Structure in fiction is necessary for two reasons: 1. Literature has many forms, and each form has its own unique structure for telling a story. And that teaserâthat promise of an awesome storyâcomes into play with the âinciting incidentâ. Everyday life is full of accidents, coincidences, happenstance, and fate, all of which play a role in determining “how things work out” in one’s life. As the longest act, and sandwiched between Act 1 and 3, it is more prone to the dreaded mid-novel slumpâa meandering slog of filler and lost tension. Actions must be externalâ that is, something that can be witnessed if the transaction were on a stage. Why should we study it? The two interrelate, but they’re not quite the same. Works like like Mrs. Dalloway, Ulysses, and Naked Lunch are bare for any real "plot" in the normal sense. Harry discovers the three-headed dog guarding the mysterious package from vault 713, fights a troll on Halloween, nearly falls off his broomstick in his first Quidditch match, learns of Nicholas Flamel, anonymously receives an Invisibility Cloak, stumbles upon the Mirror of Erised, realises the existence of the Philosopherâs Stone, and suspects Snape of trying to steal the stone. There are many reasons for this. This is the first game-changer as the event that rocks your main characterâs world. These are all exciting and significant milestones for young Harry in a world which is intriguing and exciting. It will take some care and patience, but the result will be worth it. A writer’s prose style-voice, tone, diction, use of figurative language-determines how readers ‘hear’ and, to some extent, enjoy a story, but the internal structure, the organization of the parts, shapes the piece, makes it readable, and often determines its meaning. Probably not recently. But in real life a person might fall ill for no apparent reason. An important part of understanding data structures is simply knowing some of the most common data structures. Harry, Ron and Hermione believe Snape is forcing Quirrell to steal the stone, but when they learn Hagrid has an illegal dragonâs egg, they also have an additional problem to worry about. Thankfully, it’s easier to fix the broken structure of a story than a roller-coaster. Why is this important? The Climax 3. But no matter what the form, most successful fiction today is based on a structure that uses a series of scenes that interconnect in a very clear way to form a long narrative with linear development from the posing of a story question at the outset to the answering of that question at the climax. This is where, after receiving a flurry of mysterious letters Uncle Vernon refuses to let Harry read, they find themselves in a little shack on a rock way out at sea. A span can only support so much weight and tension without additional bracing. Harry and his friends are awarded house-points for their efforts, securing the win for Gryffindor in what is Harryâs best moment in life so far. Writing them out of order can present bigâor more subtleâproblems later. Thankfully, it’s easier to fix the broken structure of a story than a roller-coaster. There are a few main types of story structure but overall, the structure of your story is how the events are laid out with an emphasis on using each part to further the story in an intriguing and cohesive structure. The next level of the story structure pyramid is plot points. We’ve compiled six tips and strategies for teaching story structure in ways that help boost reading comprehension skills. Bad things happen to good people for no discernible reason. This is your roller-coaster. After finding the corresponding turning pages in my book, this is the overview of the structure: We are introduced to 11-year old Harry and the dreadful Dursleys. The rule is that you present the internalization to the reader when necessary (between action and reaction) to make an otherwise incredible exchange understandable and believable. A framework such as the Written Report Structure, above, will also allow you to break down the daunting task of writing a … Fortunately (for the architect and for you as a writer), many of the same principles of construction apply to both projects. Not that the journey itself isnât important, but after flipping through all those pages, your readers have earned the ending. And like … Ultimately, Harry must progress alone and he ventures onwards to battle the villain. Post was not sent - check your email addresses! For example, 10% would be 2.23 x 10, which would be 23.3 (or roughly 23 pages). Glad you asked. Hagrid, of course, tracks him down and reveals all to Harry with the famously quote âYer a wizardâ. Last year, I attended the Sydney Writers’ Festival and listened to English author and creative writing lecturer, Scarlett Thomas, speak. But knowing that still leaves you with a big problem. When reaction to action is not logical on the surface, you must ordinarily explain it. Catch-22, Malone, Waiting for Godot, The Stranger, The Metamorphosis, these are only a few works of great literature in which s**t just happens for no reason. If you have too many peaks without enough gentle bumps, people will throw up. Book: By Jay Asher. My copy of the Philosopherâs Stone has 223 pages, so letâs use this guideline to calculate the breakdown: To calculate where all the percentages fall in the book, we first need to find out 1% of 223 pages.Simply divide 223 by 100 to get 2.23, and then multiply 2.23 by whichever percentage you want. Describe in a single paragraph why this poem is a story according to the “change in response to conflict” definition of story. Structure is a process, not a rigid format. Most non-writers who talk about form and structure tend to put the cart before the horse, looking at book-length elements, or even non-structural elements like theme, and never get down into the nuts and bolts where modern fiction structure really lives. How do you motivate Charlotte to open that locked door? Teaching students story structure—how to identify the structural components of a text and how those different elements interact—is a great strategy for increasing reading comprehension, close reading skills, and retention. That’s a lie. Youâve likely heard of the 3-Act structure of storytelling: Or as anyone can usually explain it: The Beginning, Middle and End. 2. The first plot point separates… The internal structure is like the frame of a ho… But if a character picks up a hot pan with his bare hand, the internalization is pretty obvious, instinctive even. Novels are told from first-person and third-person (and more rarely second-person), and from omniscient points of view and limited points of view, or follow the stream-of-consciousness through one or many characters’ thoughts. If John’s reason for punching Bill is the lingering sense of anger he’s been feeling over the last several days, you have to show John’s anger, his pacing around the room, his clenching and unclenching fists, his flaring nostrils and labored breathing. And there, you can see how well Rowling has structured the first book of the beloved Harry Potter series. What is story structure? Why is geography so important? They want you to deliver on the promise that you set up in Act 1 and made them chase through Act 2. The 3-Act Structure. Structure in fiction isn’t static, it’s dynamic. But Act 2 needs to keep your reader turning the pages. They function right now in the story, at this instant â the thrust that requires a parry, the question that requires an answer, the lightning bolt that makes Charlotte jump out of her shoes as she contemplates that locked door. If the peaks aren’t high enough, they’ll forget the ride as soon as they got off. You can use this technique to analyses books you like–or even didn’t like– you might find that the story structure played a big part in how engaged you were. I grew up with the series and the first five books have loose pages from the number of times my sister and I have reread them. The structure of any story has four important components i.e., plot, setting, character, and theme. Still, they persevere to save the Philosopherâs Stone, using their wits and friendship to bypass the magical security measures. The two interrelate, but they’re not quite the same. Your readers need structure so that they can understand this story they’re reading, and. Harry gets his own wand, meets the wizarding community, runs into antagonist Draco, locates Platform 9 ¾, travels to Hogwarts, makes his first true friend in Ron, gets sorted into Gryffindor, has magic lessons, and rides his first broomstick. ), Such actions without reactions and reactions without actions are believable in everyday life. Here, we have a great plot twist where Harry realises that itsâs not Snape, but Quirrell who is trying to steal the stone. The parts need to be screwed together precisely with very specific nuts and bolts. In literature, it’s called absurdism. Structure is not formulaic. Story structure works in much the same way. Can the workings of luck, coincidence, fate, destiny, and happenstance have a place in your work? Surprisingly few people know what makes a good story or know how to explain it. Why structure is important for your play, film or story. For obvious reasons, it’s hard to consider one without the other. Charlotte might jump out of her shoes for no reason we can see or hear at all. Don’t believe me? Because honestly, yes, even the most basic action-reaction exchanges require some kind of internal messaging in the mind and body of the receiving character. Stories and poems that have a familiar structure can create a supportive context for learning about the writing process, building students' background knowledge, and scaffolding their creation of original stories. Structure, suffice it to say, is important. The metal you build your track from has to withstand the weather and heat. These cue cards are designed so you can easily print, cut, and laminate them for repeated use. It is also the point at which your reader may decide to chuck your book aside if theyâre not compelled enough, so set up those stakes and ensure your characters are worth caring about. A good roof keeps the rain and snow out and the heat in. Developing a structure or framework for your writing will ensure that the most important points are covered at the appropriate point in the writing. You must show the reactions. This is intentional. My point is, if you want to write popular literature, cause-and-effect have to be evident to the reader. Read this ScienceStruck article to know about the importance of geography. It seems nearly impossible for the human being to resist becoming enthralled with their own power, and that’s usually when bad things happen, and the need to keep those things under wraps takes over and wreaks havoc. Required fields are marked *. Both are made of wood, but that doesn’t mean they’re the same. Life just doesn’t make much sense. This is perfectly fine, so long as you explain the bizarre action-reaction exchange within the next few paragraphs. You can’t afford to that. If the peaks are all near the beginning with none left for the end, they’ll tell their friends the ride was boring. There is also an inherited skin name kinship structure that decides how things get passed down intergenerationally. Again, in real life, causal actions aren’t always apparent. The content of the story describes the structure to be adopted by the writer. I haven’t been on the subway lately. Inciting Event: Clay receives the tapes and begins listening, then goes to his friend Tony’s place and steals his cassette player. The sequence of all the events is called a Plot.Event is a meaningful change in character’s life, the thing that happens during a story that transforms the world from one state into another.During a story, the main character(protagonist) goes through a series of events, each of them taking him closer to, or farther away from his Goal.This series of events culminates in Climax — the major, … And while you get all kinds of rides, the ones that draw people back again and again are design to make you anticipate the ride. Analysing the plot structure of books can be a great exercise. Rowling entices our sympathy for poor Harry straight away and though the Dursleys seem to take pride in their normality, we learn of strange incidents involving Harry that hint that he is quite your ordinary 11-year old. For your character to fall ill, you must first establish the background (stress, exhaustion, exposure), then provide the more immediate (present story time) cause, before your character can suddenly succumb to the flu, the plague, or the walking zombie rot. Not every story needs a three act structure — but many of them do and that's why it's so important to know how it works. And structure has nothing to do with “cornflower blue in all the nineteens.”. Michael Dellert is an award-winning writer, editor, publishing consultant, and writing coach with a publishing career spanning 20+ years. The truth is that a thorough understanding and use of fiction’s classic structural patterns actually liberates you from worrying about the wrong things, allowing you to concentrate your imagination on characters and events rather than on such stuff as transitions and moving chapters around, when to begin or open a chapter, whether there ought to be a flashback, and so on. These three elements are the base of the pyramid on which an engaging novel is built. Re-watch Contagion, where a sizeable portion of the screen-time is devoted to all the things Gwyneth Paltrow did â every drinking glass she touched, every person she came in contact with â to contract the signature plague of the film’s premise. An architect of a ten-floor office building wouldn’t use the same structural materials as he would in a split-level ranch. You donât have to follow this as a play-by-play ultimatum, of course, but it makes for a great guide. Keeping the audience on the edge of their seat is crucial for any narrative to work properly. But we’ll get to that in a later post. Geography deals with the study of landforms and the natural phenomena on Earth. The same cause-and-effect logic that is operative at the macro level of fiction in elements such as background, character motive, and so on, are also at work at the micro-level in the form of action and reaction. For writers, this can be the most difficult act to write, and not just because it tends to be twice as big as Act 1 and 3. Structure in fiction is necessary for two reasons: The story structure is internal, as opposed to the form of the story, which is external. Thus, the elements of structure, properly applied, are scalable to whatever form you can imagine. Creating structure is kind of like storytelling — its a pathway through information based on a subjective understanding of similarities and relationships. You might be a student trying to get a passing grade on an essay, a guy trying to text to a smart girl without humiliating yourself, an employee writing a company-wide memo, or a writer working on your next book. The structure makes all the difference in creating a narrative that is poignant and satisfying. At its most basic level, story structure relates to the beginning, middle, and end of your novel. This prompted me to purchase her book, Monkeys with Typewriters: How to … Breathless with anticipation, we hurtle at last towards the much-awaited climax. Is it possible to write a moving fictional narrative that doesn’t rely on this kind of cause-and-effect? It is the call to action, an event that canât be ignored. To begin with, you need to understand how the same structural principles work on a line-by-line level in your writing. The stakes are definitely raised with the growing sense of danger. Imagine your story as a roller-coaster ride. ), 50â75% (Complications and higher stakes). The story structure elements help children identify the important parts of the story while the transition words help them connect ideas and prevent gaps in the story. Your pacing should drive onwards with calm moments in between scenes of high tension for your characters to reflect and your readers to breathe. Actions must be something on the stage in the story “now,” something that could be seen or heard or otherwise perceived with the senses of the audience if you were to put the exchange on a theatre stage. First of all, what is a story exactly? As they retell the stories, students are encouraged to make use of sequencing words (first… He can’t just walk onto the stage and punch Bill in the nose for no apparent reason. So here we have our classic 3-Act structure, as presented by Syd Field in a manner that dissects a time-and-tested successful screenplay. 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