“Nice writing… but where’s the story?”
I only needed to hear that a couple times when I started my MFA program to realize that I had a little problem. What’s the story? Whose story is this? Where’s the conflict?
“There’s a nice mood here… but what’s the story about?”
In the years before going to grad school, and even a few years writing for publications, I had spent plenty of time figuring out ways to evoke mood, atmosphere, thinking about dialogue, and a lot of time working on the rhythm and flow of sentences. But I never spent too much time on the nuts and bolts of what makes a story. Maybe I was lazy about it. I think I believed a real writer would just know it, so why bother studying, practicing, or intellectualizing what makes a good story?
Once I started grad school, though, I realized I was at a serious disadvantage when it came to spinning a good tale. I still struggle with it. But I was lucky enough to read in my first year an essay that helped shed some light down the dark tunnel of the narrative arc.
To paraphrase this essay, for words, sentences, and paragraphs to qualify as a story there needs to be an “incremental perturbation of an unstable homeostatic system and its catastrophic restoration to a complexified equilibrium.”
Yeah, it sounds like abstract malarky, but John Barth’s essay “Incremental Perturbation: How to Know Whether You’ve Got a Plot or Not” works because of that mumbo jumbo. It made the important elements of story abstract enough that I was able to stand back and see things in a nuts-and-bolts way. Before reading this, for the most part, I couldn’t get my head around what I needed in front of me to make a story — I was too caught up thinking, “I’m a writer, I should know this stuff. Shit! Damn!”
In a nutshell, Barth broke down to me that to be a story, you need to set the stage (ground work), ramp up the interest with a series of rising action, and then bring things to a state of (hopefully slightly different from the ground work) equilibrium. Kind of simple, but I had never thought of the mechanics in that way. And Barth added good humor and sensible examples to bring it all together.
I reread Barth’s essay every couple months, when I’m feeling stuck on something. It’s my go-to bit, and I recommend it for anyone else who struggles with rising action, conflict, setting the ground work, or anything else that helps us spin a good tale.
“Incremental Perturbation” comes from “Creating Fiction,” a collection of really useful writing essays — one of my favorites.
What do you read when you’re stuck? Anyone else have any essays or chapters from writing books that they go to in a pinch? Please tell your tale in the comments…
Comments 7
I’m not the best with plots, but one thing that taught me a lot was taking a screen writing class.
regards-
Posted 29 Aug 2006 at 8:34 pm ¶Armand
To MFA or NOT to MFA?!!?
Posted 31 Aug 2006 at 10:08 am ¶I spin a good yarn. However, my credentials consist of a well-worn library card and a half-century of hard living. Am I too damned old to go to kollidj?
William Olen Butler said that Plot flows from a character’s yearning. It’s that whole, what does a character want thing.
Also, if I’m stuck on plot, i think fairy tale. At every juncture of the story, say yes. Will goldilocks go inside the house? Parent-me says no. Storyteller me has to say yes, let her go inside.
Posted 31 Aug 2006 at 12:03 pm ¶@Armand - Nice idea. I’ve been wanting to take a screenwriting class for a while. Maybe in the spring.
@Rachel - For what it’s worth, there were fresh young “kollidg” students in my MFA program, right alongside less fresh folks like me (35), and people on up to their 50s and 60s. Personally, I got way more from my wiser colleagues than the wee ones fresh out of undergrad. I say you’re not too damn old.
@Tommy - The fairy tale gambit is excellent. Thanks for dropping that in. I’m using that from now on.
Posted 01 Sep 2006 at 10:28 am ¶Rachel-
As someone who also has an MFA, I would say the programs can be very helpful, but I would advise against accruing much debt while in attendance.
If I had to do it again, I would either get into a school that pays your way or go part time (maybe just one class per semester) and work enough to pay as you go. I would take out as few loans as humanly possible.
Also- I would suggest using that time to hammer out a novel (in sections) rather than doing the traditional short-story route that many MFA programs tend to emphasize. While it is easier to workshop and finish a short story in one semester (which is why, I think, most beginning workshops are based on the short story) the short story market is tiny compared to the novel market. If you wanted to break things out later, you could always turn some chapters on the novel into stand-alone short stories.
Just my 2 cents
- Armand
Posted 01 Sep 2006 at 1:28 pm ¶Have been checking in on your blog now and then and enjoying it. Your discussion here about plot reminded me of what one of my teachers used to say about plot–that it had to do with getting people into trouble and then getting them back out. Which is perhaps not so very different from what Barth says. And maybe not so different from fairy tales.
Oh, and just recognized–I guess paid attention enough to recognize–where your banner comes from. It’s the Carver story, right? The one about the boy who dies and the baker? A good small thing? Nice.
Posted 04 Sep 2006 at 8:46 pm ¶Another great piece of advice.
Posted 20 Feb 2007 at 6:42 am ¶Speak Your Mind