I listen to a lot of podcasts and watch a bunch of You Tube videos about story structure. Not because I need help, since you know I’m a world class blogger that has mastered the art of writing, but because I can’t help but criticize their incompetent and useless advice. I would start my own podcast about story structure, but I don’t like to share, and also I don’t have a good microphone.

The “experts” like to talk about story structure like they would a building. They mention things like The Hero’s Journey, Freytag’s pyramid, or Save the Cat and how it has to built in a certain way with specific beats, structures and timing. I’m the demolition man here to destroy the story structure. They say there are rules to stories and if you don’t obey them, your work will be flagged, nailed to a wall, face a firing squad and then put in the trash for burning. Readers and writers of stories can be so little dramatic.

As always, I have to be the one debunk the myth, and pour some gasoline on the story structure (as you know, books burn when exposed to fire). I’m here to educate the educators about how stories work. Or more appropriately how life works, because life is one big story. They may be correct about life being a three act structure, but the way stories happen have no structure.

I will use my life as an example, since I don’t know how anyone else’s works. Starting from the beginning of a typical day, I wake up. Because sleep makes me so bitter, and because I despise it so much, I stay up late and wake up early. For many reasons, but the biggest one reason I can phrase by parastealing a movie title, No Comfort for Old Men. Nothing about my bed or my pillows is comfortable. Whether it’s summer, winter, spring or fall, it’s either too hot, too cold, too light or too dark, too many things going on, or not enough, or I have to go to the bathroom. Even Goldilocks wouldn’t be able to find a comfortable spot on my bed. My body doesn’t hurt because of a hard workout or punching a wall, but because I slept wrong on my shoulder, or because my spine is at 25% curvature. The point is, after a bad night’s sleep, I wake up, but because I’m tired of sleeping (get it? Tired).

The other reason I wake up early is because no one else is up, so there is no one to bother you. I go for a 40 minute jalk, and then come back and shower. As soon as I get out of the shower, the rest of the day is downhill. Now I have to do the real workout of putting my clothes on. After that excruciating exercise, I leave the “ordinary world” of my house, and enter into what story structure people call the “Special World”. The first act in a story is supposed to be the setup. For me, it’s the climax of my day, when I don’t have to deal with people, see the sun, or have any expectations to do work.

Story archists refer to the second act as the confrontation. For me, the second act is conflict avoidance. I spend my day doing my best to portray a person that is busy, because I’m typing, clicking and wearing headphones. This pushes an image of someone who is busy and in need of no conflict. People will occasionally try to pull in conflict by forcing me into a meeting, but even in meetings, I do my best not to talk, or bring up any issues, because then I would be assigned new things and new meetings. A conflict avoidancers does their best to avoid new work or meetings. A conflict avoider also does his best to avoid subplots, or what other workers call gossip, which can pull some weaker conflict avoiders, but a strong conflict avoider focuses on his work and the music or podcast they are listening to in order not to be seduced by the dark side.

In terms of story arc, the “midpoint” of the story is the point where the hero gets a false victory or a false defeat. In my midpoint, it’s just lunchtime. When I go home for lunch there is the daily internal struggle of deciding to take an afternoon nap, or going back to work. I always lose that fight though, because I might have a mattress, but I really like having a roof and walls that cover that mattress that I don’t get sleep from. It would be even harder to sleep without the walls and connected roof.

In story structure, the third act is the big crisis, the main battle with the antagonist, and the climax and resolution. In the Bitter Ben story it’s quite the opposite. The third act of my life story is “the afternoon”. This part is the longest and hardest slog of the day, and the least exciting part of the story. I may get pulled into a Void, but it’s not an exciting kind of void, but what I call “a meeting”. The only difference between a meeting and afternoon work is the location where I struggle to stay awake and make time go faster. In meetings, my only defense is pretending to be a magician that has a wand that makes people and meetings disappear. If I’m on my computer trying to complete tasks I have to fight off an invisible troll that sits on the wall above my desk and swings his watch back and forth to both make me “very sleepy”, and simultaneously slowing time down to a crawl. The kind that has you looking at the clock and seeing seconds actually move backwards.

The resolution is the part in stories where things are wrapped up in a nice bow. My resolution comes at the end of work when I anti-climatically slither out of the office as many minutes before 5:30 pm as I can. Usually around 5:07 pm, I look around and assess the situation. I try to read the body language of the people around me and find the right time to put my wallet in my pocket, and my headphones in my bag. I have to wait for just the right timing for the keys though, That is the signal to the whole office that I’m leaving and there is nothing you can do to stop me. My mind left the building 3 hours ago, but my body is leaving now and it isn’t coming back.

The cathartic moment in stories is when the hero defeats the villain and gets the girl or a high five from the best friend. In the Bitter Ben story, its the moment when I walk to the car and leave the building behind and I’m not home to do chores yet.

The three act structure for story doesn’t work in the life story. As soon as you leave the building, there is a traffic battle you have to fight. Then there is the conflict between wanting to lay on the couch, and eating food. There is the battle between laying on the couch and seeing your father. There is the battle between the couch and going to watch your son play lacrosse.

As far as three act structure in life, my first 20 years was no set up. I had more drama and change in that part in the 0-20 arc than any other arc. My second 20 years wasn’t very conflictive and wasn’t near the midpoint (maybe it is if I die at 80). As far as the third 20 years, I’m nowhere near the big crisis, though I did have a mid-life crisis at my 45’s, and I haven’t met my bitter rival yet (a cheery person will be my Anti-Ben) and my resolution (in my mind, my retirement) is nowhere near.

Seems like “Story Structure” has some splaining to do.

While story structure starts its work on fixing itself and figuring out its life, I’m going to structure the rest of this post by putting up some Bitter Friday Giftures…

“Expert” podcasters teaching me…

I would podcast about writing…

This is what they claim is the story structure…

On the other hand…

They mention pyramids as well…

They say there is a three-act structure…

There’s the beginning…

I call the beginning…

Then there is the middle part…

I like to call the middle of the story…

The third act of the day…

I call the third act of the day…

Where an invisible troll…

While he simultaneously…

The resolution is me, anti-climatically…

ARRRGGGHHHHH

Bitter Slog Through the Third Act Ben