I’ll admit, that’s a strange post title for a site called Writer UN-Boxed. But stick with me. In certain circumstances, you may want to write inside a box.
By that, I do not mean a box of expectations, as in slavishly following storytelling “rules”. Strict adherence to genre rules, for instance, might seem to please genre fans, but actually only results in cookie cutter novels. Universal story templates such as the Hero’s Journey or three-act structure are meant to inspire but, treated too rigidly, can also constrain. Really, any kind of imitation results only in routine novels.
To be effective, fiction must to some degree be original. Thinking outside the box is helpful, no question. That said, I sometimes meet writers who are overwhelmed by their choices. They have a buffet of possible projects and a plethora of intentions. They agonize over what to write and swim in a sea of directions in which to take their stories.
For such writers, there are too many possibilities. They are paralyzed, unable to choose. They have fallen prey to a phenomenon that social scientists call maximization. It’s a kind of fear: the fear that there are better options. Examining every last possibility might seem to be a virtue, a smart sifting, but while agonizers do tend to make better decisions they also are less satisfied with what they ultimately select. They are haunted by the possibilities still lingering. What if they missed out on a better choice?
(If you’re interested in the science behind the common sense, you can find it here.)
In daily life, the solution to drowning in possibilities lies in determining what is the minimum positive outcome of a given decision. More simply, instead of wondering what would be perfect, instead decide what would be good enough?
However, in the realm of storytelling there’s another solution: narrow down the story parameters. Simplify. Set a story framework. Let a small snapshot imply a vast landscape. Fire a bullet instead of building a bomb. The Great American Novel cannot possibly be about everyone and everything. It can only be a slice of the whole cake. (And, really, who needs to eat a whole cake? Ingest one slice and you’ve got the idea.)
What kind of story parameters do we mean? One is the framework of a known story type: a murder mystery, a romance, horror or others. The search for a killer is an easy way to explore many aspects of a story world. A romance lends lots of narrative scope while always giving us one big thing to hope for. Slaying a monster shines a torch light on the monsters inside us. Think microcosm, for that is what a story can be.
Tight timeframes or fenced in settings also create a potent focus. A story set in a single room, or all on one day, or spanning a single calendar year, or set against a deadline all have the effect of compacting great meaning into a container. Think metaphor. Isolated on lifeboat with a live tiger. Trapped in a maze. The most dangerous game. Big Brother is watching. Marry by the end of the tax year, or else. The universe is too vast to capture, but luckily there are an infinite number of snow globes to shake and set swirling.
In workshops, I find that deeply developing only one aspect of a story can be the catalyzing agent in the necessary chemical reaction. Sometimes it is delving into backstory and finding the single episode that shaped a protagonist into the character whom we meet on page one. At other times, the balm for an author is pinning down a protagonist’s dark moment and discovering what he or she has lost—and needs to gain.
In other cases, it is detailing the story world that helps. You wouldn’t think that exploring “setting” would be the thing that gets anxious authors to settle down but, magically, that seems to be so. Visualizing a place makes it real. In addition, understanding the conflicts inherent in a place makes it okay to bedevil a character with one particular problem since, after all, everyone has crap to deal with.
With that in mind, consider some ways to box your story:
What mythic role must your protagonist fulfill?
What family legacy rules your protagonist?
What childhood enemy lives on?
What grudge is not forgotten?
What lost love lingers, unresolved and forever haunting your protagonist?
What past achievement can never be equaled?
What past failure can never be lived down?
What past terror returns?
What single human quality does your protagonist most embody?
Who in the story represents the opposite human quality?
What is your protagonist’s singular desire?
What person, object or unique experience embodies that desire?
Who can force an impossible deadline on your protagonist?
What genre rule must you absolutely obey?
What genre trope will you reverse?
How short can you make the story’s timeframe?
How tightly can you set the story’s physical boundary lines?
What is the largest social conflict in this story world?
What’s this story world’s most glaring irony?
How is your protagonist thrust in the middle of that?
What is the one visible thing that could be done to fix things?
Why is your protagonist the one and only person who can do that one thing?
If you build a box you can only fit a limited number of things in it. However, storytellers don’t fill their boxes with junk. A storyteller’s box is a repository of treasures, memories, wisdom and more. It’s Pandora’s Box. It’s a Hope Chest. It’s a magician’s top hat with a rabbit inside. It’s a wardrobe, the back of which is a portal into a fantastic realm.
Tell a story with tight focus and your telling a story as huge as all of history and as deep as the human heart. You can’t help but do that. You will by default, because your intention in the first place is so vast and urgent. None of that energy is lost when you tell a story inside a box. If anything, when we open that box we hear an echo and experience a sense of wonder bigger than the container built to hold it.
Are you telling a story inside a box? (Or could you?) Tell us about that.
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About Donald Maass
Donald Maass is president of the Donald Maass Literary Agency. He has written several highly acclaimed craft books for novelists including The Breakout Novelist, The Fire in Fiction, Writing the Breakout Novel and The Career Novelist.
Thanks, Don. As I read through your post I realized that even within the box of my WIP, the theatre, there are many different worlds or boxes. So I’ve had to focus on the box of the actors, which includes rehearsals, opening nights, onstage and offstage action. That means leaving out the world of the designer, the director, the stage door person, the publicist, and all of the myriad other worlds that intersect with the actors. The intersection of the worlds can be there, but not the same focus. It’s the actor box I’m writing about.
Your post also reminded me of a rule of thumb I was told – that not doing something is generally less interesting in terms of consequences than doing something. The example that was given was the choice to have an affair or not to have one. And in general, I’d agree that having the affair opens up more story possibilities. Unless, as in my story, that’s the protagonist’s usual habit. Then it becomes more interesting to look at what happens when that character doesn’t do the usual thing. What does she do instead? It’s a bit like a box within a box, and it’s been fascinating to see how she tries to figure out what to do next.
I’ll print this out, as I see a lot of questions I want to mull over further, so thank you!
“Then it becomes more interesting to look at what happens when that character doesn’t do the usual thing. What does she do instead?”
Oh, interesting! Yes!
Interesting way to look at the “box” around your story. I like the singular focus: what happens when a character does *not* have an affair. You can cover a lot of ground without traveling very far…if you see what I mean.
Where’s that little emoji gal with her hand raised in the air when you need it!
I completely recognize myself as a “maximizer” and will look into both the science and your wise advice. Thank you!
(All this talk reminded me of a great clip (a performance, really) on boxes and wires, compartmentalization and emotions. Made me wonder, could “maximizers” be the kind to be more emotional or prone to be led by their emotions?)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XjUFYxSxDk
I love that clip.
Who *is* that? He’s hilarious. Love the explanation of the boxes in men’s brains. (No bearing on this post, of course.)
I also like this: an event connected to an emotion makes a memory. Just so. Wrote about that in my last book. It has big implications for storytellers.
Thanks!
I’ve read the works you linked on maximization. It’s absolutely fascinating that in our Western world of abundance, too many things to choose from can result in dissatisfaction of one’s life and even depression for some. It seems that maximizers adhere more than others to the concepts of perfectionism and “never enough”. As a wise woman recently told me, “You don’t have to be (or write) perfect. Doing your best is good enough.”
That clip does veer off (in a true female brain kinda way, doesn’t it?) from this essay’s main subject, but your reference to The Emotional Craft of Fiction is spot on. Your book is the one I go back to the most often. I’ve been meaning to know, who is the artist behind the amazing artwork? (See, I did it again! It’s aaaaaaaaalll connected, baby!) ;)
When I think of limiting scope, I think of plays. Usually they take place within a relatively short timeline, a limited cast of characters, and a restricted area in which to build sets.
The bits of the story you read for the recent WFWA workshop are parts of a larger story that is boxed in physically (at a small lake community in northern Michigan) and temporally (the course of one summer). A bit like On Golden Pond, I guess. Even flashbacks all take place during summer on that same lake. These two limitations also limit the number of characters, which I find is a good way to keep things manageable.
What I like about a really limited palette like this is that our memories are so closely tied to small moments or particular seasons or ages or people in our lives, and the story I’m working on is largely about memory. So I think the structure enhances that theme.
Yes, stage plays have a scope limited by the stage itself and the challenge of changing sets. Even epic scenes of war as in “Warhorse” or “Henry VI” have to be shown symbolically.
BTW, a discussion of staging war especially in Shakespeare can be found here:
http://observer.com/2004/10/can-you-stage-a-war-what-shakespeare-knew/
Anyway, for fiction writers this suggests that a large canvas may be best viewed by looking at one corner of it, or looking through the eyes of one character.
Good morning, Don. I like how counterintuitive this seems. You’ve really gotten my noggin nodding. In thinking about my own work, on the surface it seems I’ve done the opposite. I’ve taken a story that in its first edition takes place mostly among one tribe of people in one fairly large but limited setting, and launched it into an entire ancient civilized world. A world of sailed seas, scores of cities, dozens of peoples, and at least two empires (verging on a third).
And I’ll admit, there are times when I have felt this sense you describe, of paralysis due to an overwhelm of possibilities. And likely will again, so this is great advice and a useful set of prompts. I think in past instances I’ve instinctively gone in for close-ups. I think it began with battle scenes. I’ve always wanted to convey a sweeping scope, but in my dozens of failed attempts to capture that, I started to gravitate to whatever positive feedback I could find. Which was the tight-focus stuff. Trying to pull a Cecil B. Demille thing on the page just wasn’t working for me. But even in the midst of a huge battle, I found that readers could follow one character. And that character’s experience can convey an extrapolated sense of scale.
And this is what I always fell back to in telling my sprawling tale. Don’t try to convey an empire, just a palace’s high hall, and the workings of its government therein. I’m slowly learning that even the most vast story can be broken down to a handful of characters and settings. And today your essay and prompts are showing me that not only does this mindset aid the storyteller, but that it also enhances the reader’s experience as well. Thanks for this unboxed perspective on utilizing boxes.
Vaughn-
If I may chime in…the middle of my WIP is intended to be a road trip across a crazy America of extreme beliefs, especially that The End is Near. I have found this sprawling intention to be the hardest to tackle. I’ve been avoiding it.
Thinking about boxes has got me thinking, though, that the road trip can be managed by limiting it in some way. For instance, in seeking something like answers to three questions, or putting a deadline on it: e.g., get to Kalamazoo by August 20. (I have a more poetic final destination in mind, actually–nothing against Kalamazoo, mind you.)
In other words, a box can be around *part* of a novel without boxing in the whole. If that’s helpful.
The more I hear about your story here in the comments, the more fascinated I become, Benjamin. Hope to read it someday soon.
Thanks for enhancing the point for me. Very helpful. (By the way, Kalamazoo has it’s poetic qualities. Especially if one has ever had a gal there, which I have.)
Don, this is wonderful. I am primarily a short story writer so the writing is necessarily narrow and focused and dense. And it’s helping me as a novelist to maintain that tight writing. If allowed, I know how easily I could spread and sprawl.
Your essay brings to mind writing EZ readers or those for ESL. I used to feel terribly constrained by all the rules (vocabulary, sentence length, sounds, etc.) but I find that it’s like working a puzzle. And it’s so great to see children learning to read master it with a story you wrote.
Well, I wouldn’t suggest approaching “Lonesome Dove” in the manner of an EZ reader, but I take your point. In a way, a box can be liberating. Thanks for chiming in.
I only had time to skim this morning but will more deeply study this post and the link to the article.
I love historical fiction and if ever there was a person paralyzed by possibilities, it’s me. I often find myself brainstorming a character, which causes me to look into their past and what was going on historically at their time, which often leads to a thousand different routes and possibilities and delving off into yet another moment in history. There is never a shortage of ideas, only time and the decision making capability that avoids that fear of something better you describe.
It’s funny, but I find historical novels more often constrained by actual history than set free. They feel a need to “get the history right”. I like your way of looking at it–as possibilities–but of course there is the challenge of sifting through to find the best story.
For historical characters, I can’t help but feel that the best candidates are the ones who are most conflicted: boxed in by their own dilemmas.
Hello, Good Sir:
Writing this from Izmir, Turkey, where my wife and I are dealing with the tedious and touching duties of resolving estate matters in the wake of her father’s untimely death.
I am conflicted by this post, for one of the things I find limiting in many of my students’ work is a too narrow understanding of how backstory has influenced their characters.
In particular, I found this worth questioning:
“Sometimes it is delving into backstory and finding the single episode that shaped a protagonist into the character whom we meet on page one. At other times, the balm for an author is pinning down a protagonist’s dark moment and discovering what he or she has lost—and needs to gain.”
I do not believe any single episode shapes a protagonist into who we meet on page one, nor do I believe any character has suffered just one dark moment.
But I do believe that writers must narrow their focus down to a small subset of deciding backstory factors in their story.
Your list of questions seems daunting perhaps because it follows no intrinsic logic, but just lists a number of (admittedly wonderful) questions to ask of the character.
In my teaching (in which I owe a considerable debt to the screenwriter Gil Dennis) I have students list moments of shocking helplessness and surprising strength in six paired categories: Guilt vs Forgiveness, Shame vs Pride/Success, Death vs. Love, etc. I have them focus on scenes not information. These moments create the most significant emotional underpinnings of their character.
I then have them take this a step further and ask: How have these moments created habits of behavior. These habits form the Pathological Maneuvers and Stubborn Virtues that define the characters’ behavior on page one.
Now, in looking to the story, there will be moments that will echo some of these past moments: scene evoking shame or requiring self-assurance, moments resonating with past cowardice or calling upon a moment of surprising courage.
Not all of the backstory moments explored will find such an echo in the present-day story. And this creates a non-reductionist, non-simplistic, more realistic and complex portrayal. No character solves all his problems in a story. But he will be given the chance to solve one or more of his most debilitating ones, ones that are “ruining his life.” The story will give him a chance to change that.
Your list of compelling questions very much echoes my approach, and in fact I rather prefer your wording in places, because it often nails the moment in specifically effective ways. “What past failure can never be lived down” is a more devastating way to ask, “What is her moment of greatest shame,” for example. But we’re both pointing toward much the same psychological and emotional terrain. I just like to be sure my students aren’t creating plot puppets by focusing too narrowly on what has shaped their characters and what will change by the end of the story and what won’t.
For me, the “box” becomes what specific elements of the past will find an echo in the present-day story. Answer that, and the “maximizing problem” becomes manageable.
As always, a really insightful and thought-provoking post. Now, back to family duties. (Ironically, we just heard the call to prayer from the local mosque.)
So sorry for your family’s loss, David.
I’m so sorry for your loss. I hope the sorting out is as sweet as it may be tedious.
Identifying a key shaping moment in backstory can, I think, be useful in creating a character who in the present is driven by an inner something that we can understand and hold on to. Now, I am saying that to you, David, the master of character complexity, with no little trepidation.
However, I’m not suggesting dumbing down or making a protagonist a single-issue human being, but rather that if a story focus is needed then springing from the one most significant event in a protagonist’s past can lend a story a core need or passion that drives a character into action. Real life is messy but stories can gain power, sometimes, by simplifying motive.
Looking forward to seeing you next month and hearing about your time in Turkey.
(She takes a deep breath.) So reasonable and enlightening. Thanks, Don. And I can check off some of the–excuse me–boxes. My WIP is limited by season, by a goal that means life to my MC, revolves around a family legacy and actually involves a BOX! Thanks, Pandora.
Ha! Perfect. I will look forward to opening that box.
“That said, I sometimes meet writers who are overwhelmed by their choices… They agonize over what to write and swim in a sea of directions in which to take their stories.”
I didn’t realize we had met, Don! I suppose that my main issue is that the process is so darn messy and inefficient for me. I often have to write the wrong thing and continually sample alternatives until I eventually stumble on the actual story. But I think that the preparation I do–the notes, the pondering, the wrong turnings, the answering of questions like the valuable ones you provide–is necessary in the end. Alternatives get worked out in new ways, old ideas pop up later, and so on. And the narrowing of focus that you describe happens only gradually.
Thanks for another wonderful post!
For most, first drafts are exploratory. I only get worried when the seventh draft is still wandering around, looking for the core that is the true heart of the novel.
In such cases, I think it can be helpful to narrow focus and put a box around the vast possibilities, as I’ve described. Saves time and can produce a more powerful story. Ask me.
Being Canadian, I’m not interested in writing “the Great American Novel.” [I thought this was an international forum?]
i use the term Great American Novel in a somewhat ironic way. I mean, as if, right? I spend a lot of time in Canada (married to a Vancouverite) and am enjoying Canadian fiction more and more.
And just like that, you’ve fixed one of my story problems… By the way, loving your book on the Emotional Craft of fiction. Thank you for your work. Your posts are consistently the best on this site.
Glad to be of service, and thanks.
Seems to me that putting a box around the perimeter of my novel will force me to go deeper into the characters. Often, novels with the smallest scope have the deepest impact. I can’t help thinking of “A Man Called Ove.” That novel had a very small scope–and old man attempting to commit suicide–with such deep characters. I read it a year ago, and still it stays with me.
Ove is a remarkable book, so simple in concept, so profound a statement of hope. The scene at the grave with the Cat Annoyance…even hearts of ice have to melt. Have you read his second novel? Haven’t gotten to it yet.
“Bear Town” is brilliant!
I didn’t know there was a second novel. I’ll have to check it out. Thanks!
ooohhh, i love this, “Let a small snapshot imply a vast landscape.” it is itself a snapshot of your post! gaaaa – my mind is reeling with the notion of it, searching the landscape to find that one magical spot to focus on for the snapshot!!
thanks so much for a not-too-boxy post!
I’ve recognized the need to choose a path but love your idea of tight focus. In my new WIP, I have a thread of backstory. You’ve made me realize the impact of including the scene that damaged my protagonist. Then readers will discover what she has lost and needs to gain in order to heal.
Thanks for the list of questions. I can see where a couple will fine-tune my plot. I’m looking forward to the mental gymnastics!