#218 | Aristotle for Novelists (Part 1 of 4)—Principles #1, #2, #3, and #4
episode SUMMARY:
In part one, Douglas Vigliotti discusses the first four principles from his new book, Aristotle for Novelists: 14 Timeless Principles on the Art of Story, an adaptation of the timeless principles from Aristotle’s esteemed Poetics to be used by novelists. Discover the tried-and-true principles used since antiquity to craft stories for the screen and stage—the same stories you stream and watch today. Get a sneak peek at Principles #1, #2, #3, and #4.
Principle #1: Novels can be tragedy or comedy.
Principle #2: Novels should be consistent.
Principle #3: Novels have a beginning, middle, and end.
Principle #4: Novels have an appropriate length.
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Welcome back to “Books for Men”, a podcast to inspire more men to read and bring together men who do. So this week I have something pretty unique for you. If you've been listening to the podcast, I have a new book that is coming out at the end of this month, so it'll be officially out on November 29th, 2024. That is Black Friday. For those who are really keeping track, the name of the book is “Aristotle for Novelists: 14 Timeless Principles on the Art of Story”. It is a short book at only 132 pages. And of course that is by intention. It will be available in paperback eBook and audiobook. I'd say it's probably writing reference, that's where it would line up with other books of its type, maybe creativity or something of that nature. It's really not designed for general interest as much as it is for other practitioners, so other writers.
(01:14)
With that being said, I think that readers would be well served by knowing these 14 timeless principles on the art of story because it will make you a better reader of fiction at least, and a watcher of movies and TV shows. Not to put me on some pedestal of course, but I do believe obviously that there are some distinct qualities to a story which is different than writing, filming, or any of the various methods by which you can tell a story and I'll talk about that momentarily. So what I'm going to do this month to honor my own work is to go through the 14 timeless principles and actually one bonus principle that is featured in the book. So there are actually 15, but it's not technically a principle, and when we get to that, I will share more about it. So today's episode will feature principles one through four, and then for the remaining episodes this month, I will go through the other principles.
(02:22)
So principles 5, 6, 7, 8, and then 9, 10, 11, 12, and then finally 13, 14, and as I just said, the 15th principle. But before I jump into the principles for this week's episode, I did want to just answer some larger questions like why I wrote the book or what is it actually about. You're probably wondering, and I have had a little experience in answering this question because I've done, I think by the time this episode airs probably at least four or five different podcast interviews on the subject matter. Funnily enough, I wish I'd changed my answer every single time, but that's just the nature of living with my brain and neurosis. I always think that I could do a lot better, especially with communication, and this podcast actually feels very much like home to me. It's easier for me to speak on it because of the familiarity I have with it from doing it week after week for the last two and a half or three years, whatever it's been since I started it.
(03:27)
With that being said, what is this book? So in short, I've adapted the timeless principles from Aristotle's “Poetics” to be used by novelists. For years, dramatic writers have utilized these principles to write their stories for the screen and the stage. So the same stories that you stream and watch today, in a way, I am just pointing out what is already there. Once you are aware of these principles, not only can you utilize them to help you craft your own work, but you'll be able to see them in the stories that you watch and read. I always find it easier to see them on the screen than the page at least initially, because by its very nature, films are much leaner because they're dramatized and because the scope must be reduced, all of these principles are much more pronounced, and then when you see them and become aware of them and become familiar with them, it's easier to spot them.
(04:36)
In the novels that we read, and this is pretty much what happened to me as I dove more into wanting to write fiction, I had to start learning how to tell stories. Instead of turning to fiction writers, because it's so few and far between how much they divulge on the story element, many writers of fiction are what people would call panthers and they write to figure out the story. But what's really unique about these principles is that even if a writer doesn't know that they are adhering to these principles, they will reveal themselves after the work is finished. This is something that Aristotle concludes in Poetics. He says that an unreflective writer may produce the same tekhne as a reflective writer, and tekhne is a Greek term for skill art, or craft. In the Penguin Classics edition of “Poetics” that's translated by Malcolm Heath, he has a good quote, and says, “A joiner taught to make a piece of furniture in a particular way may do it perfectly, even if he does not understand the reasons why that is the best way to do it. He may even do it better than a colleague who has more understanding, but less manual dexterity.”
(06:07)
And obviously, as I just mentioned, what's so powerful about this is that in either scenario, the principles are baked into the work. Lastly, before I jump into principles one through four, I just want to make sure that you were clear on the fact that this is not a word-for-word retelling of “Poetics”. It is an adaptation specifically for the novelist or the aspiring novelist. So everything has been interpreted and adapted. I've read three different translations of poetics multiple times, and sure, you will get a lot of quotes from Aristotle and his ideas most obviously, but also the book features a plethora of other snippets and quotes from other masters of craft. As I fuse together what I believe would be most helpful for the novelist, and I think that this is a good point for me to peel back to something that I alluded to earlier in Story being distinctly different than writing.
(07:15)
Writing is the method that you have chosen to tell your story. Therefore, style and grammar and a lot of things that are very subjective and particular to the author all fall under what I would consider the writing of the story. And I have no interest in telling an author how to stylize their story or structure it for that matter, at least from an external standpoint. And that's something I will get into momentarily. I am such a huge proponent of unique, different, risky, and if you are a regular listener, I don't think that will surprise you too much. With that being said, I do believe that Story is a little bit less subjective and a little bit more objective, meaning there are things that good stories do well repeatedly over and over again and have since the times of Aristotle. And for better or worse, these principles and these ideas are the foundation of how I learned.
(08:30)
And so I can't unsee them when I watch or read a story. And that's why I'm extremely excited to share this book with the world because I truly believe that it has the potential to help any writer out there. Whether you've written one novel, you've written no novels, or you've written 10, that's how much I believe in the book and I can only hope the same for you with your work. Okay, so on that note, let's jump into principle number one, which is novels can be tragedy or comedy. Now, before listeners and readers jump down my throat and say there's a zillion types of stories, what do you mean there are only tragedies and comedies? I'm speaking specifically of an Aristotelian tragedy and an Aristotelian comedy. For the sake of this podcast, it will be a general overview, but in the book, I explain it in detail with charts to show you the shapes of each as well.
(09:35)
“Poetics” itself is Aristotle's notes on the nature of tragedies in epics, and I say notes because like so many ancient works and so many of Aristotle's works, it was never designed for public consumption. So it's really fortunate that we have poetics at all today because I think of his over 200 works, only 30 of them were recovered, and actually part two on comedies was never recovered. But thankfully we have other masters of craft that we can bring into the equation here and help us understand the nature of an Aristotelian tragedy and an Aristotelian comedy. In a nutshell, there is a fundamental question that you need to ask yourself when you are drafting a story or when you are watching a story, and that is who is the protagonist? What do they want and what stands in their way? And that last piece, what stands in their way comes in form of external and internal obstacles.
(10:45)
The internal obstacles being flaws that the character has, and imperfections that the character has that are preventing them from achieving their goal. And the external obstacles being antagonistic forces, right? So whether it's the weather or a bad guy or your mom or your best friend, there are a lot of obstacles that could potentially stand in a protagonist's way to get what they want. What a protagonist wants changes in every story. The idea and concept doesn't. So what makes something in Aristotelian tragedy, in an Aristotelian comedy in its most reductive form, in Aristotelian tragedy is a protagonist who starts off good or ambivalent. Basically, they want something but they are good or ambivalent relative to what they want and the situation that they find themselves in, and maybe they don't even understand their flaws yet or they haven't reckoned with them, so they're good, and then things get great before they end up worse off.
(11:52)
So the shape goes good, great, worse off. And in an Aristotelian comedy, it's good before things get bad and then they get better and end up better off. So the question that you have to ask as a creator is, are you writing a tragedy or a comedy? Does your protagonist end up better off or worse off? Do they overcome their obstacles or succumb to their obstacles? Traditionally, comedies are written about characters of a lower type that have the ability to rise, but we see this in a relative sense in modern storytelling all the time with characters who are lower on the pecking order or average on the pecking order in their world that they're living in. So it's often depicted of higher type individuals, kings, queens, and noble people. Whereas in a traditional sense, a tragedy is about noble people who get too big for their bridges and then they fall.
(12:50)
But again, we see a lot of variations on this in modern storytelling. Some classic tragedies are “Chinatown”, and “Wall Street”, I've shared one on this podcast, “The Secret History”. Richard Papen longs to be a part of an elite class only to find himself complicit in murder. Why does that tragedy work? Although Richard Papen ends up worse off, something more important happens, we get the truth and tragedies unveil the truth, and that is why we like them. Although it's a bitter pill to swallow like in “The Road”. In another book that I shared on this podcast, the truth that we learn is that all humans die, and now the boy must face the world alone. We know this, and so we are satisfied with the ending, even if we have to watch the protagonist, the dad die and end up worse off. The majority of stories are comedic in that we watch our protagonists overcome their obstacles, and even if it's only temporary because of course that's why they're sequels and series and everything of that nature, we see them better off at the end of these stories.
(14:02)
So I think that that was a good primer on principle one. Principle number two is that novels should be consistent. So in “Poetics”, Aristotle says there are three things that a writer must, or a poet he says, must do in a story and have a handle on, and that is medium, object, and mode. So the medium of the story would be the style and the structure. So the style of how you tell it and the external structure of how you depict the story to your reader object is the characters other than the protagonist necessary to tell this story. Mode for the novelist means what is the tense and point of view. So we have to discuss how are you going to narrate this tale that you are telling. And with the second bucket, Aristotle says quite straightforwardly, “… even if we were to imagine a character who is by his nature inconsistent, they should be consistently inconsistent.”
(15:04)
And I will talk more about characters in an entire principle, but I did want to make mention of that here because it's one of the points of poetics when he hits on this idea of consistency. He doesn't say it outright about tense and point of view, but that is one that I want to hit on here and say that no matter what story you are telling, and even if your story is told in uniquely arranged sections or vignettes of different characters like I've featured on this podcast before with “A Visit from the Goon Squad” or “Trust” by Hernan Diaz, what makes these stories work is that they are consistent in that part or consistent in that section or that chapter. Even though they are switching, like I shared with “Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, Gabrielle Zevin, utilizes a second person point of view, but in that section which she uses the second person point of view, it is radically consistent.
(16:12)
It switches once she gets out of that section. But in that section it is consistent. Even if you were to imagine a writer who is unorthodox and raw, the thing that makes their writing work is that they are consistent and the same thing will be true for your story. Nothing absolves consistency. Of course, I go into more detail in the book. Principle number three is novels have a beginning, a middle, and an end. This might seem basic, but having a strong grasp on this is really important. In the book, I talk about three-act structure as a way of doing this and why a novelist can use it to inform the internal layout of their story, even if as I alluded to with medium in principle number two, the external layout is unique as you want it to be. Like with the novels that I mentioned before, Hernan Diaz is trust, or you name it, a zillion ways that you can stylize the structure of your novel and how you release information.
(17:24)
The core component here is understanding what is the beginning, what is the middle, and what is the end. And are all of them connected via cause and effect and closed at the end? Meaning we don't need any more information than is in the story to start the story. And there is a definitive end to this story. There is closure. There are many reasons why this is critical, but perhaps none more important than pacing a story that takes too long to get out of the first act will put you to sleep a story that drones on in the middle will put you to sleep. A story that ends too quickly will probably leave you shaking your head. All of these things are because of the pacing and nothing is more important to a story when you're reading it, watching it, or writing it than pacing. I talk about many more in the book.
(18:18)
I'll wrap this episode up by sharing principle number four, and that is novels have an appropriate length. So Aristotle is very specific about this in poetics saying that the lower limit should be the time it takes for the change in fortune for your protagonist. So whether it's good or bad or bad to good, the time it takes for that change in fortune to occur based on what is “probable or necessary”, “needed or likely” words that you will hear me say again in future principles. And the upper limit is what is reasonable to hold in your mind's eye. The latter is the reason why at the end of poetics Aristotle concludes that tragedies are superior to epics, which again is debatable, but in the words of the great Earnest Hemingway, “The epic, only bad writers are in love with the epic.” Cheeky Earnest, but there is some truth to that.
(19:22)
In a practical sense, I document what some of the form standards are, depending on the genre of novel that you are writing in general, anywhere from 75,000 to a hundred thousand words is probably the standard for a novel. There are many factors that would alter it, like I just said, genre where you are in your career, reader expectations, et cetera. Knowing length helps not just with pacing, but also with the actual construction of your novel, right? So having guidelines on how long you think the novel should be, it helps you with how much time you should spend in Act One, Act Two, and Act Three. So if you're writing an 80,000-word novel, you might want to spend 20,000 words in Act One, 40,000 in Act Two, which is always your longest, and 20,000 in Act Three. Again, this is just quick math, very general, there's going to be a lot of flexibility here.
(20:27)
The percentage of how long you spend in each act, depending on the overall length is probably the more important element. But again, this is something that I go into in greater detail in the book. Alright, so that wraps principles 1, 2, 3, and four. The other episodes this month will be a lot shorter because they won't have the preamble on what the book is about and why I wrote it. So if you've listened to this whole episode, I want to thank you for hanging in there. I hope it was beneficial. I hope you enjoyed it By the time this airs, I believe the pre-order for Aristotle for novelists will be up. If you are interested in the book, I would take advantage of the pre-order because there is a heavy discount on the eBook at only 99 cents to its regular $5.99. The print is $11.99, and the audiobook will be $8.99, and that discounted price on the eBook of 99 cents will only be available during the pre-order.
(21:29)
You could find out more information including links to that pre-order on the website AristotleforNovelists.com, where you can also take a 10-question assessment to help you determine if you have a working story based on Aristotelian principles. It's a pretty nifty little resource that I created to go along with the book. And of course, this is a “Books for Men” episode, so I want to remind you that if you did enjoy it, please click subscribe on whatever podcast platform you're listening to this on. It is the best way to get it in front of more eyeballs and ears and in return, inspire more men to read. If you want to connect with me, you can on Instagram @douglasvigliotti. It's the only social media that I have, or by visiting my website, DouglasVigliotti.com. Thanks again for listening and for more information on this podcast, including more about the monthly newsletter and signing up for that monthly newsletter, you can always visit BooksforMen.org.
