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WIG&TSSIP: The Frame vs. the Flashback

September 27, 2011 By Mark 2 Comments

The Ditchwalk Book Club is reading and discussing Rust Hills’ seminal work, Writing in General and the Short Story in Particular. Announcement here. Overview here. Tag here.

The full title of this section is The Frame, as against the Flashback. Following up on the previous section, Hills demonstrates how two different techniques — the fame and the flashback — relate to sequence, causality and juxtaposition.

As Hills notes, everyone knows what a flashback is from watching movies:

The screen ripples over, music ripples up, and we drop back in time for a sequence of action that “explains” why a character is the way he is or gives the “background” of the situation that exists “now” in the movie.

A flashback can function in one of two ways: as an explanation of something already disclosed, or as foreshadowing of something yet to come. Conceivably both goals can be met in an artful flashback, where the sequence both resolves and introduces elements of a story. Billy is forty years old and hates dogs: flash back to Billy as a boy being terrorized by his grandmother’s Poodle. Here an aspect of character is the motivation for the flashback, but that aspect could spill over into plot (Billy is a burglar regularly confronted by guard dogs), or introduce new characters or plot elements (the grandmother, who owns a warehouse Billy intends to rob).

In every story aspects of plot and character are expressed in cause-and-effect fashion. Flashbacks are useful in explaining the cause of an effect that is presented in the ‘now’ of a story. By the same token, a flashforward treats an event in the ‘now’ of a story as the cause, then flashes forward to show the effect. Driving home drunk one evening Billy intentionally swerves to hit a dog being walked by a young boy. Flashforward to Billy in prison, where one of the guards is the now-adult owner of the dog he hit.  [ Read more ]

Filed Under: Fiction Tagged With: craft, Rust Hills, structure, WIG&TSSIP

WIG&TSSIP: Plot Structure

September 1, 2011 By Mark 3 Comments

The Ditchwalk Book Club is reading and discussing Rust Hills’ seminal work, Writing in General and the Short Story in Particular. Announcement here. Overview here. Tag here.

At some point, usually early on, beginning writers stumble across the term plot structure. It’s a loaded term, a deceptive term, a deceitful term, and a necessary term.

The premise underlying most mentions of plot structure is formulaic: follow the prescribed steps and you’ll have a hit on your hands. In the first paragraph of this section Hills addresses and dispenses with that premise in exhaustive fashion, neatly demonstrating that all such formulas are of a kind:

There seems to be no limit to the formulas for the movement of fiction that can be devised: anyone can make up his own quite easily. If any one of them really means anything, then it would seem they must all mean the same thing — which strikes me as a frightening thought.

Underpinning all plot formulas is the rather inescapable truth that anything that is written (or read) must have a beginning, middle, and end. But there’s a critical difference between the beginning and end of what you write and the beginning and end of the story you’re telling. As noted in previous sections, a big part of the craft of storytelling involves deciding what to emphasize and detail and choosing what to glide over and omit.

The temptation to embrace plot structure as a storytelling template is compelling for both novices and veterans alike, in all genres. But doing so puts the writing cart before the storytelling horse. (Which is, of course, the appeal.)

Writers who cling to structure as a guide tend to invent scenes that fulfill whatever formulaic approach they’ve adopted. Scenes are filtered first through the prism of structure, then, if they pass that test, are written and riveted into place. (To be fair, the result may in fact be serviceable — although probably for reasons other than the formula employed.)

The proper approach to plot structure is to embrace the story first, even if only roughly and in your mind. Why? Because understanding what Character X or Character Z is doing during the story is necessary if you’re going to judge which moments to depict and which to elide.  [ Read more ]

Filed Under: Fiction Tagged With: plot, Rust Hills, structure, WIG&TSSIP, William Goldman