Teaching Narrative Writing with Frankenstories

Using all the elements

Another way we know a story has ended is when we feel like the key story elements have been used up.

"Used up" means they have all been combined in a way that has triggered some kind of meaningful change—and none are left hanging around, unused.

For example, let's consider how all the story elements are used across the whole of The Fisherman and His Wife.

The initial platform for this story introduces and combines four story elements:

  • Fisherman
  • Wife
  • Shack
  • Sea

The couple's routine is interrupted by introducing and combining two new elements:

  • Enchanted fish
  • Wishes

And the platform tilts when the flounder grants the first wish and changes the shack to a cottage.

From the interruption onwards, The Fisherman and His Wife does not introduce any more story elements.

  • The tilt changes the shack to a cottage—but it's still the same element. (It's still their home, only the qualities of their home have changed.)

Introducing a fixed set of story elements at the beginning is not unusual for a short story.

What is unusual is that this story also doesn't make any new combinations after the tilt. Instead, it keeps recombining the same elements within a new routine.

Before the tilt, we have the following combinations:

  • The wife in the home
  • The fish in the sea
  • The fisherman at home and at sea
  • The wife gives a wish to the fisherman
  • The fisherman takes the wish to the fish

After the tilt, all we get is routine recombination:

  • The fish grants the wish and the fisherman goes back to his home and wife, finding both have changed
  • His wife gives him another wish
  • Repeat!

"Using up" the story elements in The Fisherman and His Wife

All the elements are combined early, but that doesn't necessarily mean they have been "used up".

Each combination triggers changes, in a continual loop.

Each time a wish is granted:

  • The home becomes more extravagant
  • The wife becomes more ambitious
  • The fisherman becomes more uneasy
  • The sea becomes more dangerous
  • The fish becomes more irritated

Finally, the wife makes the biggest possible wish: she demands to be God. That is the breaking point for the fish, who rescinds the wishes and resets the platform.

We understand that the wife's wishes can't get any bigger or go any further, so when the fish rejects that final wish, we sense the story is done.

(This idea of meaningful change is an important topic in its own right. For now, let's focus on the idea that, as an audience, we want to see all the story elements play a role in creating that change.)

An important, underlying idea here is that good narratives are generally efficient:

  • All story elements are combined at least once
  • Main elements are used more than once
  • There are minimal (if any) last-minute introductions

For example, The Fisherman and His Wife does not introduce:

  • Their son who likes to do carpentry
  • A rival king who complains to his queen about their new royal neighbours
  • A shark friend for the magic flounder

If it did, it would have to find some way to use them to make the story coherent and satisfying.

Equally, the story doesn't abandon elements:

  • The fish doesn't disappear
  • The fisherman doesn't wander off
  • It doesn't forget about the wife halfway through, etc

The story introduces a fixed set of elements and then uses them all.

Longer stories usually introduce more elements, take longer to combine them, and often shelve elements temporarily then reincorporate them later.

(It's worth pointing out that not all cultures in all periods value efficiency to the degree we're suggesting here. But for contemporary Western narrative, this is a good rule of thumb.)

It's notable that this story doesn't attempt to come up with any new combinations of elements:

  • The fisherman doesn't run away to live in the sea with the fish
  • The fisherman doesn't swap his wife's wish with one of his own
  • His wife doesn't cut the fisherman out of the picture and go to the sea to talk to the fish directly
  • The wife doesn't bring the fish to live in the palace where it can grant her wishes more quickly

The Fisherman and His Wife doesn't do any of that.

Instead, it combines all the elements at the beginning and repeats the same combinations over and over.

So why isn't the story boring? What makes it work?

Even though the combinations are repeated, they keep creating new and interesting changes.

This model of narrative efficiency is useful when writing and editing stories. How do we teach it?

Efficient narrative often comes from editing superfluous draft material.

Being live and improvisational, Frankenstories tend to be less efficient as players introduce elements that they drop, forget about, or don't know how to combine.

However, players can always aspire to efficiency, and sometimes they might pull it off!

For example, One More Story introduces:

  • Mr Flip
  • Ghosts
  • Stories
  • Book

All of these elements are used.

(And, as in The Fisherman and His Wife, they are "used up" when the central routine reaches a breaking point: Mr Flip collects all the stories, so the ghosts convert him into a story and add him to their book.)

Core concepts

  • Narratives introduce story elements.
  • Throughout the story, elements are combined in different ways.
  • These combinations trigger changes in the elements.
  • By the end of a story, we expect all the elements to have been "used up"—meaning, combined in some way that ultimately triggers a change in themselves and/or another element.
  • If elements aren't used, the story can feel inefficient or incomplete.

Analysis activity

  • Highlight all story elements, combinations, and changes in a complete story.
  • Tabulate your findings: what do you notice?
  • Analyse: how does the distribution reflect the structure and effectiveness of the story?

Below some Frankenstories that do a good job of combining elements:

Sample table of combination data from Beast vs Bubbles

 

And here is a Frankenstory that doesn't do such a good job (so you can see how it is less satisfying):

Tabulating weak combination data in Trash and Treachery

Game 1: Standard game but encourage using all story elements

  • One way to practice is to simply remind players to use all the elements introduced in the game.
  • There are no round-specific requirements, just try to combine any elements that are introduced and have key elements change if possible.

Game 2: Intros allowed in R1&2 only

  • Play a standard 5-round game, any narrative prompt, but tell players they cannot introduce any new story elements after Round 2.
  • By Round 5 they should have combined each story element at least once.
  • Ideally the most important elements will have changed in some way.
  • Demo game: Crossed and Double-Crossed

Game 3: Specify the elements before the game

  • You can also try giving the players a list of elements before the game (e.g. computer hacker, shark, parade).
  • Players can introduce, develop, and combine the elements in any order—but they need to use them all.
    • You can choose whether or not to allow additional introductions.
  • This scaffolding could make the game easier, because players already know what they're working with, or harder, if the elements are difficult to combine.
  • Demo game: Checkplate!
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