Ah, structure.
So far in Appendix A, we have reviewed what is necessary to immerse the reader in the story, to inform them of what they need to know and when they need to know it (a task which admittedly wandered into strange areas), and now all we need to know is how to put it all together so it makes sense and satisfies the reader!
In my opinion, structure isn’t quite as difficult to define as context is, but it’s just as hard to put into practice. It’s hard to think about context before you write it.
But it’s easy to think about structure.
Which means it’s very easy to overthink structure and very hard to allow yourself to just let it happen.
The more you strain to make the “perfect” structure, the more strained your structure will feel. The more logically you approach your structure, the less natural it will feel. And when you get it wrong, it’s almost impossible to identify, because—from the writer’s point of view—it feels just fine, until it suddenly doesn’t. (Often, it only starts to feel somewhat “wrong” after the story is published and it isn’t selling well!)
In short, structure is essential.
Without good structure:
- Readers won’t read past page one.
- And their eyes will glaze over during fight scenes, conversation, and any sort of conflict.
- And in fact, they won’t buy the next book in the series or, in fact, another book by that author at all.
But there’s another important element to structure, too:
- Without an understanding of good structure, it’s almost impossible for an author to sell their story!
For our purposes here in Appendix A (I make no promises for later!), we’re going to look at structure on three levels:
- Overall story structure.
- Beginnings, middles, and endings.
- Pacing.
These three categories are the baby steps of structure.
In my opinion, pacing is the most important skill of those three to master. If I had to pick one skill for a writer to master, it would be pacing. And the fastest way to learn pacing?
Typing in stories written by the masters!
Without analyzing what you type in, you may not know whatyou know, but it seems to boost the writing skills of everyone who actually tries it.
Working out why human brains seem able to learn things they don’t understand just by copying them—for example, the way that little kids learn language by copying the sounds, and the words, they hear—is beyond the scope of this book. It does seem to work, though!
However, pacing is harder to study than overall story structure or even beginnings, middles, and endings (which can be quitechallenging), so we won’t start with it. Let’s start with overall structure instead.
Overall Story Structure
Overall story structure is how the overall story is structured—a pretty obvious definition, sorry! Overall story structure is obvious, though: easy to spot, easy to define, easy to explain to a reader, most of the time.
However, as writers, we often sit down and write stories without thinking about the overall structure unless something isn’t working. We often aren’t particularly aware of what the overall structures of our stories is like or that it has meaning to a reader.
For example, we don’t really plan out whether to write a story in first or third person unless the POV isn’t working.
And then we dig in and over-analyze whether stories should be written in first- or third person POV, and why! It can become almost an obsession: first person or third person, authors ask on social media. They declare: “I am a first-person POV writer! First-person POVs are superior!”
However, almost every structure question can be answered as follows: Are you willing to change the content of the story to fit the structure you build for it? And vice versa?
We’ll address the topic of structure more later.
For now, here are some elements of overall story structure for us to consider for “The Man Who Would Be King” (not a complete list):
- What is the point of view, as in, is it first- or third-person point of view?
- Is there a frame story of some kind?
- How many points of view are there, if there are more than one?
- What is the basic story format? Romance? A lone adventurer? An epic saga?
- Does the story happen at the same time and place, or are there jumps in space and time in the narrative?
- Is the narrative linear or non-linear?
- Is there an overt or covert omniscient point of view (that is, is there a narrator)?
- How long is the story?
- How many subplots are there?
- What genre is the story?
- What plot structure does the story use?
“The Man Who Would Be King” is about fourteen thousand words long, which makes it a novelette by most definitions. It has a central plot that is not viewed directly by the reader, but related at a distance by the narrator (who is presumed to be a fictionalized version of Kipling himself), and also, within the main story, by the character Peachey—which makes some parts of the story told through two narrative filters.
“The Man Who Would Be King” is a frame story, with one main point of view (the narrator’s), into which the point of view of Peachey is interwoven. The basic story format is of main character and his sidekick (as in the tales of Sherlock Holmes and Watson).
The story does not happen all at one time or place; there are jumps in the narrative between times, locations, and levels of narration.
The narrator uses a first-person point of view and speaks of himself as a character within the narrative. And he certainly doesn’t presume to read minds throughout the story; he is a limited, rather than omniscient, narrator.
The story within the frame story is simple and pretty straightforward, but the author adds a lot of wordcount to the story by adding a frame story to it. The frame story isn’t a waste, though! It helps provide the reader distance from the unpleasant events of the story, as well as allowing the narrator to foreshadow events so we’re not as brutalized by them. There are not many subplots, only the thing about the narrator being a spy, which is quite short.
The genre of the story is adventure, a genre more supported in movie genres than on bookshelves these days, but which remains popular.
The story uses an adventure (later known as pulp) plot structure, in which a number of dramatic incidents are strung together in an escalating fashion until a resolution is reached—and is not a variant of a hero’s journey. (The central character does not return with a panacea or elixir.)
Now that we’ve identified the main elements of our overall structure, let’s take a moment to look at how we might market such a story:
The tale of two adventurers who would swindle an entire nation….told to a cool-headed journalist in the heat of Central India!
That line tells the reader to expect:
- That the basic framework is an adventure told as a “buddy” movie or a “main character/sidekick” type of story (“two adventurers”).
- A narrator (“told to a cool-headed journalist”).
- A frame story/non-linear (“told to a cool-headed journalist”).
- A sub-novel length (it’s not an “epic tale” or “saga,” just a “tale”).
- The adventure genre (the words “adventure,” “swindle,” and “Central India”).
There are other considerations that would need to be addressed if this were real marketing text for the story (such as asking the reader to buy the book and hinting at a plot twist), but the line wouldn’t make a terrible first line for a book description or an advertisement.
Most of the time, when you’re selling stories, what you are selling is the overall structure of the story: how it rises and falls, what emotions it is built to contain, whose perspectives are valued, even how fast the reader turns the pages! Add a little setting in the genres where setting is important, and you have learned to market a book!
Next up: Beginnings, middles, and ends 🙂