This month in Story Club we are reading Chapter 3 of 27 Essential Principles of Story by Daniel Joshua Rubin, and we are watching The Night Of an HBO original limited series.
The lesson discusses the various types of endings our novels can have and how they relate to the CDQs (central dramatic questions) we developed in lesson 2.
Our Zoom call will be this afternoon (see the July Calendar of Events) to reflect upon this lesson, but here are some notes I made from my first time going through the experience.
If you are not interested in the pdf version, here’s the rundown:
building on all we've done so far
When I first read 27 Essential Principles of Story, I left it with the impression that each chapter was a sort of stand alone lesson in story, each to be examined as a separate, but potentially equally important, piece of story telling. I don’t know why I didn’t pick up that each lesson built upon the previous. In hindsight, that seems like a silly oversight. Regardless, here we are, in lesson 3, and to get here you need to have lessons 1 and 2 under your belt, so to speak.
As we have gone through the lessons, we began with an event (lesson 1: drop the hammer) that not only helped us start our story off strong, but also guided us toward many questions (lesson 2: ask dramatic questions), that, in turn, have lead us to this moment of answering those questions (lesson 3: explore all endings).
What I found most intriguing about this month’s lesson is that although the questions Rubin encouraged us to write in lesson 2 were all “YES/NO” questions, Rubin has provided a framework that allows us to explore many more than 2 possible outcomes for our readers. I am excited to take my story through this process of listing the possible endings.
Rubin identifies six qualities of a great ending:
Meaningful
Inevitable
Surprising
Just
Emotional
Authentic
While I do hope to discuss all of the qualities in our chat this month, I would like to focus on one for this writing exercise: Authentic. I feel as though the first five qualities can be boiled down to a simple formula presented by Rubin
A meaningful ending is one that answers the deeper question our CDQ implies.
An inevitable ending is one that answers the YES/NO questions we developed in lesson 2, and the answer was foreshadowed.
A surprising ending plays with that CDQ by either surprising readers with which answer is selected (surprise via the “what happened”) or surprising the readers with how that answer was selected.
A just ending is one that lives within the expectations of your reader for your genre and your story.
An emotional ending is not exactly formulaic in any sense, but it is an ending that delivers more than a flat conclusion, and, I do believe focusing on the authenticity of our story is something that can help us deliver that gut punch to our readers.
what are your sayings?
On page 43, when Rubin discusses the authenticity of this month’s master story, The Night Of, he says, “In a Spring 1996 Paris Review interview, co-writer Richard Price said that he often thinks about the saying, ‘If God hates your guts, he grants your deepest wish.’”
Learning this after watching the full season of The Night OI, I found myself shouting, “Of course the guy who wrote THIS believes that!”
We all have sayings that we deeply believe and/or live by. Some we pick up and use as affirmations, some are ingrained from childhood no matter how hard we try to shake them. In your writing space, list as many sayings you subscribe to (willingly or not) or have subscribed to over the years. If you feel open to it, share them in the comments.
it's YOUR story
I know you are writing fiction. I know many writers are not interested in harvesting from their own lives for their fiction, but when we spew the "write what you know" adage, I don't think it applies to the facts of our lives, I think it applies to our own personal Truths (note the capital T). You know what it means to live according to those sayings you wrote down in step 1. Your job now is to see which one applies to your current protagonist, world, and WIP.
In the comments section (or privately in your own writing space), write down how the story you are currently working on is demonstrating the saying you identify with.
If you made it this far, I have a question for you: Are the Story Club Writing Exercises/Notes of value to you? The first time we went through Story Club I wrote these up month by month, but at a certain point the group reading along at the time preferred the live discussions only, so I stopped posting the notes. If this is something you’d like me to continue sharing throughout all 27 lessons this go around, let me know!
So far, I have received one resounding YAY! So the Notes will keep on coming, but I am going to keep on asking in case they start to get old…
No posts
Comments
Nothing yet. Say the first thing.
Sign in to join the conversation.