True Story

All good writers know that stories are supposed to follow the same format. We call this dramatic structure, or Freytag's pyramid:

• Exposition: The writer sets the scene, introducing the characters and the setting. (A peddler is walking down the street, balancing a colorful and very tall stack of caps on his head. As he walks, he calls out "Caps for sale! Fifty cents a cap!")
• An inciting incident: Something happens: a conflict or a complication. (He wanders out into the country, sits down under a tree to rest, and falls asleep. When he wakes up, every cap is gone except for his own checked cap.) 
• Rising action: The story builds, and things get more exciting. (The peddler looks up and sees that the tree is full of monkeys. "Give me back my caps," he yells. The monkeys sit back and mock him in typical monkey fashion.)
• Climax: This is the moment of greatest tension—the most exciting event, for better or worse. (The peddler gets foot-stomping mad, he pulls off his last cap, throws it on the ground, and begins to walk away.)
• Falling action: Then, more things happen as a result of the climax, and those who are following the story realize it will end soon. (Those darn monkeys start raining down caps all over the place.)
• Resolution: The character solves the conflict or, sometimes, someone else solves it for her. (The peddler picks up his caps and puts them all back on his head—first his own checked cap, then the gray caps, then the brown ones and the blue caps, then the red caps on the very top.)
• Dénouement: This is the end. Any remaining questions and mysteries are solved. (He walks back to town calling, "Caps for sale! Fifty cents a cap!")

As a writer, I want to cram my stories into this pyramid, with one event naturally following another, with conflicts happening only when they come with resolutions that tidy things up and endings that put all things back in order, where everything is crystal clear and I am once again back on my way with all of my caps teetering on top of my poised little head.

Yeah. Life doesn't work like that, does it? My story—our stories—are messy. Dramatic, yes, but not necessarily structured. And they're complicated, filled with winding roads and potholes, more than a few wrong turns, not nearly enough trees that we choose to rest under, and when we do, way too many monkeys. Sometimes, our conflicts disappear, but rarely are they truly resolved. And the questions and mysteries never really do get solved.

I've come to realize this is good news. I've learned to embrace life outside Freytag's pyramid. It wasn't easy for the perfectionist me to break out of those lines. I still long for structure and order, for logical explanations, for cause and effect, for question and answer. For resolution.

I suppose there was a point in my story when I thought I had it all together, with all the caps balanced neatly on my head—first my own checked cap, then the gray caps, then the brown caps, then the blue caps, then the red caps on the very top—a good daughter, never much of a troublemaker, always a bit of a perfectionist, two-time college graduate, a reliable friend, a good wife, a responsible go-getter, a mom doing the very best she could with the two beautiful gifts she'd been given, a rational idealist who is principled and purposeful and self-controlled. (Yes, if you know the Enneagram, I am the epitome of a Type One.) I wore all the hats, and I wore them well. And from the outside, I suppose it looked that way too.

The problem is they got heavy.

And the heavier they got, the more I looked around and wondered how everyone else was balancing so many hats on top of their perfect little heads. Well, I'll let you in on a little secret: they're not. All those people who seem to have it all together? Underneath it all, they're just as awkward and uncoordinated as you and I are.

Your hats might have different shapes and sizes, but my guess is you're wearing quite a few too. So let's just admit it. It's OK if your hat is crumpled, if it has a hole in it, if it's ugly or torn or even if it's been run over by a Mack Truck a few times. Maybe you dropped one only to pick up another. Maybe you like someone else's hat better than your own. Perhaps you're wearing a plain little cap when what you really want is a giant Kentucky-Derby-worthy hat or a fascinator that sparkles and shines, one with feathers and some crazy bird perched on top. Maybe you long to wear only your own checked cap.

And maybe, if you take a moment to sit down and rest under a tree somewhere, a wild bunch of monkeys will take every last one of your caps. And then what will you be left with?

That, I suppose, is the real question. What are we underneath that towering stack of hats?