Mad World, Green World

We all know how to structure a story, right? Take a character, plop them down on the bottom of a steep incline and, (aargh!) as they climb, throw obstacle after obstacle at them, one after another, until they (finally - whew!) reach the summit (ta-da!), and fall into a lovely (no loose ends) denouement.

Unless, of course, that’s not the way to do it. There is another theory of structure - that of Mad World and Green World. I believe it was born with Frye (and those of you who know more or better, go ahead, educate us). It basically goes like this: Green World is what the character wants; it is harmony; it is the good place. Mad World is the character’s personal hell, it is destabilization; it is the bad place.

Do a few permutations and we find that there are four different stories possible: The straight descent from Green to Mad, the straight ascent from Mad to Green, and either the journey from Mad to Green and back to Mad, or from Green to Mad to Green again.

Confused? Think Wizard of Oz.

Or better yet, think of the idea tossed around at every mystery convention - that the reason we love mystery is that it takes a bad situation (Murder typically, but see the comments on last Thursday’s post here if you challenge that assumption) and, by the mystery’s solution, puts the world back into order. Usually a Green to Mad to Green situation. Delve into noir and it’s usually Mad to Green to Mad.

But my favorite characters tend to be experts at arriving in a Green world that’s gone slightly Mad, and not leaving until things are truly verdant again.

Think Poirot and his sirop de cassis interrupted by a letter from a peer of the realm. Think Amelia Peabody’s and Emerson’s whiskey and soda interrupted by Sethos in God-knows-what-disguise this time. Think any of the Good Girls’ characters arriving on the scene of what they thought was just another day-in-the-life only to find themselves embroiled in yet another mystery.

Examples from your favorites? Other theories to offer?

10 Responses to “Mad World, Green World”

1. Lots to thing about is am. I guess the best example I can come up with is the Talisman,Straub and King, where the little boy goes into the Mad world to save his mother from dying in the Green world. Or does the Green world go a little mad with her illness and the Mad world turn a little Green, giving him hope?

   I’ve never heard the terminology before. But I like the concept.

   by Lynn on March 27th, 2008 at 5:58 am
   
   

2. The Talisman is a good example (love, love, love King - did I tell you he touched me at the Edgars last year?) - a lot of fantasy uses this concept. It’s cool when you start to look at all works, though, and see the different worlds, even in something as small as a dude desperately trying to finish mowing his lawn so he can get to the Green World of his hammock.

   For some reason, Caddyshack just came to mind.

   Motivations, the idea of Eden, it’s all in there somewhere.

   by Regina Harvey on March 27th, 2008 at 6:25 am
   
   

3. “Green world that’s gone slightly Mad”–so well said! Those are the best mysteries. New terminology to me, too.

   by Sara on March 27th, 2008 at 7:18 am
   
   

4. There’s a Green World out there?

   As an Environmental Engineer I’ve been seeking that out for a long time.

   by Will Bereswill on March 27th, 2008 at 7:24 am
   
   

5. Now where it gets really sticky, Will, is when you’ve got an environmental story that’s actually a Mad World - just like Sara says - a Green World gone mad.

   by Regina Harvey on March 27th, 2008 at 7:48 am
   
   

6. Regina, it’s way to early in the morning to wrap my head around that thought. I’ll hold onto that one until I’ve had a few beers to think about it.

   by Will Bereswill on March 27th, 2008 at 8:01 am
   
   

7. I haven’t heard this before, either, but it’s good stuff. Now if I can just put it to use…

   by JennieB on March 27th, 2008 at 8:37 am
   
   

8. That’s always the challenge, JennieB. Of course, best of all is to learn all of this, digest it, then forget it and just write - it’ll all be there.

   We hope.:?

   by Regina Harvey on March 27th, 2008 at 9:07 am
   
   

9. Not sure I agree with your assessment on noir as Mad to Green to Mad. Mad to Mad to Maddest seems more likely with nothing but the hope of Green held out there like bait.

   Take D.O.A., for example, where the protagonist finds out he’s been poisoned at the beginning and has a day before he dies. He knows, and the audience knows, he’s screwed from the get go and it just goes downhill from there.

   by Stephen Blackmoore on March 27th, 2008 at 12:37 pm
   
   

10. Yet, even for that protag, there is a Green World - it is solving the mystery. Does he get to Green World, even briefly, before dying? Hope so - but then, that’s why I can only read a limited amount of noir a year - otherwise I would just poison myself and be done with it!

    by Regina Harvey on March 27th, 2008 at 2:44 pm
    
    

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