Nontraditional Plot Structures for Neurodiverse Writers – Book Tour and Giveaway

JOURNEY: THE TRADITIONAL PLOT STRUCTURE

Despite this book being about nontraditional plot structures, it’s very important that I establish what is considered traditional. I need to show exactly how nontraditional plots deviate from the traditional Journey and why they do so. There are philosophical reasons behind these choices. Mode has meaning.

• It has a beginning, middle, and end.
• It is closely aligned with Realism and seeks to create a mirror or museum-quality image of the world.
• There is an inciting incident that begins the events of the story. This event pushes the “world” out of equilibrium.
• The story follows a hero who must achieve a goal of high stakes. This goal must be difficult and solid. We must be able to know clearly and obviously when the hero has achieved the goal.
• The hero will face obstacles, set backs, even weakness. At some point, the hero will undergo a crisis and question everything.
• Characters around the hero assume a pyramid like structure of importance; those of lesser importance tend to be flat and not important enough to pay attention to. Characters appear in the story to help or hinder the hero’s goal.
• All actions have meaning. Everything that is happening has an overarching meaning. It has a beginning, middle, and an end. It is closely aligned with Realism.
• At the climax, everything changes. The hero could fulfill their goal or not. Everything that will happen after this point is entirely different than what came before.
• After the Hero achieves the goal, all final questions are answered.
• The world is again in a state of equilibrium.

The reason why the great majority of novels, short stories, TV shows, movies, etc. have a Journey structure is because it is the easiest form for an audience to access. It seems to resemble our lives.

The characters experience events that we recognize and experience. They talk like us and act like us and feel like us. With the advent of Realism in the 19th century, characters became more psychologically real to us. Journey is also based on simple cause and effect.

There are things a Journey embodies that reflect a certain philosophy in life.

A Journey is about one main character. For several hundred years that character had to have a powerful position in society.

Time moves forward. There is a clear beginning to the story; nothing that happens before is not important enough to show. Anything that happens after the ending isn’t important to show.

Events are governed by cause and effect. They have an impact on one another. Everything happens for a reason. Everything that happens is meaningful.

The hero is the center of the story, the main character. There are minor characters who aid the main character. Their purpose is tied to the main character’s; otherwise, they wouldn’t be in the story. People who aren’t present in the story aren’t necessary for the hero’s journey.

This is considered Realism and good storytelling, but it isn’t reality. None of those things happen in the world. We do not experience our lives as a Journey structure. Yes, the beginning is birth and the end is death, but even that can be debated philosophical and religiously.

CHAOS: A NONTRADITIONAL PLOT STRUCTURE

WHAT IS IT?

• Chaos is a collection of elements that may seem random and meaningless, yet have a string connecting them into a coherent structure. The structure is not obvious, but it is present.

WHY IS IT APPEALING TO NEURODIVERSE WRITERS?

• pure sensory experience, good for hypersensitive writers
• the apparent lack of a structure allows for impulsivity and short texts threaded together
• “stream of consciousness” creates a free-flowing unloading of ideas and themes
• infodump meets emotiondump
• conventional social interaction isn’t necessary
• no complex psychological realism is necessary

EXAMPLES

• social media pages
  • Instagram, Facebook, X, Mastodon, Tumblr, etc.
• writers’ notebooks
• Surrealism and Dada
• Collage
• short story anthologies

The ironic thing is that the traditional Journey plot structure and the Chaos structure are two different versions of the same structure. All of these nontraditional structures are all different versions of one another.

Using the map at the right, the Journey story would follow the line and visit each location point. The Chaos story, however, would include ONLY the blue location points. Or, the blue and the red and in different orders.

Chaos is purposely rejects organization, cause and effect, and logic.

The string of a Chaos structure isn’t easily discerned, but all events that occur within that structure are related, even if it isn’t clear. It can seem like nonsense or even gibberish, but there’s always a connection. A timeline can loop or invert. An audience may have no idea what’s happening. The result is more of an emotional one rather than logical. I form this interpretation using the scientific definition of Chaos:

Chaos theory states that within the apparent randomness of chaotic complex systems, there are underlying patterns, interconnection, constant feedback loops, repetition, self-similarity, fractals and self-organization.

“Chaos”, Wikipedia

Chaos is not linear and doesn’t attempt to be coherent. It leaps around, seemingly illogically, yet there is meaning behind everything. This reflects a specific experience with the world: one that has more questions and confusion than answers and explanations. Life is about the meaning you make and how you arrange it. There are unknowns, nonsense moments, and dead ends.

Chaos is more akin to traumatic flashbacks than a journey, because time can loop and repeat. The object isn’t to find a logical, rational story. It’s to experience the events emotionally and embrace the confusion.