{"id":288,"date":"2017-09-12T13:36:51","date_gmt":"2017-09-12T17:36:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/victoriafeistner.com\/?p=288"},"modified":"2019-02-11T14:53:02","modified_gmt":"2019-02-11T19:53:02","slug":"feeling-the-rhythm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/victoriafeistner.com\/blog\/2017\/09\/12\/feeling-the-rhythm\/","title":{"rendered":"Feeling the rhythm"},"content":{"rendered":"

I was playing peek-a-boo with my baby niece on the weekend. The first try she was shocked<\/a> that I had disappeared behind the pillow but after three or four times she was laughing. Amazing! But then on the fifth try, she wasn’t looking when I popped back out from behind the pillow. So I “disappeared” again but this time reappeared from\u00a0below\u00a0<\/em>the pillow. Hilarious. More importantly I had her attention again–because something had changed in the rhythm.<\/p>\n

Often when ‘rhythm’ gets mentioned with respect to writing, it’s on the level of line-readings: the actual beat and flow of the sentences. But I think there’s a meta-rhythm too, that of plot-types and tropes.<\/p>\n

How often has someone moaned about a recent Hollywood blockbuster that ‘ticks’ all the boxes? That everyone can tell what’s going to happen from the trailer alone? There’s a good reason for that: the 3-act structure and the Save The Cat methodology, that actually breaks the story down into literal beats<\/em> and page counts and replicates and replicates. Other people have articulated this<\/a> before me. It’s very easy to tell you’re in a save-the-cat movie within the first five minutes and at least for me boredom swiftly ensues, even with super-flashy graphics and quippy dialogue.<\/p>\n

Outside of STC, there’s still a mountain of advice to the tune of: first act is call to action and one trouble; second act is more trouble and some despair; third act is the final action and the resolution. It’s the advice because it works<\/em>; and there’s nothing wrong with that, if being somewhat overused. But there is more than one way to tell a story, even if it takes bravery to stick to it.<\/p>\n

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with having a methodology, or even a generic rhythm, but what I crave more of is breaks<\/em> in the rhythm. Because breaks are what keep me interested. Like my niece, I suddenly perk up because what I thought was going to happen didn’t. My favourite books all have a feature in common, no matter the genre: they are messy, like life. Or they take a familiar set of tropes–like those in a rom-com, for instance–and play with the expectations, zigging when you assume they will zag.<\/p>\n

That’s a valuable way to tell a story too.<\/p>\n

\n

I’ve been working on the ending to this blog post all morning. Originally I was going to counsel readers to be brave, to explore outside the box, break up the three acts, remix and play and follow their own interest, because that’s what I love writing and reading. But in the middle I got a rejection for a story that I like very much that plays by such a logic, and it was a pretty discouraging timing. Who am I to be giving advice?<\/em> that tiny voice says. And for a tiny voice, it’s awfully loud.<\/p>\n

Maybe I’ll come back to this post one day, on a day when I feel as confident at the end as I did in the beginning. Maybe I’ll eventually get successful enough that my opinion on what I like to read will be worth something to someone starting out. Maybe I will never sell anything ever again. That’s unknowable from this particular point in time. So many maybes.<\/p>\n

So yes, I suppose this post isn’t going where I thought it would go. Maybe it’s a little unresolved<\/em>. But I will say this: you made it all the way to the end, didn’t you?<\/p>\n

Be brave. Keep swimming. <3<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Often when ‘rhythm’ gets mentioned with respect to writing, it’s on the level of line-readings: the actual beat and flow of the sentences. But I think there’s a meta-rhythm too, that of plot-types and tropes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":200,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[123,124,122],"class_list":["post-288","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-personal","tag-advice","tag-just-keep-swimming","tag-save-the-cat"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victoriafeistner.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/victoriafeistner.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/victoriafeistner.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victoriafeistner.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victoriafeistner.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=288"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/victoriafeistner.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":895,"href":"https:\/\/victoriafeistner.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288\/revisions\/895"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victoriafeistner.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/200"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victoriafeistner.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=288"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victoriafeistner.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=288"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victoriafeistner.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=288"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}