Creeping up on April 1
Mar. 29th, 2013 08:54 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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mag7wrimoMonday will be April 1, April Fools' Day, the day we will commence our experiment in alternate universes! Yea!
And, for those not interested in alternate universes, we can start (or continue?) writing! Three paragraphs a day? 'X' number of words? Whatever your fancy.
I did read a lovely blog post from Mr. Wendig again, "25 Turns, Pivots, and Twists to Complicate Your Story", and as always, is writing is not shy of the occasional profanity, but it is as always entertaining.
Among his suggestions for ways to complicate:
"7. The Fake-Ass Victory
This is a real fuck-you-flavored move for the storyteller to make, but hey, sorry, that’s life in the Big Story, pal. In this one, you lend the protagonists a victory: “Oh, ha ha ha, I did something good! We’re gonna win!” and then you kick the chair out from under them and watch them hang for it. John McClane calls the cops and goes through hell to keep them there, but his only ally turns out to be a donut-chugging desk jockey and the entire police force not only doesn’t help him but instead accuses him of being one of the terrorists."
This is akin to the twist later: "16. Besieged By Bastards On All Sides
John McClane’s got it bad in Die Hard. Not only is he dealing with international bank thieves, he’s also gotta contend with an incompetent police force, a psychopathically aggressive pair of FBI agents, and whoever it was that decided Nakatomi Plaza needed so much goddamn glass. In your story, just as your protagonist (and the protag’s proxy, the audience) thinks she’s seen the face of her enemies, give her new enemies to fight on top of her existing enemies."
I tend to like those stories, where the us (7) is against the entire rest of the world (see "The New Law"). Other ideas: "15. That Subplot Is A Real Sonofabitch
Subplots help interrupt the standard narrative storyline — the main story is about a cosmic battle between good and evil while there’s this subplot about an emperor’s daughter and how she’s trying to find her lost moon-horse. Thing is, a subplot has to eventually collide with a main plot, and sometimes when that happens, it causes a kind of pivot. The subplot may become the main plot (imagine that the emperor’s daughter and her moon-horse, Mister Buckets, suddenly become the catalyst for the conflict at hand), or it may simply flip the main plot and change the circumstances by introducing new conflicts, characters, or settings." Subplots - oh yes.
And one that I tend to resist in fanfic but one that I'm playing with anyway: "18. What The Shit, I’m Pretty Sure That Major Character Just Died
(AKA, The George R.R. Martin Honorary Authorial Serial Killer Hugo Award.) Take one of your main characters and kill them. Do so as a part of the narrative, of course — I mean, spoiler alert, I guess, but it’s not like Ned Stark gets hit by a VW Bug crossing a dirt road in Westeros. His death is an explicit part of the story — it’s just a death nobody ever expects. Think of this as a character-specific version of the aforementioned Sweet Jeebus We Totally Fucking Lost — the audience really doesn’t expect you to drop the axe on a beloved major character. Which is exactly why you sometimes need to do just that." I prefer this one when it's coupled with "19. Piss On The Grave
In both religion and comic books, death is not so much a permanent condition as it is a troublesome speedbump — Jesus was, of course, one of the earliest superheroes, and that guy was pretty much unkillable. Point is, once again it’s time to mess with audience expectations. Outside religion and comic books, generally speaking when a character dies, we assume it’s a permanent pipe-sucking daisy-pushing state of affairs. So, to resurrect a character — whether literally bringing them back to life or simply making it clear they never really died — you turn the tale and surprise the audience. And that is part of what we do, isn’t it?" (and note that they were back to back, numbers 18 and 19).
So - who's doing better than I am with the writing? Everyone, I hope!!
And, for those not interested in alternate universes, we can start (or continue?) writing! Three paragraphs a day? 'X' number of words? Whatever your fancy.
I did read a lovely blog post from Mr. Wendig again, "25 Turns, Pivots, and Twists to Complicate Your Story", and as always, is writing is not shy of the occasional profanity, but it is as always entertaining.
Among his suggestions for ways to complicate:
"7. The Fake-Ass Victory
This is a real fuck-you-flavored move for the storyteller to make, but hey, sorry, that’s life in the Big Story, pal. In this one, you lend the protagonists a victory: “Oh, ha ha ha, I did something good! We’re gonna win!” and then you kick the chair out from under them and watch them hang for it. John McClane calls the cops and goes through hell to keep them there, but his only ally turns out to be a donut-chugging desk jockey and the entire police force not only doesn’t help him but instead accuses him of being one of the terrorists."
This is akin to the twist later: "16. Besieged By Bastards On All Sides
John McClane’s got it bad in Die Hard. Not only is he dealing with international bank thieves, he’s also gotta contend with an incompetent police force, a psychopathically aggressive pair of FBI agents, and whoever it was that decided Nakatomi Plaza needed so much goddamn glass. In your story, just as your protagonist (and the protag’s proxy, the audience) thinks she’s seen the face of her enemies, give her new enemies to fight on top of her existing enemies."
I tend to like those stories, where the us (7) is against the entire rest of the world (see "The New Law"). Other ideas: "15. That Subplot Is A Real Sonofabitch
Subplots help interrupt the standard narrative storyline — the main story is about a cosmic battle between good and evil while there’s this subplot about an emperor’s daughter and how she’s trying to find her lost moon-horse. Thing is, a subplot has to eventually collide with a main plot, and sometimes when that happens, it causes a kind of pivot. The subplot may become the main plot (imagine that the emperor’s daughter and her moon-horse, Mister Buckets, suddenly become the catalyst for the conflict at hand), or it may simply flip the main plot and change the circumstances by introducing new conflicts, characters, or settings." Subplots - oh yes.
And one that I tend to resist in fanfic but one that I'm playing with anyway: "18. What The Shit, I’m Pretty Sure That Major Character Just Died
(AKA, The George R.R. Martin Honorary Authorial Serial Killer Hugo Award.) Take one of your main characters and kill them. Do so as a part of the narrative, of course — I mean, spoiler alert, I guess, but it’s not like Ned Stark gets hit by a VW Bug crossing a dirt road in Westeros. His death is an explicit part of the story — it’s just a death nobody ever expects. Think of this as a character-specific version of the aforementioned Sweet Jeebus We Totally Fucking Lost — the audience really doesn’t expect you to drop the axe on a beloved major character. Which is exactly why you sometimes need to do just that." I prefer this one when it's coupled with "19. Piss On The Grave
In both religion and comic books, death is not so much a permanent condition as it is a troublesome speedbump — Jesus was, of course, one of the earliest superheroes, and that guy was pretty much unkillable. Point is, once again it’s time to mess with audience expectations. Outside religion and comic books, generally speaking when a character dies, we assume it’s a permanent pipe-sucking daisy-pushing state of affairs. So, to resurrect a character — whether literally bringing them back to life or simply making it clear they never really died — you turn the tale and surprise the audience. And that is part of what we do, isn’t it?" (and note that they were back to back, numbers 18 and 19).
So - who's doing better than I am with the writing? Everyone, I hope!!