10. Freedom with form (Or, story structure for optimists)

Explicit content warning

10/27/23 • 37 min

the Inspirited Word

When writers talk about story structure, we tend to conceptualize it in one of two ways:

As a set of almost mechanical instructions on how to put a story together “correctly”
As an organic, intuitive outgrowth of the themes, symbols, and artistic devices within the story

Both of these views on structure contain a bit of truth. But sticking too closely to either one can lead to sterile rigidity... or to endlessly drafting in beautiful circles with no final, functioning story in sight. (See also: being a “plotter” vs. a “pantser.”)

Ultimately, though, we made this dichotomy up. And if we shift our understanding of what role structure plays in storytelling, maybe we can make something up that works better, both for us and for our writing.

This month, I’m sharing my own working theory of how structure can lead to more creative freedom – and how that new freedom might break our deepest blocks around what makes a good story.

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Episode links:

Meander, Spiral, Explode: Design and Pattern in Narrative, Jane Alison

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

When writers talk about story structure, we tend to conceptualize it in one of two ways:

As a set of almost mechanical instructions on how to put a story together “correctly”
As an organic, intuitive outgrowth of the themes, symbols, and artistic devices within the story

This month, I’m sharing my own working theory of how structure can lead to more creative freedom – and how that new freedom might break our deepest blocks around what makes a good story.

_____

https://www.inspiritedword.com/about/#the-praxis-circle

Prefer to access subscriber content via Substack? I got you: https://inspiritedword.substack.com/

_____

Episode links:

Meander, Spiral, Explode: Design and Pattern in Narrative, Jane Alison

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Previous Episode

9. Hearth and horizon: Finding creative center

How do we find our creative center, and how do we actually stay in it while we’re working?

It’s pretty easy to feel centered when a story is first emerging. There’s usually that phase where stuff seems to be spontaneously welling up from somewhere inside us, somewhere private and inner and... well, centered.

The act of drafting, on the other hand, tends to feel like searching for something that’s missing. And if we’re too caught up in a perfectionist, idealized view of our story, we quickly get mired in the gap between that shining but vague initial imagining and the specific (unideal) words that are coming out on the page.

Having a center can imply staying in the same place, and being in control of it – but a true creative center is always also fundamentally a threshold. A place where if you know the right tricks, the sacred can be smuggled through the seams.

This month, join me as I explore what the mythological figure of the trickster can teach us about our creative centers (and about the power of the lucky accident in our storytelling).

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https://www.inspiritedword.com/about/#the-praxis-circle

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Episode links:

Lewis Hyde, Trickster Makes This World

Homeric Hymn to Hermes

Homeric Hymn to Hestia

Nicholas Cross, "The Hearth as a Place of Refuge in Ancient Greece"

Jean Robert, "Hestia and Hermes: The Greek Imagination of Motion and Space"

Pausanias, Descriptions of Greece (for the ritual referenced in the episode, see Book 7.22)

Bethu Brigte (a medieval hagiography of Saint Brigid)

Cogitosus, Life of Saint Brigid the Virgin

Story Archeology podcast: The Search for Brigid

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Next Episode

11. Telling the story that breathes

The typical ways writers study and practice storytelling often encourage us to conflate “paying attention” to our craft with catching errors or imperfections.

We try to pay our best, most granular attention to the words on the page, in order to bring them closer to some standard of excellence. And at certain points during revision, there’s not actually anything wrong with that.

But when this type of attention seeps into your full drafting process, it messes up your ability to pay attention in ways that aren’t critical or catastrophic or hypervigilant. You can lose the ability to really be present with the story – to find the language that breathes.

This month, I’m exploring ways to pay attention as we write that can take us deeper into presence and relationship with our stories. Ways to write as a living, breathing, imagining storyteller, and not as our own worst critic.

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https://www.inspiritedword.com/about/#the-praxis-circle

Prefer to access subscriber content via Substack? I got you: https://inspiritedword.substack.com/

_____

Episode links:

The Spell of the Sensuous, David Abram

The Emerald podcast, Joshua Schrei

Ren+Spiritwork, Ren Zatopek

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.