Since I’m becoming more and more of an audience freak — that’s to say, more and more fascinated with audience creativity and what readers do with a work — I tend to come at structure from the question of what the audience needs in order to make something of a writer’s words. Not to downplay the writer’s creativity and the discipline that in the best work gives rise to the “right” shape. At this point in my thinking, I value language that works at several levels so that the majority of readers will be able to take something away to plug into their own narrative processes.

When a writer fails to hang his/her vision upon some graceful structure, you’re right — the piece fails except, perhaps, as study in self-indulgence. IMO, in many ways, the structure of the best writing is deeply dependent on sound reasoning, even when the metaphors are a-flyin’ and the rhymes are a-rhymin’.

Fun discussion.

Agreed, when we’re talking about how a piece takes shape. Structure plays another unifying role with a work’s audience: It provides something of an established path for a reader/audience member to encounter the work. In the case of stories, given our cultural logic — the logic of the Western tradition — we expect stories to more or less follow a certain pattern, which is something like how stories break out in our lives. Generally, some action sparks in a conflict, which builds toward some resolution, good or bad. This is the overall pattern people use to narratize experience — it’s the common structure w/in our tradition. When someone tells a story, this common structure is where we gather to experience the tale.

Yes.

I like to think of structure as a unifying force. Sometimes an appropriate structure isn’t apparent from the outset. But as a piece begins to come alive with its own peculiar characteristics a form will begin to emerge which will have the effect of giving direction to further growth. It’s important that we “listen” to that direction even if it means that it calls us to go against a more conventional approach, or, on the other hand, into a more standardized approach.

I think a lot of folks are afraid of structure–as if it might stifle their work. But, IMO, without some awareness of the intuitive–that which moves on the deepest level (the bones)–one’s work is likely to become unbridled thereby opening the door to disunity which may (not always) have the effect of rendering the work irrational.

That said, I don’t think structure is always cut and dry. One may, for example, start out with a clear-cut three act form in mind and end up giving it intuitive tweeks without knowing all the reasons why–other than “it just feels right.” So, even though unity may be the result of good structure, we should never fool ourselves into believing that a good piece can be completely nuanced by it. At some point it must live beyond structure.

Hm. Well, for me “structure” includes stanza form, but how you structure a poem isn’t all there is to it. I guess that when I use the word “structure” I’m talking about everything from the culturally established logical flow of a sentence (syntax) to cultural conventions or frameworks that establish a story’s logical progression to how convincingly a metaphor forges the relationship between its tenor and vehicle (as identified by I. A. Richards). Structure may also include nuances and implications of meaning the story’s maker wasn’t aware of when he or she made the story.

You said, “I, too, am waiting for the day when Mormon Arts becomes about something much more than the mirror effect.”

I don’t know for certain, but I think a lot of Mormons are waiting for more, even if they aren’t fully conscious of their desires for it. At any rate, until I’m proven wrong I’ll give a substantial slice of the Mo-population credit for longing.

“One of the really problematic things with MoLit is its marketplace. The ’successful’ Mormon writers have ‘dumbed’ literature down to appeal to a very sentimental side of the reader’s nature, without much appeal to the intellect.”

Gee, let’s hope all hope is not yet lost! Maybe you can write something meaty some day?

As an aside, here’s my view of hell: The sentimentalists are assigned to the same tier as cynics, where each is forced to listen to the other’s riffs through all eternity. :)!

You article was intriguing to me and I am still “chewing” on it, as it were. I would like to make a brief comment, though:

I, like you, have steered away from MoLit largely because it does, as you say, lack passion or “fire-in-the-belly”. Much of what I have read in the MoLit category has always bored me, was too simplistic in structure and conclusion, and just has not lit set my mind ablaze. I, too, am waiting for the day when Mormon Arts becomes about something much more than the mirror effect.

One of the really problematic things with MoLit is its marketplace. The “successful” Mormon writers have “dumbed” literature down to appeal to a very sentimental side of the reader’s nature, without much appeal to the intellect.

Sadly, sentiment is easy and it sells because it rarely challenges the reader with prose that requires thoughtful consideration. I am always looking for some challenging MoLit reads and have yet to find them.

Again, good commentary. I appreciated your carefully constructed comments and ideas. Wish I hung out with other Mos who enjoyed complexity of ideas, sigh!

I did get a bit more out of him about a paper I wrote than you got on your piece. He wrote that my paper was “provocative … and creatively messy.” I had typed it on an old Royal typewriter with lot of quirks I’d bought at a yard sale there in Tucson, and I didn’t have correction fluid.