Every now and then, I see a beginning writer get frustrated when you explain the rules to them of story structure.
“I don’t want to mess with them!” Is the complaint. “I just want to write and be free of the rules!”
I can understand the feeling. There’s a strong non-conformist attitude among many writers. I’m not that way, but I understand.
Here’s the bottom line – yes, there are stories that violate linear story progression. Yes, you can point out there are stories that SEEM not to be three act structure.
But here’s the point, as Blake Snyder so eloquently puts it – those films and novels are cult classics. Meaning commercially they flopped.
Why did they flop? Because most people don’t like them.
Publishers are besieged by manuscript submissions. They’re only going to buy what’s good. They’re not going to waste their time on something they suspect only a thousand people across the world will like.
Agents hope in vain for good manuscripts they can sell. And they’re not going to take the time to pitch something that won’t sell.
Story Trumps Structure, we are told. Yet if you analyze most of the best sellers, they follow convention. They have a recognizable theme and genre. They don’t break genre. They have a beginning, a middle and an ending.
A cult classic means you’re still working a factory job during the day, and the dreams of moving to rural Maine and spending your time writing eerie novels in the early morning Maine fog will remain a dream. A cult classic means you probably self published, and you bought ten of the 200 novels you’ve sold.
If you want to be a successful writer, stop complaining, and stop trying to find ways to get around story structure. Learn to work within Genre, theme and standard novel structure.
If you want people to buy your books, this is the bottom line.
