How to Write a Tragic Story

Understanding the difference between tragic and non-tragic story arcs.

Photo by Matt Collamer on Unsplash

I have a theory that one reason why stories are such an important part of the human experience (and have been, through time) is because they are so familiar.

There is a rhythm to them, and the human brain is wired to appreciate rhythm.

I read recently that music is stored in procedural memory — a part of the brain that remains intact for patients who have Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia, even as their episodic memory is destroyed.

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Maybe the rhythm of a story is story is stored there, too. I don’t know. What I do know is that human beings have storytellers (and consumers) for as long as there have been human beings. Longer than recorded history.

Stories have a rhythm that we call a story arc.

Every story has a beginning, middle, and end. The story starts, some things happen, the story ends.

I went out hunting today, a wooly mammoth nearly killed me, I brought it home to feed us through the winter.

My aunt and uncle were killed on their moisture farm, I trained to be a Jedi, I destroyed the Death Star.

There is very little about story arc that will ever surprise you, because it’s so familiar. You already understand it, intuitively.

There is a difference, though, between the arc for a tragic story and the arc for a story that’s not tragic. If you’re a writer and you want to write a tragedy, it’s important to understand how tragic stories are put together.

First: Is it Really Tragic?

When I teach story writing in person, I always ask if anyone feels like they’re writing a tragic story. It’s important to know, because the rhythm of a tragic story is different from the rhythm of a non-tragic story.