Story structure is one of those topics that has already been beaten to death, but that I unavoidably keep coming back to. Somehow, each video or article on story structure always contains a promise of precisely that fix which I need, as if it will, with a simple trick, resolve all my storytelling issues and put the whole story into place.
Videos and articles on story structure typically present their ideas as objective, almost scientific, and all the different structural concepts as necessary to your story. They promise so much for so little. No wonder that, when the inevitable doubt takes over our writing process, our hope latches onto these solutions.
However, to me, all of these videos and articles seemed to offer a quick fix, but no real understanding. All of the different concepts, like the inciting incident, the midpoint, the dark night of the soul, always seemed to be the surface layer of the story. I never understood them – I was just presented to them, as if storytelling is a precise science which was cracked by Hollywood. But all of these concepts seemed like symptoms of the true core of story structure which was something deeper. And it actually is.
The reason for this is simple, in my opinion: the left-brain has hijacked the concept of story structure so that even people who do not write good stories, or stories at all, can share their ideas about it. With a few fancy concepts, such as the inciting incident, reversal, midpoint, climactic choice, you can sound convincing and professional, yet say absolutely nothing useful. You can sound almost scientific, but in no way be in touch with the creative process.
Story structure is not a puzzle or a problem which the left-brain needs to solve. It is not a template which needs to be filled, nor a list to be checked off.
Story structure is an emergent property of every story. It comes from within, because a story is self-erecting. The structure cannot be imposed from the outside; rather, it is found in the interaction between the core components of the story.
These core components of story structure are beliefs.
The beliefs of the protagonist and the characters (or the world) around them erect the structure of the story. And the beliefs are already contained within the story, because that’s what a story is about. It’s about beliefs, not midpoints and climaxes.
Everything in this world follows a structure: from chemical elements, to physical matter, to biological organism and societies. Structure is the emergent and necessary property of the connection and relations of elements within a system that makes that system understandable.
A human being is like a system. Our beliefs are a system. They are connected and inter-related and therefore structured. That’s why we can analyze them, understand them and write stories about them. Because of the nature of human beliefs, the story structure necessarily emerges out of them.
You don’t need to check any boxes or obey any templates.
You just need to find the core belief of your protagonist and the web of beliefs that it connects to. The structure necessarily emerge out of it.
Why analyzing stories doesn’t help with story structured
No amount of analyzing stories will ever yield insight into story structure or stories as such.
Because an analysis is not a creative act, it has no place in determining how a creative process should look like. Because it is a left-brain activity, analysis tears apart complexity to gain understanding, but it cannot use the same process to build up and create this complexity again. Another process is needed for that, i.e., the creative process of the right-brain.
Story analysis is a process which extracts concepts from a story, which tames the chaos of creativity for our minds to understand more easily (i.e. story → concepts). But this doesn’t mean the process is commutative and that we can apply these concepts back onto the creative process to write the story, in the same way we extracted them (i.e., concepts → story).
In mathematics, addition is a commutative operation because changing the operands does not change the result. Thus, 2 + 3 equals 5, but also 3 + 2 equals 5.
However, a story analysis (or any analysis of art) is an operation which is not commutative. Changing the direction of the operands does not lead the same results. The analysis can extract concepts from a great story to find out why it is great, but it cannot apply these concepts to a story to make it great.
It is more like division, than addition. 5 – 3 equals 2, but 3 – 5 does not equal 2 (it’s -2). Division is not commutative and neither is any analysis.
The operation of an analysis is something like:
Complete story – story inessentials = story structure concepts (story essentials)
But:
Story structure concepts + story inessentials ≠ complete story
Story inessentials – complete story ≠ Story structure concepts
The concepts extracted via analysis, a left-brain activity, cannot in any way inform storytelling, a right-brain activity. They can only hinder this process.
This is the case because story structure concepts are taken out of a story and then attempted to be imposed upon it. They are not emergent within the story, as true story structure is.
To further press on this point, and demonstrate why any sort of story analysis cannot be used in the writing process, we can look at the difference between differentiation and integration in calculus:
- Analyzing a story to derive concepts is like performing differentiation. When you differentiate a function, you distill it into its derivative, which captures the essential rate of change or behavior at any point. Similarly, analyzing a story distills it into abstract concepts or themes that encapsulate its essence.
- Starting from concepts to reconstruct a story is like attempting to perform the reverse operation: integration. Integration, while it reconstructs a function from its derivative, often includes an unknown constant (the “constant of integration”). This reflects the fact that many different stories could correspond to the same set of concepts, just as many functions can have the same derivative. Without additional information, you can’t reconstruct the original function – or story – exactly.
The key insight here is that differentiation (analyzing a story) reduces complexity to a simpler form, while integration (rebuilding from concepts) requires extra information or creative input, and there’s no unique or guaranteed way to recreate the original story, i.e., you cannot create a story at all.
In short:
- Differentiation → Concepts from Stories
- Integration → Reconstructing Stories from Concepts (non-unique, requires assumptions or, in out words, it requires creativity).
Hence, there is no feedback loop between creative writing and analyzing stories. You can distill stories into abstract concepts, but you can in no way use this to help the creative process. The process of analysis does not lead back to where it came from.
The concepts we use to think about story structure (and stories as such) need to come from the nature of story Ideas and not from analyzing them. We need to find these truths from within the creative process and not impose them from outside.
What story structure really is
There are two different aspects of story structure:
1.) The structure which makes a story recognizable as a story – true story structure
2.) The structure of experiences the characters and audience goes through – storytelling structure
The first is what we will focus on, because it is the foundation of stories. It is the real structure.
The second is what most other people focus on and erroneously believe story structure is. But they make a crucial mistake: they believe because there is a most effective way to order experiences the characters and audience goes through, that this is how stories “work”.
The experiences of the characters and the audience are just storytelling tools, not the core components of story. What you make the characters and the audience feel and think is not the core to stories, but to storytelling. The core component of the story idea are beliefs.
A story is really about a truth of the human condition which is mapped onto beliefs. These beliefs are then given to characters to enable you to tell a story. But characters are simply vessels for beliefs. Their experiences, structured by their beliefs, are what enables us to explore those beliefs and the truth of the human condition.
Thus, if beliefs give meaning and structure to our experiences, then these experiences do not lie at the heart of the story.
The mistake of the “Save the Cat” beat sheet, or the Hero’s Journey, or Dan Harmon’s story circle, which I believe can be great tools, is that they focus on storytelling structure, not on story structure.
They describe the most effective order of experience’s which the character and the audience can go through to reach a change of beliefs, i.e., a personal transformation.
Storytelling structure orders the experiences the audience follows into a meaningful pattern. That pattern is called transformation. It lays out the events and experiences which yield the most understanding to the audience as to why a character changes (or even sticks to) their beliefs.
Because storytelling deals with understanding, it focuses on the audience. It lays out the reasons, in forms of thoughts, emotions and actions, as to why the character changes or sticks to their beliefs. It attempts to make sense how a human being moves through different beliefs.
For example, the “all-is-lost” and “dark night night of the soul” moments are simply the most negative experience the character (and the audience with them) goes through. This kind of a negative experience is a powerful and, most importantly, understandable event which gives the audience a reason as to why the character changed their beliefs. Because their old belief led them to such a low-point, it is understandable that they would want to change and to finally accept the new belief and shift their perception.
But notice: the change of beliefs is instantaneous and completely hidden from us. It is just a flipping of switch. We don’t actually see it – but we can understand it. “Why did the character now, of all times, accept the new belief? They could have just done it at the beginning”. This is usually the case with stories – we know what we have to do, but we refuse to do it until we have suffered enough.
Until the pain of staying the same overcomes the pain of change, we will remain as we are. This kind of a “beat” does not and cannot show the change of belief, but it does make it understandable.
The storytelling structure does just and only that: it creates meaningful experiences that enable the audience to understand why the protagonist did or did not change their belief. But these experiences are not the foundation of story structure, but of the structure of how humans understand change and personal transformation.
But what determines our experience of the world? What makes some experiences meaningful?
As I hinted above, it’s beliefs. They are the core of true story structure.
Why are beliefs the building blocks of story structure?
I define story as an eternal idea which reflects a truth of the human condition. However, we don’t always have direct access to this truth. These truths are mediated by our minds. And the part of our mind responsible for this mediation is our system of beliefs and believing.
However, because the faculty of believing only mediates between the realm of eternal ideas (i.e., truths) and this physical reality, it is prone to mistakes. It is capable of disfiguring the truth into a lie or a half-truth. This is why we can have a faulty conception of what the human condition really is.
Reason, on the other hand, is the faculty of the human mind which deals with abstract truths about the nature of reality. But believing is a faculty of the mind which transforms these truths reason only ruminates about, into truths about the human condition, because it has to acts them out and then constructs a real life. It leads to action and to choices and not just abstract philosophizing.
It is in our beliefs where the truths of the human condition play out. We believe something when we act as if something is true.
A belief is always necessarily held as truth. Believing is like a mechanism which transforms every input, a fact about life or reality as such, into a truth. Every fact which enters this black box, be it true or false, is then taken as true, no matter what its “objective” truth value is. And it is then acted out as if it were the truth.
Beliefs are our attitudes to ideas, not our alignment with their true nature. And this connection of believing to truth, the fact that believing necessarily takes ideas as truths and mediates between these two realms, is why beliefs construct the structure of stories.
Beliefs, therefore, determine our life. What I believe about myself and my life will create and structure the life I actually live. Depending on the belief, all of my experiences will taken on a specific meaning and significance. Depending on the belief, I will act in a specific way.
Beliefs also create our world. Depending on what the majority of people believe, or at least on what the dominant belief of the collective unconscious is, that’s how our world will be created and shaped. The world is shaped first and foremost by beliefs.
Therefore, because beliefs determine human life and create the world we live in, i.e., they structure it, they also erect the structure of the story. If believes are the creative force within this life, they are the creative force within the story.
True story structure is then the web of beliefs that lays the foundation of the story world and the life of the protagonist.
True story structure emerges out of the connections and relations between the core beliefs within the story. Those beliefs are that of the protagonist and the opposing or conflicting belief.
Therefore, the two core aspects needed for story structure are:
1.) at least 2 beliefs
2.) their connection and relation (which is actually their opposition, i.e., conflict)
That’s it.
The main connection between beliefs is conflict. It is opposition or even contradiction which relates beliefs in a story and solidifies them into a firm structure. Moreover, beliefs on each side of the conflict can have other beliefs which support it and stand on its side. A story can contain many beliefs, but it contains one main conflict.
It is conflict (or contradiction) which is the true connection between beliefs. Only through conflict can we follow the journey through the beliefs and actually understand a change in beliefs.
In philosophy, two premises are connected by logic and contradiction defeats any attempt at a conclusion. But we rarely change our beliefs through logical thinking. It is most often when our belief is contradicted by another one, by a possibility of a different life, that we are able to make that jump. True transformation is connected by conflict, not reciprocity or logic.
To summarize, true story structure is erected by at least two beliefs: that which the protagonist currently holds and the opposing belief that comes to challenge them. The conflicting belief can be held by the rest of the world (i.e., other characters) or it can arise within the protagonist themselves. However, because this new belief does not cohere with their web of beliefs, thus begins the process of searching for coherence, i.e., the story, and true change becomes possible.
The 2 principles of story structure
1.) A story has 3 acts
2.) A story is an argument about how to live
These are the only 2 principles of what story structure really is.
Story structure is crystalized into 3 acts.
I always wondered why a story should have three acts. It seemed like an ad hoc supposition. There was no argumentation as to why that is the case, but everyone seemed to accept it. Not everyone of course, some came up with 4 act structures or beat sheets, but the three act structure was the predominant method which was thought since Aristotle.
I tried to rebel against it, but now I have come to the conclusion that the three act structure is the one and only story structure there is. There is no escaping it due to the nature of human life.
Here is the argument:
First, the only necessary elements of human life are birth and death. Without birth, there is no life to begin with. There is also no evidence that a living being avoided death, hence, there is no life without death.
Second, everything in between birth and death is distinguished from both birth and death, because otherwise, birth and death would be the same. In other words, if nothing is separating birth and death, then they are not different to each other. Hence, there is a third part, a middle part of life, which is living as such, that is also a necessary.
Therefore, life has three stages: birth, living and death.
Third, as stories follow human life, then they need to unfold in the same way human life does. Hence, stories unfold in three stages because human life does as well.
This is the proof that stories have three acts. These acts function in a similar vein as life does.
However, life is not the core subject matter of stories, because it is too complex. Beliefs lie at the center of stories because they are a core part of human life and one that is complex enough to be meaningful, but not too complex to be too chaotic and meaningless.
The three acts follow the birth, life and death of beliefs. They follow the belief that is accepted from birth, i.e., beginning of story, that is challenged as life is lived, i.e., in the middle part of the story, and that is either held onto or changed in the end, i.e., at the end of the story.
A story feels complete, even when there is more to tell about a human life, precisely because what was truly followed in a story was the life-cycle of a belief, not of a person.
The first act shows the life a character created due to their core belief.
The second act shows the character struggle between their core belief and the opposing belief.
The third act shows a character either choose to stick with their core belief or to accept the opposing belief or to transcend this binary opposition and embrace a completely new belief.
Depending on whether the truth resides in the protagonists core belief, the opposing belief, or in a transcendent belief, that is how a character arc emerges.
2.) A story is an argument about how to live
Now that we proved a story has three acts, it’s time to go deeper.
Story structure is in essence an argument about how to life.
The closest analogy, therefore, to story structure is the structure of a syloggism, not a template about which events or “beats” need to happen when.
In philosophy, a syloggism has at least two premises and a conclusion. Here, the premises are positively connected and the conclusion follows from the principles of logic, which connect the premises to the conclusion.
Stories and beliefs follow a similar, yet slightly tweaked structure. The two premises are two beliefs, but they are negatively connected, or rather, they stand in tension and opposition.
The two beliefs are in opposition and the conclusion to the story does not follow from the connection of the premises, but, rather, from their conflict or contradiction. It either denies one premise (belief), or it transcends them and concludes a completely new belief.
In logic (the classical kind at least), there is a principle of non-contradiction which says that if two premises are contradictory, any conclusion is possible.
But stories rely precisely on contradiction, or at least on opposition, contrast and tension.
In logic, contradiction means anything in possible and that is not useful to reach a conclusion.
But for stories, precisely the contradiction and opposition allow for something new to emerge. Beliefs which stand in contrast enable the insight of a new truth which transcends this opposition.
As I already pointed out, it is the tension between two beliefs which erects the story structure.
Logic cannot transcend its rules. Contradiction is useless to logic because nothing can be inferred (because everything is possible). But beliefs can only be changed and transcended when they come into conflict and tension with other beliefs.
For beliefs, contradiction means change is possible. Contradiction does not mean anything is possible, but that something new is possible. Tension and opposition means that transcendence of the current life is possible.
Contradictory beliefs lead to a deeper understanding of life. Without contradiction, all experiences will just be made of conform and cohere to our current understanding of life.
To summarize, a story has three acts. The acts correspond to the life of a belief. The life of a belief most closely resembles the structure of a syloggism, but instead of a logical connection, beliefs need to be in contrast. A syloggism is an application of logical connectives to at least two premises to reach a conclusion. A story is an application of contradiction and conflict between at least two beliefs to reach a transformation.
The structure of a syloggism is utterly simple. It does not have 7, 10 or 16 beats. Once you grasp this, how story structure is actually an argument about how to live, you will no longer have a problem with story structure. It is, in essence, simple; but the more important your argument, the more difficult it is to understand it and make it compelling.
How to find your story structure
To find the structure of your story, you need the following 4 elements:
1.) The core belief of your protagonist
2.) The opposing belief
3.) The final belief
4.) The truth of the human condition
Because storytelling is a process, it does not matter in which order you find, or rather, crystalize, these elements. The “Save the Cat beet sheet” makes it necessary to start with the “status quo”, i.e., the core belief of the protagonist, but you can just as well start with the opposing belief, as many action movies can attest to.
All of the elements are connected and therefore, once you have one, you can find the rest. This is also precisely the strength of this approach to story structure: all of these elements are inter-connected and mutually supportive. The story structure emerges precisely through their connections and not through their content.
The strength of a wall lies in the strength of the connection between the bricks, not in the bricks themselves. The same is true for a diamond: it is the relations between the carbon atoms which gives the diamond its structure and strength.
Therefore, story structure which has a linear template, like the different story beat templates (i.e., Hero’s journey or Save the cat), is very loose. They only connect experiences (externalized as events, or “beats” or plot points), but experiences are temporal, i.e., linear. Experiences only connect to what immediately precedes them and what will follow next. They can’t view the big picture, or the depths of it.
True story structure needs to underlie every moment of the story, every scene and every line of dialogue. And it is precisely the beliefs which are always present, because they make up both the protagonist and the world. By showcasing how beliefs determine life in every scene, your story gains a true structure.
To be more concrete:
In the 1st act, you demonstrates the life your protagonist lives based on their core belief. Then, you introduce the opposite or contradictory belief, also known as the inciting incident, which begins the conflict and propels us into the 2nd act.
In the 2nd act, you show the argument between the core and opposing beliefs. The protagonist is pushed from one side to the other, and it is unclear which life they will choose.
In the 3rd act, you resolve the story when the character figures out a truth of the human condition. This truth is then crystalized either as contained within the core belief, in the opposing belief or it can give rise to a belief which transcends this binary opposition between these two beliefs.
This is all you need. A core belief and its opposing belief. Once you introduce them to each other, the argument begins until the protagonist make a final choice which belief they will embrace.
Analysis of “A Clockwork Orange”
I want to apply everything I talked about on a proper example. We will look at “A Clockwork Orange”, which is one of my favorite movies and one of the best films ever made. I only recently realized the brilliance of its structure and it’s the perfect example to make my theory more clear.
The film begins with the iconic milk-bar scene and prepares us for an unforgettable night of “ultra-violence”. We follow Alex and his “droogs” on a night out, filled with unbridled indulgence in violence and sex. They beat up a homeless person, then fight with a rival gang, and finally break into a home of a writer, crippling him and raping his wife.
The 1st act perfectly sets up Alex and his life, as well as the world he inhabits. It is dirty world, almost post-apocalyptic, plagued by societal issues and decadence. It is a world and a life created by a core belief which constitutes the one side of the equation.
The core belief is that one is free to do what they want. Alex believes he is free to indulge in his desires no matter the cost and with no hindsight of other people. And that’s what what we see him do and precisely why the world around him is the way that it is. This belief constitutes his life and his identity.
If I wanted to simplify this belief to an archetypal one, it would be that of “homo homini lupus”. That man a wolf to another man, that each person only cares about their own interest and, at their very core, does not have an inner sense of morality. Alex is the representation of this kind of a man, one who only cares about himself, his own enjoyment and desires, and has no moral compass.
But because of this belief, he is also violent toward his gang members and that costs him his freedom. They seek equality, but Alex does not give it to them. He gives them a beating instead. This is crucial. Alex has a choice to turn away from his selfishness and finally grant the wishes of others, but he refuses it. He is confronted by a new belief and he immediately pushes back against it. However, this is not the opposite belief yet.
The opposite belief is not a simple platitude that “you should care about others” or “become selfless”. It is obvious Alex is a horrible person and it is obvious he should change for the better. But the story is not about good and evil; it is actually about something else.
Coming back to the story, after invading the home of the “cat-lady”, Alex bludgeons her to death, but is set-up by his “droogs”. They smash a bottle on his head and leave him to the police. As Alex is sentenced to a life without the freedom to indulge his violent urges, the film finally enters the 2nd act and a new belief is introduced, the one which truly contradicts Alex’s core belief life.
The opposing belief is that the State is the one which can and should “cure” individuals from their own immoral urges and desires. Only the State is able to subdue these natural urges for violence, sex and other self-interests, and instill a moral compass within a person.
To further highlight the argumentative structure of stories, we can draw a parallel between Thomas Hobbs’ argument in “Leviathan” and the story of “A Clockwork Orange”. If you are not familiar with this text, the work basically lays out a philosophical argument that life in the state of nature is short and brutish, that men are inherently self-interested and immoral, and that it is the State, the social contract between people, which subdues Man and gives him a sense of morality.
Alex is the representation of this “natural man” who only cares about his urges and even Kubrick said he is the “representation of evil”. The State, on the other hand, and the Minister in particular, are the representation of the political State which, so Hobbes claims, is the only mechanism which can change human nature, or at least tame it, to make people model citizens which will obey law and live decent lives without crime.
The film, i.e., the story, takes this same argument proposed by Hobbes, only in a philosophical manner, but plays it out through the lives of characters set in a specific world and a specific time. The philosophical argument is universal and abstract, but the story is that same argument made concrete and particular. The argument isn’t changed yet the form of telling it is completely different.
The State, and the mechanism by which it reprograms “evil” human nature and instills in people “goodness, obedience and morality”, is represented by the “Ludovico technique”. This is an experimental aversion therapy for rehabilitating criminals within two weeks, which subtly criticizes the methods of behavioral psychology as well.
The 2nd act then, is the part where Alex’ belief is challenged and the conflict with the opposing belief starts. The doctors drip a drug into Alex’s exes and show him footage of the immoral behavior in an attempt to instill in him an aversion towards these vices. They attempt to change him, but not by changing his belief – they try to impose a transformation externally.
And, as will be seen, this is not possible. It is not possible to change human nature by simply changing a person’s psychology and their behavior.
This is also why I chose this film to make my point. If changing a person’s psychology and their behavior does not change who they truly are – what does? The answer is of course: a belief. Only believes truly change the deepest parts of a human being. They are an act of the free-will and cannot be imposed from the outside. But that’s not what the “Ludovico method” is about. It is about behavior and psychology, not about beliefs.
Free-will is also a central topic of the film, but I don’t want to talk more about it now (because an entire separate essay can be written about it). I just want to point out that transformation of a belief and of a life are a consequence of free-will, not of psychological or behavioral changes.
Coming back to the story’s structure, the opposing belief is never, as I already pointed out, that one shouldn’t be violent and rape people. Alex never leads this debate within himself: he never questions his violent impulses nor does he strive for the better. The true argument of the movie happens on a more meta-level.
Because this is a social satire, Alex and the State are representations of two contradictory beliefs. They are used to show the argument I laid out above, being play out. The selfish man in the state of nature versus the moral man changed by the political state.
After the tortures scenes of the Ludovico method, Alex is finally “cured”, or at least, he appears to be so. The method is the perfect representation of the mechanism by which the State changes human beings, as it is a mockery on Hobbs’ argument about the influence of the state. The mechanism by which the State models moral citizens is neither natural, nor successful.
Thus, Alex is released from prison and the 3rd act begins. The two sides of the argument have been laid out and now its time to see which sides wins. His immoral belief still dwells within him, but his psychology and behavior represent the belief of the State that it has succeeded in making a model citizen.
I love this next section, because it mirrors the 1st act perfectly. All the scenes, all the characters Alex interacted with before, are now back. We got to see Alex’s life under the first belief and now, like a mirror image, his life with the belief which the State imposed upon him.
First, Alex bumps into the vagrant who he beat up earlier, and now he is the one getting beaten. He is saved by the police, only to find out these are his two droogs, who then almost drown him as he is unable to defend himself. Alex wakes up at the home of Mr. Alexander who saved him, but after singing “Singing in the rain”, he is locked up in a room. As Mr. Alexander tortures him with Beethoven’s music, Alex has come to the end of the argument. And the only way out of it he sees, is to commit suicide.
Which side of the argument won? Are people inherently and unavoidably self-interested and evil, or can the state really reform people? The solution to the argument does not lie at either side of the equation. Alex is left at the mercy of the world. He has been changed, but the world sure hasn’t. He is left with nothing to defend himself against the still violent and brutish world.
Alex wakes up in the hospital as the Minister arrives and apologises to him for putting him through the Ludovico method. Alex no longer has aversion to sex and violence – he has regained his old self, which he never actually lost, as his beliefs never truly changed and he never put them into question. The State tried to change Alex’s beliefs, but it is the world that truly shapes our beliefs. The state is powerless in this regard as it’s the world which is the belief-maker.
I believe this is a story about how the beliefs that dominate the world, impose beliefs on the individual. If the whole world around you is brutal and decaying, you will inherit this belief. The world is a brutal place and so is Alex. The world remains a brutal place after his apparent reformation, so the world just reimposes the old beliefs onto him.
And I believe this is confirmed with the ending. The Minister offers to take care of Alex and get him a job in return for his co-operation with his election campaign and any public relations problems. He offers him a choice. And this choice actually offers him the cure to his evil belief. That cure is a government job. Safety and money.
In a way, Alex in the end accepts the belief that the State does impose morality upon us and subdues our natural urges. But it does so by granting people safety, money and social status; in other words, once the State grands someone a comfortable world, they will not want to ruin it. The State truly can make model citizens out of people, but only when it is properly working – which the state in the film surely isn’t. If it isn’t working properly… then you actually create people like Alex, not any model citizens.
If the State offers a person a decaying, almost post-apocalyptic world, then people will adopt the belief this kind of a world purports. As a low-life, Alex had no reason to change, because the world was as cruel as him. But with a nice government job, he becomes a part of the middle class. He doesn’t need violence anymore, because he does not want to sacrifice his comfort.
The final belief Alex ends up with is that he can himself subdue his impulses, because he does not want to lose the new job and the new comfort. He becomes a model citizen, not by a change of belief, not because the State changed Alex himself in any way, but because it offered him a new environment. If he acts violently now, he might lose all that he has gained and possibly end up in prison again where, again, he won’t be able to satisfy his desires.
To recap:
1.) Alex holds the core belief that he should live his life according to his urges and impulses, no matter what they are and whom they harm – as long as he himself is satisfied and his own interests are taken care of, then his life is accomplished.
2.) The opposing belief is that the role of the political State is in making model citizens out of people. The Minister holds this belief and states that it is only the State which can cure people of their natural tendencies and impose morality into them, independent of their free will.
3.) The final belief Alex ends up with is that, although he regained his immoral impulses, because he has also gained a steady job and a secured future, he no longer has to indulge in them. He now has comfort and he shouldn’t sacrifice that.
4.) The truth about the human condition is that it is our environment, the world around us, which determines our actions and whether we indulge in immoral behavior. The environment we live in, created by the State, imposes beliefs on us. A change in the environment then, changes our beliefs.
The whole story is an argument between the core and opposing beliefs. It is Hobbs’ philosophical argument, embodied in a set of characters living at a particular time and a particular place. It is an argument lived by people.
The 1st act sets up Alex’s core belief by showcasing the life that he leads and the world he is a part of. The 2nd act introduces the opposing belief, that is represented by the State and the “Ludovico method”, which the Minister tries to impose on Alex. The 3rd act, finally, unleashes these two beliefs into conflict, i.e., into an argument. Alex is torn between his enjoyment and desire for violence and the behavioral and psychological changes instilled in him in prison. His final choice is to commit suicide, because he can no longer live with this duality within himself.
He can no longer be a “clockwork orange”: part mechanical (the non-belief change imposed on him by the state) and part organic (the belief imposed on him by his very nature).
What he can however be, is a middle class citizen, with a steady job and a secure income stream. Why should he be violent when he can be comfortable?
Conclusion
With this essay I wanted to offer more grounding to what story structure is, instead of giving you a template which you have to fill.
I hope you really do have a better understanding of what story structure really is.
The core ingredient of story structure are beliefs. Beliefs determine the character’s life and construct the world around them. The structure emerges once the core belief of the protagonist comes into conflict with an opposing or contradictory belief.
In Act 1, the protagonist’s core belief determines their “status quo”. I.e., their life is the way it is because of what they most firmly believe. Then, this life, their core belief, is challenged and conflict begins.
In Act 2, the protagonist is living out the argument, pushed and pulled between two contradictory beliefs, between two completely different lives.
In Act 3, the character either changes their core belief, or holds onto their old belief more tightly, or transcends the binary of these two beliefs.
Beliefs are all you need to have a firm story structure. Nothing else.