How many storylines should you have in a novel?
January 7, 2008
A gifted writer colleague setting out to write his first novel recently asked two questions:
- “How many storylines should you have in a novel?”
- “What is a good way to implement them?”
This article is a development upon my initial reply to him.
Function determines structure and content.
The Functional Principle of Creativity is important. If one were to fall into the trap of the question “how many storylines?”, then I’d make an effort to enumerate a number of lines and define a specific number of characters, so many lines per character and attempt to quantify an answer. And any answer I gave using this sort of methodology would be a pseudo-scientific attempt at best, because creativity doesn’t surrender to scientific laws; creativity surrenders to liberating principles – those that allow imagination and creativity itself a free rein to create. Creative principles liberate, they do not confine, which is why they are all dependent on Code Point Zero. That’s the ne plus ultra for creativity.
Formulaic creativity of any kind should be avoided because it doesn’t work. What is needed and does work are creative principles that deliver consistent results without confining creativity. It is no mean feat to develop such principles.
Can you ask the right questions?
Creativity and writing in particular, has a lot to do with asking the right questions.
Answering the questions asked by my colleague comes down to determining the answers to these questions:
- What do you want to achieve with the story?
- What is the medium?
- And who is it for?
Medium Restrictions
The medium places restrictions according to its nature, so storylines in tv movies are not the same as storylines in serial tv where the story can cover a season of 13 - 26 episodes (extended plot/story lines). Extended storylines occur in serial novels, e.g. Wheel Of Time.
Considerations of medium should also include the genre.
The Characteristics of Creative Principles
When you look at and consider Function determines structure and content it appears to be an incredibly simple construction and its logic (and truth) makes it very easy to accept without any further consideration as being truthful. It’s one of those statements that slips so easily into the mind and finds a resting place, and promptly becomes one of those obscure hard-to-remember phrases if you have not actually considered what it says and means. It’s not a simple statement.
This principle is a very simple expression that has a completely open-ended application, and that’s why it is so powerful. It allows you the freedom to create without locking you into some arbitrary idea that someone else will have or forward and endeavor to define for you. It liberates your thinking and enables imagination, and imagination is enabled by knowing which questions to answer. Alternative answers stifle creativity—they don’t liberate it as the Function Principle of Creativity does.
“…it is an intellectual effort to produce consistently good original imaginative material“
Another powerful characteristic of this principle that makes it even more useful is this: it puts a creator in the position of having to consider what it is they are doing. That’s important because writing is not a mindless thing that occurs without some intellectual effort. And as those of you who write and edit anything know, it is an intellectual effort to produce consistently good original imaginative material.
The Function Principle is also very useful to editors, because when you use it to ask yourself, “What’s the author trying to achieve with this odd sentence, paragraph, chapter, story, description?” then you’re on the path to understanding the author’s intention. Consideration of the author’s intention (the words and their context) reveals function(s) of the piece and of the section you’re considering that appears odd, and the answers to that question open up the possibilities of handling whatever it is that is smoothly not reading.
Grok?
Consideration also prevents snap-judgment whose reliability increases proportionate to experience.
Thought by its very nature is fleeting and fast and it is very easy to accept thoughts and ideas one is reading without any further consideration because of the speed of transmission and of thought itself (according to some about 186,000 thoughts a day). Editors slow thought down to grok its function, and then they can carry out the appropriate bit of otherwise ‘murky’ surgery, which some might consider to be… (spooky theme here)… mind reading.
You can read more about The Function Principle of Creativity here and also in the Writing Tips which is a free download for subscribers.
The Potential Maze of Storylines – Or How to Tie Your Story Arc in Knots that do not form a Tapestry for Thought
Leaving the above for further consideration as answer to the first question, do now consider the following:
Every character, location, and event in any story you write, in fact anything in any manuscript has a potential storyline of its own.
Writing is purposeful.
Let’s say that again and put it in a slightly different way to drive home the point: writing is purpose-full.
That rock might be employed as a weapon by a character. It might be holding down another story artifact important to the story’s unfolding storyline. It might just be there to add a natural rustic atmosphere to the interior of a character’s cabin and establish some natural environmental appeal and it might turn out to be a magical crystal that’s capable of destroying Archmage Traven!
The rock may be mentioned once and never again; in which case it has a momentary existence which so long as it serves some purpose in the story and/or for the reader is fine. It could be a red herring, an attention mis-director, intended by the author to place an expectation in the mind of the reader that keeps them hooked to the story until The End.
Story Arc and Storyline
There is also a phrase to do with storyline which is referred to as the Arc of the Story or “Story Arc” - an expression that more commonly turns up in film making and serial television but has equal importance as a concept to describe the overarching plot-line of a story.
Storylines are about plot. They are about plot, subplot, and even micro-plot and there are major plots and minor plots, and it can all get very complicated to keep track of when that’s how it is all plotted out. I don’t personally like these terms too much, as they muddy ideas and do not serve to clarify the process and enhance it.
Aspects of Reality
Characters need to take on aspects of reality for the reader, or they do not engage their mind and keep the reader reading until the story is told. Which aspects is a matter of considering once again, the function of the character within the story, and which aspects of the character’s reality will best serve the story’s overarching function, its major purposes for existence—your reasons for writing it.
Characters in a story have relationships and moments where they interact and the outcome strengthens or damages the relationship and thus propels the storylines for those characters. The same applies to character interactions with artifacts and environments.
Tolkien and Mapping Multiple Storylines
Tolkien developed a very interesting method of mapping multiple character storylines so that he could see how the story unfolded in time, particularly when it came to the development of the Fellowship of the Ring. See “Mapping Out a Plot” in Tom Shippey’s J.R.R. Tolkien Author of the Century - very useful tool and an insightful book to read.
I find it simpler to think of every element in a story having a potential storyline, which is to say a potential existence beyond a single moment within the context and framework of the entire story. How many moments? I don’t know; “what’s the function of the character within the context of the story’s overarching function?” Uh-oh, there it is again! We’re back at Function determines structure and content. Fascinating principle! So much utility at so many levels, and it promotes consideration, and has the potential to increase the depth and richness of a story, when it is employed.
Doesn’t only work for stories. Works for poetry. Works for songs. Documentaries, websites, articles, etc. I don’t care what you want to create—this principle works, and it will put any blocked creative work in any creative discipline back on track if it should have lost its way.
Anything in a story which does not have a function relevant to the story’s function(s) is removed. Things that support the story - that have function - are created, introduced and remain. Your plot lines have something to do with character development. Your story character, through the confrontation of internal and external challenges (two plot-lines), develops knowledge of himself and thus informs the reader. Then there is the protagonist/antagonist aspect to consider, and principle character relationships. Your protagonist is defined by the antagonist and is only as good as the antagonist is bad. So there are motivational storylines to consider as well and this is all part of defining a character for the purpose of the story.
Cultural Functions?
Then there is the context and situation of the genre in which you are creating, the cultural aspects of the era in which you exist and in which you hope your story will find a home.
- What relevance do this story and its plot have to your era and the future?
- Are there aspects of the story which address cultural situations in society, civilization?
We’re back to Function again.
Why are you writing this story? Who is it for? What’s it about? Why?
You get at the function of a work by asking “What is the effect I want to create with this character, scene, setting, artifact, ____?” Function is all about effect.
Applied Intellectual Effort
There is this idea that books and stories tell themselves, that songs write themselves, and they can come so easy for some from mind to page that it does appear to be that way and it’s certainly a way to enhance the mystique of being a storyteller or writer, but the truth is: it’s applied intellectual effort and intellectual discipline that gets stories and books and scripts written. When it comes easy, it’s because the conditions are right, the flow is all there, and it seems as if it wrote itself, but it didn’t, you did. It’s work to write a book. Most people don’t want to admit this, because then they have to admit that they’re incapable of the sort of intellectual discipline necessary to write a book, and that means they can’t order their thoughts, and that tends to imply that they’re a bit vacant in the upstairs department, and who wants that connotation or truth to be inconveniently assumed about one’s mental capacity?
Society does an interesting flip-flop on this one: The writer is crazy, the creative is crazy, because you know; they actually do think and can communicate. So what does that say about everybody else? And then you get some early school leaver from a Los Angeles gang who can barely read let alone write used as a soundbyte in the international news media simply because he helps support this idea that’s behind the notion of disenfranchising writers of their earnings, “Who needs writers, anyway?” (actual soundbyte broadcast on 3 January 2008 after Jay Leno delivered his show without writers because of the Hollywood Writers Strike).
That kid who has just got into early adulthood doesn’t even realize: what he just did; what the consequences of his communication are, and; how that soundbyte was just used as propaganda to disenfranchise an entire profession of the fruits of its labor. The level of this young man’s engagement is going to be “Heh-heh, cool man, lookid me, Ahm on teevee. Ahm kwoted, cuz ahm smart.” No concept of what he’s really done, or how he is being used.
If I wanted to marginalize freedom of expression so I could stage a complete fascist takeover without firing a shot, I’d use those sorts of common (dumbed down) people in news soundbytes too. But then I’m not interested in propaganda that undermines freedom of expression and those who freely exercise that right.
You don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone, gone, gone…unless you’re dumb, dumb, dumb and getting dumber!
Artistic creativity results in a communication and communication has effect(s) on the intellect, emotional intelligence and responses, character and personality, and can inform lives and entire societies. So what you write or create has to take these factors into account on some level, and when you take this into account and achieve a lot of experience with it (editing is one of the best ways to do this for writers, reviewing visual artworks for visual artists, etc.) then you end up developing the ability to work with the Function Principle of Creativity to a very high degree.
When do storylines end?
Storylines end when questions that propel the story are answered or the character, artifact or location has served its purpose in forwarding the story. That’s the physical aspect of storytelling ending on the last page of the book. But storylines do not end at the last period of that final page. The storyline continues to inform the reader’s life, providing the storyteller has done a good job.
So, how many storylines do you need to fulfill the function of your story? It depends on what you’re trying to achieve by telling the story in the first place. It depends on the functions you have built into the story.
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