What to Think About When You Think About Story Structure
The best advice I ever got on how to tell a story well
Years ago I read a book by Steven Johnson, The Ghost Map, which is the story of a cholera outbreak in Victorian London that led, among other things, to the development of the modern sewage system. It’s a great book. When I finished it, I googled Johnson’s work to see what else he’d written and came across this essay, about, coincidentally, how he structured The Ghost Map.
The essay had a profound impact on my writing life. I’m betting it’ll have the same on yours.
Johnson wrote how good writing and great reporting only take you so far. If you don’t present your story well — think through the sequences and narrative arcs, outline them even — no one will read it. Johnson calls this thinking and planning Deep Structure, and it’s best to let him explain things from here.
“When I was writing The Ghost Map, I had this wonderful breakthrough where I realized that I could structure the book where each chapter would simultaneously be a day in the chronology of the epidemic, but would also naturally connect to one of the book’s major themes: in other words, day one was cholera, day two was John Snow, day three was miasma, etc. That allowed each chapter to advance the narrative clock, but also work as an almost standalone essay…
