defined "point" other than this life is absurd.

But that is a point?

Unless it does? If a story has to have a point, and then has to have a resolution, it's at risk of becoming a fictionalised doctrine as prescribed by the author. There's lessons to be learned and this is what you should learn. I prefer an author to evoke rather than prescribe. We can call it a sliding scale with many points of departure for different authors.

I totally agree about the different points of departure, and think that does not contradict having a coherent narrative arc.

 

[Rigor Mortis]

But that is a point?

I was going to run back in to change that sentence after reading it and realising I was defeating my own premise! But that would be cheating.
I would say, sometimes the point is not even remotely revealed, but the reader decides on what it might mean themselves, leaving potential for a whole host of points that defy easy labelling, ensuring the maintenance of the true means by which writers are likely to earn a living: teaching.

When I read "arc" I picture downtown St Louis.

 

[Naomasa298]

But why? Ok, just being a bit mischevious there, but sometimes the point can be the difficulty in working out what the point is. Absurdist humour fits the brief to be determined "story" but may not have any clearly defined "point" other than this life is absurd.

Often, the point is to entertain the reader.

 

[Louanne Learning]

sometimes the point is not even remotely revealed,

then what role do the characters play?

 

[Louanne Learning]

Often, the point is to entertain the reader.

Ah, and then the next question is what kind of story is entertaining?

 

[Naomasa298]

Ah, and then the next question is what kind of story is entertaining?

It'll mean different things to different readers.

What I really mean is that, not all stories are there to send a message, or be meaningful in any deeper sense.

 

[Rigor Mortis]

Often, the point is to entertain the reader.

Never!
And entertainment is often unpointed beyond the intent to entertain.

then what role do the characters play?

They carry the story, which may or may not have a discernible point to it.

 

[Naomasa298]

And entertainment is often unpointed beyond the intent to entertain.

That is the point.

 

[Louanne Learning]

It'll mean different things to different readers.

What I really mean is that, not all stories are there to send a message, or be meaningful in any deeper sense.

I suppose I have been looking at this through the lens of my own experience.

But - I don't think my point was that a story must have a "message" - just that it be complete.

 

[Naomasa298]

But - I don't think my point was that a story must have a "message" - just that it be complete.

It'll depend on the author, I think. Some people do write to get a message across.

 

[Rigor Mortis]

That is the point.

I'm doing my very best to avoid saying that pointy birds are pointy pointy.

 

[Also]

IMO the most fundamental divide among readers and writers of fiction runs along conventionality. Most readers , the ones making up the bulk of the market, crave conventional structures, techniques, predicaments, tropes, endings, etc, and dislike ambiguity. They want to see creativity, but they want books to color creatively inside the lines of convention, genre, expectation, and craft lore. Other readers — I'm one most of the time — find conventionality tedious, skim through a lot of it, and respond positively to unconventionality. We love writing that colors outside and across the lines of genre, expectation, and conventional craft lore, writing that constantly "breaks" or plays with or upends or mocks "the rules" in craft lore.

Have you read The French Lieutenant's Woman (1969, John Fowles)? (Rhetorical plural "you") How did you feel about the fact that it had two contradictory endings? In general, conventional readers dislike or even hate the ambiguity of the ending. Readers who constitute Fowles's natural readership love the unconventionality of it, the ambiguity, and many of the other "rules" he violates along the way.

I enjoy a well-written genre novel about as well as I enjoy a thick, juicy burger and onion rings on occasion. Every July, I eagerly await the publication of Daniel Silva's next Gabriel Allon novel and read it in a single sitting. But those things are more fun than fulfillment for me. My wife and I watch a lot of "genre" TV and entertain ourselves predicting (with hilarious accuracy) next lines of dialogue throughout the show. (As I write this, we're finishing the last episode of Dead to Me on Netflix, a series that has been chock full of such fun, predictable dialogue.) In "genre" mode, one craves and appreciates the writers' mastery of convention and trope. That's "fun" or sometimes sentimental TV. Then there are the series like American Rust that have a more real and thought-provoking take on life, even when a few Hollywooden moments and tropes that weren't in the novel slip in.

It took me years of attending non-explicitly but de facto genre-centric critique groups to reach the insight that nearly everything — literally — that they preached was the opposite of what the writers I most enjoy reading actually do in their work. (McEwan, Murakami, Strout, Kitamura, Ishiguro, Fowles, Durrell, McCarthy, [Jim] Harrison.... Many other of the "literary" crowd.) Everything one reads online and in print about good writing nowadays is entirely oriented toward good popular / genre writing. The once iconic writing guru John Gardner got it right about literary writing when he wrote, There are no rules. And it's so refreshing when writers do that skillfully. (He has been supplanted by the likes of John Truby and Robert McKee, as befits the takeover of prose fiction by the screenwriting mentality.) My greatest disappointment about my own writing is when I recognize tropes and other conventionality in it. Those are the parts I'm most likely to rewrite.

 

[Louanne Learning]

My greatest disappointment about my own writing is when I recognize tropes and other conventionality in it. Those are the parts I'm most likely to rewrite.

I'm sure what you write is great, but you reminded me of something I once read, about the difference between talent and genius. It went something like this: Talent hits the target every time, but genius hits a target no-one has ever seen.

 

[Also]

I'm sure what you write is great, but you reminded me of something I once read, about the difference between talent and genius. It went something like this: Talent hits the target every time, but genius hits a target no-one has ever seen.

That's too kind, of course, but I appreciate the supportive impulse.

 

[Also]

But we are defining what a story is. A story must have a point. What is the point of the story? If there is no point, it all adds up to a scene, or a series of scenes, or some good descriptive writing. Compelling, sure, but I'm not sure that without a point it is a story.

Some of the stories I appreciate the most — no, I can't give examples on the spot — are the slice-of-life variety that could almost literally be taken from a random day or week of the author's life and then end with a particular moment. A happening, a sight, a feeling, a spoken sentence....

The key to doing it well is to choose the moment correctly. Quite a few times I've suggested to a group member that they end a story (or even a chapter) with the next-to-last or next-next-to-last paragraph of the piece.

Occasionally the author is making a specific point in such a story. More often, I think, they are inviting the reader to come up with one.

e.g.
Author: This leaves me speechless.
Reader: I know, right?

 

[Also]

"Resolutions" are very much a genre-writing value. Genre readers demand them. Literary readers, not so much. Much of the poignancy in life, and in the best literary writing, resides in the things that never do reach resolution.

I'll be circling back in a moment to Rigor's observation about the word catching in the throat, but I want to keep my points distinct.

 

[Also]

When I post what appear to be bizarre word choices or statements such as "no, I can't give an example on the app," that's normally the result of Swype typing. "On the spot" was my intention.