Story Plan
Dec. 2nd, 2008 08:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jhameiaNow that NaNo is over, it's time to get REALLY started on what I want out of Jussy & Co. During downtime at work I've been reconsidering how long I can really make the stories, how much mileage I can get with the typical four-act story-telling style that I really want to try... I've never actually consciously done so, and that's possibly my biggest story-telling challenge.
Setting? I can make one up. Characters? Sure. Interesting stuff characters do in the setting? Easy. But having an actual plot with an actual tension build-up to the climax? I don't know. I don't think I've ever created a sympathetic character, to be honest... nothing that people can read and say, "I know how that feels!" I'm usually trying to create characters which I can plunk into really odd, non-traditional situations to see how they'll react, or create characters who will look at traditional situations in non-traditional ways, as different as I can make them. Like me, but not like me.
When I think about the books I've liked and truly enjoyed, pretty much the only mainstream-type authour I've cared about is David and Leigh Eddings. And let's face it: Eddings is a hack. But I love his stories. There's such an obvious formula to them, but his characters are hilarious in those traditional sets! Otherwise? It's about the ideas, and the breaking free of tradition. Most importantly, it's the self-reflexivity: the awareness of the characters that they are participating in a story, or something they can't control - Morpheous in Sandman says of himself, "I am trapped on my own island. I am the Prince of Stories, but I may not have my own story." Schmendrick in the Last Unicorn says of the unicorn, "You, me, Drinn, Prince Lir - we're part of the fairytale. But she is real. She is real."
And unicorns are myth! Symbols! And yet, the unicorn is more real. And that's sometimes how I feel about my own life too - my life is a construct, built and hand-made. But certain concepts, nature, and the like - those are REAL. Because they ARE.
This doesn't translate to good story-telling. Stories aren't about articulating ideas. They're about the presentation of ideas. And I'm not very good at that. And from my own projections, there's no way publishers would ever pick this series up - at most, I can see myself writing 10k - 20k of words per story. If this was Victorian times and people still read stories in newspaper serials, sure.
Don't get me wrong; I'm excited about travelling with Jussy to faraway lands. I want to tell her adventures, show you the strange places she goes to, the different kinds of people she meets and how they all negotiate their own places in society, whether they fit or not, and how Jussy herself figures out how to be herself in all these hugely different places. But I'm terrified of fucking it up. Who wouldn't be?
Setting? I can make one up. Characters? Sure. Interesting stuff characters do in the setting? Easy. But having an actual plot with an actual tension build-up to the climax? I don't know. I don't think I've ever created a sympathetic character, to be honest... nothing that people can read and say, "I know how that feels!" I'm usually trying to create characters which I can plunk into really odd, non-traditional situations to see how they'll react, or create characters who will look at traditional situations in non-traditional ways, as different as I can make them. Like me, but not like me.
When I think about the books I've liked and truly enjoyed, pretty much the only mainstream-type authour I've cared about is David and Leigh Eddings. And let's face it: Eddings is a hack. But I love his stories. There's such an obvious formula to them, but his characters are hilarious in those traditional sets! Otherwise? It's about the ideas, and the breaking free of tradition. Most importantly, it's the self-reflexivity: the awareness of the characters that they are participating in a story, or something they can't control - Morpheous in Sandman says of himself, "I am trapped on my own island. I am the Prince of Stories, but I may not have my own story." Schmendrick in the Last Unicorn says of the unicorn, "You, me, Drinn, Prince Lir - we're part of the fairytale. But she is real. She is real."
And unicorns are myth! Symbols! And yet, the unicorn is more real. And that's sometimes how I feel about my own life too - my life is a construct, built and hand-made. But certain concepts, nature, and the like - those are REAL. Because they ARE.
This doesn't translate to good story-telling. Stories aren't about articulating ideas. They're about the presentation of ideas. And I'm not very good at that. And from my own projections, there's no way publishers would ever pick this series up - at most, I can see myself writing 10k - 20k of words per story. If this was Victorian times and people still read stories in newspaper serials, sure.
Don't get me wrong; I'm excited about travelling with Jussy to faraway lands. I want to tell her adventures, show you the strange places she goes to, the different kinds of people she meets and how they all negotiate their own places in society, whether they fit or not, and how Jussy herself figures out how to be herself in all these hugely different places. But I'm terrified of fucking it up. Who wouldn't be?
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(no subject)
Date: 2008-12-03 03:46 pm (UTC)Then there's the question of: Are you truly convinced you couldn't write a novel or are you selling your abilities short because it's scary and you want to give yourself an out for fear of failure? (Nothing's more intimidating to have a blank .doc file in front of you, and an entire novel's worth of content yet to write)
(no subject)
Date: 2008-12-03 09:50 pm (UTC)I'm definitely sending out some short stories! :D I've got a few and still researching which ones I should be sending them to.