Understanding the Pyramid of Abstraction (Advanced Course)
Level Three of Four. And Tinkerbell. And Mr. Rogers.
Welcome back! Previously, we discussed perhaps the most invaluable tool I like to have close-at-hand whenever I'm writing: The Pyramid of Abstraction.
But we only covered the basics. This is where things get interesting.
The fourth level is by far my favorite use of this tool, where it goes from "Okay, this is pretty handy," to "How the heck have I been writing all these years without this in my life?!?"
And I can't freaking wait to share it with you - It gives me chills just thinking about it. The day I learned it, it had me scrambling back to all my old stories in order to see the places it could be applied.
But first...
A QUICK RECAP OF LEVELS ONE AND TWO
Adding more detail to your prose helps ground your work.
This helps build verisimilitude in the reader's head.
Be careful not to overdo it with too many details or you could easily fall into purple prose territory.
You can also go too far in the opposite direction, going so abstract that even E.E. cummings would raise an eyebrow.
Sometimes, you actually want to underdo it and be more abstract on purpose, depending on various moving parts, including the importance of what you're describing and the immediacy of the scene. (More details to follow in this post)
However, writing highly abstract or highly concrete can both be great ways to belt out a rough draft, especially when your story has been giving you fits.
Concepts, feelings, dream logic, and vagueness live at the top third of the pyramid.
This includes dream sequences, navel-gazing, magic, etc. I include flashbacks in here, too.
The more concrete your world becomes, the more license you're granted to explore abstract concepts without trying the reader's patience.
Even a whimsical fairy world needs some level of concreteness established before you jump headlong into concepts and emotion-fueled reflections.
In 2008's Tinkerbell, Tink is assigned an immutable job at birth.
She's introduced to the intricacies of the fairy world and observes how it interacts with the (more grounded) human world. She learns the limitations of her own powers and who's in charge. She tests her limits, learning all the things she can and can't do. These pre-established systems and limitations serve to build verisimilitude for the fairy world and Tink's powers in the viewer's head.
At first, Tinkerbell rejects her job until she realizes it's a core part of who she is. And she quickly learns that if she goes against her own nature, the seasons - and the world itself - fall into chaos and suffer greatly.
She eventually comes to terms with who she is and learns to not only embrace it, but love the role the universe had assigned her. Then everything else falls into place.
Mr. Rogers takes the time to change his shoes, zip up his cardigan, talk to us about life, and interact with the locals before ever whisking us off to the Land of Make-Believe.
And when he does, that moment is so satisfying because it feels earned. By then, it doesn't matter how ratty the Henrietta and Dorothy puppets look - We're just excited to see them. Everything else in the lead-up, from receiving Mr. McPheely's "speedy deliveries" to feeding the fish, are all there to serve as a concrete contrast to the portal world.
Now, try to imagine the show presented as just puppet theatre set entirely in the Land of Make-Believe. No Mr. Rogers, no frontloading, no Trolley to serve as a conduit. The show goes from a beloved zeitgeist and worldwide phenomenon to just another footnote in the history of television.
LEVEL THREE
By now you might be thinking that simply loading your stories with grounded realism to offset those moments of abstraction is what the pyramid is all about, but that's not even close to the whole picture. There's quite a bit of hidden nuance.
Let's start with the fact that no two ideas and concepts are equally abstract or concrete; There's no exact science for where two things land. You must use relational logic to compare and evaluate which lands higher and which lands lower on the pyramid's spectrum.
If you do write something overly vague, you have left room for the reader's creativity to take over.
That's not necessarily a bad thing, and I'll discuss why soon. But none-the-less, the reader's brain will automatically (and involuntarily) create something more concrete out of the abstraction you left and fill in the blanks, just like how people each imagine a different rabbit in their head when we simply write "the rabbit".
Leaving the door wide open for reader interpretation is fine if the details of the rabbit aren't important to your story.
But the opposite is also true - If you write very concretely, readers will automatically extrapolate abstract concepts you may or may not have intended.
For example, if you describe a rabbit as having a scar over its left eye, the reader might extrapolate that the rabbit is mean, or a fighter, or tough, or a bully, or a victim, or lucky, or unlucky, or old, or wisened, or vicious.
Nothing's perfect, but you can control the readers' thoughts, to a certain degree.
Here's an excerpt from one of my stories to help illustrate this point:
“Hold on,” came another voice. “Look at this girl, Alice. Doesn’t she remind you of someone?” The voice belonged to a fox with bright red fur and face of white that ended in a tiny mustache. He swaggered to match his fancy cane while donning a blue cape over his sea-green suit. The fox acknowledged Chio by tipping his top hat as his bushy tail swished in delight.
Alice reconsidered the girl. “Now that you mention it…”
“How fortuitous,” he said.
The cat grinned like a shark. “How fortuitous, indeed.”
-excerpt from Chio Pino: A Reverse Retelling of Pinocchio
Granted, the storied lore of Pinocchio, combined with centuries of fox symbolism and folklore, do most of the heavy lifting here. But by throwing up red flags on purpose, readers will undoubtedly extract the abstract concepts that this fox--and his partner--are both crafty and up to no good.
Readers also abstract emotion and body language naturally from dialogue. Many writers stumble on this, stating what gesture and emotion each character is going through on every beat (like a movie director) when this information is often already obvious from the dialogue alone. To the reader, this can feel redundant and get annoying.
A good writer should keep these things in mind. How often have you heard an author give accolades to his editor and mention that it often turns out what he "thought he wrote" on the page wasn't what he actually wrote?
A big contributing factor to this phenomenon is unintentionally sparing key details, or inferring abstract details you didn't mean to.
Readers aren't psychic. They can't read your mind and know exactly what you meant. They only have the written word to go by. That's why it's recommended to step away from your manuscript for an extended period of time so you can edit with "fresh eyes", read your work out loud, or let beta readers take a look.
You can save yourself (and your editor) a lot of trouble by keeping the pyramid in mind from the moment you start drafting.
Speaking of which, telling instead of showing tends to make things more abstract. Having a character interact with the rules of your world is far more concrete than telling the reader what the rules of your world are.
Humor works this way - The comedian tells a concrete joke. The listener processes the information and abstracts what is needed in order to "get it". If they didn't get it, the joke didn't "land" and the comedian has to explain the joke.
Of course, the moment the joke gets explained, it's no longer funny because the comedian had to resort to telling instead of showing.
Another example where you'll want to lean toward abstraction is if you want to leave much to the imagination, such as by purposefully leaving the details of a monster vague in a horror story. This is the art of suggestion.
The human imagination is immensely powerful. And you, the writer, can leverage a reader's imagination to your advantage by smartly utilizing the pyramid, adjusting the dials whenever needed. You can turn their own imagination against themselves, or manipulate it to make your world seem bigger and more fully realized than it actually is.
This is part of the magic of writing. While the reader is not psychic, in a way, you are. You can put letters and squiggles on a page and make readers picture exactly what you had in mind. Likewise, you can make them not picture specific things selectively, letting their imagination fill in those blanks.
Thanks to the suspension of disbelief (maintained by your carefully constructed verisimilitude), they will willingly choose to Pay No Attention to the Man Behind the Curtain ... in the interest of getting fully invested in your story.
Mastering the pyramid is a huge part of mastering the art of writing itself. It's the secret to effective catharsis.
Well, this is getting overlong. I wanted level four in here too, but it turns out I had more to say about level three than I thought.
Rest assured, I've saved the best for last. It kind of deserves its own post, anyway. In the meanwhile, happy writing!
