Story and Structure, Part Three

‘Cause there had to be three, right? Powerful number, three.

I had a few more thoughts about the Rule of Three since my last post. One obvious and easy-to-use pattern is to have the first two things be not quite what is needed. This is too hard, this is too soft. The third, as Goldilocks will tell you, is just right.

Three is also the minimum number you can have to establish a group and an outsider. How many fairy tale princes have two older brothers? And poor Cinderella, with her two wicked step-sisters.

I’d like to wrap this series up by swinging back around to story structure. Let’s see if I can do it in three parts.

ONE: Introduce, at a minimum, a character and a goal to be achieved or a problem to overcome. Even better if you can provide a setting as well.  Little Red needs to get to Granny’s house, but the path leads through the dark and dangerous woods.

TWO: The conflict must be dealt with. The woods must be entered. This is a good place to insert the Rule of Three. The soldier on the road is given a magic bag, a seeing glass, and a violin, each of which will be necessary to escape the ogre.

THREE: Resolve the conflict. Using the Rule of Three keeps the resolution from being too simple (and hopefully from being too complex as well). After dancing each night with the Prince in her three gowns – one silver like the moon, one blue as the night sky, and one gold as the sun – the Orphan Princess finds true love.

And that’s the sort of thing I thought about when I needed to craft a tale on the fly.