In this course aspiring writers will be introduced to perhaps the most elemental and often the most challenging element of story: plot. We will learn what keeps it moving, how it manipulates our feelings, expectations, and desires. We will examine the choices storytellers make to snag our imaginations, drag them into a fictional world, and keep them there. We will learn how to outline and structure a plot, discuss narrative arc, pacing and reversals and reveal the inevitable surprise: connecting the beginning, middle and end.
Visiting Writer: A Conversation with Douglas Martin
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Creative Writing: The Craft of Plot
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The Power of Structure
In this module we're going to learn what story structure is and how by understanding structure you can learn how to sequence the events in your plot to help maximize your own storytelling abilities.We'll talk about Freytag's pyramid, the five act structure, how that structure can be found in works of classic literature, and have a conversation about how structure and outlines can help organize the stories you want to tell.
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Brando SkyhorseVisiting Assistant Professor of Creative Writing
English
[MUSIC]
I'm here with Douglas Martin, a writing professor here at Wesleyan and
we're going to talk about how structure and
outlines can help you organize your plot and the story you want to tell.
Douglas Martin is the author of several books,
his most recent being a novel Once You Go Back published by Seven Stories Press.
His first major prose work, Outline of My Lover,
was cited as an international book of the year in the Times literary supplement by.
His other books include the novel, Brandwell, They Changed the Subject,
a collection of stories.
And Your Body Figured, An Experimental Narrative.
Douglas, thank you for being here with me today.
>> Thanks for having me.
>> Many young writers don't outline because they don't see the point or
don't know where the story is going until they get there.
Is it ever a good idea to start writing in earnest without an outline?
Can you benefit from doing an outline later in the writing process?
>> Hm, I think the most important thing is to begin writing, definitely.
So if there's not an outline, that should not stop you from
getting down- >> Sure.
>> Sitting down at the desk.
I think the outline is kind of there as a safety net for me, and to hold me a bit.
>> How does that process work for you?
>> Well, I think about it as like it's kind of the next
thread that I'm going to pick up the next day.
>> Interesting.
>> So you're not staring at, like, blank space, the blank desk, the blank page, but
like this particular point is going to be my launching pad, you know?
Not necessarily the goal, but, like, the set off.
>> Mm-hm. >> Right?
>> Sure.
>> My first novel, ironically called Outline of My Lover.
The outline is a formal and ironic conceit.
And that was imposed later.
It was after many months of doing what I call and think of as blind writing.
>> Explain that, if you would.
>> The important thing for me was to write a certain number of pages or
a certain number of hours everyday and not think
about particularly where I was going- >> Interesting, okay.
>> And the downfall of that, or the downside of that, if there is one,
is that you end up throwing away half of your pages.
>> Sure, sure. >> Right, so
in going back over a manuscript that I think in pages,
not word count particularly, but going back over a manuscript that was
about 300 pages turned into a novel that was about 120.
>> I see, I see.
>> So a lot of redundancies, but I think if you don't allow yourself that space
forward redundancy, you won't find the surprising stuff.
>> Okay.
Well let's say you have a writer that's never written an outline before.
What guidelines can you offer them to get them started?
>> I think it's not a bad idea to look at people that you yourself are impressed by.
Work that has particularly moved you and
to outline those stories themselves and then try to use that as a blueprint.
And see where the analogous spaces in your own work might be.
>> That's really interesting.
So I think that's a really good idea as Douglas is suggesting to take a story, or
a narrative, or a book that is a favorite of yours and just outline it out and
see where the beats are.
In this course that I'm teaching on plot, we talked a little bit about
Harry Potter and JK Rowling, who writes these famously long complicated books.
What she did is that she broke her outlines down into
little grid boxes chapter by chapter and Faulkner, I read,
he wrote broad ideas on the walls of his office.
If you over outline,
do you run the risk of shifting from a writer to a translator of your work?
Is there such a thing as too much outlining slowing the creative process?
>> Yeah, I think that I'm way more Faulkner than J.K.
Rowling to begin with and we should all have the liberty, the leisure,
and the space to be able to write on our walls.
>> Sure.
>> Right. >> [LAUGH]
>> I think that yeah you don't want to,
you don't want to back yourself into a corner, right.
So for me like an outline is always kind of like a big kind of bullet point.
And it's kind of like almost a title to a painting that you're meant to create.
>> Interesting.
>> Right? >> Yeah, I like that.
>> So, I can see the wall thing, I've done that myself.
This is this particular moment in time.
Then you can quite physically move in space [CROSSTALK].
>> Do you use different colored sheets or how would your wall look like?
>> Yeah, like different colored markers and
definitely part of me outline or finding the form within my lined,
writing manuscripts is color coding- >> Interesting, okay.
>> For sure and so then it's pulling together all of the things that have been
keyed to red for whatever reason.
And then to begin to just arrange those elements.
So having little particular boxes or walls or
grids in the JK Rowling thing that you can work within.
But not being so tied to the road within there, the A to the B,
but rather allowing yourself to move the pieces back and forth of each other.
I mean, it's really hard for
me to think about writing without the particular medium that it happens in.
And now thinking about writing on a computer.
I think when you cut and paste and move this paragraph below this one or
above that one around, you're doing a sense of active outlining.
And so that's a kind of thing that I do,
you know on my feet a kind of active outlining.
There's a lot of numbering of files that tends to happen.
A particular word document that becomes two or one.
>> I see. >> [INAUDIBLE] orders and
have the experience of that.
>> In the process of outlining, where have you made your most exciting discoveries?
I know in our courses we've talked here,
the Coursera course we've talked plot, character, setting.
Where do you find the most exciting discoveries happen when you're outlining?
>> When a particular bullet point has ceased to land,
[LAUGH] and I've gone into, I'm going to go
be on this thing and knowing that I'm meant to be on that thing and
I can't quite it's the liberty to be at the side of the thing that's holding me.
>> Sure. >> That's,
you know Doctora has that thing about writing
a novel's like driving on a dark highway with only the headlights in front of you.
I think that's a fine thing, but what if you actually don't want to be in the car,
be on the road.
>> [LAUGH] >> So that's kind of like.
>> So the outlines are kind of not like the seat belt necessarily, but
like is it a way to make sure that you get your destination in a more expedient way.
Like you perhaps drive during the day as supposed to night or like.
[LAUGH] >> I like that.
I think it's a map too and you can't be afraid to actually fly off or tunnel down.
>> Interesting. >> Right, and
I think that's when the online goes wrong when it becomes a very
efficient profundity A to B to C.
And you have to allow for the footnotes.
You have to allow for the subtitles to be outlined.
The side outline.
>> I see, I see, so basically giving a structure, but
at the same time also allowing for a certain degree of fluidity, as well.
Douglas Martin, a pleasure to talk with you.
Thank you. >> Thank you, Brandon.
[MUSIC]
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