Structure-phobia

For some writers, structure is a dirty word. It is boring and restrictive and the polar opposite of creativity. They might admit that there are certain patterns in the human psyche and the logic of the universe, but they would never intentionally ‘impose’ structure upon their stories, lest they lose their magical essence.

I find this slightly ridiculous. Stories don’t work because they’re magic. They work because they play with human psychology to expose beautiful truths about the human experience. I think a fear of structure is really just a lack of understanding of human psychology. Because if you understand human psychology, you know pretty well why a story point moves you, why a character is interesting, why one story doesn't work but another one does. There is, as ever, an unknown quantity that floats at the heart of any brilliant artwork, but again, this is simply the magic we don’t understand yet. Good writing means peering behind the curtain at all the best magicians’ blueprints and using them to make your own magic. Bad writing is watching magic shows then putting your hand into a hat over and over again until you pull out a rabbit.

People often think coming up with ideas is the hard part of writing. It’s not. Shaping the idea into something that makes sense and means something to other people is what is hard. A writer who doesn’t use structure is grabbing ideas out of the air and saying, “Look at what I did.” But anyone can grab ideas out of the air. Only good writers can shape them into something meaningful. And that requires tools.

And these tools aren't strait jackets. They can’t tell you who your characters are or what they have to do. They merely outline patterns of emotion; stages of learning; the undeniable framework of the human mind. These structures are fundamental to human behaviour, to human society, to every level of human existence, and ignoring them means ignoring the things that makes stories – and people – so magical.

Is it depressing to writers that almost every character in a story has to be either male or female? Is it restrictive to know that the human mind goes through five stages of response when something upsets it? Is it creatively stifling to break human learning down into Unconscious Ineptitude, Conscious Ineptitude, Conscious Aptitude and Unconscious Aptitude?

No, it’s not. Because humans are all about stories and stories are all about humans. The limitations of one are the limitations of the other. Every so often an individual will go off course and do something completely unpredictable – but it always has an explanation that fits a pattern or structure from the world as we know it.

So why is it so hard for structure-phobes to deal with the idea that a story should have three acts – a beginning, middle, and end? Or a hero’s journey? Or a ‘saving the cat’? Isn’t that pretty much every story, every anecdote, every joke ever told?

Knock, knock (Call to adventure)

Who’s there? (answering the call)

Cash (new world)

Cash who? (adapting to new world)

No thanks, I like peanuts. (resolution/catharsis/lesson learned i.e. “Don’t answer knock-knock jokes”)

I challenge anyone to compare the Snyder Beat Sheet or the Hero's Journey to any popular story and not be convinced. From Aesop’s fables to gossip, every good story contains inherent structures. Ebbs and flows. Ups and downs. They are the reason stories work. And good writers are using them whether they’re aware of it or not.

The next argument from a structure-phobe is usually that the need for structure in stories is predicated on the fact that stories need to have lessons. Many structure-phobes reject the idea that stories need lessons. My argument to this is that a story without a lesson isn't a story, it’s an incident report.

There is a reason why other people’s dreams are usually boring and anecdotes are only worth telling if they ‘have a point’. If a story is just as chaotic and incoherent as everyday life, then what is it providing us that life cannot? 

The point of stories is to shape life experience into truths that we can take back with us into the real world. If we don’t come out of a story feeling changed in some way, then that story has failed. Like an anecdote that ‘went nowhere’ or someone else’s dream. A story without structure isn't a story because stories always ‘go somewhere’.

Another argument I hear is that structure impedes character, and ‘good stories are all based on character’. But I’d argue that this is exactly what these structures do. From Blake Snyder’s Beat Sheet (from the fantastic Save the Cat) to Christopher Volger’s A Hero’s Journey and Aristotle’s Poetics, all good story structure models are based on the patterns of human character. All they do is quantify the rhythm and patterns of the human mind (as it relates to story) that we've known for years. Their use can only help to strengthen character because they act as a foundation for believable human response in any given situation. And believable characters are what we want because we will listen to the lessons they have to teach us.

The final gambit of the structure-phobe is to say that they don’t want their character to follow normal patterns of human behaviour. They want them to be unique. They want them to do this really cool thing they just thought of. That’s why the writer can’t use structures. Well, I’m sorry, but nobody is so unique a human being that they cease to be a human being. And if you want human beings to enjoy or even understand your story then you HAVE to follow believable patterns of human response. It’s how you play with the minutiae of these responses that makes your characters unique. So stop just writing something ‘because it’s cool’ and start doing it because it’s meaningful to other humans.

So that’s my rant for the day. Structure is king because character is king because meaning is king. If you’re still on the fence about it take a look at the work of Blake Snyder, Christopher Volger, and Robert McKee. Read through their books; get to understand where these terrible creativity-crushing structures come from and you’ll realise that peering behind the curtain doesn't destroy the magic, it makes you a magician.