Story as Power Struggle

Aristotle stated that there a three parts to a story: beginning, middle, and end.
If you’ve ever tried writing a story you’ll have discovered that this statement is not quite as straightforward as it appears.

Let’s look at it a different way: conflict, crisis, resolution.

This pattern acknowledges that if there’s no conflict then there’s no story.

Only trouble is interesting.

Hopefully most of real life doesn’t involve unbearable amounts of trouble, which is why nobody ever reads about problem-free sequences of events.

Here’s a sequence of events:

You are single. You see the most beautiful human being you have ever seen. This human is intelligent too––and also single. You ask them out. They say ‘yes.’ You are completely compatible, and you have a long and wonderful friendship.

Boring right?

Here’s a story:

You are stuck in a horrible relationship. You see the most beautiful human being you have ever seen. This human is in a rocky relationship with a person who is high up in an organized crime family…okay, maybe this is a bit much, but you can see the idea.

Aristotle talks of fear and pity. In stories we fear and pity the main character through their tribulations.
What stories have aroused fear and pity in you?

The more tribulations the better. Pile them on.

Take Macbeth: A coven of witches persuade him to murder his best friend and mentor; he has to murder his next best friend––and the next—and the next; his wife goes insane and kills herself; the ghost of his next best friend comes back to haunt him; his former comrades raise a massive army to destroy him; a prophesy of doom seems to come true…apart from the above things seem to be going okay for him…until another ex-friend, Duncan, bursts into the Stateroom. He looks like he’s been working out––and that’s a big sword he’s swinging…

A story power-struggle is usually between a Protagonist and and Antagonist.

The word Protagonist comes from the ancient Greek meaning ‘the first one to struggle.’

The Antagonist (the one who is struggled against), may be a human opponent, or may be a force of nature, such as a mountain. The Antagonist may even be a contradictory aspect of the Protagonist’s own nature, as in Macbeth.

We could say that Macbeth is his own worst enemy––at least at the start of the story.

It is essential that the protagonist and antagonist are somewhat equal force. If the antagonist is too weak, then he will be overcome too easily, without forcing any transformation on the protagonist.

Too strong and the protagonist will have no chance to win.

Although the Antagonist can be seemingly invincible (David and Goliath, Jack and the Bean Stalk).

We begin with a situation in which the power is either with the protagonist or the antagonist.

Something happens and the power shifts to the other.

Something else, and it shifts back again.

Each time the stakes are higher and the battle is more intense than the last, until we reach the crisis.

What stories can you think think of that are power struggles?

Story as Connection and Disconnection.

Conflict is exciting; it keeps the reader wondering what will happen next. But conflict is sterile unless it is given human dimensions through the connections and disconnections of its characters.

Boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl back (connection, dis-connection, connection).

Hamlet’s father dies (disconnection), comes back as a ghost (connection), rages against his mother (disconnects), welcomes his friends (connects), breaks off with Ophelia (disconnects), kills her father (disconnects), betrays his friends (disconnects), kills his stepfather (disconnects), then finally it’s “goodnight sweet prince and flights of angels sing thee to thy rest…”

A story that ends in disconnection would usually be a tragedy.

A story that ends in connection would usually be a comedy.

Take any story that makes you care, and you will see that people who matter to each other perform––as in life––patterns of love and hate, alienation and community, anger and forgiveness, connection and disconnection.

The conflict and surface events are like waves, but underneath is an emotional tide––the ebb and flow of human connection.

Let’s look again at the Perrault Version of Cinderella (Cendrillon, as opposed to the Grimms’ Aschenputtel) as power struggle and connection-disconnection.

At the opening of the tale we’re given the basic conflict: Cinderella’s mother has died, her father has married a brutal woman with two waspish daughters, and then the father himself dies.

Cinderella is forced to do menial work, and she weeps among the cinders.

Her journey is on the literal level from the hearth to the palace, and on the mythic level from slave to princess.

Along the way she encounters obstacles of powerlessness, evil, short-lived magic, and chance.

With the aid of goodness, magic, beauty, and chance se reaches her goal.

Let’s look at the ascending structure in more detail.

The stepmother has on her side the strength of ugliness and evil (powerful forces in story and life), plus with her daughters she also has the strength of numbers, and natural parental authority.

Cinderella has only goodness and beauty (not insubstantial forces in story and life).

In the beginning the power is on the stepmother’s side, however the action opens with an invitation to the Prince’s ball––specifically inviting ALL daughters.

To reiterate what we said last week, Cinderella has no desire to triumph over her stepmother or sisters––such a desire would diminish her goodness. She simply wants equality. The stepmother does not want Cinderella to have equality. The Prince’s invitiation demands equality, and thus shifts the power to Cinderella.

The ball (the round kind) is momentarily in Cinderella’s court.

The stepmother now has to make an evil act by banning Cinderella from the Prince’s ball. The power shifts back to the step mother, but weakly. Her overt evil action diminishes her own power. Evil is only truly powerful when it is hidden.

Then the fairy godmother appears, and makes it possible for Cinderella to go to the ball with magic––but magic as in all stories has a cost and is limited.

Cinderella goes to the ball and charms the prince (the power is definitely on Cinderella’s side.

The magic ends too early, placing the power back in the stepmother’s hands.

The prince sends out a decree that every girl must try on the slipper, but the stepmother hides Cinderella, retaining her own power––but once again diminishing it.

Finally Cinderella, Prince, and slipper all come together at the crisis moment, and then all the story elements are put back in their rightful places.

Cinderella is transformed, and the transformation is permanent.

Maybe someone has written a Cinderella 2 somewhere, but it’s difficult to see it being a compelling story.

Arranging for Plot.

A story is series of events recorded in their chronological order.

A plot is a series of events deliberately arranged so as to reveal their dramatic, thematic an emotional significance.

Here, for example is a series of uninteresting events chronologically arranged.

Ariadne had a bad dream.

She woke up tired and out of sorts.

She ate breakfast.

She headed for class.

She saw Leroy.

She fell on the steps and broke her ankle.

Leroy offered to take notes for her.

She went to a hospital.

This series of events does not constitute a plot, but if you wish to fashion it into a plot you could do so by revealing the meaningful relationships among the events. In other words: cause and effect.

Did Ariadne wake up in a bad mood because of the dream?

Does she not normally eat breakfast, but did so today because she felt pissed off?

Did she fall on the steps because she saw Leroy?

Did her ankle snap with the same sound that the egg shell cracked on the edge of the frying pan while she made breakfast.

Was Leroy’s offer to take notes some kind of compensation for his prior rejection of Ariadne––and why did he not offer to drive her to hospital?

Was her bad dream about Leroy in the first place?

This might not seem like the plot of a best-selling page turner––yet, by interweaving the emotional connections between events can make almost any sequence compelling to a reader.

Could it be argued that almost any sequence of events can be arranged and connected to evoke emotion?

Where to Begin.

Here is another example of a quite standard story: A girl grows up bossed by her older sister, who always tells her she’s fat and a nerd. She ends up with low self-esteem, poor grades and a stutter. She has social anxiety, and stays at her computer most of the time.

Her mother takes her to a series of therapists, but nothing brings her out of her shell. She’s not asked to the big basketball dance, and won’t go alone, but on the night of the big game the computer system that runs the gym lighting breaks down, and the coach, who knows she’s a computer whizz gives her a call. She fixes the program and catches the eye fo the handsome center (who probably takes off her glasses and lets down her hair, right).

They live happily ever after.

This Cinderella story appears over and over agin, but how to make it fresh and interesting?

Where to begin.

You might begin with the immigration of the girl’s grandparents from Lithuania, but you might lose the interest of your non-Lithuania readers quite quickly.

You could, as in Cinderella, begin with the relevant background information to the family, but then you will have a lot summary to begin the story.

Could you begin with the announcement of the dance? Might be better, but then you still have to cover a lot of ground that might not be very interesting.

Could you begin with the urgent phone-call from the coach? An immediate and dramatic scene, with a swift conflict, and a striking crisis?

This is how Oedipus Tyrannos works. The entire story begins the last day of Oedipus’s life––and yet we still get the entire story. It’s one of the most compelling stories of all time. Aristotle knew the play and used it as an example in his Poetics.

Writing Exercise:

Pick a memoir or fiction piece, and write it out a list of events (this is known as a plot-ladder).

Pick the final item on your plot ladder, and begin writing the story from there.

Write only one paragraph.

Now try the following beginnings.

Begin with a line of dialogue.

Begin with a visual sense impression of something emblematic to the whole story.

Begin with the weather (in spite of Elmore Leonard).

Begin with the protagonist’s thought.

Begin with an extreme long shot.

Begin with an extreme close-up.

Just as an example, this could be a plot ladder for Cinderella:

1	Cinderella’s mother dies, leaving Cinderella at the mercy of her stepmother and sisters.
2	Cinderella is forced to work as a menial servant in the basement.
3	An invitation arrives to the ball. All daughters are invited.
4	Cinderella helps her sisters prepare for the ball.
5	The stepmother tells Cinderella she can’t go to the ball.
6	The stepmother and sisters leave for the ball.
7	Cinderella’s fairy godmother appears, and uses magic to allow Cinderella to go to the ball.
8	The magic will lose its power at midnight.
9	Cinderella goes to the ball, and dances with the Prince.
10	The clock strikes twelve. Cinderella rushes away, dropping a slipper.
11	The Prince finds the slipper and declares he will marry whoever is the owner of the slipper.
12	The Prince finds Cinderella with some difficulties.
13	The Prince and Cinderella get married.
14	The step sisters have their eyes plucked out by doves.

Thus, if we begin with the last rung on the ladder, the plot ladder will look like this:

14	The step sisters have their eyes plucked out by doves.
1	Cinderella’s mother dies, leaving Cinderella at the mercy of her stepmother and sisters.
2	Cinderella is forced to work as a menial servant in the basement.
3	An invitation arrives to the ball. All daughters are invited.
4	Cinderella helps her sisters prepare for the ball.
5	The stepmother tells Cinderella she can’t go to the ball.
6	The stepmother and sisters leave for the ball.
7	Cinderella’s fairy godmother appears, and uses magic to allow Cinderella to go to the ball.
8	The magic will lose its power at midnight.
9	Cinderella goes to the ball, and dances with the Prince.
10	The clock strikes twelve. Cinderella rushes away, dropping a slipper.
11	The Prince finds the slipper and declares he will marry whoever is the owner of the slipper.
12	The Prince finds Cinderella with some difficulties.
13	The Prince and Cinderella get married.

So now we begin the Cinderella story with two sisters walking into a church for a wedding. We do not know who the sisters are, and we do not know whose wedding it is.
Perhaps the sisters could be arguing about whose fault it all was when birds land on their shoulders.