The Arc of Storytelling from the Writer’s Subconscious // with Riham Adly

Have you ever wondered if stories had a mind of their own?

If they had a purpose? A journey they must cover, regardless of who is telling them? 

Have you ever stopped to think why you choose to write certain stories in certain genres in certain settings? 

Have you considered why sometimes you start your story with what your character wants (desire) or what your character fears (conflict)? And why? And what does that say about you and your story structure? Or is it again, the stories have a mind of their own?  

As humans we are the only species that resorts to storytelling to try to understand ourselves.

That’s why we have story arcs, character arc, and character archetypes. Begging, Middle, End…Repeat.  Sometimes the end isn’t even an ending.  Sometimes a story about a character’s anger or grief isn’t at all about that but is rather about their hidden shame.

Arcs are half circles. You start somewhere, you get provoked to move even if you don’t want to, you reach a climax, the peak of the half circle and then you go down.

Who creates this arc?

Is it you the conscious writer with the story idea and expected structure? Or is it the deeper, darker, and sometimes wiser part of you that’s kept truths, feelings and events locked in a black box at the back of your mind, where stories are forced to live in seclusion? That black box is the subconscious which is the seat of repressed memories and hidden emotions. Imagery and symbolism are its language. 

Explore all of this in The Arc of Storytelling from the Writer’s Subconscious: Discovering the Journey of Story Structure Through the Writer’s Internal & External Vision/ Voice "The Why & How” You Tell Your Short Stories, Longer Stories, and Memoir.

Week by Week

Part I:  The Story Shows Itself to me

Week one (Story theme ):  I’ve often thought of the theme as the story’s label.  But now really, what is theme? Is it really a label, a moral, a message? Or is it what the story wants to reveal to you?  We think of theme as the “Why” we write the story. We start with a concept. The Theme is: Love, Heartbreak, Politics, or what happens when you lose your favourite socks.  But what if, sometimes, we write without really knowing what it is that we’re writing about? What if the theme has an arc of its own. It starts somewhere and it ends somewhere else.  In this lesson we’ll communicate with our story’s theme, explore its elements, and its possible arcs to be ready for the next step.

Week Two (Story Identity): Every story is told in one of two ways: 

• It is told through the eyes of love or what I would like to call desire.
• Or It is told through the eyes of fear or what I would like to call conflict.

Your stories have their identities according to your vision/ perspective and your voice. Will your story start with your character’s desires or your character’s fears? Encounters or Avoidances? What will the arc of your story’s identity be? You start with what they want and how they face conflicts? Or with what they fear and how they find what they need or want?  In this lesson we’ll explore we’ll look at emotional resonance and discover the map of emotions and emotional functions of the five senses, and it is from there that we’ll able to find out the identity of our story so we can be ready for the next step.

Week Three: Story Circuits/ Behaviour/ Pattern: Our lives run in arcs or even circles according to the seven circuits of affective emotional networks in our brains:

The Seeking/Desire network, the separation/ grief network, the Rage/ Anger network, the Care/ maternal network, the Lust/ Sexual network, the Play/ social engagement system, the Fear/ Anxiety system.

These neural circuit networks determine human behaviour and comfort zone. The story has its own circuit/ Pattern. Those circuits should work in a certain order. What are the circuits within your story, what happens when the order is messed up, how does this translate into behaviour? Will these circuits cause the story to behave in a certain way towards the reader? Will it delight the reader, hit the reader hard with some truths, enlighten the reader. In this lesson we’ll look at story Circuits/ Behaviour and how it affects your audience through the use of literary devices, word choice, syntax, and rhythm so this can take us to the next step.

Part II:  What The Story Wants to Reveal to me

Week Four: Story Hue-man/ Humans: Now, since we’re in the business of exploring story arcs, I believe the topic of archetypes is pretty much unavoidable, especially that we’re talking character or rather the doers of the story. In this lesson we’ll look at the four basic emotive norms that create the four major character archetypes (four parts of the self). Which one of those takes the lead in the character’s personality? What happens when this leading intrinsic archetype gets deformed or forced to hide? What mask will this character wear? What hue will they carry to the next step? What will the story be able to reveal through that?

Week Five: Story Voice/ Perspective and Point of View: We’re all familiar with creating character point of view and perspective. The character speaks through either the first, second, or third point of view. But, what about the story’s voice? The actual perspective from which the story wants you to see and receive its events? In this week , the story will want to play a game with us called: put yourself in my place. We’ll experiment with different perspectives and voices and choose the one that best serve’s our story’s purpose.

Week Six: Story Place/Time: This week is about setting. Setting is not just where the story takes place, its where its internal world manifests and comes out to the world. Setting is the story context within which events take shape. In this week we’ll look at what the story wants to reveal through setting. The story wants you to understand that worlds are built from the inside/ out , not from the outside/in.

Who Should Take This Class

Novelists, memoirists, short story writers, coaches, TLAN artists, and therapists looking for innovative ways to help their patients or clients or anyone suffering from creative blocks. 

Students should expect to spend 3 hours per week perusing resources and readings, engaging in several writing/creation prompts, and briefly responding to peers’ work. From our interactions, we sustain a welcoming and inspiring community together.

We offer scholarships based on income as well as some partial scholarships for people living with serious illness and/or disability or people of color through the Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg Fund. Please fill out this scholarship application form so that we can find the best way to make the class accessible to you.

Format

This is an online class, hosted on the online teaching platform, Wet Ink, as well as Zoom. The Wet Ink platform allows students to log in on their own time to post comments and critiques directly to authors’ works. You can also view deadlines, track revisions, and watch video or listen to audio. At the end of the class, each student will receive an email that contains an archive of all their content and interactions. Wet Ink is mobile-friendly and there are no browser requirements.

The course will include five optional zoom classes taking place Saturdays from 1:30-2:30 pm EST.  Because they are optional, the Zoom sessions will not be recorded.

About the Facilitator

Riham Adly is an award-winning flash fiction writer from Giza, Egypt.

In 2013 her story “The Darker Side of the Moon” won the MAKAN award. She was short-listed several times for the Strand International Flash Fiction Contest. Riham is a Best of the NET and a Pushcart Prize nominee.

Her work is included in the “Best Micro-fiction 2020” anthology. Her flash fiction has appeared in over fifty journals such as Litro Magazine, Lost Balloon, The Flash Flood, Bending Genres, The Citron Review. 

Riham has worked as an assistant editor in 101 words magazine and as a first reader in Vestal Review magazine. Riham is the founder of the “Let’s Write Short Stories” and “Let’s Write That Novel” in Egypt. She has taught creative writing all over Cairo for over five years with the goal of mentoring and empowering aspiring writers in her region. Riham’s flash fiction collection “Love is Make-Believe” was released and published in November 2021 by Clarendon House Publications in the UK.

Riham is also a certified Luscher Diagnostic Test Practitioner, an NLP student, and a specialist in psychosomatic medicine.