In my most recent post on Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian, I looked at the way in which the work opens, focusing first on the cover design, and front matter, and then on the epigraphs. A further opening comes with chapter headings in the ‘In which …’ tradition.
The ‘In which …’ tradition is a tradition I’m very fond of - and encourage writers to explore and play with more. I remember the ‘In which …’ sections of A. A. Milne’s Winnie-the-Pooh books especially.
And in non-fiction, it reminds me of the Table of Contents of one of George Spencer-Brown’s favourite books, J M Robertson’s Letters on Reasoning.
In Cormac McCarthy’s work, we’re introduced to the key events of each chapter up front - Chapter 1, for instance, opens with:
A character is implied (Childhood), followed by conflict (Runs away / Fights), an outcome (Is shot) - we can assume they survive (To Galveston) - we have a pairing of spiritual and temporal codes of law (The Reverend Green / Judge Holden), and another conflict (An affray). A series of locations is mentioned, indicating quite a bit of journeying; yet another conflict (Burning of the hotel) and the outcome (Escape).
I read this and ponder the links between ‘escape’ and ‘runs away’ - is the centre of the wave significant?
But this is a question to do with literary form and plot patterning, the arrangement of events in a narrative as it is told, and we’re concerned with looking at story structure.
So far, there’s the sense of a story - and the shape of a story structure implied. Will it be straightforward? Will it involve cognitive dissonance? It’s too early to tell (posing yet more riddles for me as a reader before I even engage in the story).
At this point in the methodology I’m following, we’re at the point where we need to identify the main characters and their initial situation (who, when, where, and in what condition). Every character’s story line is unique and can be mapped to its own set of story structures. So who do we start with?
I read on.
With the first sentence, ‘See the child’, two characters are introduced - ‘the child’ is the obvious focus. Is the definite article significant? Yes, at the level of narrative - what about at the level of story?
His father’s back story is sketched out in rough outline form. He’s gone from a family heritage of hewing wood and drawing water to becoming a schoolmaster, marrying, having two children, one of which being a daughter he ‘will not see again’; the mother of ‘the child’ died giving birth to their son. Now he lies drunk, quoting lines from obscure forgotten poets.
All this is viewed through the eyes of the first-person narrator, whose viewpoint colours the narrative throughout. What’s his story, I wonder. There’s a prophetic quality to his utterances, for instance, when he describes ‘the child’ as ‘the father of the man’.
And with the establishment of these characters, the next step in the methodology arises:
6. Identify the problem(s) which caused the story to emerge for each of these characters – these are typically resolved (but sometimes left unresolved) at the end of the story.
The narrative hasn’t unfolded completely; we may not find out what the problems related to the emergence of each character’s journey are (if any). So far, we can only guess.
And thus, riddle upon riddle piles up for me as a reader.
I read on, and think about the next step in the methodology:
7. Identify the main structural parts of the story (beginning, middle, end, and any sub-sections).
Kelly James and others have observed a mirror structure to the work, but this is at the level of narrative plot pattern. Are there any patterns you’ve noticed so far? What’s caught your attention? And what’s happening at the level of story structure?
I’m keen to hear what you think - and to share some basic story structures with you in the next post.
If you enjoy story, find out more about The Unknown Storyteller project. It maps 18 distinct story structures (excluding comedy and tragedy) identified so far using only 6 simple basic visually intuitive symbols that will enable you to find out more about how story ‘stories’ on my website at leonconrad.com — not to mention some very cool writing exercises that will help you tell the stories you want to tell more effectively.