The most painful realization I have ever had as a writer is that formulas are evil.“Save the cat”, “Heroes Journey”, etcetera etcetera. They’re all evil!!!
These useful training wheels for storywriting and arc creating are just that at first; useful. They become a detriment to compelling, unique, and personal storytelling when relied on or even utilized too far down the line of storytelling.
This is because formulaic storytelling is cyclical in a way that stagnates fiction as an art form, and one’s own skill. The formula writers, including myself, follow in regards to storytelling was concocted in a study of great storytellers.
Namely, ‘Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure’, the ‘How to Train Your Dragon’ series, and any action blockbuster you can think of, really. The main criticism for these sorts of films and stories is that they’re cookie cutter and don’t thematically accomplish much of anything.
I vehemently deny slander of How to Train Your Dragon in response to the notion, but there’s merit to it. If everyone is following the same five story formulas with the only differentiating factors being the characters, their goal, and the mishaps on the way to said eventual goal, things become stale.
Here’s where my overly opinionated advice comes in. Many people that are aware of the limitations of formulas still utilize them because they believe that stories following formulas are inevitable. Nothing ever completely original or unoriginal can ever be created after all.
My rebuttal to that is that writers lean on formulas in fear of clumsiness of their plot, character arc, and theme, but an understanding of one singular principle solves that;
Pace. A writer’s understanding of pace aligns all of the aforementioned elements. Pacing is often thought of as speed, but it’s more akin to rhythm of events.
The ebb and flow of plot points, and balancing that rhythm will eliminate the need for formulas like save the cat or the hero’s journey. If you’d made it this far into my ramblings then, you’ve likely got a story in mind you want to tell. Characters too. You may even have a personality and goal in mind for said character.
Most writers, at this stage will try to align their character, and that character’s goal to one of many formulas. Plugging in variables like an equation. That’s how all stories end up cookie cutter. We mold our boundless creativity into boxes and checks to fit a bill no one asked us to.
If you know your character or even what you want your story to look like, just start writing! Create and splay your ideas onto a page like a child. After it’s on that page, then you can begin dissecting it like a scientist.
Find the rhythm, the tempo of events in your story. When can you speed it up? When can you slow it down? How does one event create an event that leads to another? It’s a long process, and will likely take longer than if one were to utilize a formula. There will be flaws in your story, as there are in every story- but those flaws will belong to you.
They’ll be the result of your raw, unadulterated creative juices flowing, and the best scientific mind you can muster. They won’t be the fault of trying to squeeze something boundless and personal into a mold for market consumption- and I believe there’s inherent merit in that.
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