No rules, no laws

I have been struggling with idea of story structure lately.

For starters, I understand the value of teaching the infamous Hero's Journey to writing students or beginners, to grasp what common elements in great stories made them great. I had a teacher back in film school who always said: "You may find silent movies boring, but if you don't know where you are coming from, you can never break the mold". And yes, he was right. What keeps a wall standing? Once you master the answer to that question, you can start building curved walls. Carve a doorway in it. Anything your mind can conjure, because you know how to keep it standing.

And the fact is, in my daily work I barely if ever use conventional existing structures. Quite the opposite, most of the time I am trying to break the mold, looking for a new solution that fits better whatever it is I want to achieve. Which made me realize that learning and taking story structures to heart is not the "harmful" thing in the way we teach storytelling - I mean, I just said on the previous paragraph that I agree it is quite important to know. Learning how to create a solid structure will allow you to experiment with different ways to tell stories.

The problem is, they are taught as rules. But here is a fun fact: there are no such things as storytelling rules. There are choices. You can say rules are merely choices you make over and over again. And mind me, I too have taught story structures more than once as some form of rule or guide on how to create a good story, because I believed that back then. Although I do not agree with my past self on that anymore, it is not entirely wrong. You want a safe bet that you can make any story somewhat interesting? Save the freaking cat. Act it out like Syd Field told you to. It will work, but at the end of the day what matters is not the structure itself, but the story that came out of it. It's what you are telling that matters.

Years ago I found this image on the depths of the internet that I still keep on my computer to this day, because it is not only good reference but also a genuine reminder that all story structures kind of live under the same roof.

Of course my very favorite is Billy Wilder's, because it makes a lot of sense despite being terribly silly. (In case it's too small to read, it goes as "Put a character up in a tree. Set the tree on fire. Get the character down from the tree.") And the magic is there, I suppose. It is silly, it is a joke on itself, and it works. Which hints to me that as storytelling animals we have some sort of instinct to what makes a story work. Hence why so many people with no training think they can write stories, and guess what? They absolutely can, it just doesn't mean they will be good at it. I guess, to my point and this issue's point, my struggle with story structures is on how we try to put our creativity in boxes, and mold it to what already exists. It is not because a story has already been told that it has to be done the same way. It wasn't told by you. Yet.

-Maíra