Thinking About Story Structure - How Messy Can You Get?
I read Michael Ondaatje’s COMING THROUGH SLAUGHTER and now I feel energised
I love the way stories can be told in so many different structural ways. There is this idea that story has a classic 3 act structure, and then we can just align every narrative we create against that model.
I mean, it works, so it’s not wrong. The classic set up: person with a goal, person with a barrier to that goal, another person being at odds with their goals, rising tension, a near miss on it all, and then the person rallies and achieves success.
It’s satisfying.
3 act, I like 5 act structures, personally. Save The Cat. The Hero’s Journey. Protagonist V Antagonist. People like it; it helps you say something; it’s safe and it is quality.
But sometimes I like to remember it’s not the only way. I love a good rubric to hold up against my stories, just to check they are working, to see where some weak spots might be - but I also love when a story trusts itself to be told in the way it’s being unearthed.
Which is why I loved reading COMING THROUGH SLAUGHTER by Michael Ondaatje so much.
It took me over 20 years to find a copy of this book, but it did not disappoint, and it lit my little mind afire with thoughts of structure.
The book is about Buddy Bolden - a jazz musician a century ago. Ondaatje had apparently read a tiny mention of him in a book about jazz and decided he both had to know more, and if he couldn’t find it he would make it up.
There was very little about Bolden available in public records and through research so Ondaatje decided to gather together a possible narrative of the man’s life through snippets of moments and thoughts and other ephemera. The book doesn’t feel like a classic 3 act story of a character facing and overcoming a problem in order to learn some greater message about themselves.
The book is messy, and you need to pay attention to keep up. It bounces between perspectives and time and place. It’s unpacking the life of a man through what could be found, or what had been apocryphally heard, and what could be imagined.
The result is a sweeping mess of a man’s life, a life which ends up in a mess so it works to be presented in this way. You come to understand Bolden, in a way, but then there’s also distance from him, as designed into the structure and nature of things. You build empathy for him, while also being a little guarded because you can’t be certain about certain parts.
In short: it’s brilliant and evocative and the writing even feels like jazz in parts. The book is all about emotion and connection, not just satisfying plot beats when your protagonist goes up against their final boss. This is the messiness of real life, and for the week I spent with this book, I could see it and feel it and try to understand it in this singular way.
The aim of the book is to peek into the heart and soul of this man, and the structure works to do that as we wind with him towards his unfortunate and early mental destruction.
I won’t lie, it served as a reminder that not every story needs to adhere to the Hollywood script writing algorithm that we all know [and love, to some degree]. I admit, this book might not be as well known as plenty of Grisham legal thrillers and the like, but reading it felt really special and personal and a lot of that came down to this structure.
I could be informed by this, so long as I’m happy to also take a back seat to every other story that does successfully save the cat.
And I think I am alright with that. I write in my side hustle time for the independent comic scene, my work will be hidden by design anyway, ha.
—
I also have to take a moment to bow down at the altar of Michael Ondaatje’s style and mood and structural verisimilitude.
I read IN THE SKIN OF A LION 24 years ago and loved it then. The story is framed as the drawing together of tales of people as told by one character to another on a long car trip to keep them engaged and awake. The narrator states that the stories are messy, but that they are connected, and that his companion will have to believe him on everything he says.
What unfolds is a beautiful and brilliant tale and it’s stuck with me since that it’s as much a showcase of the power of storytelling as it is directly about such things as well.
I had time recently to read Tara June Winch’s fantastic SWALLOW THE AIR and I loved how this novel and tale of a young Wiradjuri woman has a clear path and destination, but it’s told through vignettes of emotion and moments.
That idea of not worrying too much about the threads and the in betweens and just focusing the reader on the salient moments that deliver the impact, and thus the meaty meaning, of the book is another simple but effective reminder.
Any story has a purpose - the structure of that story is the author’s way of showing their purpose in a meaningful way, and attempting to control/affect the way the reader comes into contact with such things.
I’ve long been a fan of playing with structure in small ways to see what it achieves. I think comics are an amazing medium/art for such things because we have story structure at our disposal, but also page layouts to play with. We can play with overall story/act structure, and select our main characters and perspectives to follow, but then we can also amplify by mucking around with scene selection and order of presentation, we can come into scenes late and leave early, we can layer the words in juxtaposition to the images to create new connections, we can move through time as erratically as someone telling a story at a bar, and we can drop in epistolary moments, or footnotes, or thoughtballoons as much as we want/need.
I’m excited by stories that make a structural choice for a maximum amount of emotional impact. Having IN THE SKIN OF A LION open with Patrick telling Hana, and thus telling the reader, to pay attention to the way things connect is a beautiful signpost that just makes me lean in. Bouncing through the days and months with Winch’s May Gibson as we see certain moments, like she’s someone we knew and she’s catching us up on the most impact small moments of her life so by the end we’ll understand so much more about her than if she just followed her into one major confrontation - because life isn’t these huge confrontations, it’s just a series of moments on this planet that we can either remember and learn from or we can remain oblivious to.
I’m always plotting out some story or another and at the moment there are two things I’m dying to make, and both of them I find myself coming back to the notebook repeatedly to try and figure out how I can best tinker with the story structure for an interesting effect.
The other side of that coin is to read different and interesting things and see what kind of new ideas and skills I can imbibe, if I’m paying attention.
When thinking about structure, I’m often left thinking about:
Every time Chistopher Nolan plays with structure, and why [watch this video]
The way Ronald Harwood adapted Jean-Dominque Bauby’s THE DIVING BELL AND THE BUTTERFLY to maximise how much we care about him and connect to his stroke incident - he discussed this on an old film podcast, but it was over a decade ago and I cannot remember which one and it’s probably no longer online anyway
Why Stephen King opens ‘SALEM’S LOT with a prologue that tells us who lives through the ordeal, thus undercutting the tension of the horror novel
Great examples of structure that amplify the story themes. I wish I did more, and did it better. I know I threw in a small structural beat at the very end of NEGATIVE SPACE - I wonder if anyone noticed it?
With A FISTFUL OF PAIN I tried to amplify some of the heart of the story through structural manipulation of the flashbacks. ETERNAL layered in a blood red berserker fight throughout the book as a thematic heartbeat.
—
I’m Ryan K Lindsay
I have 2 new comics coming out soon.
Click here to learn more about the comic shop release of A FISTFUL OF PAIN from ComixTribe - it’s out at the end of next month, and Louie Joyce and I are so proud of this book
Click here to learn more about DEER EDITOR coming to stores next year through Mad Cave Studios - I am hyped about this release into stores and know that the world getting more of Sami Kivela’s noir art is a blessing upon us all
I hope you have a great slide into the end of the week.
Great essay, Ryan. I am always saying that it doesn't matter which structure you use for a story, as long as it has one. The trick is finding the right one for the story that you want to tell.
Ryan, I just had an opportunity to step into your mind-space via such this incredible piece on method, delivery, etc. Superb! It’s funny, because I just ordered 3 issues of DEER EDITOR! I love the article! Congrats on the two new titles! I’ve been waiting to read DEER EDITOR for sometime! I’ve been exploring methods of storytelling and narrative delivery that deviate from the traditional or conventional methods for quite some time, and I found your article not only informative, but inspiring! Keep up the amazing work! Hope you have a Happy Holiday season my friend, and I hope to catch up sometime soon. Discussing method and technique, and practical application of these concepts, well, it’s an understatement to say I’m extremely enthusiastic about bending, even breaking literary rules and making it work. As creators, we are responsible to push the limits, let’s not just think outside the box, but let’s destroy the box and see just how far we can go into the unknown! Mad Respect-