One of my favorite studies of Harry Potter is that of the ring composition found both in the individual novels and overall composition. That very composition is what makes Harry Potter such a satisfying story. It’s a large part of the reason Harry Potter is destined to become a classic.
And it’s an integral part of the series many people are completely unaware of.
So what is ring composition?
It’s a well-worn, beautiful, and (frankly) very satisfying way of structuring a story. John Granger, known online as The Hogwarts Professor, has written extensively on it.
Ring Composition is also known as “chiastic structure.” Basically, it’s when writing is structured symmetrically, mirroring itself: ABBA or ABCBA.
Poems can be structured this way. Sentences can be structured this way. (Ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country.) Stories of any length and of any form can be structured this way.
In a novel, the basic structure depends on three key scenes: the catalyst, the crux, and the closing.
The catalyst sets the story into the motion.
The crux is the moment when everything changes. (It is not the climax).
The closing, is both the result of the crux and a return to the catalyst.
In Harry Potter, you might recognise this structure:
Voldemort casts a killing curse on Harry and doesn’t die.
Voldemort attempts to come back to power
Voldemort comes back to power.
Harry learns what it will take to remove Voldemort from power.
Voldemort casts a killing curse on Harry and dies.
But all stories should have this structure. A book’s ending should always reference its beginning. It should always be the result of some major turning point along the way. Otherwise, it simply wouldn’t be a very good story.
What’s most satisfying about chiastic structure is not the basic ABA structure, but the mirroring that happens in between these three major story points.
To illustrate what a more complicated ABCDEFGFEDCBA structure looks like, (but not as complicated as Harry Potter’s, which you can see here and here) Susan Raab has put together a fantastic visual of ring composition in Beauty and the Beast (1991), a movie which most agree is almost perfectly structured.
What’s so wonderful about ring composition in this story is that it so clearly illustrates how that one crucial decision of Beast changes everything in the world of the story. Everything from the first half of the story comes back in the second half, effected by Beast’s decision. This gives every plot point more weight because it ties them all to the larger story arc. What’s more, because it’s so self-referential, everything feels tidy and complete. Because everything has some level of importance, the world feels more fully realized and fleshed out. No small detail is left unexplored.
How great would Beauty and the Beast be if Gaston hadn’t proposed to Belle in the opening, but was introduced later on as a hunter who simply wanted to kill a big monster? Or if, after the magnificent opening song, the townspeople had nothing to do with the rest of the movie? Or if Maurice’s invention had never been mentioned again after he left the castle?
Humans are nostalgic beings. We love returning to old things. We don’t want the things we love to be forgotten.
This is true of readers, too.
We love seeing story elements return to us. We love to know that no matter how the story is progressing, those events that occurred as we were falling in love with it are still as important to the story itself as they are to us. There is something inside us all that delights in seeing Harry leave Privet Dr. the same way he got there–in the sidecar of Hagrid’s motorbike. There’s a power to it that would make any other exit from Privet Dr. lesser.
On a less poetic note, readers don’t like to feel as though they’ve wasted their time reading about something, investing in something, that doesn’t feel very important to the story. If Gaston proposed to Belle in Act 1 and did nothing in Act 3, readers might ask “Why was he even in the movie then? Why couldn’t we have spent more time talking about x instead?” Many people do ask similar questions of plot points and characters that are important in one half of a movie or book, but don’t feature in the rest of it.
Now, ring composition is odiously difficult to write, but even if you can’t make your story a perfect mirror of itself, don’t let story elements leave quietly. Let things echo where you can–small moments, big moments, decisions, characters, places, jokes.
It’s the simplest way of building a story structure that will satisfy its readers.
If there’s no place for something to echo, if an element drops out of the story half-way through, or appears in the last act, and you simply can’t see any other way around it, you may want to ask yourself if it’s truly important enough to earn its place in your story.
Further reading:
If you’d like to learn more about ring theory, I’d recommend listening to the Mugglenet Academia episode on it: x
You can also read more about symmetry in HP here: x
And more about ring structure in Lolita and Star Wars here: x and x
And about why story endings and beginnings should be linked here: x
So my mom works at a church. Actually, she works somewhere that is located in a church, but close enough for government work. It’s not important. Anyway, they had an artist gallery, because sometimes churches do that; it’s a whole “supporting local artists” thing, and it’s pretty standard.
What is very not standard is the artist they happened to host this week.
Susan B. Hale is a musician and painter in the Upstate NY region. (For people wondering where that is: it’s all the not-NYC part. There’s actually an entire state attached to the city, like a big, slightly-racist wart. I’m getting off track.)
Susan’s art is fairly standard, lovely oil-on-canvas Impressionist stuff. Mostly flowers –
– some pretty landscapes –
– some weird abstract shit –
Pretty stuff. If I had anything resembling disposable income, I’d wanna buy some of this stuff, because it’s gorgeous.
You know what else she paints, sometimes?
BIG FUCKING DINOSAURS
BIG FUCKING DINOSAURS FROLICKING WITH FLOWERS
BIG FUCKING DINOSAURS NOSHING ON HUMAN SKULLS IN A BLACK VOID-LIKE HELLSCAPE
BIG FUCKING DINOSAURS ON BIG FUCKING CANVASES PLAYING HIDE-AND-SEEK WITH DEAD FLOATING LADIES BY PICTURESQUE PONDS HOW ARE YOU NOT DELIGHTED BY THIS
Obviously, my immediate reaction was to seek this woman out and find her all of the money. But while I did absolutely spend two hours looking up who she was and then emailing her, she doesn’t appear to have an Etsy – or any online store at all. She has virtually no digital presence, and not much of a reputation offline either.
And this is tragic.
Because let’s be real: this woman should be a fucking internet star. She paints lovely scenes of tranquility and fills them with T-Rexes for no apparent reason, other than that she thinks they’re rad. There’s an alternate reality in which she’s a Tumblr legend, and I want to live in that reality.
So here’s the thing. I know I’m not a Big Tumblr Person. I have virtually no clout in things like this, and the odds of anyone seeing this post are kinda limited. But I also want this woman to be so inundated with requests for awesome dino paintings that she has no choice but to open up an online store. I want my home and those of everyone I know to be filled with humungous, lush oils of morbid hilarious dinosaur beauty, like if Monet spent a glorious weekend binging all of Jurassic Park while also on a cocaine bender.
Reblog this. Email her telling her how great you think she is and how much you wish she had an amazon site or whatever. Consider supporting her, if you have some money and love dinosaurs. Boost the shit out of this, because even if she doesn’t get a single dime, her artwork makes me smile and I want to at least share the happy with others, and maybe bounce some of it back to her.
I am not sorry for the length of this post. You got pretty flowers and fucking dinosand you are welcome for it.
I wish i could find this one article written in I believe the 90’s that went under the radar on abortion. The author said that the “life” arguments are basically useless on either side and what actually matters is that humans shouldn’t have a right to use other human bodies as a resource without consent no matter how alive or sentient they are, even if they’re on the brink of death you have the right to deny them access to you. It probably was too radical for pro-choice activists back in those days but like…that’s the most robust arguement lol so we need 2 being that back and dead the pontifications and splitting hairs about “life” in my honest onion
I found it. Actually, it was written in the 70’s. She was way ahead of the curve.
The article is ‘A Defense of Abortion’ by Judith Jarvis Thomson. Essential reading!
If you cannot demand that a person donate their organs to keep you alive, you have no right to legislate that an embryo gets to use a woman’s body to keep itself alive without the woman’s consent.
First Home in the U.S. specifically for sex-trafficked boys is set to open in late 2016. Of course neighbors pulled a stink and tried to get the house shut down before it even opened.
The founders are still trying to take donations to help cover maintenance costs. You can find more information about this ministry and donate here.
OOOOH THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT FOR MANY REASONS
Excellent
I CANNOT believe how much resistance they’re facing.
People are worried about their property values when these young boys have literally been sold as sex slaves and raped and abused in who knows how many other ways. They just need a safe place to heal and protection while they testify against their abusers so we can put the actual criminals in prison.
And people are worried about them “taking their medicine” like we’re trying to cure them of something. These are trafficking victims. But apparently people are more worried about these boys than they are about making sure the people who abused them go to prison.
Oh man, as soon as I get a little extra money I’ll be donating to this fine cause because this is just fucking great. I hate all the shit they’re getting for it, but shit or no shit I want to support these people.
This is very important
I love that every few months this post gets another surge of notes, and now is good a time as any to give an update.
In late Fall last year, the area of North Carolina where this house is set to be opened experienced a lot of very bad flooding. This has set them back. They wanted to be open by now, but they have finished restoring the house and are now working on furnishing it so they can open soon.
The link above is broken, so here is an updated one. You can see they now have a registry for Target and Walmart open. If you want to donate by buying items they need to furnish it, you can do so this way.
Chris Evans behind the scenes of the May 2016 Rolling Stone shoot
the tags on this were utter gems so here are some of my faves
Essay time y’all – cause these tags are truth. But one of my FAVORITE (and by favorite I mean the reason so many of his pictures fucking enthrall me) things about the way either he poses or the photographers pose him is that that the default for him doesn’t tend to be the WALL OF MAN imposing/daring someone to fuck with him poses that most photographers position men in, especially men who play superheroes. Far more often you see him posed as photographers often pose women – S-curves (trace a line from shoulders to hips to waist to knees in that pic – it’s a feminine way to pose), shoulders slightly hunched forward, looking at the camera through his eyelashes, mouth slightly open. They pose him to invite the viewer in instead of projecting out. The way they pose him is a type of masculinity that isn’t trying so fucking hard and y’all my LOINS ARE HERE FOR IT.
When I try to describe the type of masculinity that I find fucking appealing, it’s this.
(Look… y’all… if you haven’t seen his truckstop hooker photos from way back, do your loins a favor and find them)
Steel Phoenix Studios 
