Talking Shapes: The ‘Quilt’ Versus the Big ‘O’

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Synopsis

What does Fight Club have in common with The Great Gatsby? In this first "talking shapes" essay, Chuck reveals two of the more encompassing plot shapes that you can begin to recognize as you create from the same basic patterns.

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Comments

megacoarse's picture
megacoarse August 8, 2022 - 11:51pm

An incredible set of articles that have taught me more than any fireboy and watergirl textbook ever could. Thank you, Chuck, for talking about craft and soul.

Murasaki_Ducky's picture
Murasaki_Ducky from Austin is reading Stardust October 7, 2015 - 8:22am

Would "World War Z" be considered a quilt format?

Bradley Sands's picture
Bradley Sands from Boston is reading Greil Marcus's The History of Rock 'N' Roll in Ten Songs November 11, 2011 - 3:06pm

The  O-shaped story reminds me of those old superhero comics where it begins in the middle of the story with the first page with the super hero or super heroes involved in a battle, and then the following page starts at the beginning of the story. I always thought that was a pretty lame way to write a superhero comic, but that was because it was such a cliche considering nearly every issue began that way (although perhaps issues didn't do it when they were continuations of the previous issue considering they would probably begin during the conflict in which the prior issue ended in the middle of). It probably would have been cool if only one issue were written that way rather than nearly every issue back in the day.