Do we need to know about story structures?

[Mad Swede]

I'd like to point out what I see as a few possible misconceptions here:
1. Good Story Structure is innate.
This is ignoring thousands of years of natural selection. The reason we are raised being conditioned to think of story in a certain way is because as humans have marched through time, we've accumulated more and more stories that meet the criteria for being retold.
Grimms fairy tales are a compilation of the most commonly retold stories of Germany and the surrounding regions, and, as indicated by multiple versions of the same tales in the books, as they were told they evolved. Their structure was tweaked to please the listener more and more, by the natural selection of trial and error. We get the versions we get because they were the most enjoyable to listen to.
By now we listen to elite, concise stories that each excel at illiciting everything desired from the listener/reader. The preference of the consumer has slowly weeded out or evolved less interesting tales. Consumers, not writers, set the bar.

Er, maybe.

The thing is, we as modern readers consume stories in a different way to our forefathers. These days we don't all sit together round a fire in a long house listening to a rolling saga about the gods. So what literary anaysts consider to be good story structure is modern - and may not be the same in fifty years time.

2. The convolution of analysis with man-made law.
Structure isn't telling you what to do.
Structure is an analysis of successful stories and how to apply their principles to your own creation.

Structure is an analysis of stories considered successful by those doing the analysis. Most of the time they're only assessing a subset of all stories, a subset limited by time, culture (and hence availability) and personal preference. So those structures are one possible analysis result.

3. Arbitrary levels of understanding.

There is no standard here, but its entirely possible to feel really good about something not very great if you dont KNOW what youre looking at. You don't get the same quality of story engraved in your psyche no matter your background, it's different for everyone based on not only what stories they were exposed to, but also their individual ability to absorb and analyze the content. It might take a new writer years of study to catch up to what another writer got from being exposed to fairy tales and classical literature at a young age.

True enough - and especially true of readers, most of whom aren't very interested in structure. They just want to enjoy the story, as the best seller lists show all too clearly.

4. Structure is structure is structure.

What a writer is exposed to at a young age is the same structure that may or may not be studied. The line between natural absorption and purposeful study is completely arbitrary. What you get from reading is an incomplete portion of the whole. It may or may not be enough, again, to write as well as you could, depending on a million different factors. The only way to know where you land on this spectrum is to study it and see what you did innately.
5. There is a difference between being able to do something and being as good at something as you can be.
Can anyone write well enough to "get by?" Sure, depending on what they're trying to "get by" at.
If I desire excellence at anything, it's romantic but illogical to bank on my instinct, or imagine the portion of my mind unblemished by information and instead wholly devoted to throwing spaghetti at the wall and seeing what sticks will be the secret to my success.
It's entirely possible that may be the case, but it's kinda like buying lottery tickets instead of getting a job. Way less work, but you're counting on a one in a million chance you're incredibly lucky (or "the chosen one," if I may).

So where does that argument leave those people who have a talent for something? There are some people who write great novels without having any real formal training. Sure, some people can produce similar standards after a lot of learning and practice. Most of us (and here I include myself) aren't that talented - but that shouldn't stop us trying, with or without knowledge of structures, story beats etc.

6. I still think you can't know how to make a pizza based on the taste.
Or, more directly, good writers make it look easy. In fact, anyone skilled at pretty much anything makes it look easy. Readers just... read the book. It flows into the psyche seamlessly. Just like a pro skateboarder makes the sport look intuitive, or a pro chef can make a dish in which it's unclear where the taste of one spice stops and another starts.
I could say now "oh I totally can. I can taste a pizza and recreate it." But that's only because I've spent alot of time studying how food works. I know how to make a basic pizza dough, so I can pick out from that what was probably done differently. I never would have guessed the combination of water flour and yeast, the process of kneading and letting rise, or many other things based on the taste.

So how then did the pizza get invented? Someone somewhere must have just decided to try something. Sometimes you should just go for it and see what happens.

So the question is, if you think you know all you need from the stories you read as a child, what misconceptions might you possibly be struggling under? There is no way to know.
I could say with perfect honesty that all you need to know to whittle is that knives cut wood, and I wouldn't know how much more there is to it until I checked. I could maybe even make some damn good carvings to prove my case, but they might have been a thousand times better if I'd known a bit more. I can't know that though, unless I go study carving. Until then, I will insist I know all I need to know.

Writing this as someone who grew up on a farm surrounded by carved wood, you only need one knife to carve wood. With that one knife you can work wonders, as I saw my grandfather do. It takes practice and patience, as well as an eye for the shape you're trying to create. But that's all you need. Sure, those modern professional wood carvers have a shed load of tools - but you don't need them, not really.

 

[Mad Swede]

I've never thought that a writer has to study writing before writing. But I think it helps to study a bit at some stage. Just learn what's useful and forget the rest. Yes, many writers have written brilliant stories without ever having studied writing. As others have said, we're exposed to stories as we grow up, and many parts of storytelling become natural for us. Me too, I think.

Um. I'm severely dyslexic and I can remember what I used to hear at school. Paraphrased, it was that as I couldn't read or write properly I couldn't learn and so I shouldn't bother, I should just stick to simple manual work. I was very stubborn, so I refused to take that lying down and I ended up having a successful professional career. I'm even moderately successful as a writer.

For me, implying or worse still saying you should learn things like story structure before you can be a "proper" writer is a bit like saying you don't take your writing seriously. It's also inherently untrue, as people like Dickens and the Bronte sisters show.

 

[Incanus]

It looks to me like we might be defining some of these terms differently from one another.

Perhaps the words 'use' or 'structure' mean different things to different people.

Some comments here seem to suggest that when creating a story that ultimately has a structure, that they aren't 'using' a structure to arrive at that completed state. If your story has a structure, then, the way I see it, you have 'used' structure in your writing.

If I see somebody playing a drum, I say to them "I see you are playing a drum." They respond by saying, "No, I'm not playing a drum, I'm just tapping this stick in time against a skin stretched over a shell to produce a tone." I'd say, "But that's what I call playing a drum." If they insist they are not playing a drum, I can only shrug and wonder what the heck it is they mean.

So how does one create a story that has structure without using structure? I can't make sense of that.

 

[skip.knox]

>So how does one create a story that has structure without using structure?
Perhaps if you add "consciously" in front of "using" that would help? I'm pretty sure the OP was asking if we needed to know about story structure with the assumption that the knowing would lead to consciously using.

To put it another way, I read the OP as wondering if *not* knowing about specific story structures would be okay; that is, if we could ignore all that and just dive in. I do believe that has been answered on this thread, with the usual variety of answers.

 

[Incanus]

Thanks Skip. I did get the OP question. That part is simple enough for me: in theory, yes you can just dive right in; in practice, knowing what you're doing will save an awful lot of time and energy.

I'd say adding the word 'consciously' ahead of 'use' doesn't really change much for me. Either way, structure is being 'used'.

It's not something I obsess over, or put in hundreds of hours of study into. I use it because wandering through a maze with the lights on is far, far better than being in that same maze in the dark. I find the maze plenty challenging on its own without having to make it trickier still.

 

[Jackarandajam]

The thing is, we as modern readers consume stories in a different way to our forefathers. These days we don't all sit together round a fire in a long house listening to a rolling saga about the gods. So what literary anaysts consider to be good story structure is modern - and may not be the same in fifty years time.

Yeah, but we don't. Stories that are anywhere from 50-500-? years old have structures that are still beloved, we still write in many cases the same way, and they are comparable enough to each other to evaluate and condense into theory.

Structure is an analysis of stories considered successful by those doing the analysis. Most of the time they're only assessing a subset of all stories, a subset limited by time, culture (and hence availability) and personal preference. So those structures are one possible analysis result.

Sounds like youre guessing.
If by that you mean they aren't counting stories people have never heard... yeah.
To deconstruct what is and isn't a classical story is a conversation for another day, I think. Comparing African folk tales to journey to the west to Casablanca is perfectly doable and has been done.
If you don't know the incredible amount of honest research and effort that has gone into the subject, best to not speak on it.

True enough - and especially true of readers, most of whom aren't very interested in structure. They just want to enjoy the story, as the best seller lists show all too clearly.

Sure aren't. Most haven't ever heard of it. But they like the stories that have it and get bored with the ones that don't nonetheless.
It's like marketing. Most people have no idea how much time and effort and science goes into getting their attention.

So where does that argument leave those people who have a talent for something? There are some people who write great novels without having any real formal training. Sure, some people can produce similar standards after a lot of learning and practice. Most of us (and here I include myself) aren't that talented - but that shouldn't stop us trying, with or without knowledge of structures, story beats etc.

Talented people who don't take advantage of their talent by diving headfirst into studying the skill don't make it very far.
To be VERY clear, I'm not at all suggesting everybody stop writing until they know these things backward and forward. Please, write on. But to ignore the information age happening around us because we are lone wolves and very special snowflakes is, in my opinion, ludicrous.

So how then did the pizza get invented? Someone somewhere must have just decided to try something. Sometimes you should just go for it and see what happens.

Pizza, i would suspect, evolved over generations of trial and error. So it really depends on how many lifetimes you think you have to come up with something that can be construed as "new."
I prefer to take the torch passed to me by thousands of years of human trial and error instead of floundering around in the dark trying to invent fire.

Writing this as someone who grew up on a farm surrounded by carved wood, you only need one knife to carve wood. With that one knife you can work wonders, as I saw my grandfather do. It takes practice and patience, as well as an eye for the shape you're trying to create. But that's all you need. Sure, those modern professional wood carvers have a shed load of tools - but you don't need them, not really.

Yep, and all you need to write is a language.
Not arguing that. The rest just depends on how hard you want to make it on yourself.
And less "a shed load of tools", more the ease of looking up the technique for how to achieve the desired effect rather than spending precious time with unnecessary experimentation.

My argument is not "you can't write without structure," my argument is that you are going to spend alot of time teaching yourself, by trail and error and reader feedback, what you could have just studied and applied.

And if you do finally come up with "something new", chances are it's been done, and the reason you'd never heard of it is either because you don't know enough about structure to know it already existed, or it's been tried by many other uninformed enthusiasts and always fails.

I think Solomon said some kinda depressing things along these same lines.

 

[Jackarandajam]

Again, as I've said, all story theory goes back to what readers/listeners want. That's the basis for the whole thing.
If you want people to read the thing, story structure exists to provide methods that appeal to people.
Pick a book off the bestseller list, and I'll show you very carefully orchestrated structure. Not because the writer bowed their head and wrote the way they were being told to, but because the writer invested time and energy in researching how to put their story together in an arrangement that would appeal to people.
They didn't make the bestseller list because the structure gods evaluated the work and dubbed it worthy, they made it because it was written in a way that delighted readers. The theory of that way is the craft of story structure.

 

[Mad Swede]

Sounds like youre guessing.
If by that you mean they aren't counting stories people have never heard... yeah.
To deconstruct what is and isn't a classical story is a conversation for another day, I think. Comparing African folk tales to journey to the west to Casablanca is perfectly doable and has been done.
If you don't know the incredible amount of honest research and effort that has gone into the subject, best to not speak on it.

Not really. Oddly enough there was a very honest article in todays Svenska Dagbladet by Per Klingberg, one of Sweden's leading literary critics. The article is titled "Kritikern finns inte till för förlagens och författarnas skull" (Critics are not there for the benefit of publishers and authors) and in it he discusses how and why literary critics choose what works to analyse and review. What he makes clear is that their choices are largely down to personal temperament and interest, and that their analyses and criticism are written for those who are interested in literary criticism and the surrounding discussions. That's true of most academic specialists (I'm guilty of this myself), we study what interests us. Which by defintion means we usually don't attempt to cover the whole field, and so our analyses are by their nature limited. Yes, you can do wider studies and some do so. But most don't.

 

[Mad Swede]

It looks to me like we might be defining some of these terms differently from one another.

Perhaps the words 'use' or 'structure' mean different things to different people.

Some comments here seem to suggest that when creating a story that ultimately has a structure, that they aren't 'using' a structure to arrive at that completed state. If your story has a structure, then, the way I see it, you have 'used' structure in your writing.

If I see somebody playing a drum, I say to them "I see you are playing a drum." They respond by saying, "No, I'm not playing a drum, I'm just tapping this stick in time against a skin stretched over a shell to produce a tone." I'd say, "But that's what I call playing a drum." If they insist they are not playing a drum, I can only shrug and wonder what the heck it is they mean.

So how does one create a story that has structure without using structure? I can't make sense of that.

To answer your last question first. I just write. I do not conciously use a given story structure. That is not the same as saying my stories do not have a structure. They do, but it isn't one I have deliberately chosen to use. This is why I posed the original question. I don't understand the emphasis so many put on choosing a story structure when writing, because I never do so.

 

[Incanus]

To answer your last question first. I just write. I do not conciously use a given story structure. That is not the same as saying my stories do not have a structure. They do, but it isn't one I have deliberately chosen to use. This is why I posed the original question. I don't understand the emphasis so many put on choosing a story structure when writing, because I never do so.

It sounds like the process isn't wildly different than mine, we just give different weight to the term 'structure' when going about it. I don't start with a completed structure that never changes or that I stick to rigidly. It evolves as the story evolves. I don't know what the complete structure looks like yet because it is an ongoing process.

So, yes, I think its about the definitions of these terms more than anything else.

If you start your story by introducing a character with wants/needs, and then plan on sticking with that character all the way through until the wants/needs issue is resolved, then I'd say you are 'using' a structure, whatever you might want to call it.

 

[Mad Swede]

Again, as I've said, all story theory goes back to what readers/listeners want. That's the basis for the whole thing.
If you want people to read the thing, story structure exists to provide methods that appeal to people.
Pick a book off the bestseller list, and I'll show you very carefully orchestrated structure. Not because the writer bowed their head and wrote the way they were being told to, but because the writer invested time and energy in researching how to put their story together in an arrangement that would appeal to people.
They didn't make the bestseller list because the structure gods evaluated the work and dubbed it worthy, they made it because it was written in a way that delighted readers. The theory of that way is the craft of story structure.

Might I suggest a couple of partial counter-arguments?

First, Charles Dickens. These days he's regarded as one of the great British novelists, but contemporary British literary critics were very critical of his novels, their structures and the characterisation. The British public didn't care, they bought Dickens works by the wagon load and Dickens died a rich man. Interestingly, contemporary overseas writers and critics like Jules Verne, Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky were much more impressed. But Dickens didn't do what we would now call research, he learnt his craft by writing, working as a legal cleark and as a freelance journalist.

Second, Selma Lagerlöf, the first woman to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. She is considered to be one of the great Scandinavian authors, yet she had no formal training as a writer. She spent most of her life as a teacher, and her writing builds on Swedish verbal story telling traditions from her home in Värmland. Her work is not written in the style or structure of what some call objective realism, something which contemporary Swedish critics did not appreciate. The public, on the other hand, loved her work. She didn't do what we would call research into the styles and structues she used, she just used what she'd been brought up with.

Note here that I am not suggesting any books by these authors lack structure, only that they did not conciously research structures. Yes, they used and in some ways developed their own story structures, but these were developed by experience. To me this suggests that you don't need to know about story structures to write successful novels - but you do need to write, and write a lot, to develop your craft.

 

[skip.knox]

I'll give another shot at this.

Structure is present in all stories, even deliberately goofy ones. We humans find patterns in everything, even in the random arrangement of stars, so it's no surprise we can find structures--lots of them!--in the stories we tell.

Consciously using a structure means (if it to mean anything) that an author consciously takes an identified structure and designs their story along those lines. This design can happen at the planning stage, but it can also happen during edit, as they re-shape their story to fit the structure. Either way, the use of structure is conscious and deliberate.

The author who does not do that, who simply writes and who never tries to make their story fit any particular story structure, will still wind up with a story that they themselves, or their readers, can point to and say "here is a structure". If that structure should happen to match or be similar to one of the many existing types (see the chart cited by Malik for examples), then that is coincidental. If you wish, you may think of the author sub-consciously drawing upon archetypes, but the key for purposes of this discussion is the prefix "sub-". It's not conscious.

With the distinction clear (in my own mind), I say in reply to the OP, no we don't *need* to know. Knowing might be beneficial to some, harmful to others (we writers can be dreadfully sensitive creatures), and even helpful on one occasion while harmful on another.

And I'm *still* waiting to hear how a person actually makes use of a structure. Do you lay it out, like a spreadsheet or flowchart, plug in characters and plot points, and then write with those markers clearly in mind? Have you, for example, taken Steve Duncan's map and said oh, my story is at Step 4 and no one is learning new skills. Gotta fix that.

Have you found this improves your writing? Or even improved sales? Or just makes you feel more confident in doing what you do? (that last is perfectly ok; I just think it's important to be clear as to what we mean by "use" here)

 

[Incanus]

And I'm *still* waiting to hear how a person actually makes use of a structure. Do you lay it out, like a spreadsheet or flowchart, plug in characters and plot points, and then write with those markers clearly in mind? Have you, for example, taken Steve Duncan's map and said oh, my story is at Step 4 and no one is learning new skills. Gotta fix that.

This does feel circular, but I'll try again. What the heck. (Note--I've never heard of Steve Duncan, so I won't be addressing that.)

In my case, I don't have the whole structure of my story laid out in a single place. Most of it is abstract, or spread around my various notes. Or not written down at all. The closest to something like that I have is a 3-page outline of my MC character arc. My structure, such as it is, is flexible, not rigid.

Side note--I make extensive use of 'discovery writing' all through this process, so I don't have a detailed outline for everything in the story.

So, I have Character A, who is to go through a classic positive change arc. That change spans the whole story. I plan and arrange (as I go) the external plot so that Character A hits every beat of the arc. The arc has to flow naturally with the external plot, and that takes careful planning.

Therefore, it is through structure that I arrive at my arc/plot, and through arc/plot that I arrive at scenes. Put backwards, without a scene, no writing happens, without an arc/plot, no scene happens, without the structure, no arc/plot happens. Thus, without structure, no writing happens.

That's about as plain as I can make it. To my way of thinking, this shows how structure is 'used' in writing, as far as I understand the question.

I would say that if you have a character arc in mind for your story, then you are using structure. Is that part of the issue--character arcs are not considered a structural component? I think they are.

Another side note--my approach doesn't require a lot of study of structure beyond a few fundamentals and basic familiarity.

 

[Jackarandajam]

Not really. Oddly enough there was a very honest article in todays Svenska Dagbladet by Per Klingberg, one of Sweden's leading literary critics. The article is titled "Kritikern finns inte till för förlagens och författarnas skull" (Critics are not there for the benefit of publishers and authors) and in it he discusses how and why literary critics choose what works to analyse and review. What he makes clear is that their choices are largely down to personal temperament and interest, and that their analyses and criticism are written for those who are interested in literary criticism and the surrounding discussions. That's true of most academic specialists (I'm guilty of this myself), we study what interests us. Which by defintion means we usually don't attempt to cover the whole field, and so our analyses are by their nature limited. Yes, you can do wider studies and some do so. But most don't.

I agree, critics mostly suck. I'll take honest normal-people Ytube reviews over them anytime. Critics are the ones shouting no, this book can't be good, it doesn't fit into the box. They're mostly up in lofty literary nonsense world, where if nihilism is in vogue, stories with happy endings get the big thumbs down, etc.
For one thing, throwing out all of structure because some of it's finer points are what critics hyperfixate on is... confusing.
For another, I really don't think critics and... what did you say, academic analysts?... should be dismissed all at once as the same lump of coal. That's basically saying any and all intellectual evaluation of story is nonsense, which is, I think, a reckless generalization.
That kind of "if those people like it than I dont" mindset would make it really hard to pick a favorite candy.
Lastly, again, at this point we have an enormous pool of analysts that all agree on a lot. Stories from all over the world have been pulled together and shown to have lots of very pleasing characteristics in common.
Take it or leave it, no worries.

Might I suggest a couple of partial counter-arguments?

You might.
All you've proved here is that you don't have to go to school to get good, and Amen to that. I have no plans or money to attend. They can have it.

There's no proof either way, but I struggle (struggled?) to believe anyone passionate about writing would hesitate to look it up.
Sure, maybe they were full on pantsers, just flinging masterpieces behind them page by page as smoke rolled off their nibs to be caught by their editors, maybe taking a break to grab the trophy, so good at writing what people want to read that it never occurs to them to look up what people like to read.

If that's the route you wanna go, I genuinely wish you the best of luck. You're gonna need it.

 

[Jackarandajam]

And I'm *still* waiting to hear how a person actually makes use of a structure. Do you lay it out, like a spreadsheet or flowchart, plug in characters and plot points, and then write with those markers clearly in mind? Have you, for example, taken Steve Duncan's map and said oh, my story is at Step 4 and no one is learning new skills. Gotta fix that.

Structure is for reference. You do whatever you want with it, however works best for you.

You can write an outline, then compare it to the three act structure and see if it more or less tracks. "Oh, I see here I'm missing this "Dark night of the soul thing. You know, my mc actually COULD use a serious moment right before the end where he confronts his demons."

Then you can write your first draft. If you get hung up during this process, you can look again and see if there is something that can help. "Oh, I'm second half of the second act. Maybe I SHOULD kill off that side character to up the stakes."

After your first draft, you can browse it and see if a theme emerged. If so, you can look up symbolism and browse for classic inspo, read a book on theme to get ideas about how to shape it so readers see it more (or less) as the story goes.

You can look up character arc, explore your characters public, private, and hidden lives, tweak your story to have more satisfying character buildup and resolution.

You can look up archetypes to plug in where you need them in a spot where you can't figure out how to get some story across.


Or you can do it completely differently.
You could take a three act diagram and punch the beats directly onto it.
You could hyperfixate on structure and keep building longer outlines until suddenly you have a book.
That, I think, would make you insane, but no judgement here.

 

[Penpilot]

And I'm *still* waiting to hear how a person actually makes use of a structure. Do you lay it out, like a spreadsheet or flowchart, plug in characters and plot points, and then write with those markers clearly in mind? Have you, for example, taken Steve Duncan's map and said oh, my story is at Step 4 and no one is learning new skills. Gotta fix that.

I wrote a whole long post replying to this request previously in this thread.

Do we need to know about story structures?

Imagine the system one must have for rejection if they are getting manuscripts at that rate.

mythicscribes.com

Have you found this improves your writing? Or even improved sales? Or just makes you feel more confident in doing what you do? (that last is perfectly ok; I just think it's important to be clear as to what we mean by "use" here)

For me, it helps in all aspects of the writing process, from organizing ideas, figuring out flow, designing scenes, to editing, and lastly, with the writing the prose.

 

[Demesnedenoir]

When I first contacted my editor, and we considered working together, she asked me if my story met some structural criteria. She didn't call it three-act. It was what you might call the skeleton of three-act. Basically, her premise was: If your story doesn't fit this—at least close, nothing specific—she didn't want to bother with editing because it would take too much work or whatever. I'm testing my memory, but it was mostly about the lengths of—since she doesn't say acts, I'll use parts—parts 1, 2, and 3. Apparently a helluva lot of writers sent her work with outsized parts, either too short or too long, from my interpretation. And I do think this makes some sense. Writers do have a habit of getting lost in their work.

Story is about a beginning, a middle, and an end, and there is a balance to that. Three-act or the more basic mold she spoke of (which basically fit the timing of a movie ::cough:: three-act ::cough:: )can help a writer not get lost and make it through the murky mucked-up middle.

This isn't just an editor's POV, she was part owner of a small publishing house before she went to full-time editing and worked with people like Piers Anthony, and she was confident enough to say that if your book doesn't fit a certain structural criteria, then I don't want your money. Now, take that to a publisher where they pay you... where the reader pays you.

All of this means nothing unless you want it to; hell, I don't take it too seriously. But I find it fun.

 

[Prince of Spires]

And I'm *still* waiting to hear how a person actually makes use of a structure. Do you lay it out, like a spreadsheet or flowchart, plug in characters and plot points, and then write with those markers clearly in mind? Have you, for example, taken Steve Duncan's map and said oh, my story is at Step 4 and no one is learning new skills. Gotta fix that.

Have you found this improves your writing? Or even improved sales? Or just makes you feel more confident in doing what you do? (that last is perfectly ok; I just think it's important to be clear as to what we mean by "use" here)

To give you a couple of famous examples, and their sales should speak for themselves:

Steven Spielberg used the Hero's Journey for Star Wars, A New Hope (episode 4 for those counting). It follows the structure laid out by Campbell very closely. So yes, he pretty much used it as a spreadsheat in which he plugged characters and plot points and collored in the steps.

Brandon Sanderson has talked on various occasions on how he studied Heist stories when he was planning Mistborn. How he found the different elements that all great Heist stories contained and how he worked them into the story.

In both of these, the structure is very apparent, and they make for great stories. I have several other novels on my bookshelves that stick to a structure so closely that it feels very likely the author followed that structure. The Rage of Dragons, by Evan Winter is a recent one which is clearly a hero's journey story, and that did very well sales wise.

More annecdotal evidence seems to be the idea of "writing to market" that works for plenty of indie authors. These all tell how they studied a specific subgenre, took all the elements that made up that genre and used that to write a novel which ended up selling well to the audience of that genre. In the same way, they use the structure like a speadsheet and plug in their story to make it appeal to their audience.

So yes, plenty of people do. And I'd argue that for a lot of beginning writers, applying some structure to their work would make it a lot better.

Also, from experience, if I do run into a story without a clear structure, then I find it very hard to read and I end up having no idea what I'm actually reading. The last two Song of Ice and Fire novels by George R.R. Martin were guilty of this. The writing itself was fine. Very much into the characters heads, clear, atmospheric, and so on. However, I couldn't find what the story actually was and I couldn't tell you what happened in them because I was very much missing the structure.

 

[skip.knox]

>I'd argue that for a lot of beginning writers, applying some structure to their work would make it a lot better.
But, of course, it's the beginning writer who is going to have the most difficulty with applying structure. The experienced writer knows not only stories, he knows *his* stories. Knows his own pacing. Ideal would be for the first-timer to have a writing instructor or developmental editor. They could agree ahead of time that some structural template would be used. The writer could make a try, the editor could point out adjustments, and overall I do think the writer would learn a great deal. Working in isolation, it would be easy to become overwhelmed by the many choices, by the differing opinions and implementations, by the use of jargon that many experienced writers no longer even think is jargon.

I've tried to use structures. In writing a first draft I find them utterly useless. In the planning phase, it feels artificial, like trying to paint from a photo. I keep thinking it would be most useful during early edits, but by that point, the things the structure appears to offer have little to do with the immediate and obvious challenges I can see on my own. That said, I'm confident that any critic can look at any of my works and declare they see this or that structure therein. That, however, says more about literary analysis than it does about writing.

 

[Mad Swede]

>I'd argue that for a lot of beginning writers, applying some structure to their work would make it a lot better.
But, of course, it's the beginning writer who is going to have the most difficulty with applying structure. The experienced writer knows not only stories, he knows *his* stories. Knows his own pacing. Ideal would be for the first-timer to have a writing instructor or developmental editor. They could agree ahead of time that some structural template would be used. The writer could make a try, the editor could point out adjustments, and overall I do think the writer would learn a great deal. Working in isolation, it would be easy to become overwhelmed by the many choices, by the differing opinions and implementations, by the use of jargon that many experienced writers no longer even think is jargon.

Even for a beginner I think I would advise just writing the story. Just write. You do have the structure within you, otherwise you wouldn't be writing. Relax and let it out.

Then, when you've finished, find a good editor or a good beta reader. They'll tell you what needs to change. And when I say good I mean someone who will explain it without getting into the jargon of literary analysis or literary criticism. Any editor who asks what structure you as a beginner used for your story before making a decision on whether to work with you or not isn't worth your money. That sort of editor won't help you, the chances are their superiority and arrogance will just lead to them tearing you apart. You want someone who will help you.

I've tried to use structures. In writing a first draft I find them utterly useless. In the planning phase, it feels artificial, like trying to paint from a photo. I keep thinking it would be most useful during early edits, but by that point, the things the structure appears to offer have little to do with the immediate and obvious challenges I can see on my own. That said, I'm confident that any critic can look at any of my works and declare they see this or that structure therein. That, however, says more about literary analysis than it does about writing.

I've never bothered. My editor didn't even comment on the story structure when we first started working together, and she hasn't done so since. Sometimes I think we over-think our stories and their structures.