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How to analyze story structure. |
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Originally written as a newsletter editorial for the "Unofficial Erotica Newsletter Group" ![]() STORY STRUCTURE NaNoWriMo is getting closer, so I thought I'd take this opportunity to break down the subject of story structure. I'll be covering a lot of information, but I'll do my best to not make it too boring. ![]() While there are many different ways of writing a story (outlining first, writing off the cuff, etc.), most stories still follow a predictable pattern or structure in their actual execution. Traditionally, they are designed to have a natural flow or arc that takes the audience on a journey. One of the most common and universally understood story structures is something called the Three-Act Structure. Some simply define this structure as a story with a "beginning, middle, and end." I'm going to go a little more in depth and talk about what you're likely to find in each of these broad categories, because hey, it might actually give me a chance to put all my theory classes from college to good use! I'm going to use examples from screenwriting because I'm most familiar with that medium ![]() ![]() Please keep in mind, though, that this is merely a template. Ultimately, you need to make the choices that are best for your individual story and characters ... and if it ever comes down to a choice between hitting an artificial page milestone or doing what feels right for your story ... you should do what's right for your story. The following is just meant to be a guideline for those who are looking for a little more structure to their writing process, for those who find themselves constantly coming in way over or under their word count goals, or even someone who's a little daunted at the idea of writing 50,000 words in a single month. ![]() THE THREE-ACT STRUCTURE ACT ONE - THE BEGINNING: Your first act makes up approximately 25% of your work. If it's a standard 100-page screenplay, that's the first 25 pages; if it's a 50,000-word NaNoWriMo novel, that's the first 12,500 words. Ultimately, you want to accomplish three things in the first act of your story: you want to introduce an inciting incident, work in your exposition, and end the act with a point of no return. ![]() An Inciting Incident (or "hook") is the event in your story that, well, hooks your audience. It's the teaser, the dangling carrot, the come-on. It's that thing that happens right away that makes your audience say, "Ooh, that's interesting ... what's going to happen now?" In a screenplay, it usually happens in the first ten pages ... which translates into the first 5,000 words of a novel. Somewhere in there, something has to happen to pique your reader's interest and get them to keep reading. In the movie Shrek, the inciting incident is when Shrek discovers all the fairy tale creatures have been relocated into his swamp. He's happy in his isolated, comfortable life, and suddenly he's put in the uncomfortable position of dealing with all these creatures invading his privacy. And the audience immediately wonders, "What's going to happen now?" In The Matrix, the inciting incident is when Neo receives the cell phone from Morpheus, who calls and tells him how to avoid getting captured by the agents. When Neo says, "How are you doing this?", the audience is asking the same thing at the same time ... followed by, "What's going to happen now?" Especially when combined with Trinity's escape in the opening scene, the audience (when they saw it for the first time) is thinking, "Wow, what the heck is going on here?", which compels them to keep watching and figure it out! ![]() Exposition is background, both in terms of character and story. It's the information that you need to establish in order to get your reader to understand the rules of the world you're creating, and sympathize with or understand your characters. Good exposition is typically woven throughout the first act so that, by the end of it, the audience clearly understands both your characters and the world and events in which they're involved. You want to be careful not to concentrate too much exposition into a single scene, conversation, event, etc. in order to avoid it coming off as heavy-handed and only for the benefit of the reader. In Shrek, the title character's background is established in the opening montage where he hammers in the "no trespassing" sign, scares away the townsfolk coming after him with torches and pitchforks, tries to get the creatures to leave his swamp, and reluctantly going to see Lord Farquaad to confront him about the "eviction notice". All of these things establish his character for the audience and show us his motivation for later taking on the quest; he's reclusive, he doesn't like people, and he just wants to live his life in peace and solitude. The story's background (and the villain's background and personality) is established when the soldiers are rounding up fairytale creatures, the pigs explain to Shrek why they're in the swamp, when the welcome kiosk explains Farquaad's view of the world ... when Lord Farquaad explains his desire to marry a princess to become a king and purge the land of fairytale creatures, and when he interrogates the gingerbread man. All of these expository elements help us understand what the story is about and who the characters are. In The Matrix, Neo's personality and background are established when he provides the club-goers at his door with their disc, in his attitude at work, during his meeting with Trinity, etc. The story is established in the first scene where we see Trinity and the Agent's superhuman abilities, Trinity disappearing through the phone, the belly-button tracking device, etc. All of this works to establish the world of The Matrix for the audience. ![]() The Point of No Return is the end of the first act, when your protagonist reaches a point where they can't just walk away from the story. Up until this point, the protagonist most likely has the option (even though it would make for a rather short and uninteresting story!) of leaving it alone and not pursuing his course of action. The Point of No Return makes it impossible for the protagonist to return home again and resume a normal life. If the Inciting Incident is the hook to get your audience interested in your story, the Point of No Return is, to continue with the fishing metaphor, the sharp tug that lodges the hook and makes sure that fish (or audience member) isn't going anywhere. They're firmly along for the ride now. ![]() In Shrek, the point of no return is when Shrek confronts Lord Farquaad, beats up his guards wrestling-style and strikes the bargain to rescue Princess Fiona in return for his swamp back. At that point in the story (choosing between being shot or completing this quest), Shrek reaches a point of no return ... he can't just say "forget it" and go back home. In The Matrix the point of return is pretty clearly Morpheus offering Neo the red or blue pill. Neo's forced to choose one or the other and from the moment he chooses that pill, there's no going back and undoing what he's done. Your point of no return should happen at the end of the first act, around page 25 of a screenplay, or around the 12,500 word mark in your 50,000-word novel. ACT TWO - THE MIDDLE: Your second act is the biggest chunk of writing. It accounts for the middle 50% of your work. In a screenplay, that's your middle 50 pages, 25-75. In your NaNo novel, that's your middle 25,000 words, the 12,500 to 37,500 range. In this act, there are two things you need to establish: Rising Action and The Midpoint Twist. ![]() Rising Action is the escalation of events in your story. Ideally, throughout the second act, you should be steadily increasing the tension, the conflict, the risks, etc. By steadily and regularly upping the stakes, you keep the reader invested because you don't give them time to get bored and start thinking about other things. In a screenplay, it's recommended that something interesting escalate the events in the story or put the characters at risk every ten pages or so. And since there are 50 pages in the second act of a script, that's five events. In a NaNo novel, that equates to the same five escalating events, every 5,000 words or so. In Shrek, the stakes were raised when they get to the fiery keep and realize a dragon's guarding it; when Princess Fiona decides that she doesn't want to be rescued by an ogre, when Robin Hood and his merry men try to liberate Fiona from Shrek, etc. Each of these events on the journey to rescue Fiona (and return to Duloc) keeps the audience engaged by giving them an exciting moment and/or escalating bit of conflict before they can get bored with the journey. In The Matrix, the stakes were raised when Neo and Morpheus spar in the training program, when they have the conversation about how agents can be anyone and dodging bullets, waiting to fire the EMP when the search-and-destroy robots go by, when Cypher betrays them, etc. All of these events raise the stakes ... they explain or show the audience a new dimension to the world of The Matrix ... and a whole new set of challenges that Neo must overcome if he's to succeed. ![]() Somewhere in the middle of your story (around page 50 of your screenplay or 25,000 words in your NaNo novel), there should be a twist or a surprise that takes your story in a new direction. And yes, this is one of the escalating events, so now you really only have to come up with four more. ![]() In Shrek, the midpoint twist is when Fiona and Shrek start to genuinely like each other along the journey back to Duloc. Suddenly it's not just Shrek on a mission to bring back the annoying princess for Lord Farquaad. They learn about and start to like one another, which adds a new direction and a new element to the story. Now Shrek isn't just delivering a person he has no interest in to another person he has no interest in... he's got to decide if he's still okay with the original deal (the princess for his swamp), or if he's discovered something more important. In The Matrix, the midpoint is the sequence where Cypher has dinner with Agent Smith and reveals his intentions of betraying the group ... then when he leaves the phone to trace and actually betrays them during the visit to the Oracle. Up until that point, it's a group of rebel fighters against the machines. After that, the story goes spinning into an entirely new direction as one of them defects, one of them is captured, and four of them are killed. With only three viable resistance fighters left, they have to decide if the original goal is still possible, even if it means going in a new direction. ACT THREE - THE END: The third act is the last 25% of your work (the final 25 pages of screenplay, or the last 12,500 words of your NaNo novel). This is the home stretch, where you've built everything up and it's time to bring things to a head and resolve them. In your third act, you want to accomplish two things: the climax and your denouement. ![]() A climax (as the name implies ![]() ![]() In Shrek the climax is the wedding of Lord Farquaad and Fiona. Shrek realizes he's in love with Fiona and rushes to stop the wedding before it's too late. At that point, all of the plots are converging at once - Shrek figures out his feelings about Fiona and needs to tell her before she marries Farquaad and gives him the title of "king" that he's been wanting. In The Matrix the climax is when Neo faces off against Agent Smith in the subway, and then experiences his resurrection in the apartment building. At that point in the story, everything comes to a head - Morpheus' and Trinity's faith in the Oracle's prophesies are put to the test when Neo is shot by Agent Smith, the Sentinels are closing in on the ship's position, etc. ![]() Denouement is ultimately just a fancy French word for "resolution" or "conclusion". This is the part of the script where everything is wrapped up and all the loose ends are all addressed after the climax. If the climax is the height of a sexual encounter, the denouement is what happens after that ... whether one of them stays or goes, what's said between them, and how they proceed from there. In Shrek, the title character marries Fiona instead, the spell is lifted revealing her true from as an ogre, and we're treated to the music montage at the end, wrapping up their happily ever after ending. In The Matrix, Neo wraps things up by calling the operators of The Matrix and telling them that things are going to start changing, before he flies up from the phone booth, thus telling the audience where these characters are going after the events of the climax. Okay, now that we've talked about the shape of a story's structure, you might be thinking "that's all great and everything, but we're still talking about 25,000 words for my second act! How am I supposed to fill up all that space with just a few escalation events. What do I fill all the other space with?" Well, I've got a few theory-based tricks for that too. ![]() SUBPLOTS "Subplot" is short hand for subordinate plot. In other words, a narrative or storyline that plays second fiddle to the central story of your work. Most novels don't work without a least a couple subplots, and that's because, for one, subplots take up space. That's the simple and technical reason why they're necessary in a novel ... because reading 50,000 words about one series of events can be pretty cumbersome. The creative reason why they're necessary is because we don't live our lives in a vacuum. At any given time, most of us have more than one thing going on: work, family, personal relationships, etc. In order to capture the depth and complexity of real life, your characters should have more than one thing going on too. Just look at any generic romantic comedy that's out there. Everybody knows that the main storyline is about the two lead characters and their struggle to get together, stay together, or whatever. But the movie is almost never only about their romantic relationship. One or both of the characters may have issues at work, or with their family, or with their friends, or with their living situation. Just like in real life, a romantic relationship may be the central issue, but it's certainly not the only issue that your character has to contend with. The challenge in any longer work of fiction is to come up with realistic subplots that are related to the central plot. They can be tied together through an individual character, or situation in the work. In a romantic comedy, for example, the subplots are usually tied together through character. Work, the romantic relationship, and the family relationship may all be completely separate plots ... but they work because they're intertwined in the life of the protagonist that we're following (and hopefully sympathizing with). These types of stories are typically referred to as character-driven. Alternately, if your subplots are tied together by events ... for example, a movie like Vantage Point or 21 Grams, then the intertwining comes from the different subplots converging and surrounding an event that affects all the diverse characters and their individual lives. These types of stories are typically referred to as story-driven or plot-driven. So how does one come up with subplots? ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() The goal of subplots is to flesh out your story and your characters, to give depth and dimension to their lives which, hopefully, enhance and augment your central storyline. With the proper balance of subplots, you could very well find that you hit the 50,000-word mark before you know it! Not to mention that it's the more preferable option (both in writing and reading) to dragging out the same plot longer and longer, trying to hit that word limit. ![]() So now that I've hit you over the head with all the story theory I can think of, start thinking about those NaNo novels. Whatever your personal writing process ... whether its to just write free-form, to plot everything out meticulously, or to find some hybrid of the two (my personal preference), the idea is to use story structure and subplots to help round out your work and give it a depth and complexity that will sustain you for 100 pages, 50,000 words, or whatever your individual goal may be. |