Tool: Alternative Narrative Structures

Welcome to Tools, the other half of writing about writing about writing. In each of these articles we'll explore a tool from the book I reviewed in the prior week that I found particularly useful or interesting, sometimes drawing from several other books where I find connections. The hope is to catalog the best bits from the books I've read, and build connections between books. At the end of each tool I will suggest a few things you can do to incorporate or work on the tool described. They are typically things I am doing to incorporate the tool into my own practice. Use them or not as you will, though I hope you find this useful. As always, if you're subscribed you can leave a comment to let me know if you do.

Consider the best pattern for your story might not be a “narrative arc” or five act structure. Stories can also expand or collapse in spirals, meander through multiple plots or points of view, or be loosely associated narratives with a single root point. 

Here's a quick recap of Alison's categories. There are likely others to explore as well (especially from other cultures, since I am not an expert there I will let others chime in. Please let me know if you know of a resource or book I can link to).

• Wave - the traditional narrative arc. A rising and falling (or falling and rising) pattern.
• Wavelets/Ripples - small repeating arcs within a narrative structure. The story adavnces, slightly resolves, but has no huge crecendo point.
• Meanders - overall movement from beginning to end of a narrative, but with extravagant detours or distractions.
• Spirals - a narrative that loops back on itself, adding or changing context on each repitition.
• Radials/Explosions - Multiple narratives held together by a powerful centering event and all meaning falls toward or explodes away from that center.
• Networks/Cells - also "spatial" narratives. Unrelated, or barely related narratives that force the reader to create connections between them, or which create connections by placing images or ideas side by side.
• Fractals - an initial pattern, compacted like a seed, generates copies of itself through the narrative. Often stream-of-conciousness.
• Tsunamis - Multiple nesting narrative arcs that build up and down in sequence.

WORKSHOP:

• Close Reading: Read a book or short story with an unusual story structure and tease apart the pattern in its plotline. Does the pattern reinforce the story or is it a more subtle effect? How does the shape of the plot affect the reading experience? If you have an interesting suggestion for stories to Close Read for this topic, please let me know. Here's the ones that pop to mind for me:
  • Martian Chronicles - Ray Bradbury - Probably a "network" or "fractal"? You tell me.
  • Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell - Alison's example of a "Tsunami" plot pattern
  • "We Will Teach You How to Read | We Will Teach You How to Read" - Carline M. Yoachim - Lightspeed Magzine (just nominated for a Hugo Award for best short story)
• Drill: Take an existing story (yours or in the public domain) with a conventional rise and fall pattern and re-plot the story using a different narrative structure (explode, network, meander, spiral, fractal). What changes about the story?
• Challenge: Write a short story using each of the patterns described in the book. 

Image Credit: Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, photograph by Carol M. Highsmith LC-DIG-highsm-62501. Image recolored to black and white.