Part 5: FIND - Meeting With The Goddess

This article continues my series on Dan Harmon’s view of story structure. Here’s a link to the first article: Dan Harmon On Story Structure. 

Part 5: FIND - Meeting With The Goddess

The job, the function, of the Road of Trials (Part 4) is to prepare the protagonist for his—or her—meeting with the Goddess. Though, she may not be quite what you thought you she was. 

At the midpoint our hero is, metaphorically, in the depths of their psyche, in the dark, deep, depths of the unconscious so things are about to get wacky.  Harmon writes, “Anything goes down here. This is a time for major revelations, and total vulnerability. If you're writing a plot-twisty thriller, twist here and twist hard.” (Story Structure 104)

Revelation

As we’ve seen, the cave of the goddess is a strange, weird place where anything can happen. At this point the character, the protagonist, is blessed (or cursed) with a major revelation, an epiphany. As a result they have a deeper understanding of life the world and everything, including what they’ve been doing wrong.

The Role of Choice

It’s important the hero makes a choice, so it’s important there are choices to make. For instance, Does the protagonist save her ally’s life even though it could cost them the object they were seeking? Does the protagonist do the selfless thing even though doing so would almost surely cause the quest to fail? Does the protagonist admit to herself that she’s in love even though that admission could cost her everything she holds dear? And so on.

Whatever the choice is, it’s important the protagonist has time for reflection. This is a big choice and an important plot point. Even though it’s tempting to move on, give this moment the page space it deserves.

The Goddess

Exactly what do we mean by “The Goddess”? Dan Harmon writes:

“[...] the goddess doesn't have to be a femme fatale or an angelic damsel. In an all-male or all-female play that takes place around a poker table, the "goddess" could be a character's confession that they lost their job. The goddess can be a gesture, an idea, a gun, a diamond, a destination, or just a moment's freedom from that monster that won't stop chasing you.” (Story Structure 104)

The Role of The Goddess

Although The Goddess doesn’t mean only one thing, meeting with her (whatever form she takes in the story) is dangerous and guaranteed to transform the protagonist, changing how they think about themselves and the world around them. 

Sometimes this midpoint change benefits a character and makes it easier for them to achieve their goal, sometimes it devastates them, warping them forever (e.g., The Craft).

In any case, this is a moment of inner and outer transformation, for either good or ill. Dan Harmon writes:

“In Die Hard, John McClane, having run over broken glass, is sitting in a bathroom, soaking his bloody feet in the sink. It is at this moment that he finally realizes the true extent of his love for his wife, and what he's been doing wrong in their marriage. He (1) has been too stubborn (2). He uses his walkie talkie, acquired in step (4), to give a message to his wife through his benevolent, happily married, gun-shy counterpart: ‘She's heard me say 'I love you' a thousand times...but she's never heard me say I'm sorry.’”

There’s two things here. First, the action, the pursuit (Part 4), then a pause for reflection, a pause in which the protagonist has a profound revelation, an epiphany, one that changes their understand of both themselves and the world.

At The Midpoint The Hero Switches From Passive To Active

At the Midpoint the hero switches from (mostly) passive to (mostly) active. Also, notice the mirroring going on here. Dan Harmon notes that the protagonist goes from the mama’s boy of Part 1 to a lady’s man (Part 5). He writes:

“You might have noticed that, just as (3), the crossing of the threshold, is the opposite of (7) the return, (5), the meeting with the goddess, is the opposite of (1), the protagonist's zone of comfort. Think of (1) as being the arms of mother, however dysfunctional she might be. (5) is a new form of mother, an unconscious version, and there is often a temptation to stay right here. Like at that elf guy's house in Lord of the Rings.” (Story Structure 104)

Definable Moment

Harmon advises us to mark this transition with a definable moment. He writes:

“If this is a story of a poor little girl (1) who dreamt of being rich (2) and got adopted by a millionaire (3), having become accustomed to her new lifestyle, (4), she might now be something of a fancy pants (5). Show it with a definable moment. This might be a good point for her to drive by the orphanage in her limousine.” (Story Structure 104)

That’s it for today! Next time we’ll continue the ascent back to the Ordinary World by looking at Part 6: Taking what one has found and paying the price.

Part 4: SEARCH and ADAPT to the Special World

This article is the fifth in a series about Dan Harmon’s take on the structure of stories. If you’d like to read the earlier articles I’ve indexed them at the bottom of: Dan Harmon On Story Structure.) 

Today let’s look at ...

4. SEARCH: The Road of Trials

In Part 3 the protagonist crossed the threshold and descended from the Ordinary World—from the known, the comfortable—into the Special World of the Adventure. Now she must adapt to a land that is alien, strange, and frightening.

As Harmon points out, different writers have different names for this phase. Christopher Vogler calls it “Friends, Enemies and Allies,” producers call it, “The Training Phase.” Joseph Campbell called it, “The Road of Trials.” The point is that, “our protagonist has been thrown into the water and now it’s sink or swim.” (Story Structure 104: The Juicy Details)

The Protagonist Gives Up Something: No Pain, No Gain.

The protagonist must jettison excess baggage. After all, to gain something one must first give up something. If one’s life is cluttered with trifles we’ve held onto for maudlin sentimental reasons we must clean house to make room for something new. 

The protagonist must lose something, must divest themselves of something, before they can find what they’re searching for. This stripping of the cared for, of the familiar, will cause pain but will be transformative. But, then, pain and transformation are two sides of the same coin. Harmon writes:

“In Hero with a Thousand Faces, Campbell actually evokes the image of a digestive tract, breaking the hero down, divesting him of neuroses, stripping him of fear and desire. There's no room for bullshit in the unconscious basement. Asthma inhalers, eyeglasses, credit cards, fratty boyfriends, promotions, toupees and cell phones can't save you here. [...]

“In Romancing the Stone, Michael Douglas cuts the heels off of Kathleen Turner's expensive shoes with a machete. Then he throws her suitcase off a cliff. If she's going to continue to survive in this jungle, she literally needs to drop her excess baggage and lose the fancy pants.” (Story Structure 104)

Identify What Things (Ideas, etc.) Hold The Protagonist Back

Why do we need to shed this excess? Harmon writes:

“We are headed for the deepest level of the unconscious mind, and we cannot reach it encumbered by all that crap we used to think was important.” (Story Structure 104)

While it’s fine to have a pair of expensive designer shoes—especially if you happen to be at an event where everyone else is wearing expensive designer shoes—the protagonist needs to shed anything unnecessary, she has to get rid of the trappings of the Ordinary World, they have no place here. In fact, if she refuses to give them up she will fail to find what she has been searching for.

Fun And Games: Fish Out Of Water

As Blake Snyder reminds us in “Save The Cat!,” this is also a time for Fun and Games. This is where the hero explores the Special World and blunders about like a toddler, figuring out how things work, learning the ropes. As he does, he will make new friends as well as an enemy or two. 

For example, in Star Wars IV, Luke Skywalker visited the Mos Eisley Cantina with Obi-Wan Kenobi. That was a strange new world indeed! 

The friends and allies the protagonist makes in the Special World are invaluable, for they not only help him acclimatize to the strange new world, but to excel in it.

Mirroring

I’ll talk more about this later, though if you’d like to skip ahead, read Dan Harmon’s article, “Story Structure 104: The Juicy Details.” 

When we look at Part 6 we’ll see that it’s another road of trials, one that mirrors Part 4, only this time rather than descending to meet the goddess, the protagonist ascends on her return to the Ordinary World. Rather than being passive, rather than stripping away the excess, now our transformed protagonist is on the upward journey ready, ready to return to the ordinary world with what the goddess gave them.

That's it! Hope you had a wonderful week.

Part 3: GO - The Protagonist Enters An Unfamiliar Situation

Today, I continue discussing Dan Harmon’s take on story structure. In the first post in this series (see: Dan Harmon On Story Structure) I gave an overview and went into the origin of Harmon’s system. Head over there if you have questions, or you’re wondering why this looks a bit like Joseph Campbell’s book “The Hero With A Thousand Faces.”

3. Crossing The Threshold, Entering the strange, new, world of the adventure.

Here the protagonist takes a journey, a dangerous crossing, into the unknown.

Dan Harmon writes:

“What's your story about? If it's about a woman running from a killer cyborg, then up until now, she has not been running from a killer cyborg. Now she's finna start. If your story is about an infatuation, this might be the point where our male hero first lays eyes on the object of his desire. [...] If it's a coming of age story, this could be a first kiss or the discovery of an armpit hair. If it's a slasher film, this is the first kill, or the discovery of a corpse.” (Story Structure 104: The Juicy Details)

Harmon gives us what I think is a wonderful writing tool. He asks:

If you were going to make a movie poster for your story, what would it be? “What would you advertise to people if you wanted them to come listen to your story? A killer shark? Outer space? The Mafia? True love?” (Story Structure 104)

If you were reading a Werewolf story, chances are this (the 25% point) is where you’d discover Werewolves DO exist. Why? Because you’ve entered the strange and occasionally bizarre Special World of the Adventure. Here the rules are different and the protagonist is a fish out of water.

The Special World of the Adventure

In terms of Harmon’s/Vogler’s/Campbell’s system, The Special World is the lower, shaded, portion of the circle. (The Ordinary World is the unshaded upper half.)

Harmon writes: “Neo wakes up in a vat of goo in a world ruled by machines. His ordinary world desire to be a hacker, to fight the system, is going to be put to the test.” (Story Structure 104)

Contrast

The exact nature of the Special World will depend on the kind of story you’re telling, but there should be as stark a contrast as possible between the Ordinary World and the Special World. 

Think of the movie, The Matrix. It’s hard to get more stark than the difference, the contrast, between the Ordinary World of our experience and the Special World of humans in caves vats being used to power the machines.

Choice

The protagonist must choose to enter the Special World. Even if there’s coercion involved (as in the movie Collateral), the protagonist must make the decision to go forward. Christopher Vogler writes:

“Crossing the First Threshold is an act of the will in which the hero commits wholeheartedly to the adventure.”

Threshold Guardians

The tale of a hero setting out on a dangerous journey to acquire something of both personal and public value can be interesting. The tale of a hero setting out on an easy journey is boring. The protagonist must face obstacles that test her, that put her through the fire. This is one of the functions of a Threshold Guardian.

According to Vogler any Threshold Guardian worth her salt will be able to inspire doubt and fear, will be able to cause the hero to question whether they’re the person for this particular job.

This has been a brief overview where I’ve chatted about the highlights of what Dan Harmon calls Part 3. I’ve written more about this stage of the story here: A Story Structure In Three Acts: Act Two.

That’s it! Next time we’ll look at the protagonist’s descent into chaos.

The Dark Art of Blogging

Yesterday a friend told me he needs to stop blogging. It was a shock, but I think it’s the right decision for him, and I strongly suspect he’ll be back one day in the not-too-distant future.

It made me remember a time when, years ago, I needed to walk away from blogging. I was the primary caregiver for my parents. They needed help in their last years and I was glad to give it. 

During the worst patch, I stopped blogging for a few months. I had to. And, looking back, I’m glad I did. It was too much. In the odd half hour I could snatch for myself I needed to let my mind grope toward a static whiteness. At least, that’s what it felt like. Overload. I started hearing Scotty, “She cannae take any more of this, Captain! She’s gonna blow!”

Anyway.

Although I stopped blogging, I never stopped writing. Even if it was just scrawling down fragments of a story on the outside of torn envelopes. 

It’s almost ironic that when one needs the most time to meditate, to be still and feel and struggle to make sense of the apparently senseless, that one actually has less time.

And, of course, I came back! I have my friends to thank for that. When it was all over, they kindly, gently, encouraged me to resume blogging. And when I did I realized how much it meant to me, how much I’d missed it. 

So, looking back, I’m convinced that taking time away was the right decision. I think that if I had driven myself to keep blogging I may have ended up resenting my blog and, as a result, stopped for good. 

How I Blog, My Process

For a while now I’ve meant to write a post about what I somewhat jokingly call my process. But, over the years, I have developed a certain system, a certain rhythm. I strongly suspect this is going to be different for everyone, but, for what it’s worth, here’s what I do:

Step 1: A Handwritten Zero Draft

The overwhelming majority of my blog posts begin life as a handwritten draft scrawled in my writing journal. This is a rough, rough, draft, more like a zero draft than a first draft. 

Often, when I pen the first draft I’m not sure what the blog post will be about, I’m groping about for an idea. As I sit and write a theme usually emerges. 

Everyone’s different, but for myself it’s important I handwrite this first draft. If I try and type it I often end up staring at a blank screen thinking about all the things I need to do that day. I’m not sure why this is, but often a theme won’t emerge. Here’s where the “dark art” of blogging comes in!

Step 2: Transcribe The Zero Draft

I’ve experimented with voice recognition programs like Dragon NaturallySpeaking but find I spend just as much time training it as I do using it to write! 

I do sometimes use the voice recognition capabilities of my Mac, the program that comes with the operating system. Although it’s not as accurate as Dragon, I find it much more convenient since its only one keyboard shortcut away.

As I type in my first draft I reorder or delete paragraphs, fill in an idea or two, and so on. By the time the post has been transferred from my writing journal to my computer, I usually have a theme.

Step 3: Read The Post Through And Tweak It

The next step is to read my post through from beginning to end. It now begins to take on it’s final form. If I still don’t know what the post is about, I lay it aside and come back the next day.

Step 4: Polishing

Then comes polishing, and inserting whatever links are needed. (In previous drafts I simply put “[link]” in the text to indicate I’ll need to hunt up a URL.) When that’s all done ...

Step 5: Editing

I then ask my computer to read the post back to me. Often hearing my post will suggest editing changes. I try and eliminate rambling sentences that go on and on, with no period in sight, sentences where the point I was trying to make gets lost in the words used to make it; sentences like this one.

This is also where the lions share of actual editing takes place. Sometimes I’ll add another step and paste the whole thing from Scrivener to Word. Even though I love Scrivener, I like to use Word to expose my many grievous sins against the English language.

Step 6: Publish

And that’s it! Or, almost it. I still need to paste my post into the editor over at Blogger, fill in the metadata, find a public domain or Creative Commons picture, alter the picture to include the title of the post, save the image as a .jpg file, and upload it. Then, finally, it’s time to press that big, beautiful, orange “Publish” button.

And ... that’s it!

Or not. After the post is published I share the link with my social networks. For me, that’s Google+ and Twitter.

All in all it takes a few hours of work. But it’s worth it because the writing, the process, has become a living thing, like the beat of some wild subterranean drum. It’s something I love to do, something I must do. And, fate willing, I’ll be able to do it for a good long time.

That’s it! Thanks for reading. For my next post I’ll return to my series about Dan Harmon’s take on the structure of stories.

Part 2: NEED - The Protagonist WANTS Something

Dan Harmon On Story Structure

In Part 1 (YOU) everything was hunky-dory. Even if things weren’t perfect, the protagonist was comfortable. Then something happens to the protagonist’s Ordinary World and knocks it off-kilter. 

Now the protagonist is uncomfortable; now they have a NEED. Harmon writes:

“If this is a story about a war between Earth and Mars, this is a good time to show those Martian ships heading toward our peaceful planet. On the other hand, if this is a romantic comedy, maybe our heroine is at dinner, on a bad blind date.” (Story Structure 104)

“This is where a character might wonder out loud, or with facial expressions, why he can’t be cooler, or richer, or faster, or a better lover. This wish will be granted in ways that character couldn’t have expected.” (Story Structure 104)

Call To Adventure

This is where the protagonist receives the Call to Adventure. The Call can be about something internal (“I wish I was the life of the party”) or external (“I want to rescue the Ark” or “I want to discover the true nature of reality”).

Harmon writes:

“[...] a more literal, exterior “Call to Adventure” could come in, at the hands of a mysterious messenger, explaining to a dry cleaner that he has been drafted by the CIA.”

Often action movies have an external call to adventure. In the movie, The Edge of Tomorrow, the protagonist, Cage, discovers that the upcoming battle is a trap. If it occurs the aliens (Mimics) will win a resounding victory and the human resistance will be crushed. Cage’s need is to stop the battle from happening.

Refusal of the Call

The protagonist often Refuses The Call. Just because his life is complicated, this doesn’t mean he wants to participate in a high stakes adventure. His world may have problems, but at least they’re familiar problems. The devil you know.

The Refusal of the Call is something the audience understands. Why? Because, as Dan Harmon says, it’s all a part of the pattern, of playing out the rhythm. “We’re all scared of change.”

That’s it! I’ll be back with Part 3 (GO) next week.

Part 1: Create A Protagonist Audiences Will Relate To

Dan Harmon On Story Structure

Yesterday I introduced the bare bones of Dan Harmon’s story model:

When YOU have a NEED you GO somewhere, SEARCH for it, FIND it, TAKE it, then RETURN and things CHANGE. 

Yes, I wrote about this yesterday, but thought it would be helpful to reproduce the structural overview again and in more detail. All this is basically verbatim from Dan Harmon’s article, Story Structure 103.

1. A character in a zone of comfort (YOU)

2. The character WANTS/NEEDS something.

3. The character GOes to, enters, an unfamiliar situation.

4. While SEARCHing for what they want, the character adapts to the new situation.

5. The character FINDs (at least a part of) what they were searching for, what they wanted/needed.

6. The character TAKEs it and pays the price.

7. The character takes their prize and RETURNs to the Ordinary World, to the place they began their journey.

8. The character, who is himself changed, can now CHANGE the Ordinary World.

Why Story Structure Is Important

Dan Harmon believes that “a story has to contain certain elements, in a certain order, before the audience will even recognize it as a story.” He believes that “our society, each human mind within it and all of life itself has a rhythm, and when you play that rhythm, it resonates.” (Story Structure 102)

Cyclic patterns such as death swallowing life and life emerging, Phoenix-like, out of death. Patterns such as the contents of consciousness falling away, sinking into unconsciousness, then emerging, transformed. Patterns such as order crumbling into chaos and chaos receding, yielding, to order. The one feeds the other, depends on the other.  

Dan Harmon writes:

“Whereas the health of an individual depends on the ego’s regular descent and return from the unconscious, a society’s longevity depends on actual people journeying into the unknown and returning with ideas.

“In their most dramatic, revolutionary form, these people are called heroes, but every day, society is replenished by millions of people diving into darkness and emerging with something new (or forgotten): scientists, painters, teachers, dancers, actors, priests, athletes, architects and most importantly, me, Dan Harmon.” (Story Structure 102)

Story Resonance

“Now you understand that all life, including the human mind and the communities we create, marches to the same, very specific beat. If your story also marches to this beat—whether your story is the great American novel or a fart joke—it will resonate. It will send your audience's ego on a brief trip to the unconscious and back. Your audience has an instinctive taste for that, and they're going to say ‘yum.’” (Story Structure 102)

Sorry for all the quotations, but I wanted to establish WHY story structure is important. I’ve read other people on this issue, but have found Dan Harmon’s explanation the most persuasive. 

Now let’s examine the structure itself.

1. YOU - Establish A Protagonist - Pity

A writer needs to give their audience a place to land. Dan Harmon writes:

“[...] if we are not inside a character, then we are not inside the story.” (Story Structure 104)

Agreed. Stephen King is brilliant at this. If you doubt me, read the first few paragraphs of “The Shining.” The real question is, how is it accomplished?

For the big and little screens it seems relatively easy: show them a character. Dan Harmon writes:

“You’d have to go out of your way to keep the audience from imprinting on them. It could be a raccoon, a homeless man or the President. Just fade in on them and we are them until we have a better choice.” (Story Structure 104)

But what about writers? Is it as simple as writing, “So there was this guy, see, and ...”? 

Yes and no. Harmon writes that an audience will relate to a character that evokes pity. He writes:

“Fade in on a raccoon being chased by a bear, we are the raccoon. Fade in on a room full of ambassadors. The President walks in and trips on the carpet. We are the President. When you feel sorry for someone, you’re using the same part of your brain as you use to identify with them.” (Story Structure 104)

I’ll be honest, that took me off-guard. I was ready for Harmon to say something about the character’s goal being just, or them being skilled at something. But pity ... I wasn’t expecting that.

 Though, thinking about “Community” and movies like “Die Hard” or even “The Princess Bride,” it fits. Just about every character I’ve strongly identified with has a flaw, often a deep one. But I hadn’t thought of the flaw in those terms, as connecting the character to the audience by invoking pity. Brilliant!

Creating A Character Your Audience Can Relate To: Have Them Do What The Audience Would

Here’s Dan Harmon’s advice: Have your protagonist always do what the audience would do. He writes:

“The easiest thing to do is fade in on a character that always does what the audience would do. He can be an assassin, he can be a raccoon, he can be a parasite living in the raccoon's liver, but have him do what the audience might do if they were in the same situation. In Die Hard, we fade in on John McClane, a passenger on an airplane who doesn't like to fly.” (Story Structure 104)

Caution: Switch Perspectives As Little As Possible

But there is a limit. Harmon warns:

“Like anything adhesive, our sense of identity weakens a little every time it’s switched or tested. The longer it’s been stuck on someone the more jarring it’s going to be to yank it away and stick it on someone else.” (Story Structure 104)

Introduce the protagonist early and make them the focus of the story.

That’s it! My next post will be about the second part of Dan Harmon’s story structure, the character’s NEED. See you then and good writing!

Original Photo: Curious Raccoon

Dan Harmon On Story Structure

Yesterday a friend sent me a link to Dan Harmon’s series of articles on story structure. I had no idea Harmon was passionate about story structure, though I should have guessed. 

In this article I barely brush the surface of what Harmon has to say, so I will be returning to this material in future articles. Or at least that’s the plan (knock on wood).

Here are the links to DH’s articles:

Story Structure 101: Super Basic Shit

Story Structure 102: Pure, Boring Theory

Story Structure 103: Let’s Simplify Before Moving On

Story Structure 104: The Juicy Details

Story Structure 105: How TV Is Different

Story Structure 106: Five Minute Pilots

Dan Harmon’s Story Model

Dan Harmon’s story model, his story structure, really isn’t his. He tells us this up front. He got it from Joseph Campbell’s book, The Hero With A Thousand Faces. He got it from Christopher Vogler’s book, The Writer’s Journey. He got it from Syd Field’s book, The Screenwriter’s Workbook.

And those are useful books. I know, I’ve read them. Yes, okay, I read Joseph Campbell’s book a couple of decades ago and there was some head-scratching involved, but still. I say this because even though I’ve probably read most of the books on writing DH has, his way of looking at story structure is unique. Reading his articles gave me a new perspective on story, and that’s exciting! 

Dan Harmon’s talk of rhythms, of drawing one’s audiences’ attention to certain patterns, gave me an ‘Ah ha!’ moment, a realization about something that had puzzled me: How to think of the gap between the Midpoint and the All Hope Is Lost beat. For some reason, that particular stretch of story, bridging it, was a bit of a desert trek for me. 

I’ll talk more about that when we get there. For now, let’s take a barest of bones look at Dan Harmon’s story model:

When YOU have a NEED you GO somewhere SEARCH for it, FIND it, TAKE it, then RETURN and things CHANGE. 

Or, even more simply, “YOU NEED to GO SEARCH, FIND, TAKE and RETURN with CHANGE.” (SS 103)

Too condensed? Here it is stretched out over the eight stages:

1. When YOU

2. have a NEED,

3. you GO somewhere,

4. SEARCH for it,

5. FIND it,

6. TAKE it,

7. then RETURN

8. and CHANGE things.

The Barest of Bones

It’s going to sound odd, but I suggest you read Dan Harmon’s last article (SS 106) first since it gives a nice, if dense, summary of his system. It’s a kind of whirlwind tour of his 8 steps. Do it now. Here’s the link: Story Structure 106: Five Minute Pilots.

Back? Good!

What I want to do today is, rather than apply this structure to a 5 minute video (as Harmon does), apply it to a 4,000 word short story. 

Ready? Let’s go! (Keep in mind that this is the condensed version)

1. Ordinary World

Here is where you establish both the protagonist (YOU) and the protagonist’s NEED. 

The protagonist is comfortable in the Ordinary World, or at least he thinks he is. But, nevertheless, he wants/needs/desires something. Next, begin to change his circumstances and unleash the Call to Adventure.

2. Enter The Special World of the Adventure

Because of his need, the protagonist enters (GO) a new, unfamiliar, situation. While SEARCHING for what he wants, he adapts to this new situation.

The character FINDs what they were searching for.

3. Paying The Price

The character claims their prize (TAKE) and pays a price. Their mission accomplished, the protagonist begins the long trek back home (RETURN). 

The Big Bad rallies his strength and chases after the protagonist. When the two meet we have the final confrontation that decides whether the protagonist will return to his community with whatever he has taken. (Note: this doesn’t have to be an object.)

4. The Return

Show how the protagonist’s circumstances have CHANGEd as a result of their adventure. This is where the stakes get cashed out and we see how the journey, the adventure, has changed not only the life of the protagonist but the lives of everyone around him.

That’s the barest of bones. When I pick this subject up again, I’ll begin at the beginning and take an in-depth look at the first link in the chain: 1. YOU.

By the way, DH stresses that not every single stage must be explicitly present in every story. Sometimes (often) a story will condense one or more of the stages due to time or space constraints. After all, if we couldn’t do this then I’m not sure if we’d have many truly “short” stories anymore. Having said that, the order of the stages is important.

The Fractal Nature of Story Structure

I’d like to mention something I’ve been thinking a great deal about recently, the fractal nature of story structure. That is, each part of a story can mirror the structure of the entire story.

To put it another way, just as DH’s eight stages describe an entire story they can also describe a chapter or a scene or a paragraph. For example, here’s Dan Harmon’s story about "the guy whose soda turned out to contain poison”:

“(2.1) The guy [you]

(2.2) Makes a stink face [need]

(2.3) Starts inspecting the soda can [go]

(2.4) Runs finger over ingredients [search]

(2.5) Finds "poison" in ingredients [find]

(2.6) Chokes [take]

(2.7) Falls down [return]

(2.8) Dead [change]” (SS 106)

That’s it for today. Have a terrific rest of the week. If the mood strikes, try using Dan Harmon’s story structure to write a Dabble.

The articles in this series:

- Dan Harmon on Story Structure
- Part 1: Create A Protagonist Audiences Will Relate To

- Part 2: NEED - The Protagonist WANTS Something
- Part 3: Go - The Protagonist Enters An Unfamiliar Situation
- Part 4: SEARCH and ADAPT to the Special World
- Part 5: FIND - Meeting With The Goddess
- Part 6: TAKE - Take The Prize And Pay The Price
- Part 7: RETURN - Bringing The Prize Home
- Part 8 of 8: CHANGE The World

Rewriting Is The Essence Of Good Writing

We’ve all heard the sayings:

“Rewriting is the essence of writing,” William Zinsser 

“The best writing is rewriting,” E.B. White

“All writing is rewriting,” John Green

I agree wholeheartedly. I believe that rewriting is the essence of good writing. I also believe rewriting is a skill that, like any skill, takes time and much practice to acquire.

But I know some folks won’t agree with me, so let’s look at a few of their arguments.

Rewriting Can Strip A Story Of Soul

This can happen. Beginning writers do have the tendency to edit the soul out of their stories. I know I did.

When I first began writing, rewriting was NOT my friend. I recently dug some of my earliest stories out from the shoeboxes I’ve lovingly interred them in. I write in drafts, always have, saving versions 1 to ... well, to however high it goes. 

For my oldest stories, my beginner stories, the first draft, perhaps even the second draft, had a sort of quirky personality. A mood was communicated. Yes, the story itself needed a lot of work, but there was something there, a spark. Then I read the versions of the story that followed and saw that spark dim and finally die.

So, yes. I agree. Rewriting doesn’t necessarily make something better, sometimes it just spoils it.

How can we prevent this? I believe that this is where the craft, the techne, of writing comes in. Part of the reason writers must write regularly is so we can practice rewriting. It’s also helpful to get feedback from folks who know how to spot where we’ve gone off the rails. This is especially important in the beginning. After a while we get a feel for it; this is often called developing our distinctive voice.

So, yes, writing can strip a story of its soul, but that just means we need to write a lot and read a lot and solicit feedback from people whose opinion we respect, because that’s how one gets better. 

Rewriting Takes Time

That’s true. Rewriting does take time. A LOT of time. Time that could be spent doing other things.

And it’s true that if one wants to make a living at writing one must produce work on a schedule. If one must put out, say, a 60,000 (or greater) word book every three months then the amount of time one has for rewriting is curtailed. 

Some folks have a knack for writing strong prose and a gripping story in a staggeringly brief amount of time. It’s a skill, and my guess is they were pretty good storytellers to begin with.

In any case, yes rewriting takes time and how fast one can put a book out can determine (at least if one isn’t a New York Times Best Seller) whether one can make a living at this.

But, as I said above, learning to rewrite both well and quickly is a skill, and to hone a skill takes practice. Sometimes a LOT of practice. If you’re not there yet, don’t give up. In this case, slow and steady does win the race.

Only New Words Count

I used to believe this.

For a time I was convinced that if one wasn’t writing new words that one wasn’t writing. Rewriting and editing didn’t count. (Which isn’t to say that one doesn’t need to edit one’s work. One does.)

Harlan Ellison is famous for sitting in a bookstore and, with a crowd looking on, writing a short story in a matter of hours. (See, “Dreams With Sharp Teeth”)

Jack Kerouac wrote “On The Road” in three short weeks, a book called one of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century. Here’s a sample:

“The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars. (Jack Kerouac, On the Road)” 

Beautiful! Some folks mock writers who can write a story in one draft by calling them typists rather than writers, but I say, “Type away!”

Lester Dent, perhaps the most famous of the pulpateers, at times wrote over 200,000 words a month and made a nice living even during the depression era. He never rewrote and editing was left to the publisher. I’ve read some of his stories, for first drafts they are amazing.

But being able to produce publishable prose on a first draft is rare and I think that, sometimes, even in those cases, taking a second pass at the material would have only improved it. (But some books, books like “On The Road,” are perfect as they are. It would be a crime to change them.)

I also think that certain stories, perhaps even certain statements, are best made from the heart in one great orgasmic rush. To rewrite them wouldn’t improve them. 

So, to sum up, these days I do wholeheartedly, believe that for the overwhelming majority of writers, both professional and amateur, rewriting is indeed the essence of good writing.

That’s it! See you next week.

Blog Topics For When You’re Stuck

Sometimes we get stock for topics. To be fair, it’s not that we can’t think of anything to write about, it’s that we can’t think of anything interesting or exciting to write about. Often this just means we’re having a blah kind of day. When that happens to me I find that lists are my friend.

1. Best Of 

I love reading these posts, especially if they’re titled: The 10 Best Free Apps I’ve Used This Year. 

Best apps, best blogs, best books, best writers, best vacation spots (for writing research and inspiration, not to mention a bit of R&R), best writing programs, best classes, and so on.

2. From The Heart

I believe the key to great writing is being able to evoke emotion in one’s readers. We’ve all had setbacks and—the overwhelming majority of time—after we get knocked down we get back up again. We cope.

One thing we can be sure of is that our readers, being human, have had setbacks, have suffered loss. This is likely why most of us love reading about others triumphing over adversity. If you have a personal tale of loss, followed by struggle and victory (or even partial victory), that might be something you would want to share.

3. Practical Advice

Who have you learnt from? Who do you follow on Twitter, Google+, Facebook, and so on. Are their tutorials you’ve benefited from?

I love Scrivener but it took me a long while to feel comfortable with it. One tutorial that helped enormously was Garrett Robinson’s series of articles, How To Format A Perfect Novel. I also liked Joel Friedlander’s article, How to Publish Your eBook from Word to Kindle in under Ten Minutes. 

(BTW, if you’re thinking of getting Scrivener but aren’t sure if it’s for you, they offer a free trial for 30 days.)

4. Links

I love it when writers share links to interesting articles. So, in that spirit, let me share a links to a couple of posts I found useful when researching this article:

101 Fabulous Blog Topic Ideas, by Molly Greene

32 of the Most-Popular Blog-Post Ideas, over at The Blog Stylist

That’s it for today! Thanks for reading.

Photo credit: Owl Family Cute Clipart

Kurt Vonnegut On The Relationship Between Plot And Literature

“When you exclude plot, when you exclude anyone’s wanting anything, you exclude the reader, which is a mean-spirited thing to do.”

— Kurt Vonnegut

By now you’ve likely heard about Matthew L. Jockers and his program (Syuzhet) designed to reveal the underlying plot structure of stories by analyzing sentiment. Jockers writes that he got this idea from Kurt Vonnegut and Vladimir Propp:

“After seeing the video and hearing Vonnegut’s opening challenge (“There’s no reason why the simple shapes of stories can’t be fed into computers”), I set out to develop a systematic way of extracting plot arcs from fiction. I felt this might help me to better understand and visualize how narrative is constructed. The fundamental idea, of course, was nothing new. What I was after is what the Russian formalist Vladimir Propp had defined as the narrative’s syuzhet (the organization of the narrative) as opposed to its fabula (raw elements of the story).” (Revealing Sentiment and Plot Arcs with the Syuzhet Package)

Well! That combines two of my favorite things: storytelling and programming. I spent some time yesterday reading about MJ’s program as well as the lively debate between himself and Annie Swafford. (If you’d like to read more about this I recommend: A Fabula of Syuzhet.)

But I’m not going to talk about any of that today, at least not directly. After I finished reading “A Fabula of Syuzhet,” I decided it was time to re-read what Kurt Vonnegut had to say about plot. That’s what I’d like to share with you today.

Kurt Vonnegut On Story Structure

Kurt Vonnegut doesn’t seem to have been at all snobbish when it comes to admitting the need for some sort of plot, some sort of story structure. For instance, during an interview, published in The Paris Review, he said:

“VONNEGUT: I guarantee you that no modern story scheme, even plotlessness, will give a reader genuine satisfaction, unless one of those old fashioned plots is smuggled in somewhere. I don’t praise plots as accurate representations of life, but as ways to keep readers reading. When I used to teach creative writing, I would tell the students to make their characters want something right away—even if it’s only a glass of water. Characters paralyzed by the meaningless of modern life still have to drink water from time to time. One of my students wrote a story about a nun who got a piece of dental floss stuck between her lower left molars, and who couldn’t get it out all day long. I thought that was wonderful. The story dealt with issues a lot more important than dental floss, but what kept readers going was anxiety about when the dental floss would finally be removed. Nobody could read that story without fishing around in his mouth with a finger. Now, there’s an admirable practical joke for you. When you exclude plot, when you exclude anyone’s wanting anything, you exclude the reader, which is a mean-spirited thing to do. You can also exclude the reader by not telling him immediately where the story is taking place, and who the people are—

“INTERVIEWER: And what they want.

“VONNEGUT: Yes. And you can put him to sleep by never having characters confront each other. Students like to say that they stage no confrontations because people avoid confrontations in modern life. “Modern life is so lonely,” they say. This is laziness. It’s the writer’s job to stage confrontations, so the characters will say surprising and revealing things, and educate and entertain us all. If a writer can’t or won’t do that, he should withdraw from the trade.” (Kurt Vonnegut, The Art of Fiction No. 64, The Paris Review)

Kurt Vonnegut’s Plot Shapes

(Click to enlarge.)

1. Boy In Hole

Here someone gets into trouble and then gets out of it. The protagonist starts out just above average. They aren’t depressed about life. Not yet. 

KV says: “You will see this story over and over again. People love it and it is not copyrighted. The story is “Man in Hole,” but the story needn’t be about a man or a hole. It’s: Somebody gets into trouble, gets out of it again [draws line A]. It is not accidental that the line ends up higher than where it began. This is encouraging to readers.” (From: A Man Without A Country)

2. Boy Meets Girl

This plot starts off with average people on a day like any other. There’s nothing exceptional here. Then something wonderful happens, followed shortly by a reversal of fortune. So this could be described as: The protagonist didn’t have much of anything, then got something, lost it and, finally, got it back.

3. Cinderella’s Story

KV remarks that this is the most popular story in western civilization. We love to hear this story. “Every time it’s retold someone makes a million dollars, you’re welcome to do it.”

A little girl is the protagonist. Her mother has died and her father has remarried. Her step-mother is a vile tempered ugly woman with two nasty daughters. 

There’s a party at the palace but she can’t go. “She has to help her two stepsisters and her dreadful stepmother get ready to go, but she herself has to stay home. Is she even sadder now? No, she’s already a broken-hearted little girl. The death of her mother is enough. Things can’t get any worse than that. So okay, they all leave for the party. Her fairy godmother shows up [draws incremental rise], gives her pantyhose, mascara, and a means of transportation to get to the party.

“And when she shows up she’s the belle of the ball [draws line upward]. She is so heavily made up that her relatives don’t even recognize her. Then the clock strikes twelve, as promised, and it’s all taken away again [draws line downward]. It doesn’t take long for a clock to strike twelve times, so she drops down. Does she drop down to the same level? Hell, no. No matter what happens after that she’ll remember when the prince was in love with her and she was the belle of the ball. So she poops along, at her considerably improved level, no matter what, and the shoe fits, and she becomes off-scale happy.”

4. Franz Kafka’s Story

Franz Kafka’s Story isn’t shown in the four minute clip, above. KV says:

“Now there’s a Franz Kafka story [begins line D towards bottom of G-I axis]. A young man is rather unattractive and not very personable. He has disagreeable relatives and has had a lot of jobs with no chance of promotion. He doesn’t get paid enough to take his girl dancing or to go to the beer hall to have a beer with a friend. One morning he wakes up, it’s time to go to work again, and he has turned into a cockroach [draws line downward and then infinity symbol]. It’s a pessimistic story.”

What Does Plot Have To Do With Literature?

Then KV asks the question, the question that, arguably, this has all been leading up to. KV asks: 

“The question is, does this system I’ve devised help us in the evaluation of literature?”

And that is, indeed, the question. KV’s answer seems to be that it doesn’t. Why? Because these kinds of gains and ills aren’t what makes a story great literature. That’s not to say there’s anything wrong with having them, but they’re irrelevant. What makes Hamlet great isn’t that it has one of these structures, it’s that it told the truth. KV says:

“But there’s a reason we recognize Hamlet as a masterpiece: it’s that Shakespeare told us the truth, and people so rarely tell us the truth in this rise and fall here [indicates blackboard]. The truth is, we know so little about life, we don’t really know what the good news is and what the bad news is.”

So, what’s Kurt Vonnegut saying? He’s not saying throw away the plot, he’s saying use the plot to keep an audience’s attention—even if the plot is simply whether or not the protagonist will get an errant piece of dental floss out from between her teeth! Give the audience something that will keep them reading, keep them entertained, while you tell them your truth.

And that’s what storytelling, great storytelling, is all about.

At least, IMHO.

That’s it! Thanks for reading.