Write Your Memoir by Allan G. Hunter

Author:Allan G. Hunter
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Inner Traditions/Bear & Company
Published: 2012-04-18T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Nine

Now it’s Time to Talk about Structure….

When we talk about structure we’re always going to be talking about selecting. So let’s start with the most basic structure that exists.

Almost every story has to have a beginning, middle and an end. Without any of these elements readers will tend to feel confused and even short-changed. It seems we are genetically programmed to accept this as an overall structure where narrative is concerned. However, the beginning cannot just be any beginning, or the reader will lose interest. You may not care about the average reader if you are writing this for your family, yet I’d urge you to take the lesson and use it anyway. Consider the average joke. It starts with a premise or situation, it moves to a complication of that situation, and concludes with a resolution. Without the resolution there is no ‘pay off ’ for the joke. Small children in attempting to tell jokes often miss out one or more element, and the result is unsatisfying for all concerned. But a joke rarely starts with a situation that is not compelling. “A man walks into a bar with a green dog….” “Two rabbits walk into a restaurant and the first one says…” Each of these situations is obviously odd and immediately raises a whole series of questions, and you hope it engages the listener enough to stay listening. Notice, the joke teller doesn’t bother to explain how it is that rabbits talk or choose to go into restaurants, or why the dog is green. We are landed, pretty much, in the middle of a situation that is already complex, already alive, and which has its own logic.

If we refer to Aristotle, that reliable ancient, we’ll see that he has already spelled out the four elements of the drama (which was about the only narrative form most people were acquainted with at the time). He identified these as Situation, Complication, Crisis and Catharsis. The Situation in plays such as Oedipus Rex and Antigone is already complex and it gets more complex as each new character enters, adding information and contrasting views. We are plunged into the midst of things. When the Complications have piled up and the action seems to reach a point at which nothing can be resolved peacefully we have a Crisis. In it drastic actions are taken. People kill each other or themselves. Their deaths allow the viewers to see the situation in a new way and the Catharsis occurs because the audience is able to look upon the scene after it’s over and draw some human lessons of value. Let’s take a specific example, for a moment. In Antigone the play starts with a complicated situation. Antigone herself is in an unwinnable situation. She has to bury her dead brother or the gods will be insulted, but if she does so she will be branded as a rebel, since the king, Creon, has forbidden her brother’s body any funeral, because he was also a rebel intent on attacking Thebes.

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