If Your Plot Is Stuck, Throw in a Bomb
Readers love surprising twists, and for writers, they can be a way out of a dead end.
Storytelling thrives on creativity and structure. The two seem to contradict each other because structure requires clear rules, while creativity is fed by chaos.
But in writing, we need to combine the two.
“Our real discoveries come from chaos, from going to the place that looks wrong and stupid and foolish.”
Chuck Palahniuk
The structure of a story
Over the millennia, a few basic patterns of storytelling have emerged that always work. Whether we choose the hero’s journey or the classic three-act structure is up to us. How we fill this structure is also up to us. But the elements and the order of the ingredients in these structures are fixed.
These narrative modes have prevailed not because anyone has laid down a law but because audiences have repeatedly responded positively to them. How a story should be structured is not at the author’s discretion but at the readers’ expectations.