Across the world, it's commonly understood that games are
stupid and boring, and nobody likes to play them.
No, wait, I mean it's commonly understood that games are
fun, exciting, and everyone has their favorite types of games they like to play
or watch.
Right?
It could be sports (the Olympics certainly tied up people's
brains for a while, didn't it?), it could be card games, board games, video
games, darts, drinking games, rock-paper-scissors, pattycake, tag, or even
holding your hands behind your back and making a little kid pick which hand the
candy is in.
Games are fun.
Because they have rules.
They have just enough rules.
If a game has too many rules, we strip the rule out. If it doesn't have enough rules, we add
more--house rules. How do we know if the
rules are right? Because we're having
fun.
So let me tell you about my favorite game. It's called "Transformation." You only need one player to play, but it's
nice to have an audience. And everyone
plays it differently, but there are rules.
Generally, this is how you play it:
- First
you deal out a Character card.
A kid just making her way out into the world for the first
time. An ordinary Joe. A grumpy old woman.
- Then
you deal out a Setting chard.
Late 19th-century England. Outer space. The high seas of China during the age of
piracy.
- Third,
either one or two Problems from the problem-card deck: an External
Problem card and possibly an Internal Problem card. Spouse Kidnapped! Lack of
Confidence! Out of Gas! Arrogant SOB! Low Man on the Totem
Pole! Loss of Hope!
Actually, I take that all back. The first card you deal out is the Overall
Emotion card. Pure adrenaline,
self-sacrifice, laughter, pessimism, careful consideration, fear, pluck,
wonder, determination, and integrity are some of the major emotion cards. Some people like to deal out two, but those
are the advanced players. (Of course,
the only way to become an advanced player is to deal out the cards like one.)
Here, things get more complex, and the house rules get all
over the place. Some people deal out
goals next; others, catalysts. Some will
throw in a mentor and an antagonist and leave it at that; others will toss down
a cast of thousands.
But all those games of transformation share a few essential
cards, although they're called by different names. Here are the big ones:
- The Point
of No Return, where the character has to admit that the problem can't
be solved by everyday methods.
- The Clever
Idea that Will Lead to No Good, where the character tries to solve the
problem by doing the wrong thing (often, through ignorance of the real
situation).
- Worse
Off than When They Started, where the character feels like they never
should have tried to solve this problem anyway (even though they couldn't
avoid it).
- They
Knew It All Along; If Only They'd Listened, when the character
realizes that the problem is their attitude, and changes it.
- And
finally, Changed for the Better, when the internally-based solution
to the External problem has been put into place. Or Abject Failure,
where the internally-based solution...was realized just a moment too late.
I'm sure you know another name for this game. It's "telling stories."
When we tell stories, we're playing a game, with rules. Stories aren't like real life, although we
sometimes turn real life into a story, so we can understand it. If we played stories like we play real life, we'd play the beginning of the game a hundred
times before we ever got to the Point of No Return card. And we'd play the same Clever Idea that
Will Lead to No Good card over and over, never understanding why things
didn't work out the way we wanted them to--through unhappy jobs, relationships
that sap our strength, and trying to raise kids that don't act the way we think
they should.
In real life, most of us are terrible Transformation
players. Storytellers, however, are
great at it. Okay, maybe we're not so
great at it in real life, but on paper, we can deal out those cards like pros,
making tales that include all the right cards in the right order, whether we do
it consciously or not.
And a lot of the problems we have, as storytellers, come
from a problem with the way we play the game.
As storytellers, when you're stuck, look at your deck of
cards: did you play all the cards you needed?
If you're having trouble coming up with ideas for what to
write, just deal out your first four or five cards--an Overall Emotion
card (hint: this is your genre!), and a Character in a Setting
with a Problem (or two). You'll
be surprised with what clicks.
And if you're having trouble finishing a story, or if you
feel like something's wrong with it but you can't tell what--study the great
card players and find out what their house rules are! Study the games that are closest to
yours...and listen to the teachers who explain the layouts best.
All of this, I admit, was just a clever way to get you
thinking about structure. Personally, I
found it utterly overwhelming when I first started studying it (like trying to
learn 4-dimensional math), and I would cry loudly that I didn't need no
stinking structure. Live and learn. The more I think about it, the more I
find that it's structure that gets to the heart of why we read stories and what
we find so pleasurable about them.
Here are some of my favorite works on structure:
- The Save the Cat! Series, by Blake
Snyder
- Story
Engineering, by Larry Brooks
- The Lester Dent Master
Fiction Plot
- The Writer's Journey, by
Christopher Vogler
And you probably know of more. What are your favorite books or teachers on
structure? And what are your personal
(or your genre's) house rules?
About the Writer:
DeAnna Knippling is a freelance writer, editor, and formatter married to a
Network Administrator, and she was still embarrassed about some of her personal
security practices after hearing JT's talk. Check out her personal blog
at www.DeAnnaKnippling.com or her small press at
www.WonderlandPress.com.