s a writer and most importantly as a reader, I'm fascinated by the structure of stories, always have been. I've never been able to follow a simple structure, or if the stories I've read had that, I failed to see it. Mainly because for a long period of time, I wasn't interested in that, I just wanted the story, the events. But lately, I've been seeing the backbones in what I'm reading, the unwritten paths that many stories seem to follow.
Not the same though. I don't believe stories follow a recipe, not a conscious one, certainly. You know how in school, you learn that a story has an exposition, a rising action, climax finally, falling action and a resolution, yeah? Well, I don't think writers work like that, not in their heads at least. I don't think a writer sits down at some point in the story and he's like, okay, I'm around page 25, I should really write up the climax now. Seems it would interfere something awful with the creative flow and all that.

However, I do believe that most stories can be analyzed in terms of these key points (that's why they exist, you know?). Pick up the book closest to you and I'm pretty sure that if you try - more or less, depending on the story, I suppose - you will be able to identify the climax, the rising action and everything else.

And my favorite bit - the one that fascinates me most - is the falling apart, the 'when things go bad' bit, or the falling action as they seem to call it. I'm trying to remember its name in Romanian, but can't - suppose I wasn't paying much attention in school, but no surprises there, huh?
Anyway, I've been reading and watching as the pattern spirals. The other week, I mentioned a book I was reading, 'The Lesser Bohemians'. It was a most strange book, but very well written and true to pattern, things at some point, fell apart. And it was a damn strange moment, because I was reading and reading and it went from desire and wanting and all the confusion that comes with a new relationship into something awfully dark and you wake up at one moment and go 'how did I get here?' and it's interesting to observe that.

Here we have this story that is about love and goes right down with a young, dreamy person such as myself and the language is erratic and crazy and everything and then bam! It's no longer that. You know, I wrote the other day about delusions in love and about how life tends to get in the way. It's a life story, after all, isn't it? Every story is a life story, as far as I'm concerned. Life in all its glorious messiness.

Next, I read 'Swimming Lessons', another interesting read that seemed to follow a similar pattern. You find yourself rooting for the lovers, racing through the pages to see if they make it, if they get to be together, 'cause that would be so nice. And they are and then, things fall apart. Again. You find it wasn't at all how it seemed, that what you saw of the characters was very little. Dark secrets come out, bad traits, regrets, all that. Again, life shows up and things get fucked up.

And I like that. That's the sort of story I want to read. And apparently write. In the story I'm writing now (off-Steem), I find myself at a crossroads, feeling wise rather than plot-wise and as I was wondering if I would be able to continue the story, I realized that yes, because this is the point where things go bad. This is where things fall apart. And it's funny, because I never expected to know so clearly when that would happen. It's a really fun moment for a writer.

Another thing I love about stories is good writing. What can I say? It's like a drug to me. I'm not talking about good story here, yeah? It's not the same thing. There are a lot of very well-written stories that fail, plot-wise. Swimming Lessons, which I mentioned earlier, was really well written in the sense that it kept me going through the pages, devouring the story and it left me feeling content, despite the fact that the ending was somewhat disappointing.
'The Lesser Bohemians' only had a couple ways it could go, seemed to me, and while it wasn't a grandiose ending, it was good. But what really left its mark from that book was the writing style. Excellent.

Simple pleasures in life, huh?

What do you love about a story?

Thank you for reading,