More Structural Designs

My son’s Cub Scout Pack spent the weekend camping in the cold and windy mountains. No incidents involved wild critters, but at night, we could hear the wolves howling at the nearby preserve. The boys had a great time imitating them.

We left home later than we’d hoped, so I put up the tent (mostly by myself) in the dark as DH lugged our gear up the steep path from the car. Others often tease us about our “hotel” tent, but once you put two air mattresses, all our stuff plus four people inside, our eight-man (or is that sardine?) tent just holds us.

It amazes me how some nylon fabric, six poles and twelve stakes provide sufficient shelter. Understanding the design determines how much effort you spend getting it up. Some tents ALMOST work, even if you get the wrong pole in the wrong sleeve. One of my friends had this issue Friday night. It looked like a tent and even acted like one, but she doubted it would withstand the expected winds. Luckily, it held, but it could have fallen apart on her and her son during the night.

So, what does all this have to do with writing, you ask?

After reading the first two parts of Dunne’s book, Emotional Structure: Creating the Story Beneath the Plot, while recovering yesterday afternoon, I realized I’m missing the stakes and poles in my writing or possibly I have only used stakes and poles, with no canvas between them. Hmmm, I haven’t worked that analogy out very well. Anyway, what I had written looked like a story, but it collapsed under close reading.

Dunne’s book is written as a guide for screenwriters, but his ideas apply to any type of fiction, especially character-driven fiction – like romance novels. He describes sowing the seeds of your story so you end up with complex characters with rich backstories that allow the plot to reveal patterns in the life of your protagonist – the personification of your theme.

I never quite understood what theme meant. The difference between story and plot always struck me as a semantic one. However, I felt these concepts click into place after reading Dunne’s quote, “The story is the journey for truth. The plot is the road it takes to get there.” I’ve read similar things recently, but not in a way that made sense.

Jodi and Jasmine recognized many seeds (even a couple I didn’t consciously drop) in the story I had buried in my head during this draft. However, for my story to work, I need to determine what truth (theme) I’m trying to reveal to the reader and build from there. Therefore, this week’s plan is to finish the book and work on Dunne’s exercises with respect to this story.