Alejandra Pizarnik, tr. by Yvette Siegert, from “Shadow Text”, Extracting the Stone of Madness: Poems 1962 - 1972

this search for the essence of who I am

Basic Story Structure

Basic story structure looks like this:

Setup/Exposition - we meet the protagonist in their every day life, possibly meet a few other important characters, and learn important basics about the setting. We also learn about the protagonist’s internal conflict.

Rising Action - The inciting incident turns the character’s life upside down, the character responds by forming a goal. The protagonist pursues this goal while the antagonist/antagonistic force throws obstacles into their path, which they must overcome. Sometimes they succeed, sometimes they fail and have to try again or find a way around it. This struggle builds the conflict and increases the tension as the story races toward the climax.

Climax - this is the “big showdown,” where the protagonist faces the antagonist/antagonistic force head-on, and usually (but not always) succeeds.

Falling Action - this is the aftermath of the big showdown, where the dust settles and all the final pieces come to rest. Most of the story’s loose ends will be tied up here if they weren’t tied up already.

Resolution/Denouement - this is where the story is wrapped up once and for all. We see the protagonist (and other characters) settled back in their old life or getting used to a new normal. If there is a moral to the story, it is revealed here. If the story is leading into a second book, a little bit of set-up for the new story will occur here.

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…If only if in practice it was actually this simple. :)

That said: we all have to start somewhere. Build castles in the sand long enough, and eventually you’ll wind up doing actual castles… if you’ve got any persistence.

That was more than a little rude.

That is an easy to understand breakdown of plot progression that’s self labeled as “basic”

It’s clear, it’s easy, and can be applied to most narratives. Which makes it a useful analysis and also writing tool.

Comparing it to building sand castles as opposed to “real writing” as building “actual castles” is not at all encouraging or helpful. Especially combined with how you used the trailing elipses to go into the comment about persistence.

There’s a saying I grew up with that seems relevant here. Sometimes if you have nothing nice to say, it’s best to say nothing.

You could just as easily explain that a story has a beginning, a middle and an end, usually in that order, and it would be about as useful as that diagram.

One thing that I’ve found talking to any experts in any field is that when I say “Ah, so, this is a straightforward thing that you as an expert can agree with me on,” the expert nods cheerfully and says “well, it’s not actually as simple as that” and explains and, disappointingly, it never is.

Sometimes when you have nothing nice to say you can feel it’s your job to warn other people of potential roadblocks ahead.

Me, I would always listen to Diane Duane about story because she has forgotten more than I know, and she has written for more media and more types of media than I have. And I’ve done a lot of different kinds of writing. Rather than telling her off because you believe her reply is rude, you might be better off saying “how do you mean?” And hoping that she elaborates, and that you will learn useful things from her elaboration.

(Putting this here cause I don’t know if it will fit in the tags)

I can kind of see this from both perspectives. As someone who is trying to write their own story, it’s hard, it’s not as simple as what they teach you throughout school. Because there are usually multiple plots and subplots to a story, nevermind a series of books. You have to remember everything as an author, make multiple documents for side characters names, things you absolutely need in the story, outlines etc…

And like, the basic diagram is helpful, when you’re in elementary school, and learning to read, write, and dissect stories. However I noticed it stopped encompassing a whole story when I reached about 6th grade (12 years old I think?) and we were still using it. It just didn’t fit, because there were multiple rising actions and climaxes and resolutions in the stories, it wasn’t just one of each. There were multiple, and having that diagram used just made everything so much more confusing for me.

Which is why I like how it was summarized as building sandcastles here. The more elaborate sandcastles take more time and effort than the ones that are just a few buckets of packed sand stuck next to and on top of each other. But that doesn’t mean that those few buckets of packed sand have no value, and that they’re not precious. I would like to argue that they’re some of the most important, especially for artists and writers to remember. Because like, you had to start somewhere, and it probably wasn’t a masterpiece, however someone loved it, whether that be you, or maybe your one fan who you showed it to. It was a loved and cherished piece of artwork. And it’s good to look back on it and see how far you’ve come.

While the “if you’ve got any persistence,” came off a bit rude at first to me, it was because of what I’ve been taught is persistence. Which is trying again and again and again RIGHT after you’ve failed. But I think what this is more trying to say is if you try again and again and again, after you’ve given yourself time to get back up from failing. Because failure can hurt, and you’re going to need time to pick yourself up from it before you try again, especially the first few (thousand for me) times that you fail.

And like, eventually, you won’t even notice it, but eventually you’ll have something that more than just a few people love, and those people will want to share it with others, and in your eyes it will be good, imo that’s the castle that you end up building in the analogy.

So while on the surface it may seem rude and demotivational what dduane said. When I looked into what I thought it meant(no idea if it’s what she actually meant, just how I took it), it came off as more motivational than a teacher giving me that basic graph and telling me this is how you write a good story. And therefore, I would argue that what dduane’s said is nice.

Which one of u all

no phone i did not “miss a call” i watched it ring the whole time

Pigeon Comic 44 - Under Pressure

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