Today, as part of the Go Teen Writers Book Club, we’re discussing chapter three of Story Trumps Structure.
Chapter Recap:
“Stories revolve
around dilemmas, not action. To build a story, you don’t try to make the right
things happen but rather make the
right things go wrong.”
Until something goes wrong, you don’t have a story, you have a list of episodic events.
There are three ways to introduce the crisis of calling into your story:
1. Give your protagonist what he desires most, then take it away.
2. Show him what he desires most, then dangle it in front of him.
3. Force what he
dreads upon him, then make him escape from it.
Mr. James also gives three types of struggles to interweave in stories:
1. Internal struggles- a question that needs to be answered.
2. External struggles- a problem that needs to be solved.
3. Interpersonal
struggles- relationships that need to be started or resolved.
“Internal and interpersonal struggles create reader empathy and an emotional connection with the story, while external struggles create curiosity.” Each of the three struggles will interweave with the others to give the story unity.
“It might be helpful to think through the timing of the origins and resolutions of your story’s central struggles.”
You don’t have to resolve everything you set up, but you have to respolve enough to satisfy your readers.
What Stood Out:
Steven’s daughter saying:
“Nothing’s going wrong!” in regard to a story without a problem. Every story
needs a problem to happen relatively soon, even if it’s not the main problem of
the story.
Giving the character what he longs for early in the story is a way to promise readers that things are going to go very wrong soon. And if things aren’t going wrong soon, perhaps you need to tweak some things. Stories should have more things going wrong for the hero than are going right.
“To initiate your story, your protagonist will either 1) lose something vital then try to regain it, 2) see something desirable and try to obtain it, 3) experience something traumatic and try to overcome it.”
What I Intend to Apply to My Writing:
“Stories revolve
around dilemmas, not action. To build a story, you don’t try to make the right
things happen but rather make the
right things go wrong.” I love this.
I’m always trying to think of a series of events that will happen, but I prefer
the idea of thinking what can go wrong next.
I loved when Mr. James said that a choice related to the external struggle helps the main character overcome her internal struggle and mend (or move on from) her interpersonal struggles. I’ve never tried to weave these together on purpose, and I think it might be fun to try and do so.
Tip of the week:
If all your hero’s
struggles happen before the first page of your book, you’ll have to dump a lot
of backstory onto your readers. You’ll also leave your readers feeling like
they’ve missed some important parts of the story. Both are excellent reasons
not to include huge amounts of backstory. Work hard to start your story in the
right place.
Questions: Answer at least one of the following (or as many as you’d like).
•What is going wrong in your story?
•Which way did you introduce the crisis of calling into your work in progress? 1) Give your protagonist what he desires most, then take it away? 2) Show him what he desires most, then dangle it in front of him? Or 3) Force what he dreads upon him, then make him escape from it?
•Was there anything in this chapter you disliked?
•What, if anything do you intend to apply to your writing?
•Any questions?
Next week we’ll be reading and discussing Chapter 4: Escalation.
This is an awesome reminder!
One thing I intend to put in my writing is more conflict. I realized I don’t have enough to keep the story interesting and to challenge Matthew. That will be fun to come up with conflicts – internal and external.
I was wondering, on a side note, about the newsletter I received this morning. You said we can post on any social media. Does that include Pinterest and Goodreads too? Because Goodreads would be the perfect place to advertise.
Ah, poor Matthew! He’s about to get some conflict! Ha ha. That’s awesome, Macey. Bad for Matthew, but good for the story!
Yes! You can post anywhere. Thanks so much! Email me if you need help finding the Goodreads page.
Too bad my laptop can’t do emojis. *insert smiley face* Thanks and you’re welcome.
I underlined the same thing you did, about having the right things go wrong. I’ve never heard it articulated that way before, and it really jumped out at me.
Something I underlined AND starred is “The door to normal is closed forever. The protagonist will search for it but will only find doors that lead to other rooms where things get progressively worse for her until all appears lost in the dark moment right before the climax.” The idea of my main character searching for “normal” again felt really helpful to me!
My book is definitely the “give them something to dread and make them escape” type. I think I have a lot of good incidents where things go wrong, but I’m not sure if I need more, or maybe even less. I’ll figure that out in the edits.
One quote from this chapter that I loved was “Don’t get sidetracked by this game of identifying every specific ‘inciting incident’ or ‘plot point’. Instead, focus on how you can tell your story best. You’re not here to dissect it, you’re here to breathe life into it.”I felt that this quote, especially the last sentence, encapsulates one of the major points of this book: it’s not so important how you set up your story as it is that you have a good story to set up in the first place.
I love that quote! I think I need to stuck it somewhere I’ll see when I write . . .
Oh this is really neat! Especially the part about making things go wrong. It did raise one question for me though:
My main character is the bad guy. Kinda. Basically because of the way she was raised, she thinks that bad is right and evil is good. So the things that are going wrong in the story for HER, are really going quite well, as she is learning about love, joy, etc.
I guess what I’m asking is this: Is things going right FOR HER going to draw my reader in more (because it’s actually bad,) or is have things go wrong FOR HER (so technically good,) going to create more interest?
I hope that makes sense. ?
Wow… um, I’d have to say both. Having bad things happen that she’s sees as good could be the external conflict that’s supposed to pique curiosity, and having good things happen that she sees as bad could be the internal conflict that creates emotional investment. I think…
What is going wrong in my story: I was glad to realize, while reading this chapter, that plenty of things are going wrong. There are lots of external struggles as well as some pretty solid interpersonal struggles.
What I intend to apply: I liked the way Mr. James described the three types of struggles and some of what each accomplishes. One thing I noticed about my WIP is that my main character doesn’t seem to be as internally invested in the story as he probably should be––I’m pretty sure one of the primary supporting characters has more internal struggles going on than he does! But hopefully, now that I’ve noticed this, next steps will present themselves.
Thanks for doing this, by the way! I’m really enjoying the book so far and I love reading the chapter summaries and seeing what stuck out to other people.