Finding Structure

Welcome back, friends!

I realized last month that I didn’t have a very solid education in plot structure while studying for my degree. What I mean by this is that I learned the basic structures, but I learned them in an abstract way. There were no exercises that said, “Apply this to a book you have read and loved. Find these beats in something you’re familiar with. Make up your own plot points to go alongside this structure.” Instead, the plot points were compared to Star Wars and Lord of the Rings, which are great pieces of writing/media, don’t get me wrong. But they weren’t what I grew up reading and I wasn’t familiar with those plots like I was with Harry Potter or Percy Jackson and the Olympians.

This meant that up until now, I’ve been writing plots based on instinct and vibe. A vague feeling that something is supposed to go here so that this can happen, but I’m not sure what that something is. This came up in two different conversations, one where I was asked if I was writing a Hero’s Journey, and the other where I was asked what would make the writing process easier and more enjoyable for me. And they both came down to this: I don’t know much about plot structures and plot theory.

So, I’ve begun my deep dive into various plot theories, starting with the Hero with a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell. The man behind the theory had many flaws, which I will let you research on your own. This theory focuses on what Campbell considered to be the basis of all human stories. There are a total of 17 steps that a story can take, but does not have to. To me, the parts that are important come at the start, things like the call to adventure (where the character is introduced to the start of the story, and includes the introduction into their normal world) and the crossing of the threshold (or the inciting incident launching into rising action). Many of the other plot points feel like a choose-your-own-adventure, where if it doesn’t suit the story you want to tell, you don’t have to include it. But the major drawback of the Hero’s Journey is that it focuses a lot on mythic tropes, rather than a broader storytelling structure. It also focuses a lot on the stories of masculine heroes, often placing women and feminine figures as the goal of the quest and the reward of achieving it.

I have also looked at the Heroine’s Journey, both the psychological version by Maureen Murdoch (which I found very confusing until realizing it was intended more as a therapeutic structure than a story structure) and the story-oriented structure by Victoria Lynn Schmidt (which immediately made more sense and had a sense of pacing, too).

There are several more theories and structures and ways of thinking about plot that I want to look at, but this has been a good start. In the end, I hope to combine everything I learn into one structure that I can use and feel comfortable modifying to accommodate the stories I want to tell. Learning about artistic endeavours is always a little strange, because you can only learn so much before realizing that the way someone else does it isn’t how your brain wants to do it. The truly important part about learning about the arts is take what fits, and leave the rest. Your process is your own, so make it your process. This is an important lesson for me to keep in mind, because I love a rubric and a template, but often run into the issue of “well this part works, but I’m struggling with this part.”

All this to say, keep learning and keep figuring things out for yourself. There’s always more to know.

Thank you for coming to this quick little excursion into what I’ve been learning. Next time will include a writing update, because I have a couple of projects and ideas on the go. I hope you’ll join me then!

Mulling and learning,

M