Why Centering Growth?

November 2, 2026 Jess MahlerLeave a comment

Ever since I wrote the text for Centering Growth (which used to be on my home page), I’ve been having second (and third, and fourth) thoughts. I see around me every day people causing harm by ‘centering’ certain types of growth. Streaming services expecting unlimited growth in views and viewers, venture capitalists pursuing unlimited growth in profits, empires seeking unlimited growth of power and influence. I also see how the drive for unlimited growth (of converts, of power, of borders) fueled the conflict-centered worldview that I turned to growth to /avoid/.

I considered removing the page. Maybe talk about the cycles that growth is part of, homeodynamics, that sort of thing. It didn’t work, didn’t fit. Growth, for me, is central. Central to my life and central to my writing.

It is, I think, a different kind of growth. Not a growth that can be measured with metrics, plotted on graphs, or translated to profits. And it is a growth that is necessary.

I spent more than half my life like a bonsai tree: trapped in a too-small space, twisted to grow in the direction and shape others chose. Worse, because an experienced bonsai grower works with the tree, they don’t force growth with no consideration or respect for the tree’s nature and needs.

I spent more than half my life being told that my stories needed more conflict. Conflict for the sake of conflict. Because it’s not a story without conflict.

Why center growth?

Because I am reclaiming it.

I am sinking my roots deep into the earth, spreading my branches wide. I am saying to hell with conflict and their fucked up definition of ‘story’. I am creating my own stories, where conflict isn’t part of the definition and characters grow, like I grow, simply because growth is beautiful. Simply because we deserve the chance to be better. To be us.

That is why I am centering growth.

What Makes a Growth Centered Story?

November 2, 2026 Jess MahlerLeave a comment

Growth-centered stories are a relatively new idea for me, and I’m still exploring all the different facets of what they are and how they work. Today I want to explore what makes a growth-centered story and how it’s different from other stories.

So today, we’re going to take a look at that.

As always, I’m figuring this out as I go and I’m sure I’m missing some stuff.

For this discussion, I’m using Andre Norton’s Hands of Lyr as an example. The Hands of Lyr and the other Senses stories have a central conflict which is critical to the plot. But the stories are not centered on that conflict; they are centered on growth. As a story that walks the line between conflict- and growth-centered, I think The Hands of Lyr is a good choice to identify what makes a growth-centered story and how it is different from conflict-centered even when there is significant conflict. Expect major spoilers.

Several things make up a growth-centered story. Here’s my current take (subject to evolution and change):

The plot can be defined in terms of growth.
The story cannot happen without significant character growth.
The story doesn’t need an antagonist, and if there is one the protagonists are not focused on them.
The protagonist’s growth and actions affect the world around them/the wider community.

Destroy the Binary — it’s not just growth or conflict

I’m focusing on the line between growth and conflict-centered stories because most English stories are conflict-centered. But not all stories are one or the other. I mentioned in another essay LeGuin’s story Those Who Walk Away from Omelas as a Carrier Bag story that is not growth-centered. In fact, it rejects even the idea of growth, pointedly saying that none of the characters seek or achieve change. They only either accept or reject the horror their seeming utopia hides.

Defining the Plot — the one line summary

The first requirement of a growth-centered story is that the story can be defined in terms of growth. The one-line summary is probably the most common way to define a plot.

If Andre Norton used one-line summaries for her stories, I’ve never seen them. But if I were to write a logline for The Hands of Lyr, it would go something like this:

A priestess-in-training and a priest-hating warrior must learn to work together to find and restore a sacred relic and save a broken land.

There are several other ways you could put together a one-line summary. Still, I can’t think of any I’d write that doesn’t include the need for Alnosha and Kryn to learn to work together. Learning to work together is a form of growth.

So, this story can be defined in terms of growth.

Now, it is possible to define this story in terms of conflict. For instance:

A priestess-in-training and an embittered warrior must work together to defeat an ancient evil poisoning the land.

This summary is less accurate (and we’ll see why later), but it’s a workable summary for this story.

Some growth stories can be defined in terms of conflict, but that doesn’t make them not growth-centered. The important thing is that they /can/ be defined — accurately — in terms of growth.

The Story Cannot Happen without Significant Character Growth

This… almost goes without saying, right? You can’t have a growth-centered story without growth. This growth may take different forms, but it has to be there.

It Does Not Need an Antagonist

Many growth-centered stories don’t have an antagonist or a central conflict to overcome. Instead, they may have a series of small conflicts the protagonist must navigate or have other types of challenges.

If there is an antagonist —

The Protagonist Is Not Focused on the Antagonist

Just because there is an antagonist doesn’t mean that the protagonist is focused on them. Sometimes, you have a “I am your greatest rival!” “I didn’t know I had a rival” moment. The antagonist is obsessed with the protagonist, and the protagonist just… didn’t know they existed. Or they might know about the antagonist but consider the antagonist a ‘later’ problem while they try to focus on this other thing.

Or, as in The Hands of Lyr, the antagonist may be interfering with another quest.

Nosh’s goal in The Hands of Lyr is to reassemble the titular Hands of her goddess. Kryn gets dragged into her quest, initially unwillingly. This quest is a threat to the antagonist — the evil wizard who broke the Hands nearly a century ago. Having the Hands reassembled will be a major threat to his power in the world. But —

If the evil wizard got struck with lightning a few chapters into the book, the story would still have happened and had the same basic plot.

Nosh and Kryn would still have traveled across the land seeking the scattered Fingers. They still would have faced raiders, criminal lords, and blizzards. Kryn would still have needed to confront himself and his goals and accept that he had become a new person and his old goals did not fit the person he became. Nosh would still need to learn how to interact with people and function in society after being raised in total isolation by the last priestess of Lyr.

Now, the evil wizard doesn’t get hit by lightning a few chapters in. He is a threat throughout the entire story up until the final confrontation. But the main characters, when they become aware of him, are aware of him not as the goal but as an /impediment/ to restoring the Hands and, with them, the land once ruled by Lyr.

Even in the final confrontation, we see this. When Nosh and Kryn reach the statue, they find the evil wizard left a spell which threatens the Hands and the wizard himself slowly manifesting in the room.

Instead of a big climactic battle, Nosh /ignores/ him. That’s her big challenge: ignoring the big bad and his threatening magic while she restores the fingers. To trust in herself, her goddess, and Kryn at her back. And Kryn, who does confronts the evil wizard, defeats the big bad not by attacking /him/, but by attacking the magic cord that ties him to the spell.

The evil wizard is, as far as the world is concerned, the big bad. He broke the world, destroyed the old order, and laid waste to entire countries. But as an antagonist, he is a distraction. It is by not being drawn into a confrontation that Nosh and Kryn win the day — because the wizard may fill the role of an antagonist, but he is not their focus.

Their focus is on healing and restoration, not conflict.

The Protagonist’s Growth and Actions Impact the Wider Community (Maybe)

I’m not sure about this one, but it’s a pattern I am seeing. Growth-centered stories generally focus on the growth of the protagonist, but growth does not happen in isolation. The growth of the protagonist will impact the world around them. If all change is internal, it is not true growth.

It’s been over six months since I first wrote this and posted it on my old website. Maybe over a year, I kind of lost track in there. Reading it over now, I’m pretty happy with it. I think this is a good litmus test for what is and is not a growth-centered story.

What do you think? Drop a comment and let me know!

Growth-Centered Story Structures

The Value of Walking Away

November 2, 2026 Jess MahlerLeave a comment

The last few years I’ve tried to always have a nonfiction book going. Since I learned that I can handle nonfic in audio way better than one print, I’ve done more nonfic reading in two years than in the prior decade. And I’ve learned a lot along the way.

Today is only the second time I’ve DNF’d one of my nonfic audio reads.

The first book I DNF’d, The Story of Work, was a disappointment, but didn’t bother me. I picked up a couple of really bad errors in the authors discussion of ‘work’ among hunter-gatherers, and it read like he was using those same errors to set up a men’s work vs women’s work dichotomy. I noped out of there, sad for what the book could have been but happy I’d caught potential problems early.

I’m having more feels about my choice to DNF today.

I was/am due for what I think of as my ‘challenge’ reads. Books that I don’t just learn from, but which challenge me to undo ways of thought and grow in often uncomfortable ways. My choice for this read was Black Marxism by Cedric J Robinson.

It is, from the little I read, an absolutely fascinating book.

Unfortunately, it is not a beginners text on the subject.

I have a basic knowledge of communism and Marxism. Partly from a very long ago read of the Communist Manifesto, partly from hanging out around communists, anarchists, and other leftist ideologues the last (mumble) years on the Fediverse. I thought the basic grounding I had would be enough to see me through Black Marxism.

Nope. Very much not so.

Deciding to walk away wasn’t easy. I understood just enough of the text that I could have kept going. It would have been a hell of a slog, especially since audiobooks make it a lot harder to go back and check an early part of the text and refresh your memory. But I could have done it.

I would burned through a hellish amount of spoons, probably burnt myself out on nonfic reading for a while, and gotten out of the text a fraction of what Robinson meant it to be.

I know because I’ve done this before. Authoring Autism by Melanie Yergeau is a fascinating book. I’m glad I read it. But every time I read a chapter, it felt like I was bruising my brain struggling through the high level concepts on rhetoric and language. Wonderful book, I wish I could recommend it to you.

As much as I know I could learn similar important, world-view changing things from Black Marxism, I know I can’t do that to myself again. I can’t afford to burn myself out on a single book. Not with my health and life circumstances, and not when I could read three or four other ‘challenge’ books which I could fully understand and grow from in the same time and energy Black Marxism would take me.

That doesn’t mean I’m giving up on Black Marxism entirely. There are lots of great 101 books on communism and economics that I can read that will give me a better foundation for coming back to Black Marxism in a year or two. It will be there, in my library, waiting for me.

Until then, there is value in walking away. In choosing the right lesson for the right time.

In taking the time to walk before I try to fly.

Pushing Back on Chrononormativity — personal reflections

November 2, 2026 Jess MahlerLeave a comment

I learned the word ‘Chrononormativity’ from the third chapter of Sherronda J Brown’s Refusing Compulsory Sexuality. (it’s a really good read, you should check it out.) In RCS, Brown discusses how asexuality, by merely existing, stands outside of chrononormativitiy. I’d never heard the word chrononormativity before, but I instantly understood it. I’ve been fighting against it for most of my life.

“First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes baby in the baby carriage.”

My first conscious run-in with chronormativity was when I embraced polyamory. We called it ‘the relationship escalator’. The idea that relationships are expected to follow a specific pattern — a specific chronology. The pattern typically goes something like:

date
become exclusive
get engaged
get married
have babies
live together until one of you dies

Any relationship that doesn’t complete this chronology is considered failed. Any relationship which doesn’t follow the correct order or rejects a step entirely is ‘doing it wrong’ at best, and often considered unethical and immoral. In some places and situations it can be illegal.

In embracing polyamory, I automatically rejected the ‘become exclusive’ step, and I also made the choice to reject the ‘get married’ step. I refused to privilege one relationship over another that way.

Of course, chrononormativity, like all normativity, has a great deal of societal pressure behind it. In this case, I was at one point ‘forced’ to get married in order to have access to health insurance and health care.

The Sabbath

It’s always struck me as somewhat ironic, how much of the world is structured around a five day work week, Monday to Friday, 9 to 5. But then for so much of my ‘working’ life, I’ve been put in a position of ‘work Saturdays or you don’t get/lose the job’. But it’s not just work. There’s a local hiking group on MeetUp I’ve thought about joining more than once, but they only go out on Saturdays.

I could spend a very long time listing out the ways keeping Sabbath has conflicted with the expectations of our world. (And don’t get me started on the frustrations of having our holiday season overlap with the very start of the school year!)

Good Night, Sleep Tight!

The kid refused to go to sleep. We tried everything. Reading together, taking away screens, no water or food right before bed. Nothing worked. Eventually, we broke down and tried medication. Because they ‘had’ to go to sleep at night and they ‘had’ to be awake before 8 in the morning, and it didn’t matter if they were getting enough sleep, because they weren’t getting the right sleep.

And I would have told the doctors to fuck off except the kid was getting ready to start school, when they would be forced to get up before 8 whether they’d gotten to sleep on time or not.

For better or worse, the medication didn’t work either.

We homeschool now. For better or worse. And the kid sleeps when they need to and gets up when they need to. And it feels like I constantly need to deal with well meaning busy-bodies who want to know why I ‘let’ my kid stay up so late and don’t enforce a ‘healthy’ bed time.

Because it isn’t healthy for them, that’s why. Now fuck off.

Not many years later, I had my own run-in with weird sleep patterns, when I kept waking up in the middle of the night and couldn’t fall back to sleep. I was exhausted all the time, constantly running on half the sleep I needed.

Finally, I had a brain storm — why not try splitting my sleep schedule? Sleep 4 hours, be awake for 8 hours, sleep another 4 hours, etc.

It worked really well for a year or two, but god did it complicate interacting with the rest of the world!

Then for some reason I’ll never know, my body decided I was done with that, and I needed to start sleep 8 hours at a stretch again. And I learned another new thing — not only does our body’s chronology not always line up with what the world expects, it can also change on us with no warning and we just need adapt as best we can.

Except for far to many people ‘adapt as best we can’ means set that alarm clock real loud and stagger through the day on not enough sleep because our bodies needs are second in importance to being ‘productive members of society.’

That ‘productive’ is important.

Chrononormative-Fuck You

The term ‘chrononormativity’ was coined by Elizabeth Freeman in 2010 in her book ‘Time Binds: Queer Temporalities, Queer Histories’. Defined as “the use of time to organize individual human bodies toward maximum productivity,” chrononormativity finally describes and defines the force society has exerted on me for so long, dragging me into a ‘right’ pace and process for living. A pace and process determined not by what is best for me or my loved ones, but what is most productive for society.

Capitalism for the win?

I decided a long time ago that I was living life on my time and have been lucky enough (privileged enough) that I have mostly gotten away with it. But each step of the way has been a fight.

As always, fuck capitalism.

How has chrononormativity impacted your life?

My Cyclical Growth-Centered Story Structure

November 2, 2026 Jess MahlerLeave a comment

A couple years ago I wrote and posted a couple of essays about growth-centered story structures. Growth-centered story structures have existed for a long time, but have been ignored or forgotten in the emphasis on the conflict-centered 5-act story structure.

If you haven’t yet, you should definitely check out Worldwide Story Structures by Kim Yoonmi. It’s a wonderful introduction to the variety of story structures around the world, and will really help you begin to understand the full palette available to us as writers, beyond the 5-act plot.

My own growth-centered story structure is the result of trial and error over about a decade, as I jettisoned the centrality of conflicted and focused on writing the kind of stories I wanted, regardless of if they were ‘right’. Everything I write about my story structure is me trying to describe something no one has ever described before, and which may not have existed before I created it.

When I wrote the previous essays, I was just beginning to analyze and understand how my stories, and other growth-centered writing, work. I wouldn’t say I’ve figured it out yet, but I’m definitely getting a better handle on things.

With that in mind, one thing I’ve figured out is a better way of describing and understanding how my particular kind of growth-centered plot works.

So let’s take a look at it.

Cyclical Growth Plot

Here I am borrowing Kim Yoonmi’s format for analyzing a plot structure.

My plot structure is a cyclical one. There are six stages to it, with three stages making up the central cycle.

Upper left arrow labeled ‘Break’ points into the ‘Problem’ step of a three-step cycle – ‘Problem’, ‘Growth’, and ‘Change’. Lower left arrow, the ‘New Normal’, branches off from the third step, ‘Change’. Several smaller arros labeled ‘Branching Out’ extend from ‘New Normal’. The diagram illustrates the steps of a growth-centered story structure with the first step being the ‘Break’ from normal and the final steps being the ‘New Normal’ and ‘Branching Out’ after an number of three-step cycles determined by the story being written.

Number of Acts: As many as needed

What is it?:

Break with Normality
Problem the characters can’t/don’t know how to deal with
Growth
Change in the situation/characters understanding of the situation
1. repeat 2-4 as necessary until
New Normal
Branching out to help others grow

Story Driver(s): ?

Notes:

Some stories have a ‘central conflict’ in the sense that an outside force creates the ‘Break with Normality’ and continues to interfere in establishing a new normal. However a central conflict is not necessary. If one does exist, it may be resolved before, during, or after the establishment of a new normal. Or not resolve at all.

The Break

The first stage is the Break with Normality. Before the break, characters existed in a situation they have considered ‘Normal’. ‘Normal’ usually has some built in stability or homeostasis so characters know what to expect and how to deal with the situations they run into.

‘Normal’ isn’t necessarily a good or healthy situation. In Bound by His Oath, ‘Normal’ for Mildthryth was being under frequent attack by lordlings who sought to conquer her lands and force her into marriage. ‘Normal’ for Reimund was being one of those lordlings. In the upcoming A Smear of Blood, ‘Normal’ is the goddes and Called slowly dying out under the oppression of the monks. But ‘Normal’ can be a healthy, happy situation — at the beginning of Planting Life in a Dying City, ‘Normal is Lefeng looking forward to traveling with the family ey loves and eir upcoming marriage.

How do we define ‘Normal’ then? ‘Normal’ is a (more or less) straight line trajectory. The characters’ lives are moving in a certain direction and are expected to continue moving that way.

The Break creates a sudden change in trajectory, wrenching characters lives in a new direction.

There are several ways a Break can happen. A character may make a choice that creates a Break, as when Mildthryth chooses to offer vassalage and marriage to Reimund rather than trying to ransom him, creating the possibility for a new relationship. It may be chance, like in Planting Life in a Dying City, when the tsunami destroys Lefeng’s family and village. It may be that a character from outside ‘Normal’ enters the story — as Iberto does in A Smear of Blood when he literally crashes into the high altar.

Whatever it is that causes the Break, there is a clear before and after.

A Problem

If the before is ‘the Normal’ then the after is ‘a Problem.’

A Problem is a situation that the characters need to deal with and don’t know how to. A Problem may be a new problem, an old problem the characters have a new perspective on, or an existing problem that is new to these characters.

A Problem is the first stage of the cyclical part of the story. Which is why it is ‘A’ Problem and not ‘The’ Problem. There will be multiple Problems throughout the course of the story.

The existence of multiple Problems is the biggest difference between a Problem and the ‘Conflict’ in a conflict-centered story. Many (though not necessarily all) Problems /are/ conflicts. But in a conflict-centered story there is a single central conflict. In a cyclical growth-centered story there are many not-central Problems.

The first problem in Bound by His Oath is that if Reimund accepts Mildthryth’s offer, he will shame himself. This is a new problem, as during the Normal, he was a proud man who refused to act in a way he would consider shameful.

In A Smear of Blood, the first problem is that there are not enough priests. Specifically, it is Iberto realizing that there are not enough priests. There have not been enough priests for a very long time before Iberto arrived at the temple. The lack of priests was a key part of the Normal, in fact. What has changed is not the problem itself, but that after the Break Iberto can see the problem.

The most important thing about a Problem is that the characters existing way of dealing with things won’t work to fix it. Reimund cannot automatically reject the shame — not unless he is willing to condemn his friends and followers. Iberto has no idea how to even begin fixing the lack of priests. If the characters attempt to continue doing things the same way they always have, the problem will continue or get worse.

Growth

If the characters want to deal with their problem, they need to grow. They may grow emotionally in some fashion, learn a new technique or skill, or if it is an ensemble story the main characters may grow in numbers, recruiting new members or allies to fight with them. There are probably dozens of ways a character can grow in response to a Problem.

Reimund, in Bound by His Oath, grows emotionally when he chooses to accept the shame for the sake of his men. This resolves the current Problem and he and Mildthryth are able to move forward together.

Importantly, Growth is a response to a Problem, not necessarily a fix for it. In A Smear of Blood, Iberto had been content to train for his new role and do his goddess’ bidding. On learning about the lack of priests and how it affects the goddes, Iberto stops being passive. He makes the decision to act — to hunt down the reason for the lack of priests and do something about it.

This is Growth, but it is not Growth that will immediately fix the problem. The problem will remain and Iberto and his friends and allies will spend most of the story addressing it in one way or another. That’s okay.

If Growth doesn’t fix a Problem, what’s its purpose in the story? Well, Growth leads to Change.

A Change

A Change is the new situation the characters find themselves in after after they grow. The last time I wrote about my story structure I called this stage ‘temporary stability.’ I’ve changed it because whether or not the situation is stable for any period of time has more to do with how fast the story is moving than the way the plot develops.

Like Growth, a Change can take several different forms.

In Bound by His Oath, after Reimund swears his loyalty to Mildthryth, she and all her people stop treating him as a prisoner and begin treating him as her betrothed. This is a Change in how the characters interact with each other.

Iberto, in A Smear of Blood, sees a different kind of change. Because he sets himself his own hunt for the first time, he begins to learn things. Most importantly, he learns that the monks are actively working against the goddes. This is a Change in perspective. A Change in how he understands the situation he finds himself in.

For Iberto, this leads to a new Problem, or new understanding of an old problem — there are not enough priests because potential priests aren’t coming to the temple where they can be recruited.

The Cycle

For a while, each Change will lead to a new Problem. Which leads to more Growth, another Change, a new Problem, etc.

The relationship in Bound by His Oath faces another problem when Reimund refuses to accept his new position and seeks to undermine Mildthryth, this leads to more growth, more change, more problems. Each turn of the cycle sees the characters and their situation growing/changing further and further from their original Normal.

A New Normal

Eventually, a Change will come with doesn’t lead to a new Problem. The characters and situation have changed enough, grown enough, that whatever problems they are facing are no long a Problem – that is, the characters have learned how to cope with and/or fix these problems and no longer NEED to grow in order to cope with them. The cycle is broken. The characters settle into a New Normal. Their lives are moving in a different direction then they were before the Break, but they are again moving ‘forward’ in a stable fashion.

This doesn’t necessarily mean that all their problems are solved. Life doesn’t work that way, and stories don’t need to either. What it means is that the characters have grown enough, and the situation has changed enough, that the characters are confident in their ability to handle the problems they are facing.

Branching Out

Characters who have grown to the point of being secure in a New Normal and who care about other people will want to spread that security. The final point of our story is the beginning of someone else’s story — when the characters reach out to help other characters. Sometimes that help will Break the other character’s Normal, it might provide guidance or resources for someone else’s Growth or Change, or something else.

Branching Out will usually come at the end of the story, but sometimes, for various reasons, it may come earlier. Planting Life in a Dying City is broken into six parts, one part focusing on each of the main characters. In the second part, the character Tsouchm instigates the Branching Out after one of eir Growth stages. Tsouchm’s life has improved considerably in the early part of eir story section, and ey wants to share that improvement with eir old friends, a desire the other family members support and aid.

So Far, It All Fits

I previously said that there are four things that make a growth-centered story:

The plot can be defined in terms of growth.
The story cannot happen without significant character growth.
The story doesn’t need an antagonist, and if there is one the protagonists are not focused on them.
The protagonist’s growth and actions affect the world around them/the wider community.

What I’ve outlined here for my growth-centered plot structure includes all four. Well, at least three of the four. We didn’t really talk about characters at all. The lack of an necessary antagonist can probably be inferred from the story structure, but I didn’t actually address point three here.

Growth-Centered Story Structures

Growth Centered Story-Structure

November 2, 2026 Jess MahlerLeave a comment

The Most Dangerous Game got me interested in story structure. It has long been a popular short story in American high schools. Most USian folks I’ve spoken with are familiar with it and I’ve seen some good rewrites and alternate takes over the years.

The thing is, in US English class they teach that there is only one story structure – the 5 act (sometimes the 3/5 act) with the Hero’s Journey as an incredibly detailed take on one type of 5 act story. And then they present you with The Most Dangerous Game, which fits the 5 act structure by courtesy only.

My English teacher used it as an example of the flexibility of the 5 act. “The resolution is only a single sentence! Everything else is implied.”

You know what else is implied?

The climax. It does not exist in that story. Not in the usual sense. Like, you can cram it into the definition. But say “We are going to have a to-the-death fight, winner takes all,” jump straight to “Victory was sweet” and tell me there was a story climax there? Bullshit.

The climax is in the blank spaces between the words. It’s a beautiful piece of writing. But it’s not 5 act.

(And don’t get me started on Shakespeare and 5 act. How any English teacher can claim with a straight face that the Bard wrote in ‘classic’ 5 act baffles me.)

The point is if you still think ‘5 act structure’ and ‘conflict-based narratives’ are universal and important, I have a reading assignment for you: Worldwide Story Structures by Kim Yoonmi

For me, even though a bunch of stuff made me question the 5 act structure, it was years before I ditched it for my stories. I kept having stories that didn’t work and trying to ‘fix’ them by adding more conflict/better climax/what have you.

Yeah, that was going nowhere, no way, no how.

So I stopped thinking about it and just wrote what worked. For nearly ten years, I hardly thought about the structure of my stories. I read a shit ton about story structures and tried to read a variety of stories with a variety of story structures. But my stuff? I let it be what it was.

Mostly worked, but caused some problems.

One problem was the serial, Mighty Hero Force Epsilon.

Overall, the serial came out well, but I spent over a year fighting it because Season 2 did NOT want to come together for me. Which is why I wrapped it up and pinned “the End” on the piece.

It was also what made me sit down and think about my story structure, if I have a consistent one, what am I doing with my stories?

It turns out, I do have a story structure I follow fairly consistently. It’s just not one I’ve ever seen described.

My Growth-Based Structure

To start with, my story structure is built around growth – character growth and relationship growth mostly. This is why I kept failing when I tried to fix the conflict in my stories. Conflict is a side issue in my stories. By increasing story conflict I actually distracted from the central plotline, which only made the stories worse.

I don’t have a name for my particular growth-based story structure. But (borrowing Kim Yoonmi’s analysis format) I can break down how it works –

Number of Acts: As many as needed

What is it?:

pushed out of normalcy/comfort
lack of stability causes discomfort and upset
growth leads to temporary stability which cannot be maintained
repeat 2-3 as necessary until
characters grow enough they can establish actual stability in a new ‘normal’

Story Driver(s)?: discomfort/unhealthy personal situation

Notes:

Most stories have a ‘central conflict’ in the sense that an outside force disrupts the ‘old normal’ and continues to interfere in establishing a new normal. However a central conflict is not necessary, and if it exists may be resolved before, during, or after the establishment of a new normal. Or not resolved at all.

Other Growth Based Story Structures

This is not the only way to write a growth-based story. It’s just my way. When I look at my reading over the years I recognize other authors using what could be called growth based story structures, all using different structures. There are also some structures, like the four act ki-sho-ten-ketsu and it’s many variants, which don’t necessarily center growth OR conflict, but can center either or neither as the author wishes.

Below is a short list of other authors who have written growth-centered stories

This list is not meant to be comprehensive or academic. It covers the growth-centered stories I am familiar with, which is probably a small portion of the growth-centered stories out there. My goal here is to get a few ideas for different kinds of growth-centered story structures on paper. If you are writing or know other types of growth-centered structures, please reach out!

Maeve Binchy:

Maeve Binchy wrote what I call braided stories. Her novels have one or two ‘main’ characters, but in and around the main character, many other characters twine their own stories. Binchy truly grasped the ‘we’re all the protagonist of our own story’ idea, and wrote books where every character was a protagonist. The story they were protagonist of may have appeared only briefly, but it was there.

In braided stories there is not a climax, any crisis will be a ‘normal’ life-gone-to-hell moment and these happen throughout the story. Lovers may come together without any great declarations, quietly sliding into and through each others lives until it’s obvious that they belong together without anyone needing to say anything.

Instead, each character has a story thread. Most of them start distinct, others are already twined together – often in unhealthy ways. Over the course of the story, these threads come together and pull apart in different ways. Usually, ways that support and buttress each other. By the end, with the direct and indirect support of the stories around them, most characters have grown into a new normal and a healthier life. Those that don’t stand out as examples of what happens when we reject the growth and support offered by people around us.

Andre Norton

Andre Norton is best known for Witch World, but for me her stories that stand out most have always been the Senses and Dipple series. (serieses? How do you plural that?)

In these books, the main character gets caught up in a conflict that was none of theirs – until the wider world forced it on them. Surviving this wider conflict requires growth, often a great deal of it. These stories often include a traditional 5-act conflict structure. But I would argue this conflict structure essentially acts as a macguffin to drive the growth.

The climatic scene in the Senses books particularly often have an almost staged quality. All the characters know their parts, and there is very little tension. They have all grown in knowledge of themselves and their compatriots. Everyone will act in the right way at the right moment, everyone trusts the others to do their part.

This growth may come in the form of new abilities and powers, learning to trust others, giving up harmful goals like revenge, or moving beyond the role one has been trained in all their life. But this growth and how it happens is the center of the story, with much of the conflict never being fully explained, happening off screen, or taking part on a much wider scale than the character’s story.

Miyazaki Hayao

Miyazaki mostly writes ki-sho-ten-ketsu structured stories. Ki-sho-ten-ketsu can be used for either growth centered or conflict centered stories or center something else entirely. Much of anime is ki-sho-ten-ketsu, but Miyazaki Hayao’s stories stand out as unique among anime. I don’t know what Miyazaki calls his fiction structure, if he calls it anything in particular. But to me, his movies always flowed like water, moving from one place to another, sometimes meandering, sometimes rushing and white with rapids. But his stories often focus on his characters growing and becoming.

I’m thinking especially of Spirited Away because it’s the movie I’ve seen most recently (and I can’t watch video these days, brain stuff). But I remember watching Princess Mononoke and Nausicaa and how different they were from everything I had seen before, how much they focused on characters. There were battles, but they seemed to take place almost in the background, even while they were happening. Secondary to the characters and how they interacted with and affected each other.

And Spirited Away, well, that movie is ALL about growth with almost no on-screen conflict.

Ursula LeGuin

Long before I started writing, LeGuin was calling out the conflict-focused view of fiction as a false and imposed restriction based on an unhealthy view of the world. Her essay The Carrier Bag Theory of fiction is still available online and I highly recommend it.

“I differ with all of this. I would go so far as to say that the natural, proper, fitting shape of the novel might be that of a sack, a bag. A book holds words. Words hold things. They bear meanings. A novel is a medicine bundle, holding things in a particular, powerful relation to one another and to us.”

“…its purpose is neither resolution nor stasis but continuing process.”

It’s stretching things to say that the carrier bag is growth-centered. LeGuin never claimed it as such or talked about growth much that I recall. Certainly not all of her stories were growth centered (Olemas comes to mind, as one that wasn’t). But many of them were. The carrier bag theory certainly has room in it for growth centered stories.

A carrier bag, by definition, has room for many things.

Growth-Centered Story Structures

Centering Growth.

November 2, 2026 Jess MahlerLeave a comment

Life requires growth. I know this as I know that water is wet and air keeps me alive. When we stop growing, we start dying.

That doesn’t mean all growth is good. Or that there shouldn’t be limits on growth.

I love crown shyness in trees. It’s a beautiful phenomenon where trees that grow close together stop growing toward each other when they get too close. Essentially, they respect each other’s space.

Not all trees practice crown shyness, though we are learning that it is far more common than we once thought.

Trees never stop growing. Every season, they add new rings to their trunk, and, every spring, new leaves and branches. But they do this while still giving each other space. They grow /together/ and not against each other.

Life requires growth, but we can choose how we grow. Let’s grow together.