I completely agree that the usual group of people who read how-to-write books know nothing about structuralism, and the usual group of people who read structural literary theory probably aren't interested in practical applications. I should have made clear that my book is intended for the former group of people only.

I want to introduce a structuralist viewpoint as a way for writers to analyze and understand the principles behind their own and others' fiction. This was a natural choice since many of my existing essays have been written for the audience here at gamedev, an audience which has a mix of highschool and college students and only a few people with higher education of professional writing experience. So my writing style for the essays has been chatty, carefully explaining terms and illustrating them with humorous examples, and that's the writing style I intend to stick with for the book (although I can see that thisis not at all clear in this rough outline). I feel confident that my final book will not be too complex for the how-to-write book audience because _Dramatica: A New Theory Of Story_ is an extremely complex but also very popular existing how-to-write book.

I'm a woman by the way. [wink] Thanks for the good wishes, and thanks to both of you for responding because this discussion motivated me to spend about 3 hours yeaterday hacking my manuscript into some sort of order. I was thinking about the idea of sidebars, and I think now that maybe it will be best to organize the book as a whole from most general theory and background in the first few chapters to most detailed applications and advice in the last few chapters, and put the fiction-generation stuff in sidebars next to the discussion of the same aspect of regular fiction.

BTW I'm going to be looking for constructive criticism on the rough manuscript in a week or two, are either of you interested?

Do you happen to have an abstract of some sort, so we can have a better grasp of your content construction and intentions?

I'd be happy to read it and offer an opinion, though at this point I can't do much more than that (it's crunch time, I have a handful of papers coming do as well as finals). If you need an editor of some sort, I'd be happy to do that once the semester is over.

I'm happy to wait till the semester's over, it will probably take that long for me to have a clean draft ready for people to critique anyway. An abstract is a good idea - I don't have one yet, but I'll write one up.

Okay, how's this for an abstract:

Currently, how-to-write theory and literary theory are two totally disparate fields, and both fields are internally quite disorganized. It is a waste to have all this scholarly work sitting around never applied to practical problems, and likewise a waste to have writers flailing around in the dark without a solid definition of what fiction is or how fiction works. So my goal in writing this book is to start with structuralist literary theory, develop it into a “unified theory of fiction” much like the sought-after unified field theory of physics, and explain this theory in an easy-to-read style with emphasis on practical applications in creating fiction.

I intend to explain why humans have the urge to create and consume fiction, describe the universal underlying structure of all fiction (including myths, plays, novels, and interactive fiction). This will involve exploring several topics in psychology such as the human language instinct, pretend play, mimesis, and the categorization of memory by scripts and schemas. I will also examine the psychology of what readers seek in fiction, and how to design these things into a story to make that story popular and satisfying to an audience.

Moving on to the structure of fiction, I will describe both the general and detailed levels of plot structure, incorporating existing how-to-write theory such as Freytag's pyramid, the story-as-circle, and the concept of motivation-reaction units. The core idea is that the plot is a thematic argument carried out through the conflict between the characters, which are thematic vectors.

Exploring the practical applications of all this theory, I will illustrate with concrete examples what kinds of thematic arguments there are, how casts of characters can be created to illustrate a thematic argument, and how specific plots and unique original characters can then be created to tell a story which will be meaningful because of its solid thematic foundation. I will further talk about how worldbuilding can also be designed to support a story's theme.

For those interested in interactive storytelling and computer-generation of fiction, sidebars throughout the book will explain how each main topic can be applied to these areas. Since the goal of this book is to completely describe the structure and function of fiction, and anything completely understood can be emulated by a computer, this book will, as a side effect, function as a description of how an interactive fiction generation engine might be programmed.

In conclusion, this book should be very helpful to anyone of an analytic bent who has wished for a logical and unified of what fiction is, what fiction does, why some fiction is more satisfying to audiences than others, and techniques for creating tightly-plotted, dramatically satisfying, meaningful stories.

Quote: Original post by Zenphobia
So you're writing a guide to writing a (fiction) book, when you haven't written a book yourself?

Quote: Original post by Zenphobia
I could read a hundred guides on cabinet making, but until I actually sit down and churn out some quality cabinets, I'm not an expert or even a journeyman.

Quote: Original post by LorenzoGatti
Sunandshadow's credentials aren't really relevant, the question is what to put in a book about fiction and how to organize it.

I'm sorry, but I have to side with Zenphobia here. Structuralist Literary Theory is an incredibly interesting research domain, but in terms of immediate, didactic value to actual writers, success writing and "field applications" are, I think, key.

Or, to put it this way, would you buy, read and endorse a book on game programming by a CS PhD who had never written a game?

Also, an interesting thought: blogging may be holding you back from writing.

Quote: Original post by LorenzoGatti
Of course I wish Sunandshadow's the best of luck with his writing effort, whatever book he chooses to write.

Heh, sunandshadow is a she. [smile]

Quote: Original post by sunandshadow
Okay, how's this for an abstract:

Currently, how-to-write theory and literary theory are two totally disparate fields, and both fields are internally quite disorganized. It is a waste to have all this scholarly work sitting around never applied to practical problems, and likewise a waste to have writers flailing around in the dark without a solid definition of what fiction is or how fiction works. So my goal in writing this book is to start with structuralist literary theory, develop it into a “unified theory of fiction” much like the sought-after unified field theory of physics, and explain this theory in an easy-to-read style with emphasis on practical applications in creating fiction.

I disagree that the fields themselves are unorganized or that it has never been applied to practical problems. I do, however, like the idea of focusing on the application of structuralist theory.

Quote: I intend to explain why humans have the urge to create and consume fiction, describe the universal underlying structure of all fiction (including myths, plays, novels, and interactive fiction). This will involve exploring several topics in psychology such as the human language instinct, pretend play, mimesis, and the categorization of memory by scripts and schemas. I will also examine the psychology of what readers seek in fiction, and how to design these things into a story to make that story popular and satisfying to an audience.

I also like this part, and don't really have any qualms with what you've proposed. I think you'll need to read and analyze many of the best selling novels released in the last few years and discuss them in your book to demonstrate to your readers how those books played off of the psychology of readers to achieve success (assuming they way the best sellers are written can be broken down through a structuralist lens).

Quote: Moving on to the structure of fiction, I will describe both the general and detailed levels of plot structure, incorporating existing how-to-write theory such as Freytag's pyramid, the story-as-circle, and the concept of motivation-reaction units. The core idea is that the plot is a thematic argument carried out through the conflict between the characters, which are thematic vectors.

Everything is quiet on this front.

Quote: Exploring the practical applications of all this theory, I will illustrate with concrete examples what kinds of thematic arguments there are, how casts of characters can be created to illustrate a thematic argument, and how specific plots and unique original characters can then be created to tell a story which will be meaningful because of its solid thematic foundation. I will further talk about how worldbuilding can also be designed to support a story's theme.

Not all successful stories are built on thematic foundations, but I see where you're going.

Quote: For those interested in interactive storytelling and computer-generation of fiction, sidebars throughout the book will explain how each main topic can be applied to these areas. Since the goal of this book is to completely describe the structure and function of fiction, and anything completely understood can be emulated by a computer, this book will, as a side effect, function as a description of how an interactive fiction generation engine might be programmed.

I think this proposed use of sidebars will clutter your book and distract the reader and thus weaken the material. If you're bent on incorporating computers, I suggest dedicated a chapter to it and include footnotes that direct the reader to that chapter whenever computers are relevant to the material that you are presenting.

Good luck.

Quote: Original post by Oluseyi
Also, an interesting thought: blogging may be holding you back from writing.

Structuralist literary theory aside, that person is a retard. Keeping any kind of journal, but particularly one which is open to feedback, is practically a necessary step in the development of a writer's skills. This is as true in Tech Writing as it is in Fiction. If you don't have the ability to record your thoughts in a way that captures the essence in a way that is both comprehensible and engaging to others, you don't have the ability to write professionally, period.

I believe that going into the sub-genres of fiction may be a good idea as well. Some people just don't have the right ideas about what Science fiction or fantasy really are. This is just a suggestion and all.
I'd be interested in reading a book like this.