Wordcraft -- Finding the path through our stories, part II

At the last meeting of the Dallas Mystery Writers, professional authors swooned over Daniel J. Hale’s discussion of plot structure. After outlining the three-act (or as he termed it, the four-act) structure of novels, he applied his method to the 12-step Writer’s Journey work of screenwriter Christopher Vogler.

Vogler’s initial memo while working for Disney was based on the writings of Joseph Campbell. Later expanded into book form, it postulated that stories are based on mythological narratives in twelve specific stages, giving writers a road map of places that must be visited during the course of the story. Vogler termed these stages The Ordinary World, Call to Adventure, Refusal of the Call, Meeting with the Mentor and Crossing the First Threshold; Tests, Allies and Enemies; Approach to the Inmost Cave; Ordeal and Reward; and The Road Back, Resurrection and Return with the Elixir.

The Writer’s Journey method is taught in Southern Methodist University’s creative writing program which Hale teaches. Vogler’s terms map onto the three-act story discussed last week like this: Act One opens with a picture of the Ordinary World. It moves to the Call to Adventure, effectively the story’s “hook,” but often followed by the Refusal of the Call as the hero recognizes the danger of taking necessary action. A Meeting with the Mentor persuades the hero to undertake the necessary journey or other action, and prompting the him or her to Cross the First Threshold. Crossing the threshold is the decision point that pushes the story into its second act.

Act II includes a series of Tests and meetings with various allies and enemies, building through the Approach to the Inmost Cave and the Ordeal, Vogler’s apt term for the midpoint crisis that, in the three-act structure propels the story into the second half of Act II. At this point, the hero will gain some respite or knowledge from the encounter with the antagonist, the Reward that will aid the final struggle and precipitates the third act.

Act III opens with The Road Back, as the hero makes use of what he or she has learned in Act II, moving toward the climatic scene. Vogler’s term for the final struggle is Resurrection, followed by the Return with the Elixir. At this point, I find Vogler’s terminology sometimes more poetic than helpful. Sometimes the hero--Romeo for example--may die in the “Resurrection” scene. And “what the heck is an elixir,” is a question that‘s come up more than once in classes. I found it more helpful to recall that what Vogler terms Resurrection is more conventionally termed the story’s climactic moment. And the elixir is what the hero‘s world gains from his or her struggle (or even death).

In his presentation to the Dallas Mystery Writers this month, Hale emphasized that the twelve-step structure “is a structure, not a formula. It’s a tool to use to develop your story. Every character in your book has a hero’s journey. For some of your minor characters, you’re not going to see all their hero’s journey. What I do when I start a book is to layout the hero’s journey as a start. Initially, I will write the resurrection, which is the big fight scene, so I know where I’m going. And then (the course of the story changes) but I have a destination in mind.”

For more about the SMU creative writing program, see www.smu.edu/Simmons/CommunityEnrichment/CreativeWriting/.

I joined the Dallas Mystery Writers because I a) write suspenseful stories and b) was impressed by the curriculum at last year’s Mystery University it hosted. The speaker lineup for the monthly meetings is wonderfully informative for both pro and novice writers. See http://dallasmysterywriters.com/ for meeting information and programs.

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Other information for writers--Dallas-area fantasy/sci-fi conference FenCon seeks material for its annual short story contest, with payment in cash and prizes. Deadline is July 20. Or in you’re in grades three through 12 (or know an aspiring writer who is) FenCon’s Young Authors Short Story Contest offers cash, prizes and publication. Deadline is September 10. For rules and other information for both contests, see www.fencon.org/.

(Next Monday--Don’t hate me because I scored a ticket to hear Diana Gabaldon speak at the Dallas Museum of Arts program. I’ll bring you news from the master--or should that be mistress?--of historical romantic fiction.)

Wordcraft -- The myriad paths to a novel

Just when I think I’ve heard every way to write a novel, I attend the writing workshops at annual science fiction/fantasy convention, FenCon, in Dallas and learn there are so many more.

That was the case at this past weekend’s workshop led by Canadian science fiction author Karl Schroeder.

And Schroeder knows how to write novels. He’s written or co-written at least ten published science fiction novels, most recently Ashes of Candesce, out this year from Tor Books. Oh, and a little classic of nonfiction, The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Writing Science Fiction (with Cory Doctorow).

Self-deprecating to the core, Schroeder also mentions the twelve novels he wrote, starting at age sixteen, before he got published. As all serious fiction writers know, our apprenticeship in the storyteller’s guild consists of writing stories that may never be published.

He asks us workshop members what the components of a story are. “Beginning, middle, end,” one brave soul answers with the classic Aristotelian definition. But what if you want to tell a story like Memento, “a Jacobean revenge story, literally, but the way it’s told is backwards?” Schroeder asks.

So start instead by saying the first element is “the hook -- what gets the reader reading. After the hook, you have the introduction of characters and setting, then the development and a climax, leading all the way to the end,” Schroeder suggests.

“The idea of what a story is should never be cast in stone,” he says. “What we’re going to do is take a look at different perspectives.”

He opens with what he terms the seven-point plot “used most effectively in the Twilight Zone series.” Academically, this consists of hook, plot turn 1 (or “call to adventure), pinch (conflict), midpoint (not necessarily halfway through), plot turn 2 and pinch 2 (which Schroeder summarizes as “rinse and repeat”), and resolution. In the Twilight Zone, the resolution would be, in Schroeder’s words, “a Greek chorus commentary.” I can hear the voice of Twilight Zone host Rod Serling as Schroeder speaks.

The seven-point plot is probably enough for a short story, Schroeder says, but to write novels, we’ll have to dig deeper. Give the protagonist two problems -- one external, one internal, with failure coming from “only addressing the external problem,” and ignoring the internal one, “a character change (the protagonist) has spent the story avoiding.”

There’s also, Schroeder says, “there’s a theory of story where the story is a passionate argument between two characters.” And a theory he intriguingly calls the five-man band (for ensemble casts). And Japanese and classical Chinese ways of telling stories. The thing he most want to tell us in this first workshop session is “not to fall in the trap” of thinking there’s only one way to structure a story.

He’ll have a lot more to say later, and a lot more tools to add to our writing kits, including the possibility of discovering a story’s structure simply by writing it. For those who'd like more about the seven point plot, I’ve found a helpful source at
http://chandlermariecraig.wordpress.com/2011/01/31/cheat-sheet-7-point-story-structure/.

(I’ll continue Schroeder’s discussion in a later post, but next Monday Wordcraft takes a detour for Banned Books Week, September 30-October 6 this year. And if you think only pornographic books get banned, you don’t have the mind of a censor who can find the objectionable in A.A. Milne’s Winnie-the-Pooh.)