Limyaael ([info]limyaael) wrote,
@ 2004-04-21 18:03:00
Previous Entry  Add to memories!  Tell a Friend!  Next Entry
Current mood: cranky
Entry tags:fantasy rants: spring 2004, plotting rants

I can't think of a good title for this rant.
I wanted to call it "diminishing the character," but that's not really what it's about. Nor is it really about diminishing the plot, my second thought for the title. I suppose it could be about "moving your plot away from those damn archetypes, though."



1) If your plot starts as an archetypal or typical situation, it should not stay there. I know I get a lot of plot ideas that seem very simple at first. "This hero does this to the villain." "I want to write about two people who are violently in love." "My hero is an older man who is going to take a strange journey now that most of his family is dead."

The problem is that a lot of amateur fantasy- and too much published fantasy- gets that idea and stays there.

I'm always wary when I read the back of a book and see a description such as, "The adventures of a brave young heroine in the frozen north." If it can be reduced to that, what kind of individuality does it have? If your heroine is exactly like every other teenaged girl in fantasy, why write the story? It can be comfortable, I suppose, but I don't think writing is meant to be comfortable. I've always found startling writing superior to it.

Roll the plot idea around in your mind. See what else it picks up. Use a character who has personality traits that are not exclusively born of the first plot idea. If you're tossing around the "young misunderstood woman who saves the world" idea, why not give her a passionate scientific interest in butterflies? It can easily have nothing to do with being young, being misunderstood, or saving the world. Characters shouldn't be limited to just the traits that you need for the plot.

Occasionally, I get the feeling that authors are shaping the world around the character- that a system of monarchy is in place because the author wants to write so desperately about the heroine becoming Queen of the World, say. Stop. Make your character an individual. Don't write a story about how #Misunderstood Teenager Who Stands In For the Author feels about becoming Queen; write a story about how Henrietta, (butterfly-collector, losing sight in her right eye, nervous and flighty, prone to fidget on long carriage rides, and highly loyal to her friends), feels about becoming Queen.

2) Show the heroine and her rival racing neck-and-neck, not one miles ahead. Obviously this is easier to do if you're writing from both viewpoints (something that I encourage people to do, because it makes it harder to tell just who is heroine and who is villain), but even from one you can avoid some of the archetypal conflicts that people use. One scene I hate with a violent passion is the scene where the rival or the villain laughs in the heroine's face and tells her how much closer she is to: recovering the Quest Object/conquering the world/solving the mystery/saving the world/whatever. Really, why? At this point, I know the book is going to end with the heroine pulling some bloody idiotic "clever" thing out of her ass and making up the distance. The author is echoing the laughter of every single cartoonish rival or villain or schoolyard bully in existence. There's nothing individual behind it.

The situation is rarer, I think, but if the heroine gloats to the villain or rival, the same thing happens. Suddenly, she's not Henrietta anymore; she's #Random Gloating Heroine, speaking in high moral platitudes and using those "witty" comebacks that should be dragged out and shot behind the barn and perhaps even "giving a cool smile as [interject cartoon rival's name] spluttered." Ugh. My god. Am I supposed to find gloating in character when the author deindividualizes the heroine like that, just because she wants her to have a Cool Gloating Moment?

3) Don't give the heroine all those dramatic revelations in the "nick of time." You've read it, I'm sure. The heroine figures out one character has been lying all along and charges in just in time to stop him from completing his dastardly plan. Usually she tells him all about how she figured it out, too. Yawn, whinge, whine, cringe, pass me another fantasy book. This one smells like something died.

Really. What are the chances that the heroine would figure things out just in time to both stop the villain and make herself look good? One or the other would be fine with me, most of the time, but no, it must be both dramatic and public- or, if it isn't public, the heroine still has to stupefy the villain and give him no real chance to kill her, even as she stands there prattling on about her cleverness. A private confrontation in which she's made to feel like a fool, or one in which she wins but doesn't immediately go bragging to her cronies, is something rare and would be more to my taste.

And if the villain has managed to get away with lying/spreading rumors/sending suspicion in another direction this long, I say: why does his skill suddenly run out? (Usually, the author does represent it as a sudden failure of his skill and not a run of luck for the heroine. Can't have her looking lucky instead of clever, after all). Let him get away with Dastardly Plan A. Have the heroine stop Dastardly Plan B, after she sees A and realizes who it must be. Or let her figure it out by some means other than the villain tripping up, bragging where she can hear, or suddenly and completely breaking down and telling her everything.

Or- and I say this because I am a fan of tragic fantasy and a bitch at heart, really- let him get away with it. Let the heroine deal with the consequences. Let a friend die because she didn't figure it out fast enough.

Just don't let her angst about it unnaturally.

4) Not all wounds are healed in dramatic epiphany scenes. At least, they aren't in good fantasy. The characters often do restore something that has been lost, like the status quo (though I have yet to find a bad fantasy that would arrange to give me back my sanity). They heal wounds, sometimes literally. Lost loves return. The dead get resurrected, in the most determinedly "you WILL be happy!" scenarios. Everyone smiles.

But what about other wounds? What about the grief the heroine feels for the fact that the war was necessary at all? What about the teenaged king's insecurities about the throne? Can they really be burned away in the light of the rising sun?

"Yes!" says cardboard fantasy.

"No!" say I.

A wound that has plagued the character all through the story, whether it be physical or emotional, and that is not directly tied to that shattering eucatastrophe at the end (for example, the loss of a friend who didn't die in the war and who isn't resurrected), should be mentioned, but not necessarily healed. Perhaps the heroine will decide to stop regretting her part in the friend's death, though she will always miss him. Perhaps she will decide to let time heal it, and carry regret and guilt with her even to the last page. Perhaps she will still miss him, even more intensely now that he isn't here to see the sunrise with her.

Show grief and healing that is in character and individualized. Yes, eucastastrophe and healing are archetypal in fantasy. Doesn't mean they need to be universal.

This is the part, for me, that no mere imitator of Tolkien can match. He wrote about his characters' deaths. He wrote about wounds that couldn't be healed by some miraculous newfound love or the mere restoration of the King to the throne, and sent the characters to a place where they might be- but didn't write about them coming back, all healed and healthy and tanned, ten years later.

Most fantasy writers know that sacrifice is part of their happy ending. Their fault lies in piling all the happy on their plate and forgetting that necessary side helping of sacrifice. Eat your sacrifice; it's good for you.

5) Give the minor victories to other people. Does the heroine have to do everything?

In some fantasies, quite literally yes. She may well excel in skills that have nothing to do with either the plot or her character, such as knowing how to play a musical instrument flawlessly with no instruction, or being the best student mage in a class without training and even though her defeat of the Dark Lord will rely more on some super-powered weapon than magic. This is done to show how SPESHUL and WONDERFUL she is and how jealous minor characters are, usually, and irritates the fuck out of me.

Then there are the victories that are important to the plot, but which the heroine doesn't necessarily have to win, since they're steps along the road to the Dark Lord. Sometimes they don't even have much to do with the final defeat. A character needs cheering up, or someone needs to hear a story, or a traitor has to be discovered (see point 3). The heroine still does it, no matter how much the author must twist the plot with coincidence and the ever-convenient "overheard conversation." This reduces the other characters to the status of sidekicks, or comic relief, because even the ones who are funny or knowledgeable don't get to do the serious cheering up and investigating. It's the Perfect Heroine to the rescue!

Let other characters do things, please. Why are they there? Even if they are sidekicks, don't announce them as such. Show them in their proper function in the plot, which is usually helping the heroine along.

This is a case I really don't get, since the idea of minor heroes helping a main one along is close to archetype; look at the animal helpers in fairy tales. Yet a lot of bad fantasy cuts them out or reduces them for the sake of making Miss Shining Light here the most important one.


(Post a new comment)


[info]mhari
2004-04-21 05:29 pm UTC (link)
Eat your sacrifice; it's good for you.

This is quite possibly the best and most vaguely-disturbing thing I have ever heard (read) you say. :)

(Reply to this) (Thread)

[info]anonymous_bosh
2004-04-21 08:11 pm UTC (link)
You're right, it does bring some interesting mental images to mind. Oog.

...Other than that, very nice rant. I am now going back to revise a certain section of my story.

(Reply to this) (Parent)

[info]limyaael
2004-04-22 08:48 pm UTC (link)
*grin* Thanks. I rather like it myself.

(Reply to this) (Parent)

[info]onyxflame
2006-02-23 02:13 am UTC (link)
Eat your sacrifice; it's good for you.

Oh how kyoooot! A baby death god! :P

Hmm actually...wonder if it'd work to have the gods be actual "races" of sorts, and the one the mortals call the god of whatever is just the head of the family.

Meh. I'm getting too many plotbunnies from these rants. :P

(Reply to this) (Parent)

[info]tsuki_no_bara
2004-04-21 09:15 pm UTC (link)
i also really like "eat your sacrifice, it's good for you." altho yeah, kind of gross.

have you heard of (or better yet, read) eragon? aka the triumph of the homeschooled self-published teenager.... i thought i wanted to read it so i found the web site and read the excerpt, looked at the maps, and somewhere in the "about the author" section or somewhere was the author (who started writing it when he was fifteen...) saying that the fun part was plotting and the actual writing was kind of boring, and that he wrote the story he wrote because he wanted to do (and i'm possibly misquoting) "the archetypal maturation plot." leaving aside the point that no seventeen-year-old talks like that, it turned me right off. like i want to spend my hard-earned $25 or whatever a hardcover goes for these days to read an admittedly standard (ie, fantasy-cliche) plot? i don't think so.

so, yeah, this rant kind of resonated. and it sounds like a lot of movie plots, with the heroine suddenly thwarting the villain and standing around explaining how, and the laughing in the heroine's face, and the happy endings whether you want them or not. the good guys win, the bad guys slink away defeated. bah.

(Reply to this) (Thread)

[info]worldserpent
2004-04-22 01:32 am UTC (link)
I was going to read that book, but that turns me off too, although I think a seventeen-year old might talk like that, if self-educated in that direction. I don't know if I want to read a book by someone who doesn't enjoy writing.

(It's questionable: do a lot of readers these days, then, not look for innovation in writing, but take an older view and seek skillful renditions of a formula? There must be some reason why all these works that go against seemingly obvious strictures are so read and popular. At this point I conclude that it must either be a matter of taste or there's something I'm missing. )

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

[info]tsuki_no_bara
2004-04-22 07:10 am UTC (link)
i remember him saying the actual writing was kind of a chore, altho i could be misremembering that too.... which just begs the question, why did he bother to write a book in the first place? why didn't he just explain his plot to someone else and have them do the actual writing? cowrite. i think some of it was a case of wanting to write a book he wanted to read, and wanting to do it to see if he could.

like kammy points out farther down, it's really hard to come up with a totally original plot, but you can create a totally original story with the details. admittedly i never read eragon so i don't know how original most of the details are, but the plot as described is pretty boilerplate. maybe it's just too hard and too much work and too much of a risk for new authors to write something that goes against the grain, and so they don't.

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

(Anonymous)
2004-04-22 02:51 pm UTC (link)
i remember him saying the actual writing was kind of a chore, altho i could be misremembering that too.... which just begs the question, why did he bother to write a book in the first place? why didn't he just explain his plot to someone else and have them do the actual writing? cowrite. i think some of it was a case of wanting to write a book he wanted to read, and wanting to do it to see if he could.

Hm, I'd pretty much agree that writing is work. In your head it's all so simple and beautiful, but then you have to battle the words which never go quite where you want them to, and every single one of the darn things need to be put on paper or typed in the computer.

Ideas are a dime a dozen. Getting someone else to do the actual writing if all you can provide is an idea is not a collaboration: It's ghostwriting, and from what I heard it's not cheap.

Never read the book, though, never even heard of it until now. But the author saying "it's a standard plot" and "it was a chore to write" wouldn't put me off it. Reading the first chapter and going, "AARGH, not again", however, would.

inge

(Reply to this) (Parent)

[info]limyaael
2004-04-22 08:52 pm UTC (link)
I like the explanation in this rather scathing review of Eye of the World:

I think I can begin to see why this novel (like its sequels) is so ridiculously popular-- it is, if nothing else, obsessively detailed, and toward the end of its length it begins to add Oriental and Middle-Eastern motifs atop the traditional Anglo-Saxon/Celtic spine of its background. These mixed trappings hit a wide demographic of interests, and, when coupled with Jordan's calculated use of Tolkien's work as his foundation, turn the whole package into a sort of guided munition aimed at a wide swath of contemporary fantasy readers.

I think that might explain a lot of heaps of cliches. Something for the feminist readers in the ridiculously over-the-top heroine, something for the medieval buffs in the society, something for cute animal lovers in the cute animal companion, and so on.

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

[info]dawnkiller
2004-04-23 05:46 am UTC (link)
So basically it's unadulerated commercialism at its worst. :)

(Reply to this) (Parent)

[info]limyaael
2004-04-22 08:49 pm UTC (link)
I've heard of it, and my mother even volunteered to bring me the library's copy of it, but I passed. It doesn't sound interesting to me. Lately, I can usually predict from book descriptions how much I'll like it, and going back to the books I've liked in the past, there was always something unusual about the description of the story that attracted me. It has to be more than "hero blah blah blah quest blah blah blah."

From some scathing reviews it's gotten on Amazon, it sounds as though he recycles quite a lot of names from Tolkien, either as themselves or as anagrams, which makes me even more reluctant to be in the same room with the book, let alone read it.

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

[info]dawnkiller
2004-04-23 05:44 am UTC (link)
Lately, I can usually predict from book descriptions how much I'll like it, and going back to the books I've liked in the past, there was always something unusual about the description of the story that attracted me. It has to be more than "hero blah blah blah quest blah blah blah."

I gotta admit, I go by back of the books too, most of the time, but one of the things a published friend of mine told me once was that the author himself doesn't generally get to write the blurb. That's farmed off to the advertising team, IIRC, and if you get a bad person in that department you're kind of screwed. I can think of a couple of books that I read, then reread the back cover, and went "Did the summary-writer even bother to READ this?"

Of course, the fact that the company is publishing a quality story in the first place usually implies that the people working in it are somewhat intelligent, so in that respect interesting blurbs usually are a good indicator of an interesting book. Still, it makes me kind of sad to think of how many books must not be selling simply because of bad jacket-blurbs and cheesy, lurid covers. (A lot of Pratchett's British Discworld covers being a prime example of the last, the poor things. Turns out authors don't usually get to pick their cover-artist, either. :P)

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

[info]ankewehner
2004-04-24 10:08 am UTC (link)
Oh, yes. Including me I know at least 3 people who heard of Discworld novels, had a look at them in the bookstore, and didn't buy them because of the covers. At least at first ^_^
If I remember correctly Terry Pratchett did like Josh Kirby's artwork, though.
Covers that don't match their book goe on my nerves...
Oh, and what are those excerpts from reviews for? Especially when it reads "excellent book" on the first one, and on the sequel it says "excellent series", and the rest exactly the same? If they mess with quotes like that, why should I not believe they made them up in the first place. *grumble*

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

[info]dawnkiller
2004-04-24 12:20 pm UTC (link)
Yeah, I'm with you there. I was lucky enough to be exposed to Pratchett first via the American edition of Lords and Ladies, with its weird abstract cover-art, so by the time I was visiting Canada and searching for some of the earlier books (at the time not available or very hard to find in America) I was kind of put-off by all the bulbous, knobby people on the covers . . . plus the seemingly ever-present chick in a low-cut leather bikini. The heck? Fanservice and Pratchett so do not mix.

Someone really needs to make a reusable false book-cover for those of us who regularly read books with unfortunate cover art. It doesn't matter how good the writing is when all that guy on the bus is going to see is the cover with the wistful chick in a metal bustier holding a purple dragon on her arm (which I regret to say a friend of mine actually owns).

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

[info]warnthepenguins
2004-04-30 02:07 pm UTC (link)
There's a footnote in one of the Discworld novels in which Pratchett actually takes a few digs at the cover art--it's in The Light Fantastic, and he makes some utterly hilarious comments about the extraordinarily well-endowed barbarian girl on the cover. I love Pratchett.

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

[info]reinderrocr
2005-01-21 02:32 pm UTC (link)
The current British cover artist for Diskworld, Paul Kidby, rocks,on the other hand. In the rare case where the characters don't look like they looked in my mind and those of many other readers, it becomes impossible to imagine them otherwise.
Except I don't think he's got Nanny Ogg quite right.

(Reply to this) (Parent)

[info]dreamsnake21
2006-01-31 11:28 pm UTC (link)
well, writing is like any other activity, overall you obviously enjoy it, but certain parts are going to appeal more to certain people... i think what Eragon author christopher paolini was trying to say was that the creating and idea twisting was more fun for him than the writing... and i can understand, i mean writing can be difficult.. especially if you're fifteen and have to work harder to avoid plot cliches.. i mean at fifteen you probably just don't have the experience that lets you avoid sounding like every other fantasy book on the shelf.. i look at what i wrote when i was fifteen and that alone has me re think my opinion of young published authors.

er, i got a lil distracted from my original point, which was that i actually enjoyed eragon quite a bit. yes, it was a typical fantasy maturation plot, but it was beautifully done.. yes, there are mistakes (and by mistakes i mean things that annoy me, like long descriptions or arcane words that jolt you out of the story) but overall, it is just *fun*. the world is beautifully created and the fantasy rules are consistant within what he created, and it is rich and detailed.. i shamelessly love the book.. and it's sequal.. i really do.. and i just adore the author too... i mean, he is absolutely brilliant for his age (ok, well this is several years later, so he is actually older now, but still rather brilliant), and i mean, he actually forges swords and builds hobbit holes in his backyard.. and speaks dwarvish out loud, i mean that right there is just *hot* ...

i am going to run into the night, and possibly hide under some shrubbery now that i realize everyone else may have despised eragon... but i would at least read it before shooting it down...

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

[info]tsuki_no_bara
2006-02-01 02:59 am UTC (link)
actually most people i've talked to who read eragon liked it, which does make me happy, mostly because hey, fifteen-year-old writes book, edits, self-publishes, gets contract with major publisher, sells lots of (apparently good) books. and i just can't argue with that, because it's pretty damn impressive. i think it was his attitude that turned me off, altho i see your point about the worldbuilding and plotting, and maybe he'd just phrase it differently now that he's a little older....

i keep asking people about it because i want to know what i'm getting into before i buy it. the cover art compels me.... (whoever did the covers did a really nice job.)

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

[info]dreamsnake21
2006-02-01 03:31 pm UTC (link)
yeah, i can agree his attitude can be a lil off-putting sometimes.. i like to think it is just because he is incredibly smart, and incredibly geeky.. and the two tend to have people not know how to talk to others (in person). i saw him give a presentation before a book signing.. and he came off (in my mind at least) as someone who just did not know how to relate to people in person.. at least that is what i tell myself so that i can continue my platonic crush on him ^^

eragon is about a young boy who finds a stone.. which ends up being a dragon egg... and dragons are almost extinct, only the EVAL king has one.. yes, sounds cliche, but when i read these rants, i find a lot of areas where eragon shows how to do those things well, for example, eragon is not perfect, they show him messing up and others thinking how he is too young.. there are several areas where eragon messes up bcuz of his youth, and it doesn't just turn out ok ten pages later.. also his mind bond with the dragon is done very well, it shows eragon feeling violated at first, and later displaying what happens when your sick of having someone in your mind, and in the sequal it starts to show what could realisticly happen when romance gets added.. it is just a fun read, in the same way the third harry potter was fun..

the cover art is some of my favorite - and i was amazed that almost all of the translations have the same art - it is by john jude palancar, and he will be doing the art for the third book as well, and possibly the deluxe edition. he actually has a calendar out with other art, and it is beautiful!

ok, i will stop swooning over eragon... but i really did like it, and the sequal is actually a better example of writing.. so the kid does know how to improve.

(Reply to this) (Parent)

[info]onyxflame
2006-02-23 02:07 am UTC (link)
Heh, I got the book for Christmas and although I'd originally wondered if I wanted to bother reading it, I decided I'd find out for myself what all the hooplah was about.

I've decided that overall I like it, though it's not uber uber great or something. It's got cliches out the ass and the characters (even the adult ones) tend to get pissed off for very little reason, but the world and the magic are reasonably interesting. And anyway, it's a hell of a lot better than the drivel I wrote when I was 15, heh. The first 3 chapters are pretty boring compared to the rest of it, though.

As for his comments about writing, I'd have to say that this is why I don't plot stuff out ahead of time, except in a very minor "this is my next big scene but I don't know exactly how my characters will get there from here" way. If I planned everything out beforehand, I'd be too bored with the idea to actually sit down and write it. Therefore, the writing itself is the fun part for me, because it's fun to see what pops out of my head and discover in chapter 15 what that little thing I mentioned back in chapter 5 actually means.

(Reply to this) (Parent)

(Anonymous)
2004-04-22 03:21 am UTC (link)
Cliches are fun to play with. I always wanted to do a series on MZB's "Stories I do not want to read", but so far I only finished one.

Unfortunately, it's very hard to give a short resume of such a story, because it'd either be incredibly trite or contain spoilers. :-/

#2: And if the villain has managed to get away with lying/spreading rumors/sending suspicion in another direction this long, I say: why does his skill suddenly run out?

E.g. because he overextended or overplayed his hand? Especially if the heroine is close on his heels, sooner or later he's going to make some error, i.e. tell two people who exchange info among each other a different tale, or evidence is piling on too fast for him to get rid of. Cumulative effects of duplicity are hard to keep up with.
Now you only need a heroine who keeps her cool in the mounting chaos, and she has a good chance to notice. ;-)
(I'm fond of mysteries, so I have to deal with the question "When and why does the hero get a clue about the villain?" occasionally.)

(Reply to this) (Thread)

[info]castiron
2004-04-22 11:22 am UTC (link)
What's really fun is when the villain makes a mistake, and the heroine doesn't realize it until it's too late to take advantage of it, so she's slapping herself over the head saying "drat, how did I miss that? Now I have to come up with _another_ way to save the world!" I wouldn't mind seeing more of that....

(Reply to this) (Parent)

[info]limyaael
2004-04-22 08:52 pm UTC (link)
I still don't think every heroine is actually clever enough to catch it the moment a villain makes a mistake. If she's been portrayed as rather a ditz throughout the book, I object to her suddenly having cleverness that serves purely to advance the plot.

(Reply to this) (Parent)

[info]klgaffney
2004-04-22 06:06 am UTC (link)
....charges in just in time to stop him from completing his dastardly plan. Usually she tells him all about how she figured it out, too.

*snerk!* i usually call that the "scooby doo moment". i wait for the villain to yell, "and i'd have gotten away with it too, if it weren't for you damn meddling fantasy archetypes!"

frankly i think if a villain should see a several wildly disparate characters and races traveling together, being lead by an annoying girl, they should make a point of killing them first, slowly and painfully.

especially the girl.

but ANYWAY. i think it's probably next to impossible to come up with a plot that's entirely original. it'll always be based, however loosely on one of the archetypes of storytelling. the difference between story a and story b has always been in the details.

Occasionally, I get the feeling that authors are shaping the world around the character...

that feeling will make me put a story down real fast. i HATE that.

Show grief and healing that is in character and individualized. Yes, eucastastrophe and healing are archetypal in fantasy. Doesn't mean they need to be universal.

yes. thank you.


Eat your sacrifice; it's good for you.

Best. Line. Ever. =D


and don't make them struggle thru everything, lose friends, etc, and then make it All Better at the end--return things to them, including the dead friends, give them shiny messages from beyond, blah blah blah. makes the sacrifice lose all importance. that's not to say make them miserable for ever they can find other things to take happiness in--but if a price is paid, let it stay paid. don't say "oh, i'm sorry, i forgot--there's a refund coming back to you..." otherwise, what was the point of paying?

********************


i'm re-reading robin hobb's farseer series--assassin's apprentice, royal assassin, and assassin's quest. i forgot how good the first two books were...i think i remember the last wrapping things up a little too prettily, but i will refrain from judgement until i hit it again. it's been a long time. rereading old books is like renewing aquaintance with old friends.

(Reply to this) (Thread)

[info]eisoj5
2004-04-22 10:36 am UTC (link)
I'm reading the Farseer series too! Well, sort of. I'm waiting on my friend to find his copy of the third book.

-josie

(Reply to this) (Parent)

[info]dreamsnake21
2006-01-31 11:39 pm UTC (link)
>>>>>but if a price is paid, let it stay paid. don't say "oh, i'm sorry, i forgot--there's a refund coming back to you..." otherwise, what was the point of paying? <<<<<<

that was always my primary complaint with mail in rebates... hmmm, maybe a fantasy parody where the main characters lover/best friend/wise old mentor/etc dies and then the main character has to fill out a lil piece of paper with date of purchase, cost, copy of receipt, then goes off to the local post office, purchases postage, uses an owl/carrier pigeon/whatever to send off the rebate, and then gets a letter reply advising that his lover/best friend/wise old mentor/etc will be rebate-ed from the dead in 6-8 short weeks? of course by the time 8 weeks rolls around the MC will have healed entirely and *totally* forgotten about his dead companion... "oh, geez, good to see ya man, i totally forgot i applied for you"

yah, i dunno... weird things happen with lots of caffeine

(Reply to this) (Parent)

[info]shoomlah
2004-04-22 04:40 pm UTC (link)
I have to admit- that's why I still adore Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events series. The characters are interesting, yet no one else in their world seems to care; they're blamed for everything, while other characters get all the credit; everything they do to try and help seems only to be temporary and eventually ends up making things worse; and they get amazingly close to a particular goal, only to have it blown up.

And yet, somehow, they persevere... Oddly satisfying, really.

-C

(Reply to this)


[info]marumae
2004-04-23 06:08 am UTC (link)
Very, VERY helpful rant.

am a fan of tragic fantasy and a bitch at heart, really- let him get away with it. Let the heroine deal with the consequences. Let a friend die because she didn't figure it out fast enough.

*nods* I must say I definately would feel more sympathy for a character who makes a huge mistake (like this for example) and it costs them a lot. In the end it makes the triumph (if you have the story end with the hero being "victorious") more satisfying because quite often when a hero's story is relayed and it's stated over and over again how they suffered111!!! when really all they did was twist their ankle and angst over how the villain was sooouu powerful. In your example stated above if it's relayed how the charcater suffered then we can really agree and sympathize that yes they did suffer they did make a real mistake and it cost them BIG TIME. :3

Give the minor victories to other people.
I know Neville Longbottom wouldn't have endured to me as a memorable character if he didn't do some awesome things throughout the story, the same with other characters. This is the very backbone of what makes an enduring sidekick! :D

*makes note* this rant is so helpful ^_^ thanks love!

(Reply to this)


[info]onyxflame
2006-02-23 01:32 am UTC (link)
I'm always wary when I read the back of a book and see a description such as, "The adventures of a brave young heroine in the frozen north." If it can be reduced to that, what kind of individuality does it have?

Heh, it took me months to figure out how to describe my novel in a short sentence in order to get it put on a website owned by a friend of mine. Somehow "a girl learns the truth about magic" doesn't do it justice, even though that's what it's about, because nobody knows that's what it's about, heh.

During Nano, there was a post where we were asked to come up with a 3 sentence plot summary of our novel. I didn't know what my plot would involve yet, so here's what I wrote: "An unfortunate 15 year old fortuneteller whose crystal ball likes to show NC-17 fortunes meets a 1000 year old vampire currently undergoing a mid-death crisis. Then some stuff happens. Then some more stuff happens, possibly involving kitchen sinks." (You know, I haven't involved any kitchen sinks yet. Maybe I'll stick one in the finale, whatever it is...)

And after all that, the best description I've been able to come up with is Pratchett meets Southpark. I'm gonna diiiiie if this thing ever gets published and I have to think of a back-cover blurb, heh.

(Reply to this)

Create an Account
Forgot your login or password?
Login w/ OpenID
English • Español • Deutsch • Русский…