novel structure

[asher marquering]

hi complements of the season

I have been doing some reading of novel structure and came across three types that I often use

Dramatic structure:
Exposition
Rising action
Climax
Falling action
Dénouement or catastrophe

Mono-myth structure
A call to adventure
A road of trials
Achieving the goal or knowledge
A return to the ordinary world
Applying the goal or knowledge

Bildungsroman(not really a structure though)

anyone use any other narrative structures because i'm trying to break the habit

perhaps a book or websit on narratology i could read through

[Balthazar]

Hmmm. Not sure why you would want to break the habit of tried and true narrative structure. Conflict, action, resolution seems to work for every story no matter how literary or commercial.

There are all kinds of examples of different narrative structures, though I know not what to call them. Martin Amis's Time's Arrow is written backwards, with the reader knowing in advance everything that will happen. James Joyce's Ulysses; William Burrough's automatic writing and cut-ups.

Make up your own narrative structure. There are tried and true rules, but you can do whatever you think fits your story. Although I am sure there are some books on different types of narrative structure. I don't know any. Sounds too academic for me! Hope this helps. Good luck.

[power to the J]

Just write the story so it's the best that it can be. Whether the finished product is like a fairy-tale of a Tarantino movie doesn't matter, as long as the narrative style helps the overall quality of the book.

[kaelcarp]

I think one of the biggest mistakes many writers make, myself very strongly included (in fact, it's something I just can't seem to shake) is trying to analyze their idea ahead of time. Ideally, you should write it first. Leave analysis and deconstruction for later, or not at all (really, writers write, and literary students and critics deconstruct and analyze).

I'm giving advice I wish I could follow. I suppose lots of writers must work in an analytical fashion from the start, but I suspect that most aren't too concerned with it beyond a certain point. They simply write, and what comes out comes out. They may go back and edit it to improve the structure, but most of the time, that comes later.

[Lith]

You're going to have a very, very difficult time avoiding narrative structure. That's because all (or virtually all) stories fall naturally into it, from the first time there were just stories, and not just strings of events. And the theories about the hero, and the basic types of myth, came about because all stories naturally fell into these patterns.

I wouldn't worry about it; just write the ideas you find interesting, and learn how to make them read so that others also find them interesting.

I think the urge to analyze and deconstruct what you're writing (or to be more accurate, planning to write) is a natural stage for a lot of writers, and certainly one I've fallen in. But there's a lot more to writing, that you only learn in the process of writing, things about tension, resolution, logical flow of events... books about writing introduce you to it, and for a while can actually inhibit your writing, because you're too self-conscious of them, but it's a stage to be overcome, as you take those rules and internalize them for yourself.

[Lord_Rahl]

Someone was talking about the 'quest' plot structure on another thread. In that they said LOTR used that structure, and although it does. It actually uses the 'quest' to further what is known as a mileu story. Which is simply a story without plot, a story to simply made to show the world that the writer has created.

[Giovanna Clairval]

Telling a story requires the building of suspense. It's what makes the reader turn the pages instead of putting down the book, unless you are writing a literary novel based on the stream of consciousness. But we are talking about popular literature, aren't we? And the word "popular" doesn't make Fantasy or Science Fiction less "artistic" in any way. Well, when you write this kind of novel, it's the story that counts. Storytelling is an art that has been perfected since mums began telling bedtime stories (that's how I practiced, by the way).

Every story has an exposition, followed by rising action, etc. This is the basic structure that keeps the reader (or the listener) intent on what is going to happen. The underlying structure accounts for the reader's satisfying experience when the dénouement arrives.

But of course, the execution should be personal and original.

Knowing that a good story has a structure does not undermine the imagination; on the contrary, it supports it, exactly as knowing the gamut makes a soloist more effective when she improvises.

[JDP]

I guess this is pretty similar to Conflict, Action & Resolution (?), mentioned above, but a novel should have a Beginning,a Middle and an End; so should each subplot, chapter and scene. Simplistic, but I find it helpful. I think that this is why trilogies are so popular.

[kaelcarp]

Originally Posted by JDP

I guess this is pretty similar to Conflict, Action & Resolution (?), mentioned above, but a novel should have a Beginning,a Middle and an End; so should each subplot, chapter and scene. Simplistic, but I find it helpful. I think that this is why trilogies are so popular.

Someone once made an interesting point to me that a well told story usually has a sort of repeat of its design, in a fractal sort of way, on multiple levels, You can look at it on a macro level and see the beginning/middle/end, and then you can see the same thing as you dig deeper and deeper. Each section, each chapter, each scene has a defined beginning, middle, and end. If you can write a scene that has a good structure, and then put together several of those scenes to form a similar structure for a chapter, and then work your way up to the full story level, it's kind of like putting together a puzzle. Of course, for most writers, it's all done instinctively.

[JFLewis]

I'd suggest reading Writing the Breakout Novel by Donald Maas. It was after reading that book that I finished my third novel... it also turned out to be my first professional sale.

Though the book doesn't only address novel structure, it is very useful as an overall guide to adjusting the way you think about writing.

---Jeremy

[The Curious Orange]

Originally Posted by JFLewis

I'd suggest reading Writing the Breakout Novel by Donald Maas. It was after reading that book that I finished my third novel... it also turned out to be my first professional sale.
---Jeremy

That's one of the books I've got in my stack. It is very good, but I've struggled to apply a lot of what he suggests.

I think the problem is that I write because it's fun. If I start writing in the way some of these books suggest, then it becomes work.