User blog:Zathronas/Author's Advice: Story Structure part 2

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Hello and welcome to Author's advice. Yesterday, I explained basic story structure. Introduction, complication, climax and denouement. Today I'll destroy them. We are now at a collegiate level of storytelling. I'll explain how and why you would remove any of the four structure.

INTRODUCTION

Why would you remove introductions in your story? To add mystery, it is done all the time. Cowboy bebop is a good example, you know barely nothing of the hero of the series. This adds several layers of mystery to your story. Another reason to do it is to hide the motivation of the character, let's take RWBY as an example. Roman and Cinder are stealing dust. We have neither background or motivation. Yesterday I've put them in the antagonist category because we've seen them fight the protagonists but in reality since we have no background or motivation, we don't know if they are.

COMPLICATION

This one is the toughest to remove but it can be very effective, especially if your trying to point out something very specific: dreariness. No complication in a story means no climax and that means no denouement. This is used when your just showing a piece of life. In reality complications are not that common, at least not the way we tend to present it in fantastic stories. In life, it's more how do we pay the bills, should I go out with Linda? etc... when you want to show someone's particularly dreary life you remove the complication. The problem becomes how to make it entertaining. I would strongly suggest to wait before attempting to remove complication from your story as it is incredibly difficult to do. The best example I can give you is movies with no plot whatsoever like the movies from the brothers Lumiere in the late 19th century or experimental french movie from the 70s... as I said very difficult.

CLIMAX

Removing the climax is easier than the complication but it is still difficult. So why do it? To leave the ending to the imagination of the reader/viewer. It has become a lost art these past few years because as I said before this is usually the culmination of all that you've work on before and leaving it for others to decide is tough on the author. A perfect example of a story without a climax is the Sopranos. The last episode specifically.

DENOUEMENT

This one happens often unfortunately for the wrong reasons. There's been a rash of movies lately that by the end of it, nothing has changed. That can be good if that's what you want to say. Unfortunately these movies had no denouement as a result of bad writing. Why would you want to do this then? To show futility. As in no matter what you try, you end up where you began. Showing someone struggling mightily to end up back where he began can be a very effective story. "The devil inside" infamously did this. The third act is about to start, our protagonists are driving somewhere- SMASH! Car crash. Everyone's dead. The events of this film have never been fully explained. That's en extreme case but it was VERY effective. If it's done badly, it pisses off your readers.

This blog was to show you how there is no standard rules in storytelling but I would strongly suggest to follow the structure for now. Unless your trying some experiments, having a good structure will give your story much more of a common ground with your readers.

My next four blogs will be a more extensive look at the four basic story structure and how to use them in your story. See you then.