The Different Types of Stories (and how it should affect your writing)

There are a lot of different ways to look at stories. Seriously, a lot. I've only known four or five of them, but I've seen many more than that. In this post, I will give you the Story Structure Theory that has helped me the most in my work as an author.

I won't be so arrogant as to claim that this is the best of all the systems. Nor will I take credit for something I didn't invent. This blog post is a shameless summary of Orson Scott Card's ideas, which I think are fantastic.

He sets up four story types: Milieu, idea, character, and event. They've helped my writing improve, and I hope they do the same for you. I'll go over each of these story types and give examples, starting with milieu.

Milieu literally means "a person's social environment." So, a milieu-type story will focus on the world around a character, whether it be social (for things like romance or thrillers) or aesthetical (for sci-fi/fantasy). It is the world itself, the society, the weather, the MC's family, and basically every element that pops out when you create the world in the first place.

Every story has a world, a person's environment, but in this particular type of story it is what the author focuses on, what they write about the most. There can be a good standard plot line with things happening and so on, but those won't be as strong as the world the author creates. I haven't read for myself, but I've heard that author Hugh Howey creates milieus very well.

Milieu structures are, in essence: an common observer with our same perspective gets to the new/strange/different place, observes things, is changed by what he sees (positively or negatively), and then returns as a different person. Milieus don't have to just be the trees and the grass; they can be the evil emperor who constantly sends out his minions to attack the protagonist. Or a milieu could be the odd weather in a place.

A good example of this played out in a book would be Gulliver's Travels, or even Planet of the Apes. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is a good example: the story doesn't end when Dorothy kills the witch. It ends when she goes back to Kansas.

Second, there is idea. This story type is about characters who look for, and eventually find, new information (or make discoveries). To quote OSC himself, "The idea story begins by raising a question; it ends when the question is answered."

I think it would be safe to say that nearly all mystery stories follow this structure. The beginning question is "who committed this crime?" and the book ends when the question is answered. Other types of stories can follow this line as well; for example, raising the question "how did Ancient Rome fall?" and ending with the author's opinion, or just a good or interesting explanation.

The character type of story is quite common today. It focuses on the changing of a character's role in the places that matter most. Sure, in one sense, almost every story is "about" one or more characters. However, most stories are not about who the character really is. Character type stories are.

OSC words it very well, so I'll quote him again: "The story begins at the moment when the main character becomes so unhappy, impatient or angry in her present role that she begins the process of change; it ends when the character either settles into a new role (happily or not) or gives up the struggle and remains in the old role (happily or not)."

The Hunger Games has a strong character element to it, as does Stowaway by Karen Hesse. Captain Nemo in the book 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea follows this type of story, though the book itself does not.

Finally, we have event. This may just be the most common of all the structures, and it's probably the one that most people will want to write.

The story starts with the universe out of order (to put it a little drastically). Something is wrong. This could be the One Ring being re-discovered and a powerful adversary reappearing (LOTR), a boy being transported into another world that is tyrannized by an evil wizard (Beyonders: A World Without Heroes), a father's empire dissolving and family wealth disappearing (Artemis Fowl), or the murder of a King by his brother (Hamlet). All of these have a world where things are generally good - and then they get bad. The rest of the story focuses on the protagonist attempting to put things right.

The event story ends when a new order is put into place or, in some cases, when everything goes back to being exactly the way it used to be, or, in a select few cases, when the "good guys" fail, the world goes into chaos, and all order is destroyed. 

The story starts not at the point when the world becomes disordered, but rather at the point when the main character becomes involved. This is why it is rarely a good idea to write a prologue, and you should avoid it at all costs: the main character is the focus more than anything. You should know from experience that people tend to skip the prologues, and even if they don't, it will subtract from the rest of the experience of the MC's struggles and triumphs.

So, how should this affect your writing? To start, each story has every element in it. Your book, your short story, your film project, etc. automatically has an idea, or a question that should be answered, a milieu around your character where a bad event happens.

Now, not all stories have a particular focus. Maybe you decide that your story best falls under the idea and event structures, and you don't want to change it. As long as you're making sure to look past your own ideas, that's fine. (But if you can, try to narrow it down to one major genre.)

Something I found in my own story is that for the first half or so, it was more idea-focused. There was nothing particularly wrong with the world at first. Then it changed into more of an event-based story. I have yet to hear from my beta readers if that's a good idea or not, but so far they've told me they're intrigued. As long as you keep the story moving, you can't really go wrong when you're not writing blindfolded.

Well, that's it. Thank you so much for your time, and I hope this was helpful!

P.S. There's something really exciting that I've been gearing up for for a while: about once every other week, I'll do a book review. I'll start with the lesser-known or lesser-read classics, and then do some more modern writing. This is one reason I blogged about this, so you understand what you're reading when it comes to those reviews.

I'm also going to post a short story once a month, hopefully. I'm really excited about that too. I'm not sure what I'm going to do first, but I do know that it will most likely be adventure (without any magic or over-the-top tech).

Thank you for your support!