Rule of Threes

[flonnebonne]

I've been noticing lately that a lot of skilled fanfic writers utilize, whether consciously or unconsciously The Rule of Three rather a lot. 

Here's an example from an awesome Vagrant Story/FFT/FFXII fic:

She shifts, and even that slight movement brings fresh agony to wrists rubbed raw against their coarse bonds. She sighs, and even that faint exhalation triggers some excitement among her unseen watchers, for she can hear them rustle against one another with renewed energy. She waits, and the waiting stretches on.

In general, actually, this author used a lot of three-sentence paragraphs in this fic:  

There are monsters in the dark. She can hear them as they creep just beyond the light of the solitary candle. Their toenails clack against the rough stone floors; their scales slide against the damp walls. (3 sentences)

No, Merlose has no doubt that there are monsters in the dark. (1 sentence)

She shifts, and even that slight movement brings fresh agony to wrists rubbed raw against their coarse bonds. She sighs, and even that faint exhalation triggers some excitement among her unseen watchers, for she can hear them rustle against one another with renewed energy. She waits, and the waiting stretches on. (3 sentences)

Merlose is not sure which she prefers: long waits in Lea Monde's uncertain oubliettes or the brief encounters with her captors. Shall she choose the monsters in the dark or the ones who speak with the sweet tongues of men? It is not an easy decision, and Merlose has the leisure to consider its every facet. (3 sentences)

Time passes. Merlose concentrates on the steadily dripping candle and the endless whispers in the dark. Eventually, the boy wakes up. (3 sentences) 

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I've occasionally made conscious attempts to use The Rule of Three in the past in my writing, but...it seems to me, after thinking about it, that the bam-bam-bam threeness produces a rhythm that might be overused in fanfic. It's lovely, certainly, but there are other rhythms out there. 

But it's interesting, isn't it, how three seems to be the magic number in so many things. In visual media, there' The Rule of Thirds. And one of my teachers in high school used to say that doing groupwork in threes seems to be the most effective; two is too few (not enough ideas), four is too many (someone wil slack off). Actually, I'm not sure I believe that rule, but my teacher did.  

Anyway, I think the only way to break out of a reliance on The Rule of Threes is to read fewer fanfics and more published novels.

Comments

[cryforthedream.livejournal.com]

After I read this and glancing through the fic. you posted (there really was a lot more threes than I'm used to), I went looking through a number of novels from authors I respect. The Rule of Thirds comes out less than in a fanfic., but it seems to be there quite a bit as well and is utilized in the same way. If you do it too much it loses effectiveness like you said, and I think it pops up more in a fanfic. just because of length-- you're trying to squeeze as much feels out of the reader as possible so you don't really bother with anything but the end goal of making sure everything they stay interested. I'm on the "it's unconscious" side for why that happens, but I think being aware of it is really important for multiple reasons, some of which you listed.

I tend to do ones and twos a lot more than threes in terms of sentences, but only because I feel those have way more impact. One gives you a statement and you can totally erase or support everything you wrote prior to that, and twos give you an opportunity to do the same but within the same paragraph. In novels ones, twos, and threes just need to be done more sparsely only because (this is my guess) you have to be able to have a very long buildup and progression over hundreds of pages and tens of thousands of words so you don't want to overuse what's universal or else the impact is lessened when you're near climax.

It doesn't sound like you have a reliance on The Rule of Threes besides if you're making a conscious effort to use it, but yeah, I think it's important to remember that fanfics are a different medium than published novels, much like poetry is different. You do different things to be effective and it depends on which medium you're writing for and what you're trying to achieve. Novels or novellas give the freedom to incorporate a bit of everything (including creativity) and so author styles feel more varied and are easier to pick apart.

[flonnebonne]

You make good points here! And did your research too! I think the main thing is to make sure we are very aware of the differences between long vs. short stories, published vs. fan fiction, this genre vs. that, etc.

I think novels can handle fours and fives (and sixes, and sevens...) better than fanfics, because we're more patient reading on paper than on our glaring computer screens. If I see a loooong paragraph onscreen my eyes start to want to skip whole sentences, but on paper I don't skip all that often (unless it's the newspaper).

On a related but somewhat different note...I've read published novels by former fanfic authors that just seemed...kind of off, somehow - a bit thin on the details and too heavy on the punchy lines. (And ALL the characters were snarky.) Maybe I analyzed their writing that way because I knew they'd been fanfic authors...but the bottom line is I didn't enjoy their novels all that much, so whatever they were doing, it wasn't working. For me. They've had commercial success, though, so what do I know.

I've never written a long piece of fiction before - except for some episodic Lord of the Rings comedy, which doesn't really count, being episodic. So I think if I were to write a novel I'd have to radically rethink how I write. For one thing I'd have to spend a lot less time agonizing over wording (at least in the draft stages) so I could write faster. And I'd have to maybe write more description, ugh. But who knows. Orson Scott Card doesn't write much description, and that's precisely why his work is so readable. But some of his stuff, even if it makes you want to keep reading, actually sucks when you start thinking about the characters and plots, because they're so thin.

In conclusion, there are many ways to write. The end.