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

On Queer Fiction

November 2, 2026 Jess MahlerLeave a comment

Queer is both a adjective and a verb. One can be a queer person, and one can queer shit up. To queer is hard to define — as hard to define as ‘kink’ and ‘love’ — but inherent in any working definition of ‘to queer’ must be ‘to fuck with the status quo.’

If you aren’t shaking shit up, you aren’t queering it. If you aren’t fucking with people’s expectations and overturning world views, you aren’t queering.

There is lots of lgbt+ fiction. There is far less queer fiction. To be queer fiction, it is not enough to have queer characters. To be queer fiction, the story must also queer. A story may queer expectations of romance and relationships, or ideas about society, or genre tropes. It may challenge the current societal status quo or propose an entirely new worldview. Perhaps all of these at the same time.

I write queer fiction. Mostly spec fic — fantasy and sci-fi. Mostly found family. Often kinky. But to the extent I can manage, always queer. What I love most is queering ideas about love and family but sometimes I’ll get a kick out of queering tropes, or ideas about how society can work, or even classical literature.

It isn’t always comfortable to read (or write). But it is always mine.

Queerly yours,
Jess

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

The ‘Good King’ Makes a Good Fantasy

November 2, 2026 Jess MahlerLeave a comment

Painting of King Arthur by Charles Ernest Butler

A young white man with wavy blond hair wearing plate armor and a bright red cloak raises a crown above his head.

The idea is endemic to Western civilization. From the Christ-myth to King Arthur and King Richard to Aragorn the Fair… it repeats. In our myths, our fiction, our movies. It’s the same story, though it takes two versions.

In one version — the version that makes for the /best/ stories — there is evil in the land. And there is, somewhere, a good king. The good king is lost, or imprisoned, or off on crusade. Evil sweeps over the land. Some fall into despair, others hold out hope for the Return of the King.

Often, the king /does/ return. He smites the evildoers and raises up the loyal and the righteous, and all the land lives in peace and happiness. He is /such/ a good king that he manages not only to train his heir to be a good ruler but also to prevent succession disputes for at least three generations.

Truly, a /good/ king.

The second version of a good king puts the king in the background. They don’t need to fight for the throne (not publicly, anyway). They simply /are/ the king. They magically manage to hold the throne, keep the feuding nobles happy, ensure the safety of the common people, and make everything so wonderful that unicorns farting rainbows practically dance down the street. They are rarely the center of the tales, but tales happen around them. Good Queen Bess, /le bon roi/ Henri, Jonathon of Tortall, and others both real and fictional.

In both versions of this story, the ruler (it’s usually a king, but it could be a queen, a noble, a president, or a prime minister) attains mythic proportions and the ability to fix everything, for everyone, simply from their own inherent goodness. Or something like that.

What’s Wrong with the “Good King”?

Kept to its proper place — the pages of novels and frames of movies — it’s not necessarily a bad thing. A bit of escapism does us all good sometimes. But we need to remember that it /is/ escapism.

We don’t. We bring it into our lives, our choices, our politics. To different people in the US, Bernie, Biden, and Trump have all been ‘the good King’. Before Trump, it was Obama, hailed as the one who would bring change and fix everything. It’s the new principal hired to right the failing school. The new boss or CEO. A ‘real world government’ to replace the UN or any number of other people or ideas that will magically ‘fix’ everything. Sometimes it’s us.

The Good King presents us with two options. Maybe three. We can cast ourselves as the good king, the savior who will fix everything — from our local theater group to our relationships to the entire damn world. Or we can cast ourselves as one of the grateful subjects content to play out our small adventure or romance or coming-of-age tale. We don’t need to worry about the big picture or the people around us because ‘the good king’ will take care of it. In some versions, we can cast ourselves as the good king’s loyal companions, fighting with him to win the ballot box, the funds for the renovation, etc.

It’s a great story. A very seductive story. One where, no matter what role we play, we don’t need to take responsibility. If we are the good king, whatever we do is good by virtue of our being the king: the one who will make everything right. The Good King doesn’t fail his subjects or screw over his contractors — or if he does, it’s ‘good business sense’ and therefore good. Or we let the king take care of it all and not worry. Or we let the good king tell us what to do and know that as long as we follow orders we are on the side of ‘right’ and it will end in ‘happily ever after.’

The Good King makes a good fantasy. In real life, no one person will bring/maintain peace and prosperity and unicorns in the streets. In real life, we must all take responsibility for building and maintaining a society which is just, which is peaceful, which is free, which is accountable. And all the other things that a good society should offer (and most don’t).

Check yourself. Especially in election years, but also all the time. If you think you meet the Good King, send them off to weed the garden and get back to work.

And maybe find some new fiction to read and myths to enjoy. Getting some variety in your mental diet can be a huge boon to your mental processes.

Fiction and A Conflict Centered World View

November 2, 2026 Jess MahlerLeave a comment

I don’t know as much as I’d like to, but I’ve noticed something. Conflict centered stories became the ‘one twue way’ around the same time that nationalism was at its height and white supremacy was being taught as ‘science’ in most colleges and universities.

This is me combining a bit of knowledge to come up with a lot of ideas. ‘Essay’ I was told in school means ‘I think.’ This is a bit of what I think, backed by what facts I have, on a topic far more complicated and in-depth than I have the personal resources to explore.

Conflict and…

Christianity

Most of the folks involved in the creation of the ‘all stories are conflict’ myth were Christian. (I know of one who wasn’t. I think.) When you stop to think about it, that culture and ideas show through. Christian culture and worldview are also conflict-centered.

The Christian worldview revolves around four conflicts:
God vs Devil
Devil vs. Good Christians
Good Christians vs. Bad Unbelievers
Good Christians vs. Themselves

While some churches have moved away from talk of the Devil and toned down the ‘Bad Unbelievers’ rhetoric, many haven’t. And those churches which have, have often doubled down on the internal conflict — especially in this age of rising atheism and people leaving the Churches. The party line is that lacking a sense of connection to God is not a sign of a problem in your worldview/beliefs/actions, but rather a personal test to be overcome through greater commitment and belief.

Conflict is so central to Christianity that it is part of the most sacred prayer.
“And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.”
Every day observant Christians acknowledge that conflict (internal and external) is central to their lives and ask God’s protection from it.

Contrary to what many Christians believe, this is not a common worldview. I don’t know as much as I’d like about other religious traditions, but I do know enough to know that. The only other religions I know that have anything like this are closely related to Christianity and also have a ‘Devil’ figure (also rare in world traditions) — Islam and Zoroastrianism. Other religions may acknowledge that conflict is a part of life and can be part of spiritual growth, but nowhere near so central a thing.

White Supremacy

This is where I get into stuff I don’t know as well as I’d like. My understanding is that Christianity had a huge influence on the development of White Supremacy. White supremacy also has a conflict-centered world which posits white people as under assault (literal and spiritual) from nonwhite people. The so-called ‘White man’s burden’ is a well-known example of this: white men going out to bring the other races to enlightenment — forcibly if necessary.

Of course, conflict-centered stories ideally figure not ‘just’ a protagonist, but a hero. A hero who in concept reflects all the virtues white supremacy ascribes to the White Man going forth to conquer the world.

The generic ‘hero’ of Anglo cultures is a big, buff, white man strong enough to defeat scores of mooks single-handedly. The hero is the hero because he, like the White man, brings peace and prosperity (or at least a happy ending).

Don’t believe me? Take a look at the early comic book heroes — the ones created around the same time that conflict-centered writing was becoming the end-all, be-all of English literature.

Our idea of heroes has evolved since then, but still, the White Savior looms over all, cape flapping in the breeze.

Imperialism

Western Imperialism comes from Rome. Every Empire of Europe for 2000 years has claimed to be Rome’s successor or the ‘new’ Rome. The label has been given to the US as well, and frequently. ‘Fascist’ comes from the Roman ‘fasces’ — a bundle of sticks with an ax sticking out. It’s been a symbol of government power for well over 2000 years. You can see that bundle on government seals across the ‘Western’ world, invoking the authority of ancient Rome.

The very word “Imperialism” comes from Rome — from “imperare”: “to command.” One might say that imperialism is the belief in the right of empire to command.

The history of Western thought is contained in the unholy alliance Constantine forged: Roman Imperialism given the imprimatur of Christian sanctity. “God is with us!” cried the Catholic armies of the Holy Roman Empire during the 30 Years’ War. Their Protestant enemies responded with similar claims of divine favor. Together they watered the fields of Central Europe with blood for decades.

In the Americas, Catholic Spain and Protestant England exported Roman Imperialism and Christian sanctity to a so-called ‘New World.’

Imperialism cannot exist without conflict, because imperialism requires the borders and powers of empire to be ever-expanding. We measure the greatness of an empire by the /furthest extent/ of its borders. An empire’s collapse begins the moment it stops expanding. To pull back, to dig in and hold is to admit weakness, the ultimate sin of empire.

… Stories

Here is where knowledge fails and I’m in realms of speculation. The facts as we know them:

During the early 20th century, Britain was the Empire the sun never set on and the US was celebrating ‘Manifest Destiny’, supported and buttressed by Christian evangelism and white supremacy. And an idea arose in the heart of English literary philosophy. The idea that all stories are conflict-centered, and plots are defined by their central conflict. Out of this idea came the claim that all stories /must have/ a singular protagonist and an antagonist opposing the protagonist. The antagonist acts as a foil for the protagonist’s hero-dom to be displayed against.

(Antagonist, by the way, is unrelated to ‘protagonist.’ It originated in battle or sport, not literature.)

Outside of English literature, stories that did not fit the 3 or 5-act conflict-centered straight jacket continued as before. Say what you with about Dostoevsky, but his stories did not center on conflict. Nor, I am told, did most other Russian novelists. In East Asia, the many variations on 4-act structure (best known in the US by the Japanese version, ki-sho-ten-ketsu) continued. It was first introduced to English-language audiences through anime and manga. (Hayao Miyazaki is a master of the form.) Hakawati continue to be told and celebrated in Western Asia. And thousands more story-forms I could not learn in a very long lifetime. Contrary to the old saw there are not 7 plots, there are millions.

Stories that don’t center conflict have survived in English literature, but only on the margins. On the one hand, you have Jack Kerouac and other beat/post-modern/literary/etc authors who ‘experiment’ with the limits of the genre. They wrote in ways (it is implied) more mundane writers can’t. On the other hand, you have slice-of-life stories. These were long ago relegated to the ‘chick lit’ section of the store, less respected even than romance, which at least has a ‘proper’ genre and place on the shelves.

But in schools and workshops and writers groups around the country, these are ignored. “You need conflict” writers are told. As if a story suddenly stops being a story because there aren’t enough heroes and villains in it.

A chance of timing? The relatively new popularity of English novels and short stories may have led to a new consideration of literary theory right at the time these conflict-centered worldviews believed they had succeeded in subduing the world.

Maybe I’m missing something. (I’m probably missing a lot of some things.)

But I think — I /feel/ — there is a connection here. Even if I don’t have the words to frame the connection — or even the necessary questions.

In the meantime, I hope I got you thinking.

(As always, credit and thanks to Kim Yoon Mi and her giant-ass essay on story structure. Thanks also to Marcia X for long threads and treasured conversations on the history of White supremacy and colonialism.)

A Cousin’s Blood

November 2, 2026 Jess MahlerLeave a comment

The ritual was simple, as all new rituals are. It was based on an older tradition – one that long ago ceased to be simple, but retained a simple core.

Teach them to your children.

Rachel and Chana prepared while the children gathered around. The grandparents waited in the background, eyes shining as they remembered the early years when they had prepared so, the fear and the hope and the promise to do what must be done.

“Why is this day different from other days?” asked Nathan. He was twelve that year, about to be b’mitzvah and take on responsibility for his own actions. The next year, if he chose, he could begin training to join his parents when he turned eighteen.

“How is this day different?” Chana responded.

“Most days, we go out together, but today you leave your children home.”

“Today, we go where it may not be safe,” Chana said as she checked the balance of her shield.

“How is this day different?” Rachel asked.

“Other days, you go out for dressed peace; today, you go out dressed for fighting.”

“Other days, we go out for our own reasons; today, we go out to guard our cousins.” As Rachel spoke, she locked her phone in a portable Faraday cage and packed it in her emergency medical bag.

“Why do we guard our cousins today?” asked Yiska, the youngest.

Rachel and Chana paused their preparations in surprise. Yiska did not have part in this ritual, she was too young. But the question was right and the answer was important.

Chana knelt down and chucked Yiska’s chin. “God commands that we are responsible for our siblings. We must never stand by while our siblings’ blood is spilled.

“Our cousins are not siblings, but they are still family. God surely did not mean for us to guard our siblings and ignore our cousins. So we guard them when they need it. And they guard us when we do.”

It was an idea centuries old, born of the Blood Libel and the pogroms, when the Jews of Europe’s ghettos needed to always be ready to defend themselves. Today it was repurposed for a new age. Across the city, but especially in homes clustered around the city’s synagogues, people prepared riot shields and bullhorns, medicine and bandages.

No one remembered who began the tradition or even what city it started in. Perhaps it had begun in many places at once, as needed things sometimes do. But in every city and town where the cousins lived side by side, the practice was honored and cherished.

Rachel and Chana finished preparing and the family ended the ritual with song, because all holy days must have songs. They sang new songs to go with the new ritual. We will build this world with love, the song said, and God will build this world with love.

Then Rachel and Chana thanked their parents for watching the children, and left. As they stepped out the door, they murmured a brucha. “Blessed are You, Lord our God, ruler of the Universe, who has commanded us to protect our family.”

As the call to prayer went out across cell phones and radios, they came. Some in kippah or tichel or snood, others bare-headed, the Hebraic Community Defense teams gathered around the mosques of the city. None came barehanded. Inside, their cousins would pray in peace, undisturbed by whatever the day might bring.

The guardians expected a quiet day. Their cousins would share their feast and they would spend the time exchanging news of family and friends, making plans for the new year, and even playing games. But still, they would watch, and when their cousins finished praying and emerged, the guardians would greet them with a song. All holy days must have songs.

Tomorrow night, as the shofar rang out across the city, the Islamic Community Defense teams, in keffiyeh or hijab or neither, would stand guard over the synagogues.

It had been 20 years and more since the last major attack on a house of worship. The most they guarded against today was petty vandalism and hecklers. But still, for each holy day, they gathered. Still, they taught their children why.

Lest a cousin’s blood be spilled.

I wrote this the summer of ’23, for a market requesting visions of a better future. Ironic considering how much worse the near future actually was. But no matter how bad things get, they can always get better. May a better future come soon for all of us.

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.

Am I Writing a Bigoted Story? – The importance of checking ourselves

November 2, 2026 Jess MahlerLeave a comment

I read a story once. It was a good story in the sense of being well written, engaging, with no major plot holes.

The author put a note in the beginning, explaining that this story was set in a fantasy version of the bronze age. This meant (of course) that there were slaves and women were not treated equal to men. That doesn’t make the author or the story sexist, it’s just a setting!

I think the author meant it. I think he had no intention of writing a sexist story. He was just (as far as he was concerned) writing a story in which sexism happened and slavery happened. He wasn’t endorsing these things, he just wanted to tell a story.

That story was Demon’s Gate by Steve White and it, more than anything else, taught me the danger of unexamined biases. And the importance of asking, “Am I creating a bigoted story?”

We, as creators, cannot afford to let our biases or our creations go unanalyzed, uncritiqued.

For instance…

A nobleman and his loyal slave discover something hinky at the palace. As they investigate they discover a group of noblewomen who are tired of being treated as, well, women. (You know, second class citizens, property of men, that kind of thing.) These women are fomenting some kind of plot against the empire. Except the (male) leader of their little cult is a demon in disguise who has tricked them into opening a gate into the demon’s realm. Once the gate is opened it will flood reality with demons who will turn the world into a literal hell on earth forever more.

The nobleman (and his loyal slave) break the cult by convincing one of the young women that the cult was wrong. The women needed to accept their place, not rebel against the status quo. This woman realizes she needs to tell the nobleman everything she can about the cult. The climax is an epic race against time to stop the women’s cult from opening the gate to the other world and a battle for the fate of mankind. The members of the cult are either killed or imprisoned. The demon is banished with the help of the one woman who is permitted to be a power in her own right (religious figure) and everyone lives happily ever after.

The premise of this story can be boiled down to “a bunch of women form a support group to try to better their lives and nearly bring about the end of the world.”

Just to highlight a few points:

1) Women trying to fight against oppression nearly destroy the world (literally)

2) Women only get the idea to fight against oppression when a man (or demon pretending to be a man) urges them to. Even in fighting against oppression, they follow the leadership of a man

3) Protagonist is a privileged slave owner who is a hero because he is fighting to preserve a corrupt, oppressive empire

The 1920s want their anti-suffragette memes back. And Dixie wants to know where the General Lee doppelganger got to.

But Realism!

There are a lot of issues with the endless calls for realism — especially in SFF! But that’s a tangent, because….

You can write stories in slave societies, in sexist societies, in elitist societies, in racist societies, and not have your story be bigoted!

David Freer does a not-horrible job of this in A Mankind Witch. By the end of the story, the Prince of the Holy Roman Empire gets some of his self-satisfied religious bigotry knocked out of him, a Nordic princess learns that putting a slave collar on a man doesn’t strip away his basic humanity, and a Berber pirate learns that there are things he cares about more than money and the next ransom. All while fighting free of a troll queen, outwitting dwarves, and solving a crime that nearly ends the fragile peace between the Northlands and the Holy Roman Empire.

Awesome story, I recommend it and the rest of the series.

Anyway, as creatives, we need to check ourselves and our work. It isn’t as simple as ‘if there is bigotry in your work it is bigoted’. Life doesn’t work that way.

We need stories that portray bigotry. We A) need to not erase bigotry from history (or current events) and B) we need to have stories celebrating people who triumph over bigotry.

Even if we didn’t need those stories, we still wouldn’t want to shut down all stories portraying bigotry – that would eliminate stories about the lived experiences of most people who have ever existed.

But we need to do the work to portray them well. We can create those stories without reinforcing the bigotry, without resurrecting bigoted ideas and tropes that should have died a century ago.

And we can damn well make our heroes people who are fighting against bigotry or learning important lessons about not being bigoted. Not bigots who are proved right by the stories we tell!

If you like fantasy in a Bronze-age setting, check out my novel Planting Life in a Dying City, about building family in the face of loss and trauma.