Jeff VanderMeer on Story Structure

[The Big Peat]

Found this article the other day and found it fascinating, although I am still somewhat trying to get my head around it.

Jeff VanderMeer on the Art and Science of Structuring a Novel - Electric Literature

The following is adapted from a lecture given at Columbia University in April, 2018, and some of the images are reprinted from the author’s Wonderbook: The Illustrated Guide to Creating Imaginative Fiction. A revised and expanded edition of Wonderbook was published this month. Additional content...

electricliterature.com

 

[HareBrain]

It seems to amount to "Do what works for you. If you don't yet know what works for you, here are some examples, but there might be hundreds of others".

I suspect structure is one of those things that only becomes important when it fails, and that can only be known when the first draft is finished. As Vandermeer says, think too hard about at at the beginning and it becomes restrictive. I've tried to train myself to worry about it less, for two reasons. One, I've come to realise that it's not the most important thing in fiction I enjoy. And two, I believe my instinctive ability to structure a story has improved as I've written more, and if the unconscious ability is there, it probably isn't worth the effort of analysing it consciously.

 

[sknox]

I've come to believe that the primary elements of writing advice are anecdote and metaphor. Because writing is an art form, and art is both individual and mysterious; thus, anecdote and metaphor. We can't say what writing is, we can only say what it is like. For us.

The essay is fine. Like all such essays, it's going to speak to someone because it comes along at just the right time for them. A thing doesn't have to be universally and eternally correct for it to be useful.

My complaint isn't with the subject or the author but with the magazine. Specifically the editor (I'll blame them) for the title and subtitle, which together conspire to lead the reader to believe whatever truths lie within are in fact both universal and eternal. I get it. You aren't going to lure many readers with a title that says: "here's one guy's impressions of what works for him, maybe you'll find something worthwhile, do please stop by and maybe subscribe." But that's how it should read.

For myself, articles like this just never seem to be talking about whatever is bedeviling me at the moment. Right now, for example, I'm trying to resolve a plot hole in a (fantasy) mystery I'm writing. Timing, character, even physical geography, not to mention world backstory and how magic works, all enter into it and it has nothing to do with writing scenes while having everything to do with writing scenes. Where is the blog post that talks about how to let the reader know the villain's scheming when we never see the villain's POV? Or which of a dozen different ways of conjuring (gesture, song, chant, wand, etc) is the one to choose for the murder scene? Realist writers have it easy. Gun. Bang. Dead.

Ah but now I'm just whining. I hope the OP finds something worthwhile in the essay.

 

[ckatt]

An interesting article. I've only read a hand full of VanderMeer's fiction. And what I find I like most about it is not the structure but the quality of the prose and the strangeness of the worlds. I did like Annihilation as I thought it was a fantastic exploration of the character. Her journey, both internal and external, really pushed me to keep turning pages. But the next two books in that series didn't do what I had hoped they would.
One of the things I always find a challenge is that analyzing the structure of a novel is one thing but conceptualizing such a structure beforehand and then executing it is quite another--something Vandemeer touches on this in the essay. So it seems that the act of planning a structure, rather than following through with it, is more important or more instructive. Perhaps that is why mapping out someone else's work, as he does, is so valuable. It lets you design a structure against a static target, rather than a moving one which would be my own uncompleted work.

 

[The Big Peat]

Tbh, a better title for this thread might well have been Jeff VanderMeer on Structuring You Concept Of A Story". Because that's what a lot of it's about, and certainly what I enjoy most about it is the idea of the Guiding Image - some easily memorable thing that encapsulates the heart of the story and which you can refer back to. I accidentally stumbled onto doing that with one of my current projects and it's going great, and seeing it put in formal terms has been great.

 

[msstice]

Found this article the other day and found it fascinating, although I am still somewhat trying to get my head around it.

Jeff VanderMeer on the Art and Science of Structuring a Novel - Electric Literature

The following is adapted from a lecture given at Columbia University in April, 2018, and some of the images are reprinted from the author’s Wonderbook: The Illustrated Guide to Creating Imaginative Fiction. A revised and expanded edition of Wonderbook was published this month. Additional content...

electricliterature.com

Thank you for posting this. I found it too dense for a casual reading. It is clear that Jeff is going very deep with the analysis. I have to sit down and study this more deeply.