So many video essays about how to get the 3 act structure right, the Hero's journey, analyzing films through this lens, etc. Dan Harmon is always yapping on about his "story circle"... it's like damn is writing really that bland?
I feel like adherence to these guidelines and the quest to find the perfect structure cheapens things and generally gets in the way of things. But I don't know anything about writing so maybe that's nonsense. What do you guys think?
This is why these days I mostly find myself reading avant-garde literature and films, since once you free yourself of the need for "plot" and "story structure" you get far more interesting experiences that are much more about vibes. Proust doesn't really have a "plot" so much as it's just about a guy who gets older and goes to a lot of parties. Ulysses "follows" a story structure in that it takes broad plot outlines from the Odyssey but imparts them to the average day of an average guy in early 20th century Dublin and it's fantastic for it. "Mirror" by Tarkovsky laughs in the face of "story structure," just throwing images and memories at you left and right and letting you figure out the pieces. Bela Tarr's film and Krasznahorkai's novel Satantango have a plot, maybe. Thomas Bernhard's works don't really have a story structure outside of "guy rambles on for a long time in a sort of crazy fashion" and I love them. There is absolutely a world outside of rote story beats and structure, you just have to get out there and find it. I still "like" story structures, and they absolutely have their place, but once you understand them and start bending the rules and subverting them and just doing whatever you want things get really interesting and enjoyable in a way that an MCU movie or whatever can never even dream about.
Sell me on Bernhard, these look really good
Bernhard writes these giant rambling books about the moral and political decay of Austrian society. He hated the country, and explained how it was merely a Nazi state that refused to deal with its past, replacing the swastika with the Catholic cross and carrying on. He books are pounding, stylistic triumphs that meander and drive you crazy, really making you feel like you're inside the mind of the narrator, all of whom are trying to create the "perfect" piece of art and losing their minds as they do it. Words spiral, thoughts repeat, sentences lead nowhere and you get to go on a wild and unrelenting journey with no chapters, no paragraphs, just a giant wall of manic text. They're both fun and very serious, and I really recommend him. I'd start with Woodcutters and go from there.