Proposing a Hierarchy of Concerns for Stories

Introduction

As someone who loves to read and write stories, I know firsthand how subjective they can be. Personal preference alone can decide whether a reader praises a story as the best thing that’s ever been written, or whether they close the book on the first page and never look at it again (as my middle school self did when reading Romeo and Juliet for class). When I became a tutor, I wondered how I could help a writer make meaningful improvements to a story without overpowering their intentions with my preferences.

Something that has helped me when editing academic papers is Bean’s Hierarchy of Concerns. The Hierarchy has helped me focus my feedback on concerns that will lead to the most meaningful improvements. For my Tutoring Inquiry project, I wanted to explore the question of what a Hierarchy of Concerns for stories would look like. Stay tuned, because at the end of this blog, I’ll share my version of the Hierarchy!

The Purpose of Stories

Sitting at the top of the Hierarchy of Concerns are two questions: Does the draft answer the prompt? Does it have a thesis? This makes sense because a lot of academic papers are written for the purpose of answering a prompt or arguing for something. Most stories, however, have a different purpose in mind- which is why we need a different set of concerns. To get some inspiration for what the top concerns should be, I consulted a few writers: Aristotle, David Miall, Donald Kuiken, and Peter Selgin.

In his book Poetics, Aristotle claims that the purpose of stories is to imitate life, and they should be critiqued by how well they do so. He focuses on the genre of tragedy, which imitates life in a way that elicits pity and fear in the audience. According to Aristotle, characters and events in a tragedy should be chosen with the intention of creating situations that make the audience feel these two emotions. Aristotle claims that the plot (the actions that characters take) is the most important consideration because it allows a story to fulfill its purpose. Character comes second because characters’ traits cause actions, but without a plot, the purpose won’t be fulfilled.

In their article What is Literariness? Empirical Traces of Reading, David Miall and Donald Kuiken compile a series of empirical studies that observed readers’ reactions to literary texts. They found that people have distinct responses to literature that are not found in other types of writing. In many cases, readers go through a specific thought process: First, readers would encounter language being used in unexpected ways (metaphors, descriptive language). Next, they would think about the meaning of this unusual language. The process would result in the reader viewing an existing concept that is familiar to them in a completely new light.

One of the examples they include is a reader’s reaction to a stanza from a poem, “The Nightingale”: “No cloud, no relique of the sunken day/Distinguishes the West…”

First, the reader highlighted the wording of “sunken day,” finding it unusual that the poem’s writer chose “sunken day” over the expected, more conventional wording of “sunken sun.” They then considered what images came to them as a result of this language: “I just picture this huge, huge expanse of sky with really nothing else on the horizon… It’s just kind of a nothing time, well not a nothing time but a time that can’t be described, that can’t be categorized.” According to Miall and Kuiken, the reader’s quote indicates that she gained a new way of understanding time. What stands out here is that this reader’s response to two words that caught her attention transformed into a new concept that she couldn’t quite explain to the researchers. In other words, language can impart new ways of seeing things that one hasn’t considered before.

Miall and Kuiken claimed that it was feeling and emotion that were responsible for this transformation. Even though readers vary in the ways they interpret the text, all readers go through some emotional process.

I also looked at an article by Peter Selgin, “The Usual Suspects,” which goes over common and fundamental mistakes made by writers. The mistakes that Selgin points out: point of view, cliches, and withholding information, among others, seem quite trivial compared to Aristotle’s top two: plot and character. In fact, Selgin makes the bold claim that even if a story has a plot and characters, it is still impossible to engage with the narrative if the point of view isn’t consistent. Here’s a brief example that I wrote based on the examples Selgin provided:

“Thane wished he’d listened when Ben told him not to enter the magic cavern. If he’d known he would come out looking like this… He abandoned that thought. He was too far gone to think about what could have been. Just then, Ben entered the room, took one look at Thane, and burst into laughter. Thane’s trip to the magic cavern had turned him the color of a grape- a very ugly grape. His ears were pointed, which Ben thought was hilarious. Thane and Ben had never been friends, and it looked like that wasn’t going to change any time soon.”

In this example, a character named Thane goes into a magic cavern and experiences a transformation, which the other character, Ben, finds funny. According to Selgin, this scene fails to work because it starts by immersing us in Thane’s psyche, then switches to Ben’s point of view. Finally, the point of view switches to something akin to an external narrator- “Thane and Ben had never been friends…” which pulls us out of the characters’ perspectives and into a more global view.

Selgin claims that point-of-view shifts can make it impossible for a reader to know whose emotions they should relate to, which prevents emotional investment. In the example, the writer wants to convey that Thane is sad about his appearance and Ben is laughing at him. We also know that Thane disregarded Ben’s warning to not go into the cavern. But it’s unclear whether the reader should feel sad for Thane, or laugh alongside Ben. The jarring shifts result in neither sadness nor laughter; instead, the reader experiences a slight sense of confusion.

If the writer wants the reader to identify with Thane and his emotions, they can address the confusion by rewriting the excerpt solely from Thane’s point of view. Conversely, if they want readers to be amused by the situation, they could either write exclusively from Ben’s point of view or use the external narrator’s voice throughout. Doing this would help the emotions in the scene hit harder; consequently, the reader has a better chance to get invested in the story and characters.

To conclude this section, Aristotle argues that emotions arise as a result of a story’s events and the way that it imitates life. Miall and Kuiken argue that emotions arise because of a story’s ability to creatively use language to generate novel insights. Selgin highlights aspects of stories that can confuse readers or make it harder for them to engage with the story emotionally. Because of this, I have decided to build my hierarchy with the purpose of helping writers convey the emotions that they intend to.

My Proposal for a Hierarchy of Concerns for Stories

Plot

a. Is the reader receiving the emotions and information that the writer intends to convey through the plot?

b. Do events relate to each other in a satisfying way? 

c. If there are flashbacks, do they deepen or interrupt investment?

d. Do you feel like you are moving somewhere or building up to something? Miall and Kuiken suggest that new experiences/perceptions are essential to trigger emotion, and stagnation will interfere with emotion.

Point of View

a. There is no such thing as a “wrong” point of view, but it should be an intentional choice. Is the story’s point of view successful in conveying the emotions that the writer intends the reader to feel? Or is it causing unintended confusion?

b. A consistent and intentional point of view gives us information about characters that, in turn, inspires emotion

Sensory Information

a. Can we imagine the scene well enough to immerse ourselves in the emotional narrative?

b. Sensory information can tell us a lot about characters/communicate their emotions

c. In the Miall and Kuiken article, a lot of their examples involve using creative and vivid descriptions to convey new sensations and insights

Character

a. Are we confused by the characters’ actions, dialogue, or thoughts when we shouldn’t be?

b. What is the intended purpose of this character (to be liked, to be relatable, to be despised), and do they fulfill that?

c. Point of view and sensory information precede characters on the hierarchy because they can tell readers a lot about characters and their emotions. Because of that, I believe that those must be present before character can be discussed.

Grammar/Style Conventions

a. Although grammar can make the reading experience more difficult, it is better to make sure the other concerns have been addressed before checking for grammar.

Conclusion

Personally, I will often put down a book if it’s too scary. But if that’s the writer’s intention (to scare people), I’ll focus my feedback on whether the story is successful in scaring me! When interacting with a writer’s story, read for emotion. What is the writer doing to inspire emotion? What do they want you to feel? Do you feel any emotions that might be helpful to share with the writer? Even if you’re not personally interested in the story because of personal preferences, you can still look for ways that the plot, prose, and characters interact to inspire emotion in the reader.

References

Aristotle. The Poetics of Aristotle. Translated by S. H. Butcher, 3^rd ed. revised, MacMillan and Co., 1902, London.

Bean, John. “Writing Comments on Students’ Papers.” Engaging Ideas: The Professors Guide to Integrating Writing, Critical Thinking, and Active Learning in the Classroom. Foreword by Maryellen Weimer, Second Edition, John Wiley & Sons, 2011.

Miall, David and Kuiken, Don. “What is literariness? Empirical traces of reading.” ResearchGate, February 1999, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/2518712_What_is_literariness_Empirical_traces_of_reading. Accessed 31 October 2024.

Selgin, Peter. “The Usual Suspects.” The Writer, August 2007, pp. 32-35.