When
I’m reading or critiquing fiction, I find myself particularly
sensitive to the temporal structure of the story—the
flow of events through time. Effective structure provides a feeling
of unity, even if the story does not follow Aristotle’s
strict definitions (one action thread, one location, a time span
of no more than one day). In a well-structured tale, each event links
strongly to the others. Each scene contributes to the whole.
Characters grow and change according to organic, believable
trajectories. The plot may be intricate and complex, but the
resulting impression is one of satisfying coherence.
In
contrast, poorly structured fiction may include unexplained gaps,
extraneous events, unsettling jumps from one time to another or one
character to another, shifts of perspective that don’t tie back
into the overall narrative. Another characteristic that reflects poor
structure is a story that continues long after it should have ended,
dawdling along when the conflicts have already been resolved and the
outcomes are no longer in doubt.
The
skill with which an author structures her work has a major impact on
my enjoyment. Yet this is an aspect of craft not often discussed. In
this post, I want to consider some of the different patterns a story
may take through time, suggesting when or why you might want to adopt
each one. I’ll also consider the potential pitfalls in each
approach.
Let
me begin by defining story structure. In my view, story structure is
the ordering of events that affect characters, as they are
presented in the story. This includes potential shifts between
focus characters. Two stories might have the same basic plot and
characters but employ very different structures. Consider, example,
the ever-popular fairy tale Cinderella.
Structure
1: Cinderella’s father remarries, then dies.
Cinderella’s step-mother and step-sisters relegate her to the role
of kitchen slave. A herald arrives at the door announcing the
Prince’s ball. The evil step-family heads to the ball, leaving the
ash-smeared girl crying at home. Cinderella’s fairy godmother
appears to comfort the girl and provide the necessary fashions and
transportation for Cinderella to attend the ball, where the Prince is
smitten and waltzes with her all evening. At the stroke of midnight,
as the enchantment dissolves, Cinderella flees, but leaves her glass
slipper behind. The love-lorn Prince appears at Cinderella’s home,
searching for the mysterious beauty by trying the slipper on each
young woman in the kingdom. The shoe fits and Cinderella’s identity
is revealed. She marries the Prince and they live happily ever after.
Structure
2: Cinderella scrubs the pots in the scullery. She hears the
royal secretary knock on her step-mother’s front door and announce
the Prince’s search for the mysterious beauty who fled from him at
midnight. Cinderella remembers in wistful detail her triumph at the
ball, the thrill of dancing in the Prince’s arms and the terror at
having her lowly identity revealed at midnight. She listens at the
kitchen door as the step-sisters fail to fit the slipper. Gathering
her courage, she emerges and requests a chance to try on the shoe.
Her lovely little foot slips into the crystal slipper, the Prince
claims her as his bride and they live happily ever after.
Structure
3: It is the day after the ball. The Prince muses in his room,
refusing to eat, remembering the gorgeous young woman who fled from
him at midnight. A retainer arrives, telling him about finding the
isolated crystal slipper on the road leading away from the castle.
Meanwhile, Cinderella is scrubbing pots in the kitchen, sighing at
the recollection of her prince, sadly sure she will never see him
again. She hears his voice outside in the parlor as he arrives at her
step-mother’s home with the shoe. Gathering her courage, she
emerges from the kitchen and asks to try the shoe. The Prince
recognizes her immediately, before she’s even made the attempt. He
sweeps her into his arms for a kiss, claims her as his bride, and
whisks her away to the palace where they live happily ever after.
The
three examples above represent three frequently-encountered temporal
patterns. Structure 1 is linear. The events are presented more
or less in the order they occurred. Furthermore there is a single
focus character, Cinderella.
Structure
2 is what I call a loop-back. The story begins part way
through the temporal sequence of events, then via a recollection or a
flashback, recounts earlier events that led up to the present, before
moving on. Once again, there’s a single focus character.
Structure
3 illustrates a parallel structure, in addition to a loop
back. There are two focus characters. The narrative shifts from one
to the other and back. In this example, the events experienced by
each character are concurrent (that is, they cover the same basic
stretch in time), but parallel structures can also be used for
temporally disparate events, as long as there’s a strong logical or
emotional connection between the two event streams. For example, my
novel Incognito uses a parallel structure in which Miranda’s
sexual adventures in the present time mirror the confessions she
reads in Beatrice’s Victorian-era diary.
Even
given the mere outlines above, a reader gets a different feeling from
each structure. The first follows the simple, traditional course of a
fairy tale. Each event triggers the next in a sequence. The second,
in contrast, feels more modern, and perhaps, more interesting. If one
were not already familiar with this plot, this structure might
generate more suspense. The third structure produces a major shift in
intent. The Prince changes from a mere appendage to the plot, the
medium for realizing Cinderella’s dreams, to a character in his own
right. The parallel time streams, if implemented with skill, could
have the reader wondering whether, in fact, the two characters’
goals and desires will converge. (If, like me, you’d recently
enjoyed the film “Into the Woods”, you’d recognize that this
convergence might not be inevitable!)
These
three basic structures can be combined and ramified, especially in
longer work. In the hands of a skillful author, temporal patterns can
become very complicated indeed (consider Audrey Niffenegger’s
astonishing novel, The Time-Traveler’s Wife). On the other
hand, playing too fast and loose with the ordering of events can
produce a narrative disaster, confusing your readers and diluting the
impact of your stories.
When
might you want to use each of these basic structures? The comments
below are suggestions, not rules, and represent my personal
observations.
Linear
structures work well for shorter work, for instance stories in the
3,000 to 5,000 word range. In these cases, you usually don’t have
the word count to get fancy with time. Your focus is on your
characters, their crisis and its resolution. Furthermore, in this
sort of work, it’s often best to take Aristotle’s advice in
stride and keep all the events within a relatively short time span—an
evening, a day, a week at most. Short stories where there are large
temporal gaps between scenes often feel awkward to me. The breaks in
the action dissipate the story’s emotional intensity. What’s
happening to the characters during those lapses in time? Has the
crisis been somehow suspended?
Linear
structure can also be applied in novel-length work, especially when
maintaining suspense is important. If you write a novel in the
present tense (difficult but something I’ve attempted several
times), linear (or parallel linear) structure is the only
possibility, since readers are experiencing the events at the same
time as the character(s).
A
linear structure offers the overarching advantage of clarity. It’s
also simple to construct and to implement. Most novice authors
intuitively use linear patterns when they begin writing. This is the
structure most often found in oral storytelling, part of our
ancestral roots.
The
main risk in using a linear structure is boredom on the part of the
reader. To avoid this, it’s important to select and describe only
the events that truly contribute to the story, and to continually
build tension toward the (narrative) climax. With a linear story,
it’s also critical to recognize when to end the story, as noted
above. Once the main conflict has been resolved, end quickly. You do
not necessarily have to tie up every single loose end.
The
loop-back pattern works really well in short fiction because it
immediately throws the reader into the action. The initial scene,
which needs some dramatic intensity to be effective, can snag the
reader’s curiosity and trigger her questions, questions which will
be resolved during the loop back to explain the genesis of the
situation. I use this pattern a lot in my own work. For example, my
story The Last Amanuensis, begins as follows:
My
hands no longer tremble when I pierce his papery skin. I've learned
how much force to apply, how to tilt the hollow needle just enough to
fill the tiny wound with color without blurring the line. I know what
he can bear. I can read the change in his breathing that tells me he
needs a break.
He's
reached that point now. I straighten from my awkward position,
crooked over his bared buttocks, and set the gleaming apparatus down
on the bedside table next to the flickering candles. With Preceptors
on patrol twenty-four hours a day, we dare not risk the gas lamps.
“Some
water, sir?”
Moving
with care so as to not to smudge my work, he twists to take the glass
from my gloved hand and drains the contents. “Thank you, Adele.”
The weariness in his voice sets up an ache under my sternum. Seeing
what it costs him, I would dissuade him from this endeavor if I
could. I've also learned, though, that it is useless is to argue with
the professor when he has set his mind on something.
Hopefully,
at this point, I’ll have the reader wondering. Who are these
characters? What are they doing and why? Who are the Preceptors?
In
this story, I use about 1000 of the 5000 words in the first scene.
The next 2000 words explain the genesis of this relationship and
situation, bringing the narrative up to the present (the time when
the story starts). The final 2000 words move the tale forward toward
its climax and resolution.
However,
there are a variety of potential pitfalls in using this pattern.
Balancing back story with forward action is probably the most serious
problem. If the loop back takes too long or involves too much detail,
the reader may lose the sense of immediacy evoked by the initial
scene. One solution is to use multiple, shorter loop backs. This can
work but risks confusing the reader.
Novel-length
works frequently include loop backs/flashbacks to provide background
on events or characters. The impact of these backward-looking
sections depends on their frequency and length, but the same caveats
apply. It’s important not to lose forward momentum. A novel usually
has a more complex and detailed plot, so narrative trips back into
the past may not have as much of a noticeable effect on structure or
the corresponding impression of the readers, but there are
exceptions. John Le Carré’s book A Perfect Spy, which
I recently finished, flits back and forth across a period of about
fifty years in the life of the main character. This could have been
extremely confusing, but Le Carré made it work, gradually revealing
the experiences that had brought his protagonist to his present
state.
Parallel
structure is most effective in longer works, depending as it does on
the existence of at least two focus characters or subplots. Usually
(though not always), one of the event strands will be primary, while
the other will provide a mirroring or contrasting perspective.
Parallel structures are fairly common in romance, with alternating
chapters offering the heroine’s and hero’s points of view. Books
that provide contemporary plus historical narratives (like Incognito)
offer another frequently encountered example.
What
are the problems with writing parallel structures? Consistency can be
one issue, at least in stories where two characters experience the
same or related events. (Of course, a skilled author might
deliberately introduce inconsistencies in order to reveal certain
aspects of the characters.) Balance is another potential problem. As
mentioned in the previous paragraph, parallel narrative threads do
not necessarily have to have equal weight—length or thematic
importance—but once the author has made a decision about the
intended weight, she needs to be careful that one thread does not
assume more importance than planned. In traditional romance, for
instance, the heroine’s perspective tends to be more emphasized
than the hero’s, even when the narrative alternates between them.
If the hero’s story begins to take over, this may weaken the book.
One
of my goals in writing this article is to point out how important it
is to understand the temporal patterns we authors choose, not just in
order achieve the effects we want, but also so we can recognize when
we’re violating our own decisions. Extraneous scenes, time gaps,
unmotivated shifts of focus and similar issues become easier to
detect when we have some idea of the pattern we’re aiming for.
I
don’t mean to suggest that story structure is always the result of
a conscious decision. However, I’ve learned that when a story feels
somehow wrong—awkward, flat, without a clear point—the structure
is often to blame. Sometimes, playing with patterns in time,
experimenting with a different structure, can dramatically improve
the impact of your writing.
