The Fichtean Curve: Why It’s My Preferred Structural Framework
Prior to making my way to queer romance, my favorite genre fiction books were mystery, thriller, and suspense novels. The one thing these novels all have in common? They use the Fichtean Curve structural framework.
Essentially the Fichtean Curve framework looks like a continually peaking wave. Characters start in media res, in the middle of the inciting incident. The protagonist faces bigger and bigger obstacles as they move toward the climax (the wave’s crest) and final face-off with the antagonist. They come down the other side of the wave through the falling action and story resolution.
Every single story ever produced in the history of humanity has followed some type of structure, even if it’s as simple as beginning, middle, and end. It’s what guides your audience from the beginning to the end of your story. You introduce your characters and show them in various environments; set up the major and minor conflicts; develop your major plot points; and eventually, you resolve the conflict for characters and readers alike.
With most structure types, though, there’s a steady stream of rising action, a life-altering midpoint and subsequent dark moment, followed by an enjoyable and logical climax and resolution. For that reason, these archetypes are the go-to frameworks for most queer romance authors.
Most of them.
If used effectively, the Fichtean Curve gives readers a fast-paced, nail-biting reading experience. Yet I can see how this framework doesn’t sound like something that fits well with romance reader expectations.
Be that as it may, here’s how the Fichtean Curve’s framework best fits my writing style through its crisis points and character changes. You’ll also see a couple lessons learned from my archnemesis Major Melodrama.
Photo by Mark Fletcher-Brown on Unsplash
Fichtean Curve and Crisis Points
While I love and admire the thousands of romance novels on the physical and virtual shelves, I sometimes find that there’s not quite enough tension throughout the story. I’m never truly worried about the characters’ or their relationship’s future.
I first learned about the Fichtean Curve framework in John S. Warner’s craft book The Secrets to Creating Character Arcs: A Fiction Writer’s Guide to Masterful Character Creation. Warner describes the curve as “a series of obstacles in the protagonist’s path, leading to the ultimate climax” (p. 65).
Unbeknownst to me, I’d been using the framework throughout my entire fiction writing experience. On the one hand, those stories didn’t just border on the melodramatic, they moved into melodramatic’s house. Still, I needed to constantly push my characters into bigger, more dangerous situations—physically or emotionally.
Doug Landsborough offers a clear-cut explanation as to why the Fichtean Curve has played such a large role in how my stories come to life.
The Fichtean Curve really allows you freedom in your plotting. The only set rules are that various crises must occur during rising action, which build to the climax, and resolve in the falling action. You can include as many crises as you’d like and can use this simple structure to build out your story any way that you would like.
(emphasis added)
As a plantser, I see these “crises” instead as the beats that move my characters and target readers along the narrative and character arcs. Each beat is either a major turning point or a major decision point.
Turning points serve as a point of no return for the characters. They undeniably recognize that their relationship is never going back to its previous state, for good or bad. Balanced against that are the major decision points. They are exactly what they sound like. My protagonists are forced to reckon with the change the turning point has imposed on them.
As such, using the Fichtean Curve allows me to inject the worry and tension I sometimes find missing in other romance books.
Fichtean Curve and Character Change
My initial character sketches are fairly basic. I use this template in each Scrivener project for consistency’s sake. I get to know the surface level details of my characters.
When it comes time to dive deep? To start building their character arc? The Fichtean Curve allows for a more realistic change arc, especially with the character tropes I favor.
By understanding the turning and decision points, I gain a general idea of how their internal conflicts will eventually be resolved. I previously mentioned the character arc outline Jeff Gerke provided in Crafting Characters: The Complete Guide to Populating Your Fiction.
As a plantser, the outline he provides meshes with the Fichtean Curve. It significantly strengthens my characters’ internal journey. Their journey parallels the external story arc in a way that wouldn’t be possible for me with any other framework.
Those parallel journeys are what queer romance readers long for, even if they can’t exactly verbalize it. Indeed, Ran Walker explains, “Full empathy for the character comes when the reader is acutely aware of the stakes involved in your story, from where the stakes arose, and what choices the character will have to face to move forward.”
External turning points and decisions points are only as impactful as the internal ones. Through this framework, I can provide readers with a more in-depth understanding of how and why the characters deal with their inner conflicts in the way they do.
Reality Check from Major Melodrama
I committed myself in July 2023 to completing my first original fiction manuscript during that year’s Camp NaNoWriMo. I’d taken a couple fiction writing classes. I even read a few craft books and did a couple developmental edits prior to that month.
When I was done, I just knew I’d written the most perfect manuscript of all time. The framework was constructed of titanium and steel. The conflict was Chef’s Kiss. Clearly all it would need was a copyedit before I uploaded it to KDP and IngramSpark for sale to the wide world. I mean, instant National Book Award and Pulitzer in Fiction.
And then the initial alpha reader feedback started coming in.
I saw hints of potential conflicts in the first 50 pages, but they didn’t feel like genuine roadblocks to [the characters] being a couple.
“You’re just reading the manuscript wrong.” (They weren’t.)
The last quarter of the book has a lot of good tension, and the pacing helps ratchet it up, but it felt like it didn’t quite match up with the middle of the story. The drama [. . .] felt almost overblown.
“That’s on the page if you paid attention.” (It wasn’t.)
It was getting those first couple alpha reader feedback forms on my first manuscript that rammed home a habit I didn’t realize I still had. Major Melodrama returned the favor and moved into my house.
I built conflict on top of conflict with no inherent transition points. Basically, I had a bunch of scenes that I Gorilla Glued together. I really shouldn’t have been so shocked when that was pointed out quite clearly.
The Fichtean Curve allows me the drama of those turning points while simultaneously providing breathing room for the decision points. I won’t know for sure if I’ve hit my mark with this second manuscript until I do that initial alpha reader feedback round. I do know that First Manuscript Me is still hiding under a rock in embarrassment. Major Melodrama is atop that rock letting me know they’re watching Second Manuscript Me closely.
Photo by Perfecto Capucine on Unsplash
To Sum It All Up
I only plot about 10–15 percent ahead of wherever I am in the manuscript. Because of that, sometimes I feel like a bystander to my own drafting process. My characters experience the most growth in the empty space between and around the previously mentioned turning points and decision points.
Each of those points forces the character to make or endure a significant moment of growth, willingly or not. At the same time, in using the Fichtean Curve framework, I solidify the foundation on which my story is built.
Find whichever structural framework best fits your particular story. The Fichtean Curve just so happens to fit my second manuscript like a glove.
Reflecting On Your Story One Word At A Time!
