Last time, I wrote about Aristotle’s rhetorical appeals and how they can play a role in storytelling, and it got me thinking about triangles. We often express Aristotle’s appeals in triangular shape to demonstrate effective rhetoric can’t exist without all three and to express the idea that they’re connected. Triads appear in all kinds of artistic theory, from the color wheel to the building blocks of musical chords. So what about literature? I’ve been wondering about other storytelling elements that we can visualize as triangles and how this frame of thought can help us better understand the stories we’re experiencing or telling.
The Character-Plot-Setting (World Building) Triad
When I started considering this idea, I realized I’ve been thinking about character, plot, and setting as a triad for a while. We often discuss them in isolation. How is this character developing? Where is this plot going? What do we know about the world this story takes place in? However, what if character, plot, and setting (or world building) are joined within a story as forces exerting influence upon each other, sometimes inextricably so? How can we think of them as three elements in a triad?
Here’s a mundane example: a surfer (character) leaves footprints in hot sand (setting) on their quest for a tube of sunblock (plot). Even at this basic level, we have the three elements and understand the influence they have on each other. The surfer is at the beach because they like to surf and that’s the only place they can do that. We can presume it’s a hot summer day, which typically evokes an image of blue skies and sunlight. Those environmental factors generate conflict (because nobody likes sunburns, and I don’t care what anyone says, aloe is useless). So, this story is a quest for a magical potion that protects skin from harmful UV rays.
I think this is maybe the most important and useful triad in this list (hence why I’m writing about it first). The others may even be my subconscious justification for writing this post. The point is each of these three elements have to coexist and, more important, achieve a kind of balance. Having taught creative writing, I’ve seen some raw, underdeveloped writing from novice fiction writers, and one of the most common challenges I see is writers may have pages and pages of world building but no characters, or thousands of words of character development but no plot. I’ve even seen heaps of plot with no real sense of the world around the action or the people involved in it. We read these stories, and we know something is missing.
We often discuss the distinctions between character- and plot-driven storytelling. What I’m hoping to illustrate here is it’s okay if you prefer either, but that doesn’t mean, simply because one of these elements is in the driver’s seat, the others aren’t riding shotgun. No matter what story you’re telling, it (almost certainly) includes character, plot, and world building.
Anyone who’s ever read a book, watched TV, or listened to a narrative podcast is familiar with the desire to know what’s going to happen, and I like to think about these elements in the form of questions: What is this person going to do (character)? What is going to happen to them (plot)? What stands in the way or complicates matters (setting)? Or, maybe we just yearn to know what the future holds. How do these people, places, and circumstances change?
If you have a handle on character, plot, and setting, you have three of the most important pillars of a story, but it’s not until you really dig into how they exert force on each other that your story takes shape.
The Conflict-Stakes-Tension Triad
If we’re being entirely too reductive, there are two categories of conflict: internal and external. Build that out a little, and we start to see three story archetypes: character vs. character, character vs. environment, and character vs. self. I hope you’re even seeing echoes here of character, plot, and setting, and while character, plot, and setting can combine to generate conflict, that’s not enough. Conflict needs stakes and tension.
Without an understanding of stakes and tension, you could have a giant battle scene in which you’re so zoomed out that all you’re seeing is explosions, debris, and bodies flying, and while that can be thrilling in its own right, conflict is generally considered necessary for interesting storytelling. Stakes and tension make conflict compelling.
What does this person want? What or whom stands in their way? Those are questions of conflict, but let’s dig deeper: What will happen if they get what they want? What will happen if they fail? Suddenly, we have a sense of consequences, but we can do even better. Tension can be somewhat abstract or elusive, but the questions are intuitive: Why do they want what they want? What are they willing to do to get what they want? How far are they willing to go?
Think of conflict as the line of scrimmage in an American football game. Two forces are exerting pressure on each other. Stakes are what happens when either team succeeds in the play (e.g., first down, quarterback sack, etc.). Tension is how good each team is and how strong their will is. Tension is all about how hard they’re going to hit when the ball gets snapped, but in storytelling, it’s less about brute strength and more about emotional and mental states.
I’m reminded of the 1993 film Falling Down starring Michael Douglas. What’s the conflict? The protagonist (arguably the antagonist) is stuck in traffic and late for work, and it’s a hot day. That isn’t very interesting. The tension is what makes it interesting. It’s the proverbial straw that breaks the camel’s back. Douglas’ character snaps and lashes out at everything he sees wrong with society. What are the stakes? He is done playing by society’s rules, and because of that, he will very likely lose everything. The aptly named film builds tension on seeing just how far Douglas’ character will fall.
Conflict: Rent is due, and I don’t have enough money. Stakes: If I don’t pay, I might get evicted and lose my home. Tension: I’m a single dad with an eight-year-old daughter.
Conflict: I have nothing but condiments in the fridge and need to figure out something for dinner tonight. Stakes: I have diabetes, and if I don’t eat dinner, I might become hypoglycemic. Tension: My entire town was leveled by an earthquake, and I need to get to the next town to get food and clean drinking water.
With simple, mundane conflicts, we turn to stakes and tension to make a story interesting. The point here is, if you have a fantastic conflict, don’t neglect stakes and tension.
The Perspective-Voice-Form Triad
Here’s a weird one for you. Thus far, we’ve been thinking about what our story does, who does what, and why, but in any artform, there’s an additional consideration for craft in the sense of how a piece does what it does. Most novice writers have strong opinions about perspective, voice, and form, ranging from “third-person, past tense is the best perspective” to “epistolary stories are garbage.” However, despite your visceral preferences, these are elements worth considering, and they are related to the style or identity you’re seeking to construct as a writer.
Pick up anything Chuck Palahniuk has written, and you know it’s him. (Though, he experimented a great deal with his latest novel, and he’s just the first writer who came to mind. Think of any writer with an identifiable voice or style. In music, you might consider this a band’s sound.) Everything Jesmyn Ward writes has a kind of elevated poetic casual voice, as if she’s so painstakingly choosing her words and construction as to find beauty in the ordinary. Most of Stephen King’s work reads like he was sitting fireside and dictating to a typist. Emily St. John Mandel reads full of wonder and whimsy but also professionalism and something like academia. The point is, if you read these writers’ work enough, you know it when you see it.
That doesn’t happen by accident, and it usually emerges after thousands of hours of work. Many writers find their most comfortable and identifiable style and stick with it. Some are chameleons, choosing perspective, voice, and form to suit a story or to experiment. These elements are related and together construct a writer’s appearance on the page.
I would wager many readers are drawn to writers because of those writers’ perspective-voice-form triangles. Maybe a reader likes the intimacy of the first-person perspective, or maybe they can’t stand present tense. Maybe they like a cavalier use of dialect, or maybe they like a more professional elocution. Many writers and readers find their most comfortable settings and stick with them, but these are absolutely elements for which you—whether a writer or a reader—can tune your dials.
While I have a particular peeve with second person (I think it’s a choice a writer should justify *because* it tends to be off-putting), it’s a legitimate perspective to consider. While I agree readers tend to feel comfortable reading past tense, present can add an immediacy to the text. Moreover, my favorite, switching tenses can achieve homeostasis between past and present in the story if managed well. Finally, if a writer wants to write a novel in period-accurate diction, go for it. Be a literary Robert Eggers.
What’s more, once you start playing with these elements, you will recognize their effect on each other. Writing in third person evokes a narrative voice of its own that could be considered an additional character that makes certain form choices for their own reasons.
Sidebar: I love studying perspective when considering The Martian by Andy Weir as well as its film adaptation by Ridley Scott. In Weir’s novel, the protagonist, Mark Watney, writes his logs, and knowing future scientists and historians watching, he hides in his words, never fully revealing how he’s doing mentally or emotionally. In the film, his logs are videos, so combined with that and the fact that film is inherently third-person perspective, Mark can’t hide from us.
Writing in present tense limits the ability of your narrator to reflect, which necessitates a more honest voice and straightforward form. Writing an epistolary piece changes everything and generally leads to more internal, reflective prose.
I’ll bet someone smarter than me could dig this out further and find secondary and even tertiary triads buried beneath perspective, voice, and form, but the point is the choices we make about how we’re going to tell a story influence each other because they are connected. Consider that. If a story is written in third-person perspective, what implications does it have for voice and form? Where does that first choice empower or limit the others? What do those effects mean? What if we changed one of those elements? Does the triad remain intact, or does one change necessitate another?
The Connections Are There (If You Look for Them)
As you read and write (or otherwise experience stories), look for the connections in the elements that define the story. Where do you see one decision influencing another? Where are the author’s hands tied, or where does a decision open a world of possibilities elsewhere? What if the storyteller had made another decision about character, plot, or setting? How would that have changed the others? You have a desire to tell a story in epistolary form? What does that choice imply about perspective and voice? You are inspired by a story about a mediocre secret agent who needs to make rent? What does that mean for stakes and tension?
In thinking about these connections, I hope we can find a path toward more intuitive storytelling in which we stop thinking about elements in isolation and begin seeing them all as parts of the whole. Revealing one leads us to others, and in that way, maybe it all feels a bit less mechanical and more organic.
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