Writer in Residence - David Young

Since the time of Aristotle the number three has had magic resonances for all writers.  His ‘three unities’ – of time, of place and of action – have served as a handy template for dramatists for a couple of thousand years.  The Rule of Three essentially dictates that storytellers (1) set up a conflict (2) build tension inside that conflict and (3) release the tension, resolve the conflict and thereby deliver a story with a beginning, a middle and an end that catches the audience by surprise and teaches them something about the human journey.

When you think about it for a moment you’ll find the Rule of Threes is a pervasive feature in every nook and cranny of our culture.  Lights, camera, action! Mind, body, spirit. Wine, women and song. The Three Musketeers. The Three Stooges. The Three Wise Men. The Three Blind Mice. Father, Son, Holy Spirit. The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. Ready, aim, fire! Location, location, location!

Political speech writers who are in the business of manipulating our minds use the Rule of Three to deploy an idea, emphasize it and then nail it to the back wall of Eternity alongside Julius Caesar’s veni, vidi, vici – I came, I saw, I conquered. There’s even a term for it hendiatris – a figure of speech used for emphasis in which three words are used to express one idea.  And so the Father’s of our Confederation decreed that Canada should adhere to the principles of Peace, Order and Good Government.  Sixty years later a pathetic little psychopath pounded on a podium and shrieked ‘Ein Volk! Ein Reich! Ein Fuhrer!’ (One people! One state! One leader!) in the moments before he put his torch to the world.  And here’s Barack Obama wringing his hands a few weeks back: “Homes have been shed; jobs lost; businesses shuttered.”  You get the idea, the Rule of Three illuminates the public square and gives us all the warm fuzzies while we wait for Superman to fly across the sky shouting: ‘Truth, Justice and the American Way!’

The Rule of Three has been a foundation stone of all verbal humour since the first Priest, Rabbi and Immam walked into a bar together in ancient Mesopotamia.  The comic sets up a premise, repeats it and then twists it to earn the laugh.  Thus, if there’s a genii in the joke offering a sucker some free wishes it won’t be two or four, it’ll be three.  Here’s Jon Stewart rocking the Rule of Three: ‘I celebrated Thanksgiving the old-fashioned way. I invited everyone in my neighborhood to my house, we had an enormous feast, and then I killed them and took all their land.’

Three is a magic number for all writers because it is the minimum number of repetitions required to engineer and empower a progression of thought, and progression of thought is at the core of all great writing.  The real engine of the story lives outside the text in the heart of the reader.  The reader wants to know what happens next. The reader’s need to know drives the story and the Rule of Three is the tool that allows the writer to play with the reader’s expectations so that the story progresses in a surprising fashion that sheds new light on the human condition.  Put the Rule of Three in your writerly tool box, use it every day and the world will be a better place! That’s the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

David Young