{"id":90,"date":"2010-07-12T18:05:00","date_gmt":"2010-07-12T23:05:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/k-tock.com\/?p=90"},"modified":"2010-07-12T18:05:00","modified_gmt":"2010-07-12T23:05:00","slug":"story-structure-and-formula-one","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/k-tock.com\/?p=90","title":{"rendered":"Story Structure and Formula One"},"content":{"rendered":"

So, Mark Webber won the British Grand Prix the other day \u2013 despite having to give up part of his car to teammate Sebastian Vettel. The drama of the F1 circuit. Wait a minute! Drama. Formula One. Could there be a link? <\/p>\n

Why, yes, and thanks for asking.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been thinking about this whole story structure thing and whether it leads to soulless, derivative stories that are simply churned out en masse<\/em>. Is it selling out your own creative vision to follow Blake Snyder\u2019s Beat Sheet, or Joseph Campbell\u2019s\/Christopher Vogler\u2019s hero\u2019s journey, or the structure chronicled by Stan Williams in The Moral Premise<\/a>? Does it lead to artistic bankruptcy and formulaic stories?<\/p>\n

This brings me to the link with the F1s. A Formula One race car shares some remarkable similarities with the common automobile. Four tyres (or tires for those from America), an engine, steering wheel, chassis \u2013 I could go on, except I\u2019ve exhausted the limits of my car knowledge (no pun intended). An F1 has similar components, yet it is a completely different beast to the family station wagon.<\/p>\n

Cars share a basic design, yet there are an almost infinite variety of ways to shape and differentiate them. The whole automobile industry is built on the premise that different shaped and featured cars will appeal to different people. Why else are there different makes and models and manufacturers? I doubt there are many who would argue that an F1 and a Prius are quite different vehicles, yet they share a similar underlying structure. Can it be the same with stories?<\/p>\n

I believe so. A story that follows the beats of the Beat Sheet does not have to be formulaic (that doesn\u2019t guarantee that it WON\u2019T be, though). In the same way, a Formula One car abides by the basic design parameters of a car, yet is quite different to a hatchback, which itself is different to a Sedan, which differs from an SUV. They all follow a similar design, but have their own style and features and performance.<\/p>\n

There are many options when following the Beat Sheet to assist in constructing a story. Just because you need a catalyst early on \u2013 or else there is nowhere for the movie to go \u2013 doesn\u2019t mean that the catalyst you choose must be formulaic or boring. Just because things must get blackest just before the hero\u2019s ultimate triumph doesn\u2019t mean that you are creating a \u2018story-by-numbers\u2019 type script (remember the colouring in sheets when you were a kid and it told you where to put each colour?). You decide what events play out to get the hero down. You need to decide how the hero digs deep down to discover the way to defeat the antagonist.<\/p>\n

Structuring your story is simply good design. It helps prevent rambling and pointless excursion down avenues that do not propel your story towards its conclusion. Speaking of rambling, it\u2019s time to wrap this up.<\/p>\n

So, rather than cramp you and force you to fit a formula, the Beat Sheet assists you to create a powerful, directed story. You decide what happens and how the beats are \u2018hit.\u2019 And whether you want to write a sleek, speedy Formula One, or a meandering, contemplative VW \u2018Kombi\u2019 \u2013 the choice is up to you!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So, Mark Webber won the British Grand Prix the other day \u2013 despite having to give up part of his car to teammate Sebastian Vettel. The drama of the F1 circuit. Wait a minute! Drama.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[142,141,143,121,136],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-90","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-design","category-formula","category-formulaic","category-structure","category-the-moral-premise"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/k-tock.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/k-tock.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/k-tock.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/k-tock.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/k-tock.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=90"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/k-tock.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/k-tock.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=90"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/k-tock.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=90"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/k-tock.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=90"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}