1sbdrag
So I have a personal beef with story structures, and it's not really their fault, because the poor things didn't declare themselves the Only Way To Tell a Story Bible that so many people treat them as. Which makes it petty, but what's your least favorite story structure, and why?
If you're not sure what I mean by story structure (since I know not every other has made an academic study of writing and might know the thing but not the word for the thing), I mean like these bad boys:
- Hero's Journey (popularized by Joseph Campbell as part of his personal exploration of similarities in real world mythology and folklore)
- Three Act Structure (the most basic story structure, but designed with plays in mind rather than prose)
- Four Act Structure (also designed with plays in mind, popular across Asia and the structure most anime/manga follow)
- Heroine's Journey (literally made in response to the Hero's Journey)
There are a lot of other ones out there, and I would love to learn about more of them, but I think these give a good general idea of what a story structure is. What you'll notice is that, with the exception of the Heroine's Journey (sort of), none of these structures were designed with prose in mind, so my personal beef is the way so many people act like they are the only way to tell a prose story despite not even being made for prose stories. When I was still looking at trad pubbing, an editor during a pitch event even said he would have an author change their story to match an established structure if it didn't use one. (And that's not even getting into Western editors often being unaware of non-Western structures.)
But anyway - Hero's Journey has to be mine just because it's the most overhyped structure in SFF (thanks, Star Wars) to the point where it can be difficult to find advice on writing a detailed synopsis that doesn't rely on the author having used it. Which gets really difficult if you are new to writing synopses, etc, and aren't using that structure.
If you're not sure what I mean by story structure (since I know not every other has made an academic study of writing and might know the thing but not the word for the thing), I mean like these bad boys:
- Hero's Journey (popularized by Joseph Campbell as part of his personal exploration of similarities in real world mythology and folklore)
- Three Act Structure (the most basic story structure, but designed with plays in mind rather than prose)
- Four Act Structure (also designed with plays in mind, popular across Asia and the structure most anime/manga follow)
- Heroine's Journey (literally made in response to the Hero's Journey)
There are a lot of other ones out there, and I would love to learn about more of them, but I think these give a good general idea of what a story structure is. What you'll notice is that, with the exception of the Heroine's Journey (sort of), none of these structures were designed with prose in mind, so my personal beef is the way so many people act like they are the only way to tell a prose story despite not even being made for prose stories. When I was still looking at trad pubbing, an editor during a pitch event even said he would have an author change their story to match an established structure if it didn't use one. (And that's not even getting into Western editors often being unaware of non-Western structures.)
But anyway - Hero's Journey has to be mine just because it's the most overhyped structure in SFF (thanks, Star Wars) to the point where it can be difficult to find advice on writing a detailed synopsis that doesn't rely on the author having used it. Which gets really difficult if you are new to writing synopses, etc, and aren't using that structure.
