The Power of Narrative Structure: How to Craft Stories That Resonate

The Structure of Storytelling: A Reflection on Narrative Building

At this stage, it might be useful to discuss structure, or at least the concept of structure, in relation to writing. What is the story? Where is it headed, and how significant is it? What motivates us moment by moment? Let’s start with a simple and ordinary text as a point of departure:

Janine placed the plate in front of her husband, knowing how much he loved sausages, hoping it would give him the strength to face his day. Fridays had always been hard on him. She knew that. It was strange, at times, how far they had come together, to a point where the day of the week seemed more important than milestones like the birth of their twin daughters, now ten, or the shared anxiety they once felt as they struggled through college, almost two decades ago. She sat back in her seat, smiling softly at the boy who once sat across the aisle from her, a boy she once hoped would invite her to the upcoming prom. Now, that boy sat across from her at the table, a broad grin on his face at the prospect of sausages.

On a micro level, we’re invited to see this not as a grand, mechanical affair, but as a revelation of details. We begin in the present, tie it to ongoing things, and then expand to provide a deeper context for their lives. Then, we return briefly to a single memory, without lingering too long, before revisiting the beginning of their lives, seeing them at different ages... and then back to the present once again, evoking the lingering effects of the initial action. This is precise and direct writing; whenever we want to anchor the reader in a particular moment, we can repeat this structure. It’s not so rigid as to draw attention to itself, but reassuring in its reliability, a structure that has been used effectively for centuries.

However, some may question what genre this text belongs to, assuming this structure aligns with a specific literary type—family drama, personal history, or even love stories. But this reading is superficial, a mistake many new writers make without deeper thought. It assumes that the apparent subject is the sausages, and by extension, that this defines the purpose or "nature" of the described thing. This assumption mistakenly treats words not as bricks, but as fixed in certain genres by their very nature.

We haven’t mentioned enough to categorize it into any specific literary type. Janine and her husband could be having breakfast on a space station. Her husband’s "Friday" might be the day he boards the ferry to dispose of the body of some unfortunate soul he and his wife kill every week. He might be dealing with a local homeowners' meeting on Friday while she prepares for her day at the legislative assembly as a congresswoman. Or, perhaps, a truck, chased by the police, is about to crash into a wall, which could kill her husband or drag them into a terrifying kidnapping scenario. We don’t know what the next paragraph will say, but it could be anything we want it to be.

Let’s look at the problem from the perspective of the core structure of the story. Suppose, without knowing anything about the plot, we start with the idea that Jack will shoot Ray in the fifth chapter. That’s all we know. What do we need? Well, we need a motive that drives Jack to do it, which requires presenting events within the story that highlight and explain this motive before the bullet makes its journey. We need an opportunity for Jack, so he must somehow find Ray, arrange the meeting, anticipate it, and have a reason for the setting itself. We need to build Jack's character in a way that reasonably explains why he would be willing to shoot someone, regardless of who they are. This possibility extends to others who know Jack, who must themselves be reasonably prepared to marry him or befriend him... creating a number of scenes we must devise to explain how these relationships work for the reader. At the same time, none of this explains Ray. Why him? Why is shooting him the best plan? What does Ray want, and what are the consequences of shooting him? We haven’t even touched on whether Jack’s plan succeeds. Does it? Is Ray injured, or did Jack miss? After the shooting, we still need to express Jack’s reaction to his choice, the reactions of those who find out, Ray's response, and the broader repercussions.

We don't need to fabricate a plot. We just start with this character choice and explore all its ramifications.

A story structured in this way isn’t random or contrived, because each part must fit together precisely like a jigsaw puzzle. Any piece that doesn’t quite match will inevitably stand out to the reader. Moreover, because we solve the puzzle before writing the story, our approach to solving this puzzle inevitably defines a unique, personally influenced method of storytelling. I don’t find a reason for Jack to seek out Ray as my close friend might, or my daughter, or my neighbor across the street. We are not the same person, and thus, our view of what constitutes Jack, his wife, their children, Ray, the investigator reviewing details, or any other character in the story will always differ. We could use the same premise countless times... but by changing any piece of the puzzle in our initial conception, every other piece must change accordingly.

The plot evolves from the setup; the characters do too, because they must exist in a way that is logically consistent, which we guess and settle into as we become more familiar with their voices. But where, in all this, does genre do the heavy lifting? How does knowing the genre of the story I’m telling help me choose the actions of my characters? It might suggest an environment, but then, that environment must be one we can manipulate to suit the setup... and we may find ourselves unable to place it in an urban ghetto, in Indonesia, or in an Edwardian setting. We are limited by our understanding of place and time, and our ability to research and absorb these things. The genre we choose is more often determined by the places we can imagine ourselves in, not the other way around—imagining ourselves in a genre we don’t understand.

A thought like "Jack shooting Ray" might sound like a classic action or thriller movie... but it could just as easily be a Western, a conflict between professionals in a factory, a family drama, a sci-fi story, or, of course, a murder mystery. The shooting might be premeditated... but we haven’t stated that. It could be accidental. It could happen while Jack is cleaning his gun, or during a hunting trip with a friend, or in a slow-paced crime drama where Officer Jack believes Officer Ray is a fugitive. We might be in a battlefield, or circling a 18th-century warship, or two boys just eight years old. We’ve established nothing but that a bullet flew between these two people. We can’t even be sure they’re men.

In narrative construction, we must confront our weaknesses. The naivety and simplicity of our writing do not lie in the setup, the implied plot, or the characters, but in our limited view of what is possible, coupled with our preconceived notions of what kind of story we want to write. If our interests in stories are too narrow, they will impose strict boundaries around the kind of writers we can be. Even within a specific literary genre—which was coined as a marketing term, not for writing—our intellectual flexibility and ability to think outside the box provide us with strange, alluring possibilities beyond measure. Writing is not limited. The number of plots, the concept of novelty, and what is called the impossibility of originality all reflect the limits of humans, who express their limitations through writing, their inability to see beyond their immediate context, and their reluctance to abandon assumptions and rigid frameworks. Their limits need not be ours. We should not measure ourselves as writers by their standards.

Our skills are limited, but we can train ourselves to surpass them. Often, vision is not trained. It is too often shaken by a jarring metaphorical blow, typically unpleasant, that strikes the ego. But if this doesn't happen, our vision—or lack thereof—will cripple us, no matter how skilled we are as writers. "Look for the world you do not know" was the approach of the 19th century. In this present time, all it takes is opening pages on the internet we’re too embarrassed to explore. Free yourself, Prometheus. We must look beyond the reality we’ve carefully curated, our safe, familiar algorithms, and our ideological comfort zones. There is no barrier between us as writers and the knowledge, perspectives, and realities we lack—except the intentional blindness we choose. Nothing is set in stone when it comes to telling the story we must tell. All we need is one vision.