Stormy River Writers Astoria, Oregon

Prior Weeks

On this page are the work shops from the weeks before.

What is story structure?

Story structure is the order in which plot events are told to the reader or audience. While stories can be told in a wide variety of ways, most Western story structures commonly share certain elements: exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution.

A tightly controlled structure will answer a reader’s questions, provide a climax followed by resolution and information at the end of the story, further the characters’ development, and unravel any central conflicts. In other words, it’s responsible for a satisfying narrative experience that accomplishes the author’s aims.

Classic story structure

When people discuss different story structures, they often talk about the different frameworks used to analyze stories. When you boil them all down, all stories have certain shared elements.

Elements of classic story structure:

• Exposition. This first part establishes a protagonist’s normal life and greater desires, and usually culminates in the inciting incident.
• Rising action. The protagonist pursues their new goal and is tested along the way.
• Climax. Our hero achieves their goal — or so they think!
• Falling action. The hero now must deal with the consequences of achieving their goal.
• Resolution. The conclusion tying together the plot, character arcs, and themes.

These are all common ‘beats’ to most stories. It can be easier to see these moments in genres with higher stakes (such as a military thriller), but you’ll find them in almost any type of story. 

In Medias Res

As most people who teach about in medias res will tell you within four seconds, “in medias res” is Latin that translates to “in the midst of things.” In some ways, this is pretty straightforward: Instead of starting a story with exposition or setup, you start with the action or conflict. Most people will cite that this will grab the reader and draw them into the story.

 in medias res means cutting off the exposition and setup, it also means cutting off the context. If I have no clue who to care about, how we got here, and why what is happening matters, it can be really difficult to get invested in the story. 

When you start in medias res, the audience lacks context.

In this way, beginning in medias res is a lot like writing a teaser, which also works off a lack of context. In a teaser, the whole point is to tease the audience through a lack of context. The teaser promises that if the audience keeps reading, they will get more context to understand what just happened. This is often a great way to use in medias res.

But just like a teaser, the audience won’t stick around if context is withheld from them for too long.

The Man in Hole is a story we’re all familiar with and is maybe the most common story type. It starts above the midpoint of the GI-Axis, as Vonnegut says readers don’t want to read about a hero who doesn’t start out happy. Then the “man falls in a hole,” or in other words, something devastating happens to the protagonist. The rest of the story is spent with the hero trying to get out of the hole, until eventually he does, and he ends up in a place that is even better than where he started. He notes this on his graph by the line being higher on the GI-Axis when the hero is out of the hole (farther on the BE-Axis, closer to the end of the story) than in the beginning.

A classic example of this plot type is The Wizard of Oz. In the beginning of the story, Dorothy’s life is above the midpoint on the GI-Axis. Yes, Kansas is monochromatic and dull. But she is loved and well cared for by Aunt Em and Uncle Henry. The three farm hands are quite fond of her and entertain her as they work. She and Toto play all day. Her life might be a bit boring, but it’s above zero on the GI-Axis. When Miss Gulch takes Toto away, she dips down. When Toto returns but she has to run away to protect him, she dips further. When she’s told her aunt is sick because she left, she dips more. Then the tornado, then the Wicked Witch chasing her, then being given an impossible task, then being captured. Even once she’s beaten the witch, has given the wizard the broomstick, and has discovered his ruse, her problems never seem to end—he promises to take her home in his balloon, but Toto chases a cat and he floats away without her. She’s out of options. A true low point. Until Glenda teaches her the final lesson and she goes home, happier to be there than she was before. (Higher on the GI-Axis than she was at the beginning of the story.)

The Cinderella story type is one that should be familiar to you, maybe not as a plot-type, but by the story itself. First, let’s consider the structure. Vonnegut taught us that readers like to follow heroes who start the story above the midpoint of the GI-Axis. But in this case, we break this trend. This particular hero starts below the midpoint. This is someone who has experienced real tragedies in life. But something happens, then her situation improves. So much, in fact, that she breaks past the midpoint into the area of good fortune. At least, for a bit. Then she plummets—not as far down as she has been. Nothing can be that bad. But she does cross the line back into negative fortune again. And that’s where things stay until she has one last reversal and not only ends on a high note, but ends with the potential for infinite happiness.

The classic example of this plot type is Cinderella. That’s how this plot type got its name, after all. In the beginning, Ella’s mother has died and her father has remarried. Her stepmother is awful to her, as are her stepsisters, and she’s relegated to a servant in her own home. She sleeps at the hearth for warmth because she doesn’t even have a blanket (hence the name Cinder-Ella, she sleeps among the cinders). The king announces a ball for his son, the prince, to meet his bride, and though she has to help her stepsisters get ready, she is forbidden to attend. Once her family leaves, her fairy godmother appears and helps her get ready. Of course, there’s a catch. The magic only lasts until midnight. She has a grand time at the ball and enchants everyone there. Her own family doesn’t recognize her, she cleans up so well. And she’s having such a wonderful evening, she doesn’t notice the time. When the clock strike twelve, she flees so quickly, she leaves behind a shoe. And that’s how the prince finds her later. Then they live happily ever after.

Also like last time, the Boy Meets Girl story is one we’re all familiar with. It’s probably the second most common story type, and I say “probably” only because it could be tied with “Man in Hole” in popularity. Like its predecessor, it starts above the midpoint of the GI-Axis, because readers like happy heroes. But unlike last time, the graph trends up initially. Why? Because boy meets girl. (Or someone meets someone. Choose whichever gender combination you like. That’s immaterial.) In the beginning, love is wonderful. Magical. Picture the cartoon cat with hearts in his eyes.

Of course, it doesn’t last. That’s why the graph plummets. And it nosedives past the midpoint of the GI-Axis and into the dark part. Something caused the happy couple to split. It might have been something easily rectified, like a miscommunication. It might have been something serious, like a family feud. But in the middle of this story, they’re torn apart. Only toward the end do they reconcile, and the resolution sees the graph much higher than the beginning, because together they are far happier than the hero was when he started alone.

A classic example of this plot type is Grease. In the beginning of the story, Danny is already happy. He’s about to be a senior, he’s got a group of close friends of which he’s the leader, and he’s popular at school. Things could always be better (he could be richer, he could be smarter, he could be liked by even more people), but he’s perfectly happy with how things are. But then he meets Sandy. And he has an amazing summer romance. He thinks he has to give her up because she’s going back to Australia. Then he forces himself to give her up because of his friends. Even when he tries to make it work, it seems too hard to overcome all the obstacles. They’re both miserable. But then he decides to become an athlete and leave the T-Bird life behind for her. (Luckily, she doesn’t make him and makes opposite changes for him.) They get their happily ever after ending, much higher on the GI-Axis than where they started.

In Summation:

• Starts happy
• Meets Sandy and is happier
• Loses her and is sad
• Has to choose between her and his friends
• Makes the tough choice and starts to get happy
• Gets her and his friends; immeasurable happiness

The From Bad to Worse story type is one that we don’t see often and is exactly as it sounds. Things start off bad and get progressively worse. In this case, our protagonist begins the story on the GI-Axis well below the midpoint and his arc goes down. There is no moment that trends toward the positive, and the endpoint tends toward infinite unhappiness.

The classic example of this plot type is Kafka’s The Metamorphosis. The story begins with a traveling salesman, Gregor, who is completely unhappy with his life and his job. He would quit, but his family depends on his salary. When he wakes, he finds he has transformed into a disgusting insect overnight. He is uncomfortable, but in his current form, he’s unable to roll off his back. He’s missed his train to work, and he’s unable to speak when his family and office manager call out to him. When he finally manages to open his door, they are horrified by his appearance, lash out at him, and close him in his room. The food they give him repulses him, but he finds he enjoys rotting scraps. No one visits, and while he spends all his days alone, listening to his family lament the difficult situation he’s put them in, he finds himself literally climbing the walls. His father throws an apple at him when he mistakes his concern for his mother as an attack. His sister grows to resent caring for him. His whole family ceases to acknowledge him at all, focusing only on what he’s cost them and not on what he’s going through or on what he’s given up or what he’d once done for them. When he overhears them wishing he was dead, he retreats to his room for a final time and dies, alone and unloved. His family moves to the country with the money they saved living meager lives while hiding him from the public, and he reaps none of this good fortune (as he’s dead and gone, and his family didn’t even bury him; the maid disposed of his body for them).

In Summation:

• Starts miserable
• Things get worse
• Ends at the pinnacle of badness

The Good News/Bad News story type is the one that Vonnegut always ended his lectures with. It was the one that he said is the most interesting because it was the one that mirrored real life. Why? Well, because we don’t really know what we’re looking at at any given time. Take our protagonist. His journey is going to start below the midpoint on the GI-Axis because life isn’t always the bowl of cherries people wish it was and more often than not is just the pits.

Then he’s going along, being faced with choices and making them. But he doesn’t know the results of those choices. And by the end of the story, he still doesn’t know.

The classic example of this plot type is Hamlet. The reason this is a Good News/Bad News story is because Hamlet goes through the entirety of the play not knowing whether any information he receives is good news or bad, nor does he know whether any decision he makes will result in a good or bad outcome.

He begins the story in the same place Cinderella did, well below the midpoint of the GI-Axis. He’s been summoned home because his father is dead, and his mother has remarried his uncle. When he arrives, his friend tells him to go to the roof, where he sees his father’s ghost and is told his uncle, Claudius, killed him for the throne. But there’s no way to prove this. So, Hamlet has Rosencrantz and Guildenstern put on a play reenacting the crime so he can study his uncle’s reaction. Surely seeing his transgressions on stage will cause his guilty conscience to manifest in some way. But it doesn’t. He doesn’t react at all. This confuses Hamlet, who goes to his mother’s chambers, agitated and confused. When he sees someone hiding behind her draperies, he believes it to be his uncle and takes decisive action, striking him dead through the curtain. But it’s Polonius (who Hamlet doesn’t like, anyway). But Polonius’s daughter, Ophelia, whom Hamlet loves, kills herself upon hearing the news. These deaths result in a duel between Hamlet and Polonius’s son, Laertes. Claudius has it rigged so Hamlet will die either way—by poison sword-tip if he’s stabbed or by poisoned chalice if he wins. Unfortunately, he is winning the duel but he refuses the drink and his mother takes the cup, instead, and dies instantly. Laertes, who gets cut by his own poisoned blade, wounds Hamlet then reveals the plan to him. Hamlet runs his uncle through with the toxic sword, then (adding insult to injury) also makes him finish the poisoned wine. His father finally avenged, and now his mother avenged, too, Hamlet can die at peace with his choices, though he still doesn’t know whether any of his decisions made a difference.

In Summation:

• His father is dead and his mother remarried his uncle.
• The ghost of his father tells him to avenge him. (Do we know if this is true? No.)
• Stage a play to test veracity of claim. (Does this work? No.)
• In mother’s room, sees drapes wave. Thinks it’s his uncle. Stabs him. (Does this avenge his father? No. It’s Polonius.)
• Ends up in a duel. Dies. Good news or bad? We still don’t know until we know if he ends up in Heaven, Hell, or if there’s no afterlife at all.
• This is a masterpiece because Shakespeare told us a story that represents the truth of life. It’s all unknown.

Vonnegut gave several speeches over the years, and politics aside, he was an engaging and entertaining speaker. His talks on the five basic plots were particularly humorous. I’m including one such video here at the end of this post. It’s not too long, and I hope you take the time to watch it.

Inspired by Joseph Campbell’s concept of the monomyth — a storytelling pattern that recurs in mythology all over the world — The Hero’s Journey is today’s best-known story structure. Some attribute its popularity to George Lucas, whose Star Wars was heavily influenced by Campbell’s The Hero With a Thousand Faces.

Campbell’s original structure uses terminology that lends itself well to epic tales of bravery and triumph — with plot points like “Belly of the Whale,” “Woman as the Temptress,” and “The Magic Flight.” To make The Hero’s Journey more accessible, Disney executive Christopher Vogler created a simplified version that has become popular amongst mainstream storytellers.

Structure

1. The Ordinary World. The hero’s everyday life is established.
2. The Call of Adventure. Otherwise known as the inciting incident.
3. Refusal of the Call. For a moment, the hero is reluctant to take on the challenge.
4. Meeting the Mentor. Our hero meets someone who prepares them for what lies ahead — perhaps a parental figure, a teacher, a wizard, or a wise hermit.
5. Crossing the First Threshold. The hero steps out of their comfort zone and enters a ‘new world.’
6. Tests, Allies, Enemies. Our protagonist faces new challenges — and maybe picks up some new friends. Think of Dorothy on the Yellow Brick Road.
7. Approach to the Inmost Cave. The hero gets close to their goal. Luke Skywalker reaches the Death Star.
8. The Ordeal. The hero meets (and overcomes) their greatest challenge yet.
9. Reward (Seizing the Sword). The hero obtains something important they were after, and victory is in sight.
10. The Road Back. The hero realizes that achieving their goal is not the final hurdle. In fact, ‘seizing the sword’ may have made things worse for them.
11. Resurrection. The hero faces their final challenge — a climactic test that hinges on everything they’ve learned over their journey.
12. Return with the Elixir. Having triumphed, our protagonist returns to their old life. Dorothy returns to Kansas; Iron Man holds a press conference to blow his own trumpet.

While Vogler’s simplified steps still retain some of Campbell’s mythological language with its references to swords and elixirs, the framework can be applied to almost any genre of fiction. To see how a ‘realistic’ story can adhere to this structure, check out our guide to the hero’s journey in which we analyze Rocky through this very lens.

How to outline a novel:

• 1. Choose your main character
• 2. Give your main character a big problem
• 3. Find a catalyst that sparks action
• 4. Set obstacles on their path
• 5. Define their biggest ordeal
• 6. Figure out a resolution
• 7. Pinpoint the character’s arc
• 8. Connect the end to the start of the story
• 9. Put your outline together  

Quote of the week: Kurt Vonnegut liked to say that the mission of the artist is “to make people appreciate being alive at least a little bit.”

Week 2 – Good Dialogue vs. Bad Dialogue

Explore new ideas, share stories, and grow as writers. This page highlights weekly assignments and prompts to spark creativity within our Astoria community.

It’s hard to have a story without dialogue, especially since it’s extremely hard to have a compelling story without a character. Once you have one or more characters they tend to talk to each other. Now, are there stories out there without dialogue? I’m sure there are, but have you heard of them?

The Screwtape Letters

The Lord of the Barnyard

So it’s possible, but you really have to do something special. But why would you want to? Dialogue is a blast. There are some stories that are nothin g but dialogue.

They’re Made out of Meat

Now that is great if you can pull it off, but when you do that you really don’t have a setting, character description (unless you slip it in the dialogue) or even a plot (what’s the plot in Terry Bison’s They’re Made out of Meat?)

But if we are going to write a story with dialogue and we want to write dialogue that keeps our reader reading, it has to work for us. Dialogue, like anything we right, should do one of two things:

Move the story along

Describe Character.

In writing dialogue you want dialogue that feels natural and authentic while also advancing the plot or revealing something about a character. If a line of dialogue serves no purpose, chances are it will be bad dialogue. In fact, great dialogue does the opposite. It serves several purposes if possible. It can let the reader know what type of person they’re dealing with, and it can advance the story.

Most great dialogue comes from conflict – what are some of your favorite lines of dialogue in books or films?

Subtext

The difference between what a character says and what a character means.

Has anyone ever had an argument with a significant other or had to support someone who just went through a traumatic event and afterward ask, “Are you okay?”

“What does that other person says? “I’m fine.” or “I’m good.” or “yeah, sure.”

Do they mean that they are fine or good? No. What do they really mean? That’s the subtext. Us humans rarely say exactly what we mean. Have you ever read or watch a good story where one of the characters says exactly what they mean?

What is better dialogue?

“Go ahead. Make my day.”

Or

“I’m a morally ambiguous middle aged police officer with anger issues and I need to overcompensate with a gigantic gun and if you don’t listen to me I will shoot you.”

Jaws: “You’re gonna need a bigger boat.”

Subtext: I am scared to death because that is the largest shark I’ve ever seen and I’m a shark expert.

Gone with the Wind: “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.” or

“We’ve had a lot of ups and downs in our relationship and I’m a bit angry right now so I’m going to say goodbye.”

Now, do you believe that if dialogue lacks subtext it’s not good dialogue?

“Luke, I am your father.” That has zero subtext, but is a very memorable line that changes the entire story.

What makes Good Dialogue good?

Must sound natural for the character speaking. Tone.

It attacks of defends – characters are trying to learn or persuading another

Expresses Subtext

What makes Bad Dialogue bad?

No subtext, obvious, sounds cliche, no deeper meaning makes it dull

Melodramatic, over the top emotion, loud does not mean emotional, comes off as funny

Exposition, information that the characters already know. You’ve heard this when one character says to another “As you know…”

Forced Poetry – doesn’t sound natural and it’s only there to make the writer look smart

Poorly researched vernacular – “Yo, that new flick was lit. It was fire, for real, six seven, six seven, skibidi toilet!”

How to make a conversation a scene

In our books we have two real parts to our story. We have the exposition where you as the narrator are talking to the reader and telling them about the setting, about the people in the story, about the story itself, and this can be done by 3rd person omnipotent or third person close. You can also speak directly to your reader in a flashback or showing what your protagonist is thinking.

But if you want to make your dialogue great, have your character working while talking. Have them do something that reveals their character and moves the story along.

A Clean Well-Lighted Place

What do you know about the characters through the dialogue?

How does the dialogue move the story along?

10-15 minute Writing Prompt:

Tell us that you’re _______ without telling us that you’re _________.

You have ten minutes to have your protagonist want something. They want something and they’re arguing with another character to get it. Whatever they want is personal, so neither party really wants to mention the thing in question, but we can infer through dialogue. Give me a half page or so.