This Writing Blueprint will Uncover your Most Significant Writing

We can gain a great deal of insight by breaking up a story its component parts. Here’s one model I’ve come to love over the years: the drama triangle versus the creative triangle. It’s actually a life coaching framework, but I apply it to fiction, memoir, self-help and nonfiction, as well as the chaos of being human here on earth. The way you break a story down into these component parts will determine whether you get more drama, pain, conflict and despair or move toward heroism and strength.

Good storytellers dive deep into the abyss before they climb out, so let’s start with the negative side of the coin. A Drama Triangle involves three roles, the victim, the villain and the hero. Whenever you see this pattern showing up, life’s about to get harder, no matter which role you’ve been pegged in. (I’ve been in all of them, more than once.) The Drama Triangle takes all the power out of the top of the triangle and puts it in the hands of the hero and the villain. The victim becomes more and more innocent (while simultaneously less and less empowered) while the villain gets more evil, less human, harder to understand. The more they polarize themselves, the worse the situation gets.

Often, the villain is a fallen hero. This is an old archetype, and you can find it everywhere. For instance, Lucifer was considered God’s favorite angel, and there are parallels in mythology all over the world. It’s handy to recognize this archetype in any kind of story you’re involved in. Whenever you assign too much power to anything outside yourself, it tends to crumble into villain status. A prescription drug addiction is a contemporary example of a fallen hero, but the same thing happens with parents, romantic partners, business partners, bosses, doctors, money, all sorts of things. If I ever had to write a list that grew to be miles long, I would write a list of fallen heroes.

That’s why it’s much more helpful to try a different kind of triangle, the Creative Triangle. We’re going to replace the victim, villain and hero, with the creative, the challenge and resources, respectively.

Rather than searching for a hero, we're looking toward the resources a creative person can utilize in order to address the challenge. There's no villain because we're taking blame out of the equation and focusing on the issue at hand. It is what it is. Sure, there may be a person or situation that’s had a negative, even devastating impact, we’re not denying that, we’re letting it be. Focusing attention there will only increase drama. It’s better to address the actual issue. You can repeat the Serenity Prayer if that serves. It’s the same basic concept.

Once you get used to this system you’ll never go back to the person you were before. Both your writing and your life will get much better because you’ll be empowered to keep the drama triangle on the page. The challenge will draw out more wisdom, resources, and ingenuity. This is the gift of a broken heart. It’s a literally and figuratively a muscle that grows stronger when it has a lot of work to do.