Changing tack

[khiemtran]

An idle thought: what if I've got it all wrong? What if the key to a story is all about indirection - the art of heading in one direction while appearing to go in another? A square-rigger running downwind isn't a story. It goes from A to B as fast as it can, just as you'd expect. The same ship tacking upwind - appearing to go one way, turning another way, using the wind, then ultimately turning out to have gone from A to B after all -- that's a story. There's something in the idea of approaching things at a angle, never quite heading directly toward your goal, yet hinting that that's where you really want to go all along.

In other news, I've finally managed to separate in my head the great China-based epic I can't write yet and the light fantasy that I can. In the end, the two split apart something like reproducing amoeba - the combined mass grew until it was big enough for two entities and then split down the middle. I was completely stuck for a while in the growing phase because there were simply too many conflicting story elements to put in the one story. Hopefully things should be simpler now.

The split has also meant the death (and replacement) of one of my favourite characters. Kaui Ling, the reckless river dragon is now Kaui Ling the slightly more heedful river dragon. Kaui Ling 1 was a great story-driver for the first draft, but he was a little too powerful for the world as it had become by the second, and he tended to be a bit one-dimensional. Kaui Ling 2 has far more balance in his character. Instead of simply charging off and getting into trouble, he angsts long and hard about the need to obey Heaven this time and the consequences of following his impulses, yet somehow seems to end up always charging off into trouble anyway.

Comments

[heleninwales.livejournal.com]

A square-rigger running downwind isn't a story.

What a wonderful image. That's a very good way of looking at it, especially if you don't like the Goal, Conflict/Complication, Disaster way of viewing the progress of a story.

[zornhau.livejournal.com]

"An idle thought: what if I've got it all wrong? What if the key to a story is all about indirection - the art of heading in one direction while appearing to go in another? "

Looking at folk tales, children's stories etc, jokes and short stories, the very basic building block of a story is a "reversal of sombody's expectation". That somebody may be a character, a reader, or both.

However, the most effective way of building up expectation in a novel is meaningful struggle.

So, "indirection" is just another way of saying, "absorbing confict resolved with a twist."

Were you doing something different? Somehow I doubt it.

[khiemtran.livejournal.com]

Actually, I was thinking more in terms of themes or what the story's about. If you were writing a story about a particular type of courage under adversity, or a particular moral choice a character has to make, I think it works better if you can disguise the initial premise as much as possible. There has to be some sort of expectation to drive the reader on, but it doesn't have to point towards where you're ultimately going to head (although when you do get there, the original premise should still fit). So, your story about courage under adversity might be better served if it starts out with a character's 111st birthday party ( to choose a random, yet topical example), rather than "We didn't know how much longer we could hold out..."

[zornhau.livejournal.com]

Interesting.
I suspect that might work better for films - captive audience for 1st 10 mins - than for books.

You could certainly raise the theme, but misdirect about the nature of the test.

e.g. character's 11th birtday, he only gets safe toys and refuses the basketball, ie raising the theme by pointing out its absence in the protag.
However, little does he/she know that Killer Alienz are landing in the back garden.

[khiemtran.livejournal.com]

:) Well, I can think of at least one book that did start off with a character's eleventy-first birthday... Something was certainly going to happen, but I don't think it's clear that it was always going to be the struggle at Mt Doom and the departure of the elves. Although of course, by the end, it was always going to happen.

[zornhau.livejournal.com]

LOTR is not a good example, because it had novelty to carry it forward.

Even so, the 111st birthday introduced the themes and the stakes.

[khiemtran.livejournal.com]

Ah, yes. Maybe I'll get there too eventually. Although I've got a horrible feeling this whole learning business is all going to lead to "show, rather than tell"... (And Thank You!)

[nycshelly.livejournal.com]

"An idle thought: what if I've got it all wrong? What if the key to a story is all about indirection "

That's the sort of idle question that can drive you crazy. Really. Doubt can be insidious. If it's wrong, you'll know because things won't work.

[khiemtran.livejournal.com]

Don't worry, it's not holding me up. I just like to look at things from the other direction sometimes.