Okay, maybe he wears a fat diamond on his finger and brags about his Mercedes, but even it that’s not your idea of a "class" literary act, you can learn plenty from him.
Syd Field coined a way of thinking about, and talking about, story structure that has stood for 30 years, unmercifully tweaked, but never replaced.
No he wasn’t the first to see 3 acts–Aristotle predated him by a few thousand years–but Field came up with a simple experience-based model to popularize and teach it.
And in fact, a couple of generations of screenwriters and savvy fiction writers have gotten to first base double quick thanks to Field’s tub-thumbing narrative evangelism.
But wait, isn’t Syd Field all about screenplays, gussied-up grocery lists for action and external behavior where the things fiction writers value–ruminative narrative summary, elaborate description, the inner life in cascades of thought–aren’t even allowed in the door? What could a literary fiction writer possibly "learn" from Syd Field?
Start with How to Survive in an over-rich entertainment environment. Look around, would-be pro fiction writers, what do you see: what I see is that we’re losing what remains of our woefully diminished reading (and buying!) audience….
Every year fewer and fewer readers take a chance on the latest highly-praised work of "serious" contemporary fiction. Why is this? Because they get burned. On the word of a NY Times reviewer, they ante up with their time and effort, only to be confused, made to feel"dumb," out of it, and worst of all…bored. They don’t finish the book. Nothing in the pages compels them to. They’ve learned their lesson. They won’t return.
I’ve heard authors blame the public, the education system, television, the Internet, everyone and everything but themselves. "People don’t know how to read anymore." No. I’m sorry, this is a fault that must be laid directly at the author’s door. Unreadable prose is one thing–any writer whose language is incomprehensible should be sent back to 8th grade (along with his/her editor).
But stories that promise a full narrative experience, then go soft, spin wheels, disappear down side roads, run out of gas–they are something else. I’m not talking about fraud–honestly, I think most perpetrators sinfully slack stories feel they’ve done a pretty good job, but let’s face it: authors don’t automatically receive rigorous training in story
stucture. And it shows.
How this came to be so is a complex matter. As the 20th Century picked up steam, traditional narrative values in fiction were set upon and crippled by a number of revolutionary cultural influences like world war and mass industrialism (and the imagination they spawned). The top of the literary tree became a free zone for aestheticism gone wild, with notions like rich imaginative texture trumping strong structural drive.
In our time, ignorance and laziness is (and was) part of the picture too. It’s fiendishly hard work, building this tightly-crafted, but casual-seeming, story that just won’t let you quit reading.
Frankly, some authors have never had the experience of working their way to a perfect story, draft by grueling draft. They are phenoms, intellectually brilliant, certainly creative in their way–but naively deficient in structure. You can almost predict where, and probably why, they will lose their hold on their story and begin tap dancing (usually about halfway through). Among them are prize-winners, proving a long-held theory of mine, that many prize judges read only 50 pages or so of the books they tout.
Finally, and I cringe to say it, there’s a sort of traditional snobbery among high-fashion mainstream fiction writers, and it has been around forever: "too much concentration on pure story isn’t literary. It’s just tacky (like Syd Field). Or archaic (like Aristotle). A little bit…"Hollywood."
In any form of snobbery, peer group stuff is more expressive of the snob’s own social or artistic insecurity than anything else. Here, what’s actually being said is, "isn’t it pretty to be we happy few–especially when they’re not?" Do ordinary readers want stories that begin in fascination, develop irresistable momentum, and achieve clear, satisfying resolutions? Let them go to the movies…" (…I won’t follow that to its logical conclusion.
Is Syd Field the answer? No, but Syd Field knows the answer, and how to pass it on, while lamentably too few literary fiction writers even know the question.
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