So you’re sitting at the table in the captain’s cabin across from Assuipe, guzzling wine and trying not to bang your elbows on the brass table rail that keeps stuff from flying off during storms. He’s allowed you to change your britches, but you’re still wondering whether your heart will ever stop pounding. Probably not.
“Tell me again,” Assuipe says, clutching his quill and preparing to write laboriously as you speak. He’s not very literate.
“It’s the story of a genius of a writer whose greatest idea, the most extraordinary premise, the pinnacle of a brilliant career, is stolen by a—by a—well, a pirate.”
“I like it!” Assuipe belches into his fist. “Go on.”
“It starts in a little seaside village, where the writer lives. She’s down in the waterfront pub with her friends, when she hears the story of this terrible pirate. It’s her best friend, Panther Jack, who tells the story—”
“Screw that,” says Assuipe. “Tell me about when the pirate steals the idea.”
“That’s at the end.” It’s obvious Assuipe knows nothing about the art of storytelling. What a cretin. “Panther Jack is this kind of maverick sailor. She could be a ship’s captain, she’s so experienced, but she’s not into power or authority, so instead she roams the seas on whatever adventure strikes her fancy. She and the writer grew up together—”
“Screw Panther Jack,” says Assuipe. “I want to hear about the pirate.”
“I’m trying to tell you—”
“Your idea about a pirate.”
“NO. The pirate’s not even in most of it. He only comes in at the very end, when he wrecks everything. He’s just part of the climax. He’s not the actual story.”
“I like him.” Assuipe grins, and you immediately wish he hadn’t, because his teeth are the worst. “Your climax is the whole point of your story. Bozo.”
“Assuipe—” You suddenly realize why nobody ever says this guy’s name out loud.
And so you go back and forth for hours, dickering over your genius idea.
“—so the writer goes overseas to think this all out, and while she’s there the pattern of everything she’s been through crystalizes in her mind, and—bingo!—Panther Jack’s story of the pirate comes back to her, and she realizes it’s the kernel to the most brilliant premise—”
“—which is that a terrible and swashbuckling pirate king steals a stupid story so he can live happily ever after—” Assuipe is trying to massage the cramp out of his writing hand.
“No.” You shake your head. “Living happily ever after isn’t part of the climax. It’s the resolution.”
Assuipe sighs and puts down his quill. “Living happily ever after is the resolution to the story. But before that, the resolution to the climax is me letting you get down off that plank.” He hawks with a revolting sound and spits into his empty flagon. “You know, for a famous writer, you sure don’t know squat about structure.”
Read the full essay on the Art and Craft of Fiction.