Review of “Story Structure Architect” as it applies to IF

A certain odd and kind of spooky thing happens sometimes, where you go looking for something in a place where it has no business being, and find it.  Sometimes when I’m reading Shakespeare, I’ll think, “Hey, wouldn’t it be cool if he …”  And then I go looking for it, and not only did he do that, but he did it cooler than I had in mind.

I’m reading through a few books on story design, for the purpose of extracting ideas for Interactive Fiction.  Today I got around to a little library book called Story Structure Architect, by Victoria Lynn Schmidt, Ph.D. 

Free Ebook Online – Writing Mystery Stories

I’ve put up an ebook on writing (murder) mystery stories.  It’s called The Technique of the Mystery Story.  Written by Carolyn Wells in 1913.  Gives advice for writers — what to do, what not to.  Talks about Sherlock and those guys.

On the one hand, it’s old.  So there’s no reference to modern criminology techniques, beyond fingerprinting.  On the other hand, that makes it less techno and more about puzzles and motive.  Nifty stuff.

Feel free to download it, copy it, whatever.  It’s public domain. 

Again, the link:  The Technique of the Mystery Story

Foster-Harris: a 1950’s-era writing instructor

Foster-Harris (no first name given) was a professor of journalism at the University of Oklahoma.  He ran the creative writing lab there, which Writer’s Digest praised highly.  He intends his writing system for authors selling both to the “slick” magazines and the pulps, but he’s a bit disparaging of literary fiction, and the advice he gives makes me cringe.  The back flap says he “has been rated by his editors as one of the ten leading American writers for pulp magazines.”

Basically, the stuff he’s talking about his students writing is what I myself find cringeworthy.  But, it is cringeworthy in a way that is recognizably very often published.  For example:

Angrily he whirled.  The dark figure behind him had not moved, had not made a sound.  But now the sullen lids were wide open and the dull eyes had a chill, basilisk stare to them, like the eyes of a great snake.  Something incredibly evil in that silent stare, something smirking, something filled with cold, nameless horrors.  A thin chill seeping through him, Don grinned back with his lips only, and swung toward the door  (Formulas, 50-51).