When Structure Limits Story

Timkin · Apr 9, 2009

My brother has a nice house. High vaulted ceilings, cathedral windows. It looks cool when you visit it for the first time. However, spending more than a day there I began to hate the place. It was impossible to regulate temperature. It was freezing cold even with the heat cranked. In summer he says it let's in all the heat and sun and it is impossible to keep cool. For all that space he has it is wasted space. He has no second floor because, as you guessed it, the vaulted ceilings and cathedral windows make that impossible.

I was thinking about one of my stories and the idea that I have been FAITHFUL to for many, many drafts. It had a boy, with his mother, waiting for Christmas, sure that this year would be the first year that Santa would come.

Well, it seemed like a great idea. It looked great, but the more time I spent with it I realized that the story wasn't really about a boy or his mother, it was really about a timeline, a countdown to what would be a disappointing Christmas. That meant I had to SET UP that he wanted Christmas. It meant that I had to show him taking action to get Santa to come (via letter) I had to have him hoping, waiting, wanting. I had to paint a picture of the boy that held to the laws of the timeline i.e. him waiting for Christmas. I found myself limited and having to cut cut cut because the story didn't fit into the timeline of him waiting for Christmas. I had to hold myself to rules about holidays, school vacations, 24 hour periods of day and night and it took many months to finish the story because I had to have everything fit into the OSHA approved plot I had originally thought about. This plot structure didn't just limit my MC but also EVERY character in the story, and ALL because I was trying to go for this pay off, this punch line at the end. This feel good moment. I spent more time working on that than NASA designing a mission to Mars. Literally two laptops worth of time. And in the end I realized that the problem wasn't the main character, but rather the plot and story I had placed him in.

I wanted my story to have the high ceilings and the big windows and didn't realize for quite a long time that this took up valuable space and in the end wasn't as dramatic or as warm and satisfying as I thought it would be.

Sorry for the long post. Just wanted to throw out that sometimes the problem isn't the MC or the villian. Sometimes it is the story or the constraints we have placed them in.

Imagine if Tolkien had decided that he wanted to hold the LOTR characters to a timeline of 3 days? Frodo gets the ring and bam, its off on a quest and everything has to end 3 days later. Tolkien could work with the finest minds in the world and that limitation imposed would destroy any hope of LOTR being a good book.

Are the timelines, locations, and limitations you have placed your character in helping or destroying your story?

Just a thought. I wish someone had mentioned it to me a bunch of months ago, so I figured I would mention it. Not preaching. Just realizing it for myself.

TheIT · Apr 9, 2009

Been there, done that.

In my first novel attempt, I started the story with a specific incident where my two MCs meet. I kept writing and hit a wall about 30K in that I could not figure out how to get over. This was my first time doing any sort of fiction writing and I was learning a lot, so I went back to the beginning and started over, again with the same incident, and hit the same wall. Again. So I went back and started over. Lather, rinse, repeat. No matter what I did, I couldn't figure out how to get past this one point.

So I finally dropped the draft and worked on another novel draft which I finished (yay, it's now in revision), but I still wanted to finish my first story. I had a couple of epiphanies: 1) the story wasn't about this character, it was about that character, and 2) the incident I kept starting with was in the wrong place. With that in mind, I started again and finally finished the draft.

Amazing what shifting scenes around will do for a story. Sometimes all the pieces are there, but if you put them together in a different order, you get a more interesting picture on the jigsaw puzzle.

Madison · Apr 9, 2009

Interesting thoughts...

I've found myself limited by school - my characters are in high school, so they have to go to class on weekdays. That means if something important (and outside of school) happens, they need to cut class - or wait till the weekend.

Last draft I was really frustrated by it. Plus I got bored with having so many scenes in classrooms. This draft it's been going better - I don't focus so much on school. It's there, it's an important part of the story, but afternoons are long, you know?

I feel your frustration, but I think as writers we have the ability to stretch or scrunch time to the needs of our story.

Timkin · Apr 9, 2009

Madison, I feel your pain regarding the school thing. I wrote a bunch of drafts with my MC meeting a fake Santa at school just before Christmas and then heard a voice in my head asking, uh, isn't there a school break before Christmas?

I solved that by having the kid be home schooled. BUT, that caused other problems and erased the kid from meeting a fake Santa at school. So, I understand the whole problem with kids at school.

And TheIT, I am glad that I am not the only one who had to learn about this. Thanks for the reply. It is VERY VERY freeing to be able to pluck my MC from what was a limiting story.

greatfish · Apr 10, 2009

It sounds like the main problem with your story is you don't have a clear idea what your goal is. Every story should have an "Objective Correlative", as Eliot put it. You should have some theme you want to deliver to the reader, whether it be an emotion, a critique, a realization about the human condition, or even some kind of moral. Once you have this goal in mind, every element of your story should be directed toward realizing your theme. The plot, the characters, and even the setting should all be directed toward delivering the objective correlative to the reader. If something doesn't progress the development of your theme, it should be removed without explanation. There's not really any need to describe the education the child is receiving if it doesn't pertain to the theme. The important part is that he has a meeting with Santa, so make that happen and don't worry too much about the finer details. Readers will assume what they want about his schooling on their own. They may decide that the child is on Winter break, or they may believe you're just choosing not to include his school life since it's uneventful. Often times, a little ambiguity will allow readers to assume things about your story they want to be true anyway.

Makai_Lightning · Apr 10, 2009

For the most part, limitations like that don't seem to frustrate me much--if I need X to happen, then I work with it. There's a way to make things work, most of the time.

If something seems impossible or conflicting, I ask myself whether or not I actually do need whatever it is to happen in the specific way I'd thought already. There are many ways to get a point across, and many ways to set a scene. Some will have a different essence, but I actually tend to find certain limitations inspiring.

Some limitations, it makes sense to get rid of. (for me) Those tend to be more self imposed "but my character has to be exactly this way" type things, which turn out to be false after working with projects more. When I get stuck on a scene, those sorts of preconcieved ideas of "this scene takes place here" "it must be during this time" etc are the sort of things I re-think. Sometimes I'll want two things that don't coincide, but then I go for what makes a better scene and see if I can't work in the other thing I wanted at another point.

I never feel hopelessly stuck anywhere, for the most part, and my ideas are always changing. Timelines are things I never write out, though I'll keep track of mentally, because they're constantly changing in my head. Characters are constantly growing, places are always expanding, all the time. I just go with it. I don't call them limits. I call it a challange.

Rushie · Apr 10, 2009

Well, A Christmas Story was pretty much about the MC waiting for Christmas and trying his best to get the thing he most wanted. What makes it such a fantastic story is all the stuff that happens to him in the meantime. The trials and tribulations he must endure the whole time his mind is obsessed with anticipation of Christmas, setting up a very rich character so that by the time Christmas arrives you're really invested in what's going to happen.

maestrowork · Apr 11, 2009

That's why I don't like having a rigid plot outline. I do have plot points I want to hit, but sometimes they, too, are limiting -- like "hurry up already because you need to hit that plot point." Some of those are limited by a time line as well, as I'm writing with the Pacific War as the backdrop so a few things have to fit into the major events...

For example, the start of the story coincides with the Japanese invasion, but upon research I realized the Japanese invaded from only a few key locations. I had to change an entire setting because of that, and then found myself having to fix the travel time -- it has to be 2 days instead of 1... which posed a significant challenge because I had to fit everything into the time line since the next event happened only a few days after that. So instead of putting my characters in a truck, I had to put them on a train, and quickly.

Did that mess up my story? Well, only if I let it. I had to make many adjustments and drop or add a few things, but eventually I think it worked, and it didn't sacrifice any character development. So I was happy with that.

Sometimes these things are necessary because without any structures, we'll have chaos. Still, if we find ourselves confined by something, it may be time to think about alternatives.

That said, a lot of books follow a rigid structure and they work. Thrillers, for example, tend to have some kind of urgency (how they fit everything into 24 hours in 24, for example). But sometimes you do feel like the characters are all racing to that finish line without much character development or leeway for errors. And I find myself asking, "How the heck did they go from Paris to China in 5 hours in time to defuse that bomb?"

n-v-b · Apr 11, 2009

My characters seem to take over sometimes, at first I tried to steer them back on my intended course but they seemed to insistent on telling the story in their way that i let them take control. I think of it as all these characters wanting their story told and if I cage them in too much they can't tell it how they want to. I have a rough idea now where I want them plot to go but the characters drive my story forward. If I feel a constraint that seems to be blocking an aspect of the story then I weigh up whether this is a viable constraint (ie that helps the story or characterisation even if it seems difficult to work within) or one that I can knock down to give the characters more freedom to tell the story how they want it to be told.

Claudia Gray · Apr 11, 2009

I think that limitations and boundaries are sometimes the single greatest gift to storytelling. Total freedom sometimes means total shapelessness and a lack of direction. But having to work within a structure (with the caveat that it has to be the right structure) often provides my greatest inspiration.

Team 2012 · Apr 11, 2009

Yes. Tolstoy once said that it is not freedom, but restrictions placed on an artist that lead to creativity.

Compare the tasks: write something of any length about anything and write a 500 word story involving personal redemption in third person set in darkness. Which makes you think and figger?

dancingandflying · Apr 11, 2009

I was working on a piece about a road trip between two strangers to LA for about 10K words, before realizing that the structure completely limited the characters. And, as much backstory I threw at the story and quirks I smashed into the dialog, the characters were simply one-dimensional, so I tossed it.

So, yeah. That was a long answer to, I think a structured timeline hurts stories. Stories are abstract and a manipulation of time in proportion to a character's perception. They can't hold a concrete timeline.

d&f.
d&f.

NeuroFizz · Apr 11, 2009

The nice thing about writing fiction is we make is all up. That means those cathedral ceilings can be molded into a second floor, and all of that wasted space can be put to good use. It's not the limitations of the timeline that constrains a story, it's the ridigity the writer assigns to that timeline. In fiction, time can be a flexible thing--not in a literal sense, but in how we let our scenes play out across the overall time line. The countdown to Christmas, just within those first 25 days of December, can be covered in a short story or in a 300,000 word novel. It all depends on the depth of the writing, the depth of the character development, and the nature of the story arc (trajectory, subplots, things like that). The first thing I'd suggest one should do in a situation like this is to give the thing a quick read to see if the story is being told to the reader or being shown to the reader. Rigidity can come from the former, and it can be defeated by the latter. Aside from that, I'd just suggest a loosening up of the imposed steps leading to the ultimate, time-related conclusion. And if we think about it, one way to tweak up a story (suspense-wise or emotion-wise) is to add a ticking clock. It creates a natural build-up that begs for good writing to lift the reader off his/her pillow so the book doesn't close for another chapter, and another chapter, and another chapter, so the reading light on the headboard doesn't go off until the book is finished.

Glenakin · Apr 11, 2009

dancingandflying said:
I was working on a piece about a road trip between two strangers to LA for about 10K words, before realizing that the structure completely limited the characters. And, as much backstory I threw at the story and quirks I smashed into the dialog, the characters were simply one-dimensional, so I tossed it.

So, yeah. That was a long answer to, I think a structured timeline hurts stories. Stories are abstract and a manipulation of time in proportion to a character's perception. They can't hold a concrete timeline.

d&f.
d&f.

I've had this specific problem before! Had to start all over again

Timkin · Apr 15, 2009

Read all the replies. Thanks. Much wisdom and insight here. My story now takes place at another time of year. In the autumn. So it loses the weight of the whole Christmas thing. I was amazed how much the story was able to open up simply by erasing a holiday. I didn't have to fulfill a timeline or follow tight structure. I did end up having to rewrite some things but it only took a few days. The story wasn't really about a boy wanting Santa to come, the reader would just think that is what it was about. It was really about the reader realizing that the boy wasn't even who we thought he was and using the dissapointment at Christmas as this grand event to reveal it to the MC and to the readers. But the whole holiday thing wasn't helping. I found other ways to get the audience to follow a long and slowly reveal how different this boy's life was from other children. It was why I mentioned the school, because he was a misfit. But having removed the holiday from it made it more about the boy and also did away with feeling trapped in a holiday countdown.

Chasing the Horizon · Apr 15, 2009

I absolutely hate having to work within any pre-established boundaries of any kind when I'm writing. I'm sure that's why I always gravitate towards fantasy, because it's the genre with the least restrictions. The only rules I have to abide by are the ones I create for myself as I build the world, and my main fantasy world was custom-built for the type of story I intended to tell.

Compare the tasks: write something of any length about anything and write a 500 word story involving personal redemption in third person set in darkness. Which makes you think and figger?

Actually, the first makes me think much more than the second. Of course, I only write novels, so I'm not interested in anything requiring less than 70k words. I also don't do write-to-order books or participate in writing exercises of any kind, as it's all much too restrictive and stifles my creativity.

If I want to work within a structure and follow rules, I'll get a job that actually pays me. :tongue

Raphee · Apr 17, 2009

Interesting discussion.
To the OP: if your brother were a character in a story, imagine what a constraint living in that house might be if he wanted to have it temperature regulated.
It would be a great story with multiple conflicts:

Does he shift to a new placeand leave this beautiful house to which he is devoted.
Does he put in a false ceiling and destroy the high ceiling he loves.
Or perhaps it's the kids who want the house remodeled; and he is torn in between the love for his house and the concerns of family.

Constraints are great.

In my last novel, I simply put the constraints too low, thus building in by default a barrier to create a good story. And that happened because my characters were poorly set up for the ultimate goal. If I wanted to, I could probably go back and redesign the whole thing. But I found myself in a state of inertia after twenty drafts and moved on to the next novel.

When Structure Limits Story

Timkin

TheIT

Infuriatingly Theoretical

Madison

summertime...

Timkin

greatfish

Makai_Lightning

Love Addict

Rushie

maestrowork

Fear the Death Ray

n-v-b

Claudia Gray

Team 2012

dancingandflying

Is it tea time yet?

NeuroFizz

The grad students did it

Glenakin

Timkin

Chasing the Horizon

Blowing in the Wind

Raphee

In debt to AW