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alexandraerinThe more I think about the way I approach storytelling, the more I see a parallel between the way I write and the way my father (who likes to respond to discussion of gimmicky investment strategies with lines like, "So we've found something that works better than 'Buy low, sell high', then?") does his business.
The goal here is to tell an interesting story. You want to keep the audience engaged, you want to keep them coming back (in a venture like mine)... you want to keep them interested, so you want the story to be interesting.
There are tools that people have formulated for doing this, but these tools by themselves don't make the story interesting, and a story can be interesting in the absence of them.
I mean, nobody ever says, "You know what I'd love to read? A drama in five acts. Four would not be enough parts to adequately attract, sustain, and resolve my interest. Six would be a bit too much. Seven would just be right out. Yeah, a story with a dramatic arc that precisely encompasses exposition, rising action, a climax, falling action, and a denouement is exactly what I need right now."
People have put a book aside because it failed to keep them interested, but it takes a very rare and specialized breed of academically-minded reader to put a book aside saying, "Ugh! What was the writer thinking? This book doesn't have nearly enough motifs!"
I will admit there have likely been more people who've given up on a story because of a lack of conflict. Part of that is a matter of simple taste. Part of it is that in the absence of conflict there must be something else to keep the reader interested, and conflict is one of the easiest and most obvious ways to accomplish that. But I believe that part of it is that we have been trained, both implicitly and explicitly, to believe that story is drama is conflict.
These things can be valid analytical tools. They can be valid writing tools. But at the end of the day, the goal is to make the story interesting, not to make it a five-part dramatic arc or to give it enough conflict or sufficient themes.
Tell an interesting story. Build it around a five-act structure or a central motif or a protagonist/antagonist dynamic if you want to, if you need to, and/or if it fits. Just don't make mistake the tools that are available for the goal.
Okay, I'm turning off comments on this one. I don't know who linked to this or where, but I've gotten three asshole comments already and only one is from someone I recognize.
Everybody who's getting ticked off by this post? If you literally judge books by counting motifs, with a straightforward thought process of "more motifs = better", then I apologize for doubting your existence and impugning your tastes.
On the other hand, if you just fancy yourself the sort of person who enjoys a complex book with thematic elements but you do not, in fact, rate your reading material by counting discrete dramatic acts and number of motifs, then relax... I did not actually insert a random two-paragraph strawman attack on you hyperbolically comparing your tastes to someone doing such arithmetic in the middle of this post.
Read it again with that understanding and see if you get it now.
The goal here is to tell an interesting story. You want to keep the audience engaged, you want to keep them coming back (in a venture like mine)... you want to keep them interested, so you want the story to be interesting.
There are tools that people have formulated for doing this, but these tools by themselves don't make the story interesting, and a story can be interesting in the absence of them.
I mean, nobody ever says, "You know what I'd love to read? A drama in five acts. Four would not be enough parts to adequately attract, sustain, and resolve my interest. Six would be a bit too much. Seven would just be right out. Yeah, a story with a dramatic arc that precisely encompasses exposition, rising action, a climax, falling action, and a denouement is exactly what I need right now."
People have put a book aside because it failed to keep them interested, but it takes a very rare and specialized breed of academically-minded reader to put a book aside saying, "Ugh! What was the writer thinking? This book doesn't have nearly enough motifs!"
I will admit there have likely been more people who've given up on a story because of a lack of conflict. Part of that is a matter of simple taste. Part of it is that in the absence of conflict there must be something else to keep the reader interested, and conflict is one of the easiest and most obvious ways to accomplish that. But I believe that part of it is that we have been trained, both implicitly and explicitly, to believe that story is drama is conflict.
These things can be valid analytical tools. They can be valid writing tools. But at the end of the day, the goal is to make the story interesting, not to make it a five-part dramatic arc or to give it enough conflict or sufficient themes.
Tell an interesting story. Build it around a five-act structure or a central motif or a protagonist/antagonist dynamic if you want to, if you need to, and/or if it fits. Just don't make mistake the tools that are available for the goal.
Okay, I'm turning off comments on this one. I don't know who linked to this or where, but I've gotten three asshole comments already and only one is from someone I recognize.
Everybody who's getting ticked off by this post? If you literally judge books by counting motifs, with a straightforward thought process of "more motifs = better", then I apologize for doubting your existence and impugning your tastes.
On the other hand, if you just fancy yourself the sort of person who enjoys a complex book with thematic elements but you do not, in fact, rate your reading material by counting discrete dramatic acts and number of motifs, then relax... I did not actually insert a random two-paragraph strawman attack on you hyperbolically comparing your tastes to someone doing such arithmetic in the middle of this post.
Read it again with that understanding and see if you get it now.