A fundamental understanding of transformation is crucial to having anything more than an intellectual relationship to structure. You’ve probably read books on three-act-structure. But it is important to recognize that no one has yet been able to isolate the transcendent beauty that draws us into a great story. It is one thing to analyze the anatomy of a tale, but it is possible that story also contains magic. There is some ineffable quality that we can’t explain.
The writer’s job (as I see it), is to track the beats in a believable way that lead to a transformation.
Story is the most powerful way we have to express ideas. We can actually see the journey that a human being takes in getting from one place to another, and this journey inevitably involves some kind of transformation. When we think of the word transformation, it sometimes conjures some miraculously grand occurrence, some vision of enlightenment. However, transformation is quite simply a shift in perception. Nothing more. And yet, when we have seen something one way our entire life, and then suddenly we see it in an entirely other way, it can be quite miraculous. It can also be quite ordinary, as in, “duh, yeah, of course, now I see.”
When a transformation occurs, the tension vanishes, the fight disappears. We are left with a knowing that was not there before. Through the journey of the story, the protagonist (and ourselves), come to understand something that we were previously asleep to.
Einstein said that “you can’t solve a problem with the same thinking that created it.”
Every story begins with a problem. A problem that wants to be solved. Our challenge as writers is to understand and accept that our protagonist wants something, desperately. The stakes are life and death. If our protagonist does not get what they want, their life will be unimaginable. If the stakes are any less, we will not care. It is that way in life, isn’t it? If we don’t get what we want, we cannot imagine going on. And at some point in the story, the protagonist comes to realize that in fact, it is impossible for them to get what they want. A dilemma confronts the protagonist. Do I give up, or do I surrender? There is a difference. It is an important distinction.
Surrendering does not mean giving up the want, it means letting go of the idea that it is what we must have to be free. Transformation occurs when we recognize that we are the only ones that can give us what we want. The want begins outside of oneself. By the end of the story, the protagonist is able to reframe it as something that they can give to themselves. It is in this shedding or surrendering of the old identity that the protagonist accepts the reality of their situation and adapts. In doing this, it becomes possible for the protagonist to get what they want, if it belongs in their life.
Now, you may say, “What about a story where the protagonist dies?” Or, “What if the protagonist doesn’t get what they want?” There are cautionary tales, where the protagonist is destroyed by their own willfulness. This does not mean, however, that they have not come to understand the error of their ways. Story necessarily involves a transformation.
The Value of an Outline