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I'm sure to the folks who took those kind of classes in college, this post will seem like fingerpainting, but it's a connection I made this week and it bears exploring.
I speak in broad generalities here, but I think the 3-act structure (in-depth link here) is a useful tool for categorizing stories in every medium. It's dialectical and probably reflects a deeply rooted organizational scheme of how our brains tend to process information, at least in the West.
Thesis-->antithesis-->synthesis; Act 1, Act 2, Act 3.
Or mathematically, the Perfect Square Trinomial. (in-depth link here)
It makes a kind of sense; let me explain.
You start with something that looks like this:
X2 + 8x + 16
X2 and 8x and 16 are each 'terms', and they have a particular kind of relationship with each other. The first and third terms are squares, which means they are the end product of something times itself.
X2 = X multiplied by X
and
16 = 4 multiplied by 4
So what you have here is the concentration of a number, as one boils down sugar water into a syrup.
The middle term is where the magic happens, because it's derived from the interaction of the first and third terms. You get 8x by manipulating X2 and 16.
Take the squared (concentrated) first and third terms and bring them down to their respective roots (reconstitute them into the basic numbers that were multiplied by themselves) and you get X and 4 (in other words, 4x).
Now double it, like bread dough rising as the yeast interacts with the flour. You get 8x, your original middle term, derived solely from the interaction between the fundamentals of the first and third terms.
Now think of each term as an Act in a story. The first Act establishes the characters and situation as quickly as possible. The third Act is where the resolution finally unfolds. Both sections tend to have quicker pacing than the middle Act, more concentrated action to both hook the reader (Act 1) and to provide a satisfying resolution (Act 3). You take the story elements and square them, concentrate them for a more pronounced effect.
The real meat of the story comes in Act 2, where the elements you've established in Act 1 play out into consequences, and where the seeds of Act 3 are sown. Act 2 consists of the interaction between the fundamental elements of Acts 1 and 3. It's the middle term; the products of the square roots of the first and third terms, doubled in size.
Act 2 can take it's time, should take it's sweet old difficult time, because that tension is where the story rests. Act 2 should show you deeper things about the elements of Act 1 and also make you crave Act 3, set up the situation so that the resolution (especially if you can't guess the shape of it beforehand) makes perfect satisfying sense.
A well-done story thrums between its beginning and end, a tuned note or a deep chord, a solid piece where the whole is more than the parts combined because the relationships among the parts sing. Even when it hurts like hell, it does so with such precise craft that it somehow feels good anyway.
Stories are like mathematics, a way for us to boil the messy and complicated world down to clean abstract concepts and relationships, which then act as tools to help us better comprehend the mess outside our doors each day.
Even if that means applying algebraic concepts to the study of plot construction O_o
I speak in broad generalities here, but I think the 3-act structure (in-depth link here) is a useful tool for categorizing stories in every medium. It's dialectical and probably reflects a deeply rooted organizational scheme of how our brains tend to process information, at least in the West.
Thesis-->antithesis-->synthesis; Act 1, Act 2, Act 3.
Or mathematically, the Perfect Square Trinomial. (in-depth link here)
It makes a kind of sense; let me explain.
You start with something that looks like this:
X2 + 8x + 16
X2 and 8x and 16 are each 'terms', and they have a particular kind of relationship with each other. The first and third terms are squares, which means they are the end product of something times itself.
X2 = X multiplied by X
and
16 = 4 multiplied by 4
So what you have here is the concentration of a number, as one boils down sugar water into a syrup.
The middle term is where the magic happens, because it's derived from the interaction of the first and third terms. You get 8x by manipulating X2 and 16.
Take the squared (concentrated) first and third terms and bring them down to their respective roots (reconstitute them into the basic numbers that were multiplied by themselves) and you get X and 4 (in other words, 4x).
Now double it, like bread dough rising as the yeast interacts with the flour. You get 8x, your original middle term, derived solely from the interaction between the fundamentals of the first and third terms.
Now think of each term as an Act in a story. The first Act establishes the characters and situation as quickly as possible. The third Act is where the resolution finally unfolds. Both sections tend to have quicker pacing than the middle Act, more concentrated action to both hook the reader (Act 1) and to provide a satisfying resolution (Act 3). You take the story elements and square them, concentrate them for a more pronounced effect.
The real meat of the story comes in Act 2, where the elements you've established in Act 1 play out into consequences, and where the seeds of Act 3 are sown. Act 2 consists of the interaction between the fundamental elements of Acts 1 and 3. It's the middle term; the products of the square roots of the first and third terms, doubled in size.
Act 2 can take it's time, should take it's sweet old difficult time, because that tension is where the story rests. Act 2 should show you deeper things about the elements of Act 1 and also make you crave Act 3, set up the situation so that the resolution (especially if you can't guess the shape of it beforehand) makes perfect satisfying sense.
A well-done story thrums between its beginning and end, a tuned note or a deep chord, a solid piece where the whole is more than the parts combined because the relationships among the parts sing. Even when it hurts like hell, it does so with such precise craft that it somehow feels good anyway.
Stories are like mathematics, a way for us to boil the messy and complicated world down to clean abstract concepts and relationships, which then act as tools to help us better comprehend the mess outside our doors each day.
Even if that means applying algebraic concepts to the study of plot construction O_o
