The Shape of a Story

Some stories come in whispers. Others strike like lightning. The shape isn’t always clear at first, but it’s there, hidden in the fog, waiting to be uncovered.

For me, writing has never been about strict outlines or neat blueprints. It’s more like following a faint trail through the woods, hoping it leads somewhere that feels both inevitable and strange. There’s a structure, sure, but it reveals itself slowly, and often when I least expect it.

When I first started writing fiction, I thought structure meant control. Plot points like fence posts, nailed down and precise. But the longer I’ve done this, the more I’ve let stories breathe, the more I’ve realized that the best ones resist easy shapes. They arrive tangled, fragmented, uncertain.

And that uncertainty? That’s often the point.

In Static Between the Trees, most of the stories began with mood, not mechanics. A sound, the hum of radio static in the woods. A question, what if the same town lived the same day, over and over, erasing itself? A fleeting image, fog curling through cedar branches.

Only after I sat with that feeling did the structure begin to take shape. Sometimes, it was quiet and organic. Other times, it arrived in sharp angles, sudden breaks in the dark.

But even when the story found its bones, I tried to leave space for mystery. For me... and for the reader.

I don’t believe in stripping uncertainty from fiction. The world isn’t tidy. Memory isn’t linear. Fear, grief, wonder. They come at us sideways. Shouldn’t stories, especially the eerie ones, reflect that?

That’s not to say I wander completely lost through every draft. I’ve learned to respect structure... the tension of rising action, the quiet pause before the inevitable turn, the echo of the final line. But I try not to force the pieces into place too soon.

I sketch the outline lightly. I listen for the heartbeat beneath the noise. Sometimes it skips. Sometimes it stalls. That’s when I know I’m close to something worth chasing.

I’ve also learned to accept that not all stories want to be caught. Some remain unfinished, fragments of fog and static that linger in my notebook. And that’s okay. They still leave their mark. They still shape how I see the next one.

There’s a kind of magic in that uncertainty. In letting the story breathe before defining its edges. It keeps me curious. It keeps the writing honest.

So, when people ask how I structure my stories, the answer is simple, even if the process isn’t: I chase the shape. But I don’t strangle the mystery.

Because in the end, the stories I love most, the ones I read and the ones I write, aren’t about neat resolutions. They’re about the echo that lingers after the last word. The questions that refuse answers. The shape you almost recognize, waiting in the fog.