Quotes on storytelling structure

What writers and others say

“In the first act you get your hero up a tree. The second act, you throw rocks at him. For the third act you let him down.”

— George Abbott, American theater producer and director

“Of the many definitions of story, the simplest may be this. It is a piece of writing that makes the reader want to find out what happens next. Good writers, it is often said, have the ability to make you keep on reading them whether you want to or not — the milk boils over — the subway stop is missed …”

— Bill Buford, nonfiction writer and former fiction editor at The New Yorker

“There are only two or three human stories and they go on repeating themselves as fiercely as if they had never happened before.”

— Willa Cather, author of My Antonia and other Great Plains frontier novels

“Although descriptions demand attention and questions demand answers, one reason for the superiority of mystery stories is that they demand something more pedagogically valuable — explanation.”

— Robert B. Cialdini, professor of psychology at Arizona State University

“Mystery grabs readers by the collar and pulls them into the material. When structured properly, mysteries are so compelling that the reader cannot remain and aloof and neutral outside observer of the story’s form and structure.”

— Robert B. Cialdini, professor of psychology at Arizona State University

“When you get a story under way, refrain from interrupting the flow. Avoid digression. Don’t go parenthetical.”

— Dick Dougherty, columnist for the Rochester Democrat

“Narrative is basically a sequence of events. Something happens, then something else, then something else. Human instinct compels us to stick around to see what happens next.”

— Ira Glass, host of Chicago Public Radio’s “This American Life”

“When people say to me, ‘What do you do?’ I say, ‘I tell stories from my life.’ They say, ‘You must have a very interesting life.’ ‘No,’ I say. ‘But I tell it well.'”

— Spalding Gray, actor, writer and monologuist, quoted by Mark Singer in “The Boards

“One of the first rules of joke-telling also seems to apply when it comes to anecdotes — the better the punch line, the longer the story it can support. This may be why a Henny Youngman gag is worth no more than one line.”

— Jack Hart, editor at large of The Oregonian, in A Writer’s Coach

“You can make an interesting story less interesting by putting it all into one strand: ‘and then, and then, and then.'”

— Adam Hochschild, American author, journalist, and lecturer

“The beginning isn’t simply the first in a series of events, but the originating event of all that follows. The middle isn’t just the next event, but the story’s central struggle. And the ending isn’t just the last event, but the culminating event.”

— Steven James, author and writer

“When I speak to children about writing, I tell them, ‘You don’t have a story until something goes wrong.'”

— Steven James, author of Never the Same, writing in Writer’s Digest

“The beginning isn’t simply the first in a series of events, but the originating event of all that follows. The middle isn’t just the next event, but the story’s central struggle. And the ending isn’t just the last event, but the culminating event.”

— Steven James, author of Never the Same, writing in Writer’s Digest

“On the most basic level, readers read to find out what will happen next. It’s like making a person scratch long and hard; before she’ll do that, she needs to feel an itch. Uncertainty is the itch.”

— Nancy Kress, novelist and short story writer

“Not long ago, at a dinner party, a Broadway lyricist whose international hit had earned him a chunk of Fort Knox confided to me the secret of his commercial success: ‘Make ’em laugh, make ’em cry, make ’em wait,’ he said.”

— John Lahr, writer, in “Making a Killing,” The New Yorker, Nov. 5, 2001

“We’re only interested in one thing: can you tell a story, Bart? Can you make us laugh, can you make us cry, can you make us wanna break out in joyous song? Is that more than one thing? Okay.”

— Jack Lipnick, Hollywood studio mogul, in Joel & Ethan Coen’s Barton Fink

“On some levels, all good narratives are mysteries — Will he get the girl? Will she find the strength to endure the ordeal? Will they stop the bad guys? — and the reason for that is that readers like the feeling of wanting to discover some sort of hidden truth. … You could even write a compelling story around the mystery ‘What’s for dinner?’ though I don’t know that I want to tackle that one just yet.”

— David Liss, author of The Coffee Trader and other books of historical fiction

“Movies are basically about plot. They’re about the structure of incidents, one incident causing the next to happen. A play doesn’t have to be that. It … can be very simple: two guys waiting for Godot to show up.”

— David Mamet, American author, essayist, playwright, screenwriter and film director

“Come in late and get out early.”

— David Mamet, Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright of “Glengarry Glen Ross”

“Time in a story does not move forward equally. I find it helpful to think of a necklace with various-size beads on it.”

— Donald M. Murray, Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist, in Writing to Deadline: The Journalist at Work

“The starting point is in conflict. It is not that bad news is good news, although any responsible newswriter or editor must carry a burden of guilt about that. The writer stands, notebook or tape recorder in hand, at the crossroads where the forces of the world may collide.

— Donald M. Murray, Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist, in Writing to Deadline: The Journalist at Work

“When you get lost, focus on the chronology. There’s a sign above my computer that says, “It’s the chronology, stupid.”

— Sonia Nazario, Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter for the Los Angeles Times

Rolling Stone managing editor Bob Love “has a knowledge of journalistic storytelling, something that has always eluded me. Specifically, he knows what part is the beginning, what part is the middle, and what part is the end — no small matter to the reader.”

— P.J. O’Rourke, author, Eat the Rich

“Storytellers don’t give away the story in the first paragraph the way news writers do. Instead they set up a situation, using suspense or the introduction of a compelling character to keep the reader turning pages. Rather than put the least important information at the end, the storyteller waits until the end to give the reader a ‘big payoff’ — a surprise, a twist, a consummation.”

— Chip Scanlon, affiliate faculty member of The Poynter Institute

“Start as close to the end as possible.”

— Kurt Vonnegut, in “8 Tips on How to Write a Great Story“

“I believe everybody has a story worth telling, but precious few know how to get it down on paper.”

— Oprah Winfrey, media magnate, in “O here we go!” O Magazine, August 2007

“Our job in business communications is not to replicate the chaos of the real world but to create clarity from the chaos of the real world. So find one thread in the tapestry of life — one strand of the story — and stick with it.”

— Ann Wylie, president, Wylie Communications Inc.