The Rabbit Room

The Shape of the Stories We Tell

[Note: This has been adapted from the Hutchmoot 2011 session of the same name. Click here for a portion of Travis Prinzi's contribution to that same session.]

What does the shape of a story look like? A lot of people might say it looks like a Bell curve: setup, rising conflict, and resolution. That’s the typical answer, and there’s nothing wrong with that, in fact, there’s a lot that’s exactly right about it, and there are a thousand and one books on the subject to prove it. But I don’t think that’s the whole picture. The reason for the question is that we want a way to predict whether a story is going to work. We want a pattern for our creation. We want rules to write by.

So what makes a story work? Every critic’s got a theory, me included—or you wouldn’t be reading this.

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Because Two Albums are Better Than One

Hello, friends. I released my latest album, In This Hour, back in November, and I’m excited to announce a new limited-time offer (“limited-time” sounds fancier than “we don’t know when this is going to end but it won’t last forever”). Here’s the deal: If you buy a CD or download of In This Hour you’ll also get a free download of my last record, The Good Things. I am very proud of these projects, both produced by Cason Cooley, and would love to see them reach some new ears. If you can help out by spreading the word to your friends I would be incredibly grateful.

Thanks for your support, and thanks for helping me get the word out!

“That’s Not Who You Are”
from In This Hour by Jill Phillips

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