The next thing
that I wish to talk to you about is structure.
Please don't get anxious.
A structure simply means
the shape and composition of the story.
It can be as elaborate or as simple as you want.
But it will have to have a structure.
Otherwise, it will be an unstructured mess.
Now, when it comes to structure
the first thing that will determine the structure
is probably size.
Which brings us to a consideration
of the short story.
In a short story
you will have to do all of the things
that you will eventually have to do
when you're attempting your first novel
but you're doing them in miniature.
You will have to introduce your characters.
You will have to introduce the dramatic situation.
You will have to resolve that dramatic situation
one way or another.
But you will be doing it in a much more restrained
number of pages.
So, basically, the short story
is an excellent way
to begin your writing career.
I would say that, in my own experience
it's the only way to begin your writing career.
All of the problems that you will face with a longer work
you will face in miniature in the short story.
And, also
because they are relatively swiftly accomplished
you will be able to experiment more.
You don't want to do all your experiments
in a big important novel
but you can do really useful experiments
in a short story that will be over in a week
and where, if it doesn't quite work
that's no big disaster.
A lot of these experiments will be concerning structure itself.
Structure is...
There are lots of different ways to approach it
but probably the best and most applicable way
the simplest way
would be the classical three-act structure.
Now, what this is, is you divide your narrative
into roughly three parts.
You've got the beginning
you've got the middle
and you've got the end
The best way to do this
or at least as suggested
by the screenwriter Syd Field
is to jot down notes
about scenes that you've thought of
or, you know, character introductions.
Write them down upon library cards.
Have these scattered all over the carpet at your feet.
And when you've got enough of them
start to sort them into roughly three piles.
OK, these incidents
they've got to happen sometime at the beginning.
These ones have got to happen sometime at the end.
And I guess these that are left
are what's happening in the middle.
You can put your plots together like that.
But you should always remember
that plot is not the story.
The plot is not the structure.
It's just the plot.
It's what gets you from one end of the story to the other.
But it is not the most important thing in the story.
For example
most stories can be reduced
to a simple plot
that makes them a nonsense.
George Orwell's Animal Farm, the plot of it
which is some talking animals take over a farm
is not what the story is about.
And I apologise for anyone who hasn't read it yet
for whom that might be a massive spoiler.
But your structure
once you've come up with the idea of it
you can do anything within that structure.
You don't have to have your beginning
middle and end in that order.
There are interesting effects
that can be had by starting with the end
and then filling in how we got to that point in flashback.
That is probably something that is a little overused
in modern narrative and cinema.
But you can chop your story into any order
as long as it will still maintain
the reader's interest and will still tell the story.
Another way, other than rearranging the time sequence
is to repeat certain elements of the story
so that we learn something more about them
with each repetition.
A good example would be the famous story Rashomon
or even the Gene Hackman film The Conversation
where we have somebody trying to unscramble
a piece of recorded conversation
that he's only getting in increments.
And as he cleans up the noise
the piece of conversation becomes more audible
and we start to realise that our earlier assumptions
about what these people were saying
are completely wrong.
And, along with the Gene Hackman character
we are taken to an unexpected ending.
So, these are ways
that you can play with your structure.
You can start at the end and work backwards
if you think that would work.
You can do anything.
It's important to realise, however
that you are going to need a structure, a skeleton
for your story to stop it from just collapsing
into a mass of gelatinous flesh.
You need that structure there.
You need that skeleton.
Now, with the three-act structure
yes, you've got your beginning, your middle and your end
I'd like to talk a little bit about what that actually means.
By the end of your first third
by the end of your beginning
you should have established all your characters
you should have established your essential situation
so that the reader thinks that she knows
what you're going to be doing for the rest of the book.
That is a good point
at which to wrap up your opening
your first section of the structure.
The middle section of the structure
by the end of that
you should potentially have come up with
something that completely reverses
or betrays or turns around
the reader's expectations that you had set up.
You have some big revelation at the end of the second third
that will propel the story
towards a new and unexpected climax
at the end of the third part.
So, that is usually the way
that the three-part structure works.
Now, of course, in terms of
the way that you are actually structuring these things
there are a multiplicity
of varieties of structure that you can employ.
There are people who have used
what is called an epistolary narrative.
This would include Bram Stoker's book Dracula
which is largely conducted
through letters between people
and diary extracts.
That's an interesting device.
It gives, perhaps
an air of authenticity to a story
as if, yes, this could have been someone's diary entry
this could have been part of a letter.
There are stories that can be told
from the point of view of
numerous unlikely objects.
There are stories that can be told
as an intrusive questionnaire.
I remember a story by the writer John Sladek
which was something...
the "universal anxiety register" or something like that
where it was simply a questionnaire.
The first question was: "What is your name?"
The second question was: "What is your address?"
The third question was:
"List all of the addresses
at which you have stayed during your life
including the time of occupancy
and any other factors."
Fourth question:
"Now, what is your name?"
All of a sudden, you start to get an anxious feeling.
And as this form becomes more and more intrusive
and keeps continually asking you:
"Now, what is your real name?"
It sounds like you're already under suspicion.
So, that's a useful structure.
You can borrow structures from almost anywhere.
And if you find something that you think is useful
then try it out as a structure.
But all structure is...
is simply
you are crafting the shape of the story
and you are doing that
because you want to leave
a particular impression
in the mind of the reader.
Work out what that impression is.
Work out the shape of that indentation
that you want to leave in the reader's consciousness
and then shape your story
to leave exactly that kind of mark.