Writing Tip: Inside and Outside the Story Universe

The importance of Receptive Writing and Reflective Writing.

As a writer, we have two basic vantage points in relation to our story universe. Sometimes we are inside the story universe — rubbing elbows with our characters, listening to and watching them, immersing ourselves in their lives. We can do this through direct exercise engagements such as character sit-downs, interviews, monologues, and the like. Once the characters come ‘alive’ in our imagination, they will just show up — as we futz around the house, shop for groceries, in our dreams. And there again, they pull us into their story universe.

I call this Receptive Writing, where we receive insights and information from our characters inside their story universe.

The other basic vantage point for a writer is when we step outside the story universe, the mile high view. Here we gain a degree of objectivity where we can reflect on character interrelationships and subplots, start to discern an emerging narrative structure, scenes coming together, themes rising into view, and so forth. Here we can oversee the plot by selecting the precise moments of what’s transpiring in that story universe 24/7/365, pulling out exactly what we need to shape the story.

I call this Reflective Writing, where we reflect on what we’ve learned from the receptive writing process.

As a writer, we need to be able to shift between both perspectives, and the story-crafting process often involves a lot of going back and forth from inside to outside the story universe.

When we are in it, the characters are real people who have, indeed, created their own problems and that makes sense because they have been living the entirety of their lives, thus each creating their own psyche, the totality of their psychological being. Our task is to dig below the surface of who they present themselves to be to the world and discern the underlying dynamics — wants, needs, Disunity, shadow, memories, associations, fears, etc.

When we are outside the story universe, we should be able to identify how this character or that represents a specific type of narrative function, and that type of thinking is precisely what character archetypes are about. Broadly speaking:

• The Protagonist represents the character moving forward toward a specific goal.
• The Nemesis represents the opposing dynamic working against the Protagonist, thereby creating the story’s central conflict.
• The Attractor represents the realm of the Heart, characters most associated with the Protagonist’s emotional development.
• The Mentor represents the realm of the Head, characters most associated with the Protagonist’s intellectual development.
• The Trickster represents Will, characters most associated with testing the Protagonist’s transformation to see if they are learning what they need to learn.

Using archetypes as tools — not rules! — we can dig down into each character in our story and determine what their core narrative function is, then with that understanding zero in on aspects of their psyche which play most strongly to their respective narrative function.

We do that by shifting back and forth — inside and outside the story universe — both to know the characters intimately on their turf and understand what it all means from our writer’s perspective.

Receptive Writing. Reflective Writing. We need to do both.