When you start getting into the technical side of writing, you’ll come across a lot of terms which all fall under the umbrella term ‘Structure’. This is one of the most daunting topics for writers, but it needn’t be. Over the next few weeks, we’re going to look at some structural approaches and models in common use.
Things you’ll hear about include the classic Three Act structure (there are also Four and Five act structures!), the Hero’s Journey, the Story Circle and so on. Many of these cover the same ground but use different language eg plot points and story beats (same thing, essentially). The first we’re going to look at is ‘The Eight Point Arc’.
The Eight Point Arc is a simple story structure taken from Nigel Watts’s book ‘Writing a Novel’, first published in 1996. It’s quite similar to the Hero’s Journey but many people might find it simpler and easier to follow.
While Watts is writing about novels for the most part in his book, this is very applicable to short stories – where some people really struggle with structure – and help you create a pleasing narrative from the single great idea at the centre of a successful short piece.
Watts divides the narrative into eight stages, but as we’ll see, these can repeat multiple times in a longer narrative.
Here’s a summary version of the Eight Point Arc, with some examples. I’ve used ‘hero’ in this case as a non-gender specific reference and female examples.
1. Stasis – this is the ‘once upon a time’ section of a fairytale, where the author describes our hero’s base reality. Today is a day like any other day.
2. Trigger – some event occurs which is beyond the control of the hero, turning the day from average to exceptional. This can be anything – getting out of a car, opening their front door to find a strange creature on the other side of it. You can even start with the trigger, which makes stage 1 implied rather than described (Line One: “Janine’s life changed the second she fell out of the window…” – we are left to imagine what Janine’s life was like before). The Trigger is where the characters come alive (or in Janine’s case… who knows!)
3. The Quest – the trigger creates a quest for the protagonist. This might be to reinstate their comfortable normality, or it may be to try to maintain or build on a new pleasant situation (eg the trigger might be Rachel winning the lottery; the quest is to maintain the wealth or build on it). You can keep layering on quests as long as they incorporate the original quest, raising tension in the process.
4. Surprise – This is what the reader has been waiting for. This quirk in the narrative is most often some kind of obstacle to the quest (conflict), and is usually the first of a succession of surprises which propel the narrative forward. Here the author needs to balance two things: unexpectedness and plausibility. If your surprise is beyond credibility, your reader will stop reading. If they have seen it coming a mile off, they’ll likely get bored. Pleasant surprises don’t tend to move the plot forward, according to Watts. If Rachel wins the lottery and then just keeps winning things and gaining more wealth, there had better be some nasty surprises along the way or we’ll check out.
5. Critical Choice – the hero has to make an important (difficult) decision, often because their quest has hit a brick wall (eg Rachel runs out of money). The hero should always make the decision, not be forced into one course of action by the plot. This is a concept usually required in Western literature, where we are hard-wired to demand character agency, but different cultures have different takes (a topic for another piece!). In a longer narrative, the hero will be faced with continual surprises and continual choices to make and should develop (or degrade) with each one.
6. Climax – the critical choices forced on the character come to a head. This might take time in a longer narrative but in a shorter narrative you might get Surprise, Critical Choice and Climax in the same paragraph! If you omit a climax, you are going back on the promise you have made to the reader in your setup – Rachel keeps winning and winning, always choosing the right investments, The End. How annoyed would you be to read that story? You can have more than one climax as long as you prepare us for the next climax by taking us back to step 3 – a new quest related to the previous one – or 4 – a new surprise which leads to another choice. The more you repeat the Surprise + Choice + Climax loop, the more tension there will be – up to a point. Endless climaxes without resolution risk exhausting and disappointing your reader, but the best authors know how to crank you to a peak of “I HAVE TO KNOW!” before fulfilling the promise to you as a reader.
7. Reversal. Aka the twist. Not all stories have a twist, but we respond well to reversal, which is the consequence of the Surprise + Critical Choice + Climax sequence. If there is no reversal, this raises the question of whether the Climax was all for show (spectacle). This can be very unsatisfying. You can have multiple reversals but they must be inevitable and probable – nothing should “fall out of the sky” (unless you have set that up!). As sophisticated consumers of media we often expect the reversal and are satisfied when we see it or delighted when it isn’t what we expected.
8. Resolution – at the resolution of the story, things either return to stage 1 – normality – or become a new stage 1 – a new normal for our hero.
Let’s look at the Eight Point Arc in action:
1. Stasis – the home is quiet and cosy, our hero is sitting by the fire with the cat
2. Trigger – our hero hears a burglar break into the house!
3. Quest – our hero must find a way to get the burglar out to return to stage 1, sitting comfortably with his cat. He decides to find out what the burglar is up to and arms himself with a rolling pin.
4. Surprise – it looks like the burglar has a gun!
5. Critical Choice – should the hero confront the burglar or escape from the house and call the police? He makes a heroic/stupid choice…
6. Climax – the fight ensues, it looks like the hero has won as the burglar is out cold but…
7. Reversal – the burglar revives and shoots our hero, but as our hero lies bleeding and unconscious, the criminal flees in terror before the police turn up
8 – Resolution – our hero’s neighbour brings the Saved Cat* to the hospital to see our hero, who decides to be more careful in future, to invest in new security measures and buy a gun. This – cautious, perhaps paranoid – state is our hero’s new reality.
And that’s the Eight Point Arc. A fun exercise is to take one of your own stories and see if you can fit the eight stages to it. You’ll be surprised how often you’ll already have used it, instinctively, in your story, but it can also be useful for seeing what you’ve missed.
(*I used capitals here to refer to another storytelling book ‘Save the Cat’ by Blake Snyder. It’s about screenplays, but is useful for regular fiction writing too.)
Contributed by Mark Brandon
leicesterwritersclub.com 