Re: The Narrative Structuring of Stuff, etc…

Of the five outlines laid out earlier this month, only 2 and 4 - the even numbers - are found to be in any way bold or valuable, considering each in their formal way. This is shocking because everyone talks about story structure ONLY in terms of the odd numbers: 1, 3 and 5. The problem with talking about 2-act and 4-act structure is that it requires that you perform the exact act in which one abstains when desiring something beyond the 1, 3 and 5-act structuring of narratives. That is, namely, justification.

As every good screenwriter versed in Freudian theory knows, justification is always self-serving, idealized, and artificial. How can we not view “The Odds” as exhibiting precisely this same hyper-moralized justification of traditional values? At the end of all three, one (you, or I) fails to witness any of the following, respectively: a lyrically defiant protest of reality (1), a synthesis of conflict (3), or a triumphant work of cultural and human achievement (5).

Being contrary, only 2 truly captures the vision of 1 and the goal of 3. “This stuff, that stuff” is the only approach to visualizing either/or 1 and 3. Writers, in order to be truly ambiguous, and thereby truly bold, MUST sacrifice their vision of 1 for 2, willing to foreclose on 1 from anything other than a parallax. In other words, 1 is always-already 2, even if perfected in its limits. So 2 must be adhered to primarily as the structure by which to achieve the vision of 1.

Now we see the flaw in the progressions of 3: 1->2->3.

In the above, 3 cannot see 1 from this equation for two stands it its line. The true three is 2: 1->2->1

3 sometimes accidently transforms into 4. 4 is 2+3 when it ignores the temptations of 5. “Bad, worse, worst, and yet…”: this is 4. While 2 is defiant, other to Other, 4 is transformative, more ironic than irony. 4 is impossible, and yet… 4. 1, 2, and 3, and 4. This is the graceful, ex nihilo excess. 

5, I argue, when relevant, is actually either 2 or 4. [Consider: Shakespeare, Kierkegaard] As five, it is an either/or over-zealous and irrationally-invested 3, over-compensating for its sheer lack of 4.