![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
So, I was talking to my dahlink on the phone last night, and told her about a conversation I had with a guy at Amanda's wedding, about writing and plot.
See, when I write stories, I write them in scenes. I write them in fits and starts (in two-thousand-word intervals, because this is usually happening during Nanowrimo) and the first bunch are usually me getting to know my protagonist and the other characters.
Eventually, I get to a point where the characters are crystalized enough that, when faced with a given situation, there are only so many reactions they could go with that would be consistent with their personalities.
Which works great.
If you already have a plot.
See, she was asking me about plot.
And I was talking about characters making choices.
Because, in the kind of character-driven, person-against-self (often), stories I write... characters making choices is the plot.
But I think what she was asking about was what are they making choices about??
Which brings me to some areas where I have problems with writing plot.
Thing one: While I'm getting much better at coming up with situations to stick my characters in, I still tend to gravitate towards getting my characters into a situation where they're stable and happy.
Which is great for *life*, but not so great for *plot*.
I think, to a certain extent, a writer needs to be able to tap into their inner 15-year-old-gossipy-drama-instigator, because fiction needs crisis points in order to function as entertainment, if nothing else.
This is part of why my Matrix Fic Ov Doom, "Live Truly, My Heart", stopped developing. I got to a point where Trin, Switch and Apoc were a happy little triad - with occasional communication problems, but by and large everything was fine - and Neo was still about six months to a year from showing up.
And - aside from not entirely knowing what to do once the AU got really, REALLY obvious (and I started writing past the first movie) - I didn't know how to get the story from where it was Right then to the beginning of the movie when I would be able to rely (more or less) on the Movie's original plot to provide the action parts.
Partly, I didn't want to upset the happiness that these characters had found, this little bit of peace and joy and security in a hellishly chaotic and dangerous world. But also... I wasn't sure what it would take to upset it.
You can only write so many action sequences before they start getting repetitive. Likewise, you can only work phrases like "days blur into weeks of sparring, rations and late shifts piloting the Neb along it circuitous course through the tunnels" before it becomes paifully, stupidly obvious that you're just trying to get the story to where you know what to do with it again.
So that was a problem.
(Granted, around the same time, I also started writing a lot more original fic, and then got bitten by the poetry bug. And then got divorced. So there *were* other circumstances involved. BUT. A big part of the problem was just not knowing what to do next).
Thing two: Which is related. I'm not bad at creating protagonists. But I'm a total wash when it comes to creating villains.
Oh, I've come up with some nasty bastards.
But that's not the same thing.
Creating an abusive ex-girlfriend or a really fucked up parent as a plot device isn't difficult. They don't need a lot of meat to them. Take your protagonist's fears/insecurities. Back-date them by X number of months/years/centuries. Create a character whose purpose is to exacerbate (or instill) those Issues in the protagonist. Apply simple motivation such as "this is the only way I know how to love" or "because I feel like it and you let me" or "why do you have to make life so *hard* for yourself" or whatever.
This is easy.
Creating a person who fills in the blank of the plot-creating phrase "protagonist vs ___________" is another thing all together. Creating a character(?) who has hir own motivations and reasons for doing things This Way, that don't boil down to the Mercedes Lakey formula of "I'm totally depraved because I'm totally depraved!! Mwahahahaha!"[1]
The YA story I tried to write for my first Nanowrimo -- and the George story that I got from a dream and would like to try my hand at writing now... They both involve a (mostly) human protagonist who gets caught in a big confrontation between warring supernatural factions, basically.
But I need to figure out how to make those warring factions relevant to the protagonist in a way that goes well beyond "they're all out to get her 'cause she's meddling" or something.
( In Which I Ramble About the George Story )
So it's finding those plot arcs that I have trouble with.
Anyway. I'm tired and sleepy and definitely in need of bed, so I'm off.
SIDE NOTE: I will be performing in Radical Vulvas on August 14th at the Mercury Lounge. :-D
Go me! :-D
[1] This is the problem with making the protagonists of your entire series Mary Sues. If your main characters are supposed to be long-suffering, self-martyring, abuse-survivors, who are the ultimate in compassion and kindness and honour... then you're kind of stuck making villains who are just as over-the-top on the "evil" scale as your protags are on the "good" scale. Which means they end up these horiffic caricatures that, even when I was *fourteen* and took this stuff way more seriously, I had trouble believing in.
Seriously. One of the best villains I've come across is Brandon of Ygrath (from Guy Gavriel Kay's Tigana) because he had a *reason* for doing the horrible thing that he did. He had a deeply personal, deeply fucked up reason for making an entire *country*... unhappen. Brandon was someone who, under different circumstances would still have be a colonial asshole, but clearly wasn't the kind of person who wipes a place entirely off the map (using vast amounts of personal resources, no less) just because he felt like it).
And this made him a sympathetic villain.
The megalomaniac mage who does magical-experiments on the daughter who he regularly rapes (in detail), but doesn't have any motivation beyond "I'm evil. Did you miss the memo?"... just doesn't hold up next to that. Or even *not* next to that. Jaknow?
See, when I write stories, I write them in scenes. I write them in fits and starts (in two-thousand-word intervals, because this is usually happening during Nanowrimo) and the first bunch are usually me getting to know my protagonist and the other characters.
Eventually, I get to a point where the characters are crystalized enough that, when faced with a given situation, there are only so many reactions they could go with that would be consistent with their personalities.
Which works great.
If you already have a plot.
See, she was asking me about plot.
And I was talking about characters making choices.
Because, in the kind of character-driven, person-against-self (often), stories I write... characters making choices is the plot.
But I think what she was asking about was what are they making choices about??
Which brings me to some areas where I have problems with writing plot.
Thing one: While I'm getting much better at coming up with situations to stick my characters in, I still tend to gravitate towards getting my characters into a situation where they're stable and happy.
Which is great for *life*, but not so great for *plot*.
I think, to a certain extent, a writer needs to be able to tap into their inner 15-year-old-gossipy-drama-instigator, because fiction needs crisis points in order to function as entertainment, if nothing else.
This is part of why my Matrix Fic Ov Doom, "Live Truly, My Heart", stopped developing. I got to a point where Trin, Switch and Apoc were a happy little triad - with occasional communication problems, but by and large everything was fine - and Neo was still about six months to a year from showing up.
And - aside from not entirely knowing what to do once the AU got really, REALLY obvious (and I started writing past the first movie) - I didn't know how to get the story from where it was Right then to the beginning of the movie when I would be able to rely (more or less) on the Movie's original plot to provide the action parts.
Partly, I didn't want to upset the happiness that these characters had found, this little bit of peace and joy and security in a hellishly chaotic and dangerous world. But also... I wasn't sure what it would take to upset it.
You can only write so many action sequences before they start getting repetitive. Likewise, you can only work phrases like "days blur into weeks of sparring, rations and late shifts piloting the Neb along it circuitous course through the tunnels" before it becomes paifully, stupidly obvious that you're just trying to get the story to where you know what to do with it again.
So that was a problem.
(Granted, around the same time, I also started writing a lot more original fic, and then got bitten by the poetry bug. And then got divorced. So there *were* other circumstances involved. BUT. A big part of the problem was just not knowing what to do next).
Thing two: Which is related. I'm not bad at creating protagonists. But I'm a total wash when it comes to creating villains.
Oh, I've come up with some nasty bastards.
But that's not the same thing.
Creating an abusive ex-girlfriend or a really fucked up parent as a plot device isn't difficult. They don't need a lot of meat to them. Take your protagonist's fears/insecurities. Back-date them by X number of months/years/centuries. Create a character whose purpose is to exacerbate (or instill) those Issues in the protagonist. Apply simple motivation such as "this is the only way I know how to love" or "because I feel like it and you let me" or "why do you have to make life so *hard* for yourself" or whatever.
This is easy.
Creating a person who fills in the blank of the plot-creating phrase "protagonist vs ___________" is another thing all together. Creating a character(?) who has hir own motivations and reasons for doing things This Way, that don't boil down to the Mercedes Lakey formula of "I'm totally depraved because I'm totally depraved!! Mwahahahaha!"[1]
The YA story I tried to write for my first Nanowrimo -- and the George story that I got from a dream and would like to try my hand at writing now... They both involve a (mostly) human protagonist who gets caught in a big confrontation between warring supernatural factions, basically.
But I need to figure out how to make those warring factions relevant to the protagonist in a way that goes well beyond "they're all out to get her 'cause she's meddling" or something.
( In Which I Ramble About the George Story )
So it's finding those plot arcs that I have trouble with.
Anyway. I'm tired and sleepy and definitely in need of bed, so I'm off.
SIDE NOTE: I will be performing in Radical Vulvas on August 14th at the Mercury Lounge. :-D
Go me! :-D
[1] This is the problem with making the protagonists of your entire series Mary Sues. If your main characters are supposed to be long-suffering, self-martyring, abuse-survivors, who are the ultimate in compassion and kindness and honour... then you're kind of stuck making villains who are just as over-the-top on the "evil" scale as your protags are on the "good" scale. Which means they end up these horiffic caricatures that, even when I was *fourteen* and took this stuff way more seriously, I had trouble believing in.
Seriously. One of the best villains I've come across is Brandon of Ygrath (from Guy Gavriel Kay's Tigana) because he had a *reason* for doing the horrible thing that he did. He had a deeply personal, deeply fucked up reason for making an entire *country*... unhappen. Brandon was someone who, under different circumstances would still have be a colonial asshole, but clearly wasn't the kind of person who wipes a place entirely off the map (using vast amounts of personal resources, no less) just because he felt like it).
And this made him a sympathetic villain.
The megalomaniac mage who does magical-experiments on the daughter who he regularly rapes (in detail), but doesn't have any motivation beyond "I'm evil. Did you miss the memo?"... just doesn't hold up next to that. Or even *not* next to that. Jaknow?
Tags: