The Three Planes of a Story | Creating Causal Connections

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TIMESTAMPS:
0:00 - Intro
1:28 - The three planes of a story
4:41 - Types of plot connections
7:22 - Concrete connections
8:40 - Internal connections
9:50 - Metaphorical connections
11:11 - Fabulism vs fantasy
12:20 - How it all works together
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[@Wriste13]

I don't think I've gotten a better explanation of fabulism and what makes it really different from regular "fantasy" or anything else with "magic." I tend to write a lot of fabulist stuff, and I guess I've always known that the metaphorical plane you described is where it's reaching for a lot of the time, but this clarified its hallmarks wonderfully for me. Thanks for the video, as always!

[@rowan404]

The example with the ducks is heartbreaking.

[@ffstopP]

Your theory is actually very good. It analyzes the complexity of a story in useful language and makes the story's aspects accessible to both author and reader. Good job, Shaelin.

[@Exayevie]

Seconded. I feel like I've intuitively thought about stories this way for my whole adult life. I never bothered to stop and think for a second about giving it a vocabulary. Eternally grateful to Shaelin!

[@UdyKumra]

I’ve never thought about this in such a technical way, but I’ve been thinking a lot about the connections between plot/setting, character, and theme, and the way my favorite stories tie those things all tightly together, but there are lots of books that people love that focus on one or two more than the others. In my own writing, I’ve tended to just emphasize “this one is more plot driven” and “this one is more character driven” and “this one has a balance of plot and character” and stuff like that, but your thing is better. The one I’m currently writing emphasizes concrete connections over internal and thematic connections, but the internal and thematic connections are more important to me as the writer. The novel I wrote before this emphasized the concrete-internal connection much more strongly, because it had a strong plot but was really about the growth of the main character. The next one I want to write actually emphasizes concrete/metaphorical connections-it’s about a group of refugees who the gods move from one planet to another who have to build a new civilization for themselves in the midst of a crowded new geopolitical situation, and so it emphasizes the concrete a lot, but also emphasizes ideas of nationalism, religion, etc., but not quite as much internal stuff because it’s the story of a nation more than the story of any individual. Anyway, thanks so much for this. Given me a lot to think about and it’ll probably help refine my writing since now I have some concrete ways to break the focus of a story down and really work on those bits!

[@MrQwefty]

Wow this is such a solid theory! It should be considered more widely. You know, I've had my own sort of theory recently - we've all heard about the "show, don't tell" advice, but I've noticed that there are two ways to conceptualize it: In form and in content. "Telling" in form is the narrator explicitly explaining something like "Henry really likes pears", as opposed to "showing" in form which is when the characters themselves state in their own words how they feel, for example Henry mumbling to himself "Damn, I'm really hungry for some pears. I can never resist those...". Basically using direct narration vs speech. On the other hand, "telling" in content would be having the characters within the story explicitly state something so that the readers get it, such as "Gee Henry, you sure love pears, huh?", compared to "showing" in content which would be describing how Henry wolfs down two pears, in actions rather than words. From this perspective, "showing in form" could also be "telling in content"... Which makes the advice quite ambiguous. Does that make sense? Is that a significant distinction? I dunno, I haven't seen it being discussed anywhere, same as your three planes theory. When I think about the advice "show don't tell", I typically picture that dichotomy in content, that's how I interpret Chekhov's famous advice about "showing the moon's reflection on broken glass".. But I've talked to someone who's always thought about the advice in terms of form. Maybe "showing in form" is a technique that fits better in playwriting? I'm not sure.

[@josephstanski5180]

This sounds more and more like Arron Sorkin (Newsroom, WestWing) describing his internal dialog for a creative crafting class for screenwriting weekly episodes. Wow! You and this are sooooooooo good. (connections) Thank you Shalin :o)

[@co273]

What a fantastically useful way to explain fabulism. My current WIP has a very soft, very implicit magic system as well and this take that you’ve provided will definitely help me with writing it.

[@ShaelinWrites]

I love very soft magic systems!! I feel like hard magic systems usually get all the praise but there's something just so mystical and beautiful about very subtle/soft magic systems

[@senseofwonder4062]

​@@ShaelinWrites Well, the dichotomy doesn't make any sense, if you tilt the perspective and look at it diachronically: For stone age-men, our modern technology, such as planes or mobile phones, appear (!) to them as the softest magic system ever and pure witchcraft, whereas what we would call soft magic (astrology, totemism, tribal rituals etc.) would be very hard - and therefore manageable - in their eyes! Or the first cannons on European battlefields in the 1400s: Soft, unfathomable witchcraft from the underworld for the defenders, Hard, technical magic for the attackers. Am very tempted to make an instructional video about this common misconception of soft vs. hard (and the associated 'laws' Brandon Sanderson brought upon us, for good or worse), it's, when you ponder deeply enough about it, as futile as the alibi 'showing' vs. 'telling'-'debate'.

[@Yohannai]

@@senseofwonder4062 I agree, I think the difference is understanding and consistency. "Soft" and "Hard" just makes it a bit easier to understand. Soft is malleable and hard is sturdy. Pretty simple. The difference in your examples is the perception of the audience. Everything has rules, but when all you see is the result and you have no way to know the rules it appears "soft" because there are no known limits. Conversely, when you're aware of some if not all the rules, it appears "hard" because you're aware if or when those rules are being broken. I do believe that in writing we are allowed to make truly soft systems, because the author doesn't need to understand or create rules to their creations if they don't feel like it or it doesn't suit their story. Leaving it to the imagination of each individual reader can be something very fun to do. And since the "soft" vs "hard" terms help some people come up with ideas about what they want to do, we don't need to judge the use of the terms since they're doing what they were made for: help create some structure to let people understand complex ideas better. (On the writing side, I am very much planing on having my stories progress from a world in which the rules of magic are arbitrary and incomprehensible to more and more rigid as people's understanding progresses with magical-scientific advancements, with some things remaining difficult to grasp or even limit)

[@kishu655]

WOW! I've been struggling with outlining and figuring out what happens in the 'middle' of stories rather than just having a clear 'beginning' and 'end', and this really helped solidify ways to move characters through their stories with these causal connections! Thank you so much!! 🦆

[@MrFright2010]

This may not be an institutionalized concept, but you can tell you've thought about this a lot lot and put it to the test.

[@rizzypizzy]

Spare time? I'm watching this when I should be writing! 🙂

[@passantamreltarek9946]

Your insights on the nature of writing and the technicality of the writing craft in general is so nuanced and fascinating and I love seeing it reflected in your book reviews, craft videos like these, and of course, your writing itself! This is a very interesting and smart theory that allows for a more layered and deep analysis of literature and literary criticism, and your passion about it shines through...loved the video as always!

[@PuffPets]

Pretty sure I just read a purely metaphorically connected story in Greensboro mag. Came out of it like wtf just happened? It was brilliant.

[@ShaelinWrites]

Ohh interesting! Do you remember the title/author?

[@PuffPets]

@@ShaelinWrites swimming in quarantine by julia kenny

[@PuffPets]

Maybe its internal, but the title makes me wonder

[@AntKneeLeafEllipse]

Love this! It makes me think of Victoria Lynn Schmidt's 3 levels of conflict, which are external, internal and social. I LOVE having a whole plane dedicated to the metaphors of the story.

[@wahabafridi]

This was very interesting. But most importantly it can be used as a schema for efficiently developing a more coherent plot with genuine depth. Thank you for the video.

[@yaelsbookthoughts9792]

It's interesting how the stories of the old testament have a concrete level and a metaphysical level but no internal dialogue level. For example, in the Garden of Eden, you have the concrete story of the snake convincing the woman and the woman convincing the man to eat from the fruit of the tree of knowledge and then they learn that they are naked. You also have the metaphorical level, of the origin of consciousness or how deeper knowledge has the effect of stripping you from your innocence. But there is almost no internal dialogue. You never read about what the man and woman were thinking when they in fact learned that they were naked. Only their actions are described. It makes me feel like for the true artist, perhaps the middle plane doesn't necessarily need to be specified only reflected by the concrete and the metaphysical levels. Great, thought provoking video!

[@alycreeper]

You are a genius Shaelin.

[@c.p.sculpin3530]

I’ve known how the relation between external events and internal stuff works for a while (or at least I’m pretty certain I understand it), but I’ve never thought of the metaphorical part. Sure, I was aware of theme and kind of knew what symbolism is, but I never thought of that as it’s own layer to a story. And I feel like I’ll be able to write better now that I can think of it that way. Also, for the story I’ve been working on, I still need to figure out what the actual magic does… and I’ve felt like a soft magic system may fit better (depending on how I develop other things), but I’ve been trying to make a hard magic system because I’m very logical and don’t understand how to write soft magic systems. This video helped me understand it a little better-not fully-but enough that I no longer feel like I’m incapable of creating one. So, thank you!

[@davidbru1]

I’ve literally been trying to put this into words for a while

[@GuardianKnightoftheRealm]

This is an absolutely brilliant lens through which to view stories.

[@animehearthd5469]

this needs way more views! you're the best writing youtuber I've come across

[@pauline_f328]

This helped a humungous ton. It really speaks to me, and I'm expecting I'll be using to plot and explain literature forever on

[@greggjl1969]

What a great way to diagnose a scene. Thanks Shaelin!

[@squidboyrad3565]

Hey you should become a story guru! If you ever consider writing anything else than fiction, you should consider writing a book about the craft of writing fiction . I can totally see it being a bestseller like Save the cat 😊

[@filipsmit5497]

Brilliant! And very helpful too! Thanks, Shaelin

[@kacemaireche1689]

Brilliant!

[@Olllliv3r]

10:46 if i had a penny for each time shea said ‘duckling’, i’d have two pennies. Its not much but it’s weird that it happened twice

[@SteampunkPirates]

I’m definitely going to have to incorporate this into my own storytelling theory that I have been developing over the last year, thank you so much for this!

[@billyalarie929]

!!! SHAELIN EXCLUSIVE Y'ALL !!! !!! INNOVATIVE METHODOLOGY FOR WRITING !!! *PARTY HORN*

[@pjalexander_author]

Oh wow. This is fantastic. Shaelin, I really appreciate your approach to craft. I love the craft of writing but the vast majority of craft books I've read really don't do much for me. I'm much more aligned with the way you see things. 😊 I love this theory and you demonstrated it extremely well.

[@imaginativebibliophile549]

Shaelin, I have read both of your recently published short stories and I love the imagery as well as the strong characters and voice within the story. I have been getting back into writing short stories as I work on my poetry collection and historical fiction novel. I love writing fabulism and weaving metaphorical magic into my writing. I love you

[@galaxylucia1898]

Shaelin!!! This is probably one of my favorite videos of yours by far. Such a wonderful way of breaking down your thoughts about this topic and I immensely appreciate that you used simple concrete examples to illustrate the point. If this were a WritingExcuses podcast episode, the “homework” could be pick THREE of your favorite books and find one example of each connection! Now that you have brought this to my consciousness, when I pick up anyone’s stories (including my own) in the back of my mind I will be thinking about this. Bravo on the content today!!👍🏾👍🏾

[@kokoro_flow]

Wow, your theory makes a lot of sense! It's very deep! 🤓

[@jacobonia]

Looove this. I'm excited to see a craft critic exploring outside the typical box of linearity and internal/external motivation when it comes to driving a plot forward. This is a really good framework, and I think you should keep developing it!

[@sonmetal6000]

Wow I love your videos 💛. Regards from Perú!

[@kimaya4503]

Love this way of looking at story and the diagrams as well!!!!!! ❤️

[@silfervox2970]

Fascinating. I love your craft videos.

[@jacobonia]

Also, have you read The Assault by Harry Mulisch? I think it's a spot-on example of what you're describing: metaphor development, external events, and a character's repressed internal conflict all flowing into each other to drive a powerful healing journey. And it all gets set up with this amazing metaphor right in the prologue. It really reflects the way we process real-life trauma within the breakneck pace of time, I think.

[@apocalypsereading7117]

great schema! i'm curious about how you would show a causal connection that's just on the metaphorical plane, without causality on either of the other two planes. would it be smt like, after the pet duck is killed, we leave Michael in mourning and scene B is a different character coming out of their own tragedy and finding good coming out of evil? as in, the release of tension from the duck-killing is found in a non-duck-related situation?

[@carlarodriguesalmeida471]

That's really interesting! You can make a pretty good parallel to Karl Popper's three worlds idea, a philosophical theory to explain reality.

[@jonbrouwer4300]

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Popper%27s_three_worlds Wow. Thanks for sharing that comparison. This is a fascinating theory!

[@BooksForever]

Cute, playful introduction. Nicely done!

[@hatezis]

thank you, this is a great way to look at story elements, amazing work!

[@smeastwest]

This is so cool! I freaking love it!

[@o_o-lj1ym]

I keep thinking your talking about vectors in the third dimension 😭

[@Nabashin88]

Your theory reminds me of Scene Sequel but with more emphasis on detailing what a scene or sequel could be viewed as and how they could be connected in various combinations.

[@macronencer]

Thank you for sharing this idea. I think it's very interesting!

[@nicolathomson7979]

Love love love your model Shaelin.It gives my writing the permission I needed to be super complicated. Just at the right time as I was struggling to value my work.I can now positively approach my editing with fresh eyes. Thank you so much.

[@ShaelinWrites]

happy to help!!

[@mixmusicsvideos6645]

@@ShaelinWrites hi can you please recommend me some good books written in first person present tense

[@eduardoo31]

I read V by thomas pynchon a couple months ago, and i think that book took place entirely in the metaphorical plane. Pynchon might even have physically traveled there to write it

[@ShaelinWrites]

Okay I must read this now!!

[@eduardoo31]

@@ShaelinWrites concrete Things do happen but it feels like everything exists in service of the themes (and there are many of them), even character actions and dialogue, and i guess i just realized that watching your video so thanks haha. V is a tough read but definitely worth it

[@JoseGonzalez-yw5iz]

I love your videos I learn so much from them

[@mshupdates]

I love it!

[@beastmendelegate1946]

Ok, thanks, that’s awesome but what happened to the baby ducks?

[@desireen.7475]

Woah. Awesome!

[@tayo_95]

I love this theory

[@tomlewis4748]

You are thinking about this on a very deep level. Thinking like this has value, even if it can't be viewed as a concrete tool that can be used by a writer to write better. I've found that it helps me make my novels have a certain coherency and consistency that they would not have had I not thought like this, and somehow it helps create a stronger emotional impact. I have no idea how this works, as it seems to work on an unconscious implicit level. It doesn't directly tell me what words I should be using, but somehow they come to me easier if I've been thinking like this, and I end up writing on a level that transcends the level I expected it to exist on. So I can't explain it to myself. But I still believe that it's worth thinking like this, because I think it can pay dividends in the writing of the story. Is it possible that your theory is inspired by Story Grid's take on 'above the surface, on the surface, and beyond the surface?' It's a very similar concept and I see strong parallels here. But you seem to understand it much better and you seem to be able to explain it a lot better.

[@ShaelinWrites]

I haven't heard of Story Grid's theory, but I'll for sure look into it now!

[@pjalexander_author]

Tom, same. This is why craft books don't work for me, because I don't "map out" my stories. They come to me organically. But obviously, the stories have to come from somewhere, and absorbing concepts like Shaelin presents here is a big part of what, to me, is an invisible process. It's very hard to explain to people :D

[@tomlewis4748]

​@@pjalexander_author Agreed. While having a conscious idea where your story is going is also very important, it seems you and I, and Shaelin, are at our core, discovery writers, which is more of the domain of the adaptive unconscious mind. It seems to me that every idea anyone in history has ever had originates in the unconscious mind and then is dealt with in the conscious mind. Even plotters who build an outline first. The analogy to writing is that both that outline as well as drafting primarily come from the unconscious, focusing primarily on the current moment (the outlining focuses on a series of current moments), while revision, rewriting, and editing mostly come from the conscious mind and focus on a wider comprehensive view of the timeline. So to write we need two things: first, the wherewithal to be creative enough to have stories, and second, to do the hard work of learning the craft, structure, and order of how the story should be presented to the reader. In short, to have stories to tell (which comes from the unconscious mind), and to be an effective storyteller (which comes from the conscious mind via the learning of skill).

[@pjalexander_author]

@@tomlewis4748 Agree with this fully

[@racheledwards2857]

This is so interesting, thank you! I'm curious: Would you say that things can move between planes, e.g. if a character verbally expresses their internal conflict (internal plane) to another character, would that now technically be part of the concrete plane? Or would you say it's more of a static thing?

[@ShaelinWrites]

I definitely think things could move/exist across planes just like in the example you describe, or for example, something in the story that is developed into a symbol as the story goes.

[@RudeGoldberg]

Thank you for this, I find your diagram very useful. The only change I would suggest is to reverse the order in which the layers appear: The concrete on top, the internal below (as a deeper layer), and finally at the bottom is the hidden metaphorical subtext.

[@apollomoon1]

It’s great to find out that there is another writing geek out there. I was afraid I was the only one trying to figure out and understand how stories are actually bound together. This is some heavy geek stuff, Shaelin. Thanks it was helpful and made perfect sense :).

[@WHO_is_on_first]

I like this way of looking at stories but instead of labelling stories based on how heavy the plot is in bone plane, I think it's important to have elements of all 3 planes you describe in there

[@pauline_f328]

Isn't save the cat more on the internal plane? (Based on the novel-oriented method) Edit: Then again, I'd argue you can adapt it to both

[@ShaelinWrites]

I think it's a bit of both! One reason I like save the cat more than other plot structures!

[@thesamuraiman]

💜⚡️

[@sqweiqueu7]

Commenting for the algorithm. Loved the video :)

[@jonbrouwer4300]

This is a great lens! You said it's not a master's thesis, but I'm going to treat it as if it were. One thing that jumps out at me is that the Concrete and Internal planes contain "events" (The character gets a speeding ticket; the character commits to sobriety) or "states" (The car is parked at home; the character is happy). In both planes, there is a state of affairs that evolves by discrete units of change. I'm unsure how this could apply to the Metaphorical plane. I usually think of concepts, themes, symbols, etc as static. They don't have constituent parts that can change over time. They can't appear as events. What would a symbol-event look like, or the current state of the theme? In order for causality to move between these planes, each plane must contain events, or changing states. So for this model to be robust, for the Metaphorical plane to be able to CAUSE events in the Concrete and Internal planes, we'd have to think of the Metaphorical plane in terms of Metaphorical states and events. It's non-intuitive how to do this, but it seems like an intriguing thread. Without reframing symbols, themes, metaphors, concepts, etc like this, the Concrete and Internal planes could only ILLUSTRATE / EMBODY the Metaphorical plane, and vice versa. There could not be causality between all three planes.

[@billyalarie929]

>"i just wrote this out in my notes app on my phone" *literally has a whole visual aid to explain this completely revolutionary idea in absolutely pristine detail*

[@alycreeper]

I think you just invented musical notation for novels........

[@e-t-y237]

Was that "brain melting topic" at the end? What do you think of this? If you add the reader and writer's filter as a plane, there would be 4 planes ... thence, since this is only piggybacking on your idea, we'd have Miss Shaelin's Quadraplane Theory of Story. In doing this we'd emphasize that the current "internal plane" is "internal of the characters," and this 4th plane, the mind/filter of the reader and writer, is the internal aspect of the reader and author, brought to the proceedings and interacting uniquely with them.

[@johnhaggerty4396]

There was a fear in the 19th Century that novels served only to seduce the innocent and confirm the wicked person in his ways. This was outlined by Peter Gay in his book *The Tender Passion* - Volume Two of his opus, The Bourgeois Experience. Gay thinks novel-reading is playful regression, the story teases the id, flatters the ego, soothes the superego. The reader is complicit in the novelist's own personal myth and I wonder (my own little theory too) if this could be the Fourth Plane ? Jiri Sliva penned a cartoon of Kafka as an old man, sitting in a park bench in Tel Aviv feeding the pigeons, only the pigeons are cockroaches. If *The Metamorphosis* is K's personal myth (Gregor Samsa wakes one morning to find he is a cockroach) then we're into psychological causation. The Law in the Torah scroll has been written for our benefit yet it remains unfathomable : this was Kafka's myth as K in *The Trial*. The Lawgiver is not accessible to us and 'has hidden his face' in the Kabbalastic phrase. *How We Create Personal Myths and Why They Matter* Angela Chem. Catapult. 2018. *Crafting A Personal Myth* Bonnie Swift. *Jung and Play: Re-writing Your Myth* Good Therapy. Mary Alice Long. Jordan Peterson - The Failed Hero Story vs The Successful (Freud and Jung). KZbin.

[@AdamFishkin]

Meant to comment on this yesterday, but there was a power outage that killed my wifi. Once again, Shaelin, you've put into simple words what I've known for a while but always overcomplicate and twist into metaphysics because my brain cells are psychoes. My one disagreement is that rather than where you've located subtext, wouldn't it make more sense between the concrete and internal plane? Because isn't the subtext of people's thoughts and feelings what causes events to be (mis)interpreted and affected/manipulated by said people? Whereas metaphor is strong enough in and of itself to not need subtext as a tool.

[@ShaelinWrites]

Personally I like where I put subtext because though it might affect what happens in cases like you describe, it's not a concrete/tangible thing but an idealistic one happening within the character's thoughts, and I think it pertains more to a story's themes/ideas (which, as explained in the video, can still impact what happens in the plot). However, it depends on the specific use of subtext in your story. I think I use subtext a little differently than you because in the way I use subtext, it wouldn't make sense to have it in the place you're describing!

[@apocalypsereading7117]

for me the clue's in the name: "sub" suggests it's something below and not present in the actual text. both the concrete and internal planes are usual written about and things you can read, but the subtext is usually something that's not read but intuited. personally i think i would just put it in the Metaphorical plane, but putting it as a bridge between Metaphorical and either of the other two planes makes sense to me too ~