Your Favourite Structures in Stories

[TheRedChamber]

The story tells me how it wants to be structured.

VERY occasionally, I'll break stories into parts or chapters. This tends to happen in supernatural or historical stories, which I also often feel more comfortable writing in third person.

But generally? No. I just write.

If it works for you, OP, go with it. But I'd find your approach stifling and WAY too formalized, like a five-paragraph essay in high school.

I'm interested by all the replies on this thread that all say they just write. I assume that the planning/pantsing divide is a spectrum - nobody is sitting down with a blank piece of paper, writing "It was a dark and stormy..." and then wracking their brains for a suitable time of day. Tolkien is supposed to have scribbled 'In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit' inbetween marking exam papers, but presumably, he went back and thought something about what they actually meant later.
If you put your keyboard down at the end of a session and your story's not complete, then presumably you're thinking about what could happen next until the time you pick it up again.

Each to his own, but for me, planning is the opposite is stifling. Being able to mentally plan out the whole story gives me the opportunity to play with variations and see which fits best before I've already written 10,000+ words and being aware of the structure lets me see if follows the standard template or if I want to do something more interesting with it.

At an extreme, thinking about structures can help with inspiration. In thinking about this reply, I was going to give the example of this simple structure.

1. Boy meets girl in cafe.
2. Sex.
3. Boy parts from girl in same cafe.

I was going to make the point that whatever the other elements going on in this story, knowing that I'm going to be returning my characters to the same cafe later means I'm thinking about both scenes when I write the first one, how they are different and how they are the same. But then, on my morning walk I thought about the following alternatives.

1. Boy meets girl A in cafe. They talk about their past failed relationships.
2. Sex.
3. Boy meets girl B in cafe. They talk about their past failed relationships (e.g. girl A)

OR

1. Boy A meets girl B in cafe.
2. Sex between boy A and girl B.
3. Girl B meets boy C in cafe.
4. Sex between girl B and boy C.
5. Boy C meets girl D in cafe.
6. Sex between boy C and girl D.
7. Girl D meets boy A in cafe...fade to black

OR

1. Boy A meets girl A in cafe.
2. Later that night, girl A is having sex with boy B, who she hooked up with having not liked boy A very much.
3. Boy A meets girl B in cafe.
4. Later that night, girl B is having sex with boy C (or maybe boy B again if I'm feeling mean), who she hooked up with having not liked boy A very much.
5. Boy A meets girl C in cafe.
6. Later that night boy A is having sex with the waitress who finds his many dating failures cute.

I'm not saying any of those ideas are particuarly great, but they came fairly quick in succession from about five minutes thought and could potentially serve as something to build a real story around later.

 

[Voboy]

I'm interested by all the replies on this thread that all say they just write....

Diff'rent strokes, diff'rent folks.

My way works for me. I'd say I've found an audience here.

 

[LdyHoneybee]

As a relatively new writer, who has been writing soley one-shot stories so far, one of the things I've been exploring is the various ways to structure a story. I tend to write in numbered subsections and like to have a very clear view of what I'm trying to achieve in that numbered section and ensure that the number of words in each section is appropriate (doesn't need to be the same, but needs to match the rough importance/complexity of each section). I'd be interested in what some of your favourite story structures are and why you think they work so well. I'll give some examples of what I mean.

Type 1. Two Lives Converge and Diverge

Used in my story Midnight in Italy

Section 1 and 2. (Male Perpective) Male character notices and lusts over and plans approach of female character. Section ends with him knocking on the door of her hotel room (they haven't interacted at all yet).
Section 3. (Female Perspective) What the female character is doing right before the knock. (She's not necessarily thinking about him, but has her own currently unsolvable problems which she needs taking her mind off)
Section 4. (Male Perspective) The seduction.
Section 5. (Female Perspective) The sex (and her view of the seduction which doesn't wholely match the male characters view).
Section 6. (Third character perspective). The two characters never meet again. The final section is from the view point of someone who does have contact with both and has 'the full story' of what happened.

Type 2. The good old ABAB

Used my story My Dom is Such a Nice Lad

Section 1. (Male/Dom perspecitve) An erotic but non-sexual encounter between the two main characters.
Section 2. (Male/Dom perspective) The characters discuss the section 1 encounter in friendly, relaxed way
Section 3 and 4. (Female/Sub perspective) A sexual encounter that mirrors the section 1 erotic encounter, but from the other perspetive. (Two sections due to length and a slight themic break halfway through)
Section 5. (Male/Dom perspective) The characters discuss the section 2 encounter in and their plans for the future in a friendly, relaxed way

(You could also do this one the other way round with meeting, sex/eroticness, meeting, sex.)

Type 3. I don't exist when you don't see me.

Used in my story Barbie Ferrari and (to some extent) in Four Weddings and a Funeral.

Each section has a specific date and time that it takes place. The section detail everytime the two main characters met and nothing else. There may be a gap of a week or gaps of years. Each section begins shortly before the second character enters the first characters view and finished moments after they leave.

Type 4. The Escalation Story.

Used in my story How My Mother Met You

The story starts mildly and things get crazier and crazier until either the characters reach nirvana or nope the fuck out.

Section 1. After claiming it's difficult to get a girlfriend, the male MC's mother immediately gets one by chatting to the waitress on his behalf.
Section 2. Everything's great in the relationship, but the MC is slightly weirded out that his mother brought the female MC's new sexy lingerie.
Section 3. The MC's discovers to his horror that his mother has been making instructional videos for the female MC about how to deep throat. (The female MC is now pregnant and he's going to propose.)
Section 4. During the confrontation about the revelation in section 3, the MC discovers the female MC and his mother have had sex.
Section 5. Despite his misgivings the male and female characters have reconciled. Then he catches the female MC and his mother in the act.
Section 6. The female MC and his mother get married and start raising his child and invite him to 'rejoin them'.
Section 7. The male MC takes action to bring things to a close.

Type 5. Location, Location, Location

Used in my story Before She's Thirty

Each section takes place in a clearly defined different locations and hopefully each is significantly different in feeling. While obviously there are story threads running through the whole thing, each location is the setting for a clear story beat.

Section 1. Italian Restaurant - female MC wants to loose her virginity before her up-coming thirtieth birthday, but is having a disasterous date. Her date, instead of ditching her, proposes a radical solution.
Section 2. The Streets of London and Hair Salon - female MC has hair-cut to try and adopt a new persona to allow her to get over her sexual fears.
Section 3. His Apartment bathroom - having a panic attack she locks herself in the bathroom until her head is straight again.
Section 4. The Bedroom - you can guess this.
Section 5. The kitchen - the next morning they have the whole, 'what happens next' converstation.

Type 6 and 7. The Dream and Its Realization and No Context to this Footage.

For the story First Refusal I went a bit crazy and included two new structures in the same story - too ambitious? Well maybe given it wasn't well recieved.

Prologue. The section is written from a 'camera lense' perspective. We see what people say and do, but none of their inner thoughts. The female and male characters meet for the first time and are having sex within minutes - the camera cutting away once the sex begins. This feels weird as no context, explanation, or inner feelings are given.
Section 1. From here on the out the story reverts to the third-person close to our female MC and explains her daily life and currenty frustrations.
Section 2. The frustrations manifest as a dream. She discusses the dream with a friend and a solution is proposed.
Section 3. The prologue is repeated but from third-person close and we now understand what is going on.
Section 4. All the sex we missed after the prologue cut.
Section 5. The MC realizes her dream from section 2 - a lot of the language and events are similar but reality doesn't always quite match.
Epilogue. We return to the 'camera lense' perspective for the close of the story. We don't need the inner thoughts any more because we now understand what is going on with the characters.

Type 8. In Media Palpo and Same Time Next Week.

(Latin for in the middle of the stroke - maybe, I don't speak Latin)

As used in my story All Three Holes (IMP) and Well Situated with Hidden Potential (STNW)

For STNW, the story may have a set-up, but finishes with only a short coda with the protagonists agreeing they've had a good time and agreeing about when the meet next time (and what extra things to do then)
For IMP, the story starts with sex already underway, or just beginning and ends right after it finishes (or possibly allowing some clean-up) - no real discussion of the consequences next stage of the relationship are discussed lest it become STNW.

So, Lit authors - what are your favourite other structures? Which ones haven't worked for you? Do you use or avoid any of the above. Anyone you are completely sick of?

Plots are challenging for me so i am a bit in awe of this level of planning. For the story I am in the middle of now (my first here) I know how it will end and a few things along the way, but I have to work through how to believably get it there Which I am trying to do as I go along. it is kind of like going through a “choose your own adventure”book or a historical novel, probably not the best method For finishing a story. i probably could benefit from more advance planning.

 

[LdyHoneybee]

This is a good structure for a lot of erotic writing - it rounds the story out in a satisfying way without being 'and they continued to fuck happily ever after', and hopefully adds some emotional depth to a story. Power differentials or at least experience differentials add for drama in a story and are a nice way of showing how the relationship develops as they become more equal (or the lesser overtakes the greater).



Yes, perhaps I phrased it in a strange way in the title - obviously a structure has to fit the story you are telling. Still, when ideas are going round in my head, I don't necessary have all the bits and matching up the plot fragments and half-imagined scenes and trying to match them up with a few different common structures helps the story develop. So in my most recent story I had the main character (19yo male) rescue a 50yo fem sub from a BDSM session gone wrong - she then adopts him as her new dom even though he has no experience. A good basis for a story (IMHO) but then you have to work out the details. How many sessions did they have together and how many sessions am I going to write about? Do they have sex (or BDSM play in the first encounter)? Does the relationship need to end and if so how or are is it something that can be episodic with me revisiting the characters whenever I have a new scenario. Whose head am I writing from and when? Some of these are story questions and some of them are structure questions.




Maybe, and maybe George R.R. Martin is responsible for a lot of this (at least amongst a certain subset of readers/writers). To head-hop or not is one of the fundamental 'structural' questions you need to answer. As you note, it has it's uses, but also issues - in the above story I had the issue that I felt like I needed to write the final parting scene from the perspective of both characters and that would have been impossibly messy, so I had to pick one. I got feedback that said that the reader felt like I'd missed out on some of the emotional response of one of the main characters (and I agreed). Because I tend to write 3-5 page one-shots, it keeps things relatively simple, but I've asked myself whether I'm over-complicating things (and decided what the hell). If a structure feels right and is inherently logical it can be reasonably complex.

As a beginner writer, Lit offers the opportunity to try out a variety of styles and an opportunity to 'tilt the camera' sometimes. Obviously it's a good idea if we know why we/other writers do it. It's probably a good idea for writers to try out a multi-perspective story, a flashback story, a play within a play in their earlier experimental stories - even if it's just so they can decide it's not for them. (Obviously a lot of people just want to write what they want to write as well).



Yes, I read that thread. A lot of people seemed against the idea, but for me it seemed like the most natural way to tell that story.



An interesting idea for a structure that I haven't tried yet. I'll have to give this some thought.

Head hopping is easy (I admit) unless you do it like Martin, chapter by chapter where the discipline is still there. That is the “bad” reason. The good reason, especially in a longer work, is that you get to know more characters and you get to view more events. I told you about my experience with Jaime. my interest in GoT mostly had to do with Martin’s amazing technical prowess although that began to fail as he endeavored to stretch the story to more volumes. It was a great series although (for him) too long and (for the HBO adapt) too short.

 

[TheRedChamber]

Plots are challenging for me so i am a bit in awe of this level of planning.

Plots are easy enough for me. It's the words I have problems with.

Head hopping is easy (I admit) unless you do it like Martin, chapter by chapter where the discipline is still there. That is the “bad” reason. The good reason, especially in a longer work, is that you get to know more characters and you get to view more events. I told you about my experience with Jaime. my interest in GoT mostly had to do with Martin’s amazing technical prowess although that began to fail as he endeavored to stretch the story to more volumes. It was a great series although (for him) too long and (for the HBO adapt) too short.

I remember when I first read them about 10 years ago being fascinated by the way Martin used the headhopping to create a complicated narrative and the ways it becomes more problematic during the later books. Having just finished writing this post, I've nerded out over it a bit too much, but it's written now so I may as well hit submit.

The first three books are really tight in this regard - in Game of Thrones there are 8 point of view characters - 6 of them are Starks (Ned, Catelyn, Sansa, Arya, Bran, and Jon Snow) and so have an emotional connection to each other. Then we have Danny who is operating on a completely different continents and practically no connections to the main plot except that the reader can see why she's going to be important 1,000s of pages later. Finally we have Tyrion who presents a good opposing view of the Starks perspective. This is really smart structuring in terms of where we're viewing the action from - 6 family members, 1 antagonist and 1 distant stranger.

Clash of Kings basically continues this - Theon joins the PoV characters and this works because he's intimately connected with the Starks. There are three chapters with Davos who always seemed to me like a minor and not very interesting character and thats it. Importantly, because we've lost one Stark in the previous book, the introduction of the new characters don't add bloat to the book. There's a bit less Danny and Catelyn and a bit more Tyrion and Ayra, but things are still balanced nicely.

Then a Storm of Swords gives us Jamie and these chapters work really well as the character starts to redeam himself. We also get some Sam chapters which are fine - we're interested in what's happening in the north and he's completely allied to Jon Snow, so while I wouldn't go crazy about these, they're whatever. The book works, but some bloat starts - the first two are 73 and 70 chapters respectively, but the third one is 83 chapters and Jamie and Sam account for 14 of these.

But then the next two books are all over the place - Cercei gets more chapters than anyone in a Feast for Crows then Brienne and Jamie, so it could almost be a Lannister book and that might work except that the Lannister we care about is completely missing from it (that's Tyrion BTW). In both books together the Starks (excluding John) only get about 10% of the chapters. The story's not really about them anymore, but it's not really very clear who it is about anymore - there's Whitewalkers hanging around, and Danny will invade but she doesn't seem in any rush to do. There's ten new characters who get between one and four chapters each. Overall there's 22 PoV characters between the two books, so it's hard to get attached to anyone. There's individually some very good moments in it and the world and politics is still interesting. The problem is that its a slow middle act which goes over 2,000 pages and, at this point, more than 20 years. It seemed like at some point he decided that it was okay to headhop to any and all characters, but this ends up disorientating for the reader.

(I'm using the Wikipedia guide for the number of chapters BTW).

So what am I trying to say with all this? Few of us are trying to write anything quite as ambitious as GoT, but I think there are lessons to be learnt from it. Perhaps it's my obsession with structure showing but I've just finished writing a story (to be submitted in a few months for the AI event) and it's split between two main characters. While I was writing the first arc, I ended up adding several scenes to that character and then immediately felt that I was going to need to balance it out by adding something more to what I had planned for the other character although it took a while to work out what it needed to be - but I felt that a story with 66% character A and only 33% character B wouldn't feel right as the assumption I was encouraging in readers at the start was the two were equally important.

There are other things I like - for example, his habit of starting or ending the story with a completely unrelated character - thats where a one-time head-hop character often seems to work and I've done it a few times in my own stories - even to the extent of only one final head-hopping sentence at the end of a chapter or story.