Make the Introductions, Josh

There are a number of benefits afforded to extended and long-term narratives. The benefit is felt more strongly in the written word than in movies as far as series tend to go, frequently because of a singular author. Of course moving from the page to the screen can pass on those benefits. I have discovered a really nice benefit while writing the posts for the On Dark Rhoads™ blog that I did not anticipate, as much as it makes sense. I can introduce concepts, characters, and any idea I might like to add into the narrative at any point, without getting straight to the point of why it is there. I can hint at its importance, or I can say nothing and just let it stand. Silence on the point can add its own mystique as well. Then I can come back to it when the time is right and the savvy readers will know they've seen it before and have the kind of aha moment that just wouldn't occur or be possible any other way.

This kind of foreshadowing is really appealing from this side of the process. It may not be quite so exciting for the reader, especially previous to the reveal. I just recently introduced a pretty important element to Josh's story in just such an offhand way. I'd like to think that it is mysterious too. People will read it and tell themselves that this simple, almost innocuously boring update has meaning that is not readily important, otherwise why is it there. The question then becomes can I, or any author in a similar situation, have superfluous posts? The answer must be yes. For starters, the idea of a red herring is reliant on giving information that is not actually important, at least to the true advancement of the story's main conflict, and to the characters beyond the time that it has proven false. By the way, the revelation was that Josh does vote for the hidden-evil political party.

Mood: dramatic.
Music: Street Justice by Twisted Sister and Top Jimmy by Van Halen.

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Tired Trope Kick-out

I was watching what was a great series of horror shorts when one of the pieces comes out of the blue with an excessively overused trope that I am really sick of seeing. You know it very well too I bet. A person has information that could help the police once they get past the fact that it is a supernatural perpetrator. This in and of itself is not a story problem even as often I've seen it. Now, this informant meets with the detective on the case and starts in about how the detective will think the informant is crazy. Mistake number one. Certainly the informant is intelligent enough to know that it's hard to believe so why don't they think ahead to find a way around that? This is way too often made worse by how the informant came into this information about the supernatural, which is a part of the trope--and the worst of it all--that there was a previous case involving just such a modus operandi as the current crimes.

In the particular case of this series there is a further bit of information. The informant knows about the particulars not only because of the previous case, but also because a relative was directly involved in the old investigation. Yet, the informant never does what any reasonably intelligent mammal would do and start off the conversation with "Hi, my name is Clara and I have something to tell you about your case because my deceased grandfather was a crime scene photographer and I found old case files that seem just like what I saw in the news papers." No, instead the conversation goes, "You'll think I'm crazy... there's something unnatural going on... the victims eyes are missing..." and the detective immediately has suspect number one right in front of him because no one not on the case is supposed to know anything about the missing eyes.

Instead, why can't script writers--I have no idea if this trope is repeated in novels but I have to imagine it is--sidestep this tired, and frankly pretty lame from the first instance whenever that was trope? What happens if this and other overused plot devices are put aside? How will the stories differ? Sometimes movies with tongue firmly planted in cheek, or with an attitude that all of their competition sucks flaunt these ideas. Sometimes they even knock these scenarios with flare and style. Not all tropes are bad, just like stereotypes. The word trope itself refers to different things with the meaning I have here being in line with the idea of "TV tropes" rather than traditional literary tropes. I'm personally fond of a trope I like to call "heritage speaking" where intelligent, somewhat socially awkward, characters speak as if they come from an older time period, but it is instead actually a matter of their family's status and its link to stuffy archaic thought and speech.

Mood: breezy.
Music: Phantom of the Opera by Iron Maiden and The Phantom Opera Ghost by Iced Earth.

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Two Shades of Good

Conflict is not always between good and evil. Sometimes the most gripping or poignant conflict is between people who both think they are doing the right thing. Keep in mind that a lot of villains believe they are doing the right thing. Very few of them believe themselves to be evil. They get downright confrontational if anyone suggests they are doing evil. This does not include the masses of selfish users and takers who flaunt the law simply because they do not think it applies to them or plain do not care if it does, until they end up incarcerated. No, this is about the evil masterminds, when they're not delusional or caricature take over the world types, who want to mould the world into the vision they have for it. This is about the despots, the mafia don, the cult leader, and the countless others who are not introspective enough to see the harm they inflict.

To reiterate, and it may be a matter of opinion--it certainly isn't something to be overused without cause and enough originality--the most exciting conflict, with great impact and resonance is between two forces for good. Some of the excitement is in-built just because it's different. Some of it is because it's harder to decided for which side to root. There is also the matter that the cost and results are different depending on which side is victorious. The audience--been a while since it was said but the audience could be readers of your short story, novel, comic book, or role-playing game or your video, movie, TV show audience--will pick a side and a significant number of them will decry the other side as being in the wrong, if they don't go so far as to equate them with villains. This is true even if there is a three-way conflict including a definite evil person or group.

The three-way conflict gives the most flexibility in crafting a sinuous, whether that is convoluted or not, plot. The sides can play off of each other, go for outright manipulation of each other, and generally get in the way so much that not a one of them can reach their goal. The potential to derail all of their plans could lead to a disaster that none of them wants to see. This in turn will cause one or more sides to reverse course to some degree, switch sides, or pull out--this will be common among the villains who can just try again later or do without that particular victory. The dynamics of the conflict can change dramatically, turning heroes into villains, and turning expectations entirely on their head. The best thing to do in creating one of these conflicts is to make it so that there is a painful decision/aspect to one of the good sides confronting the other good side.

Mood: scrupulous.

Music: Peace Sells by Megadeth and Distant Skies by Stratovarius.

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Goal in the Bottom of the Ninth

It is time for a bit of a change in gears. The next few weeks or so the focus will shift toward role-playing games again. This is not to say--as is frequently said here--that what will be discussed is any less relevant to plotting a novel or writing a screenplay. All of these items, and all narratives really, share certain things in common such as plot, settings, and types of characters. This definition of character is as far as their place in the setting, in the society they were born into, and/or the society they adopt as their own. It informs and involves their profession. The other definitions of character are almost exclusive of this and need not change significantly from setting to setting. Only the actions they bring about change, not the motives behind them in the different settings.

The quantities that will be discussed involve modifications or elements of certain settings that change the nature of the game. They change the way plots and conflicts are resolved over the long term across multiple encounters. From role-playing games to stories these game-changers affect the timeframe under which the story progresses. They affect the level of tension in the story. At the same time they bring to the story different things in place of the lost tension. When conflict is altered it has a ripple effect that carries over beyond how combat is done. At the military level some of these changes will affect the strategic planning and materiel management. Others will have an effect on the motives behind going to war and the willingness to do so.

Much of the way a society handles itself and the traditions they involve themselves in come about because of their militaristic habits. At the least, military inventions and procedures trickle down because of the required innovation to constantly one-up the enemy and the sense of duty and efficiency required by any good army. Those two are just such a potent combination. At the same time that combination is pretty rigid and doesn't allow for much variation so of course it can only be one part of the necessary equation to create a society, or number of societies. The variations, the differences, from one group to another group are where a lot of friction comes and where conflict is developed. So it is that next week begins with the first look at one of these game-changing elements.

Mood: mellow.

Music: Paint It, Black by The Rolling Stones and Chariots of Pumpkins by John Carpenter.

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Arches Better than Stereos

Stereotypes may be overused, misused, and maligned. However when there is enough about them that is true why wouldn't they still be of use? The answer is that they would. However, they may do their work under the auspices of the different closely related word, archetype. What is the difference between the two? Well it is a matter of degree in the amount of thinking put into using the qualities being ascribed to the group/person who is a stereotypical or archetypal representation of others. A stereotype is shallow, possibly inaccurate, often negative or deprecating, and at the worst clichéd. The last of these really makes a mess of stereotypes, and into which archetypes are much less prone to fall. In other words shallow clichés are bad, deeply thought out archetypes are good.

The use of archetypes falls into two different camps as far as this discussion. The first is obviously archetypal characters. In horror these can be archetypal monsters. There are vampires, werewolves, zombies, constructs (like Frankenstein's monster), devils, and ghosts. These are in addition to normal people archetypes such as the gentle giant, the strong silent type, the loveable rogue, star crossed lovers, traitors, manipulators, abusers, and such. There is some crossover with types like the reluctant monster who, human or inhuman, is driven, or more likely provoked, to do evil and wreak havoc by others who figure him or her for the stereotypical monster. The part to remember of course is to maintain the character as an archetype and not stereotype it.

The other camp of archetypes are the archetypal conflicts, or plots. There are considered to be four of them with variations possible, but not held separate. These plots can even be combined in the same story line--perhaps even best used in pairs. They are defined as man versus himself, man versus man, man versus nature--the fourth is sometimes questioned whether it counts--and man versus society. Society doesn’t actually act on its own but via proxies, hence the debate. A lot of variations come from man versus man with the opposition being inhuman, such as supernatural beings and technological human approximations ranging from artificial intelligences to robots of myriad kinds. Of course the supernatural may take the place of nature, and technology of society.

Mood: relaxed.

Music: Chains Of Misery by Iron Maiden and Molly's Chambers by Kings of Leon.

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What Is Not There Now Is

Last week the discussion revolved around footnotes, endnotes, and other forms of annotation possible with e-books.  It ended with mention of DVD-style extras, such as deleted scenes, and ancillary information in novels.  The first question the idea of deleted scenes being shipped out with a book is why?  If the scene was worthy of inclusion in the book why is it not directly included?  There are a few reasons for this.  In writing circles there is something referred to as killing your darlings.  It is something that comes in up when authors are asked about how they write, and editors in what they do beyond error checking and sprucing up with a word change here and there.  It refers to cutting out your favourite scenes in your books because though they are cool they do not serve a purpose.

The caveat usually missing from these discussions is that there have to be many times where an author's favourite, darling, scene does serve a purpose and thus would not be cut out.  In general there is a second flaw to these discussions; the usefulness of scenes is equated to the plot.  Not every scene needs to be important to the plot and were it so things such character development and defining important parts of the setting would be neglected unless they added to the plot immediately.  Pacing is another factor that can be important rather than focusing the direction of everything toward the plot in what is usually an increasing frenzy.  Raising the bar on tension and action is a powerful tool for an author but contrast and breathing space shouldn't be neglected either.

Beyond non-plot involvement these deleted scenes may have been deleted because they affected the pacing of the story.  Movies often cut scenes to fit a specific run time, or because they slow down the pace.  On a different tangent the events showed too much too soon, were too intense, or otherwise were better suited until later in the narrative, but of course are tied to events in their original position.  These deleted scenes are included in the extras because the director likes them.  They are interesting or they add a new dimension to the story.  Dimension adding options can include features like sub-plots, and bits of characterisation not pertinent to the plot.  Come back next week and get closer to the answer to why include these scenes outside of the natural flow of the story?

Mood: even.

Music: Hallucinate by Def Leppard and Mama Weer All Crazee Now by Quiet Riot.

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This Must Never Start. Spread this news around.

Now this is scary.

http://www.emediawire.com/releases/2005/11/emw303435.htm

If you are or want to be a writer please see people get wind of this. Somebody has to see that this doesn't take off. Ever!