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If you're anything like me...
Jun. 12th, 2008 12:26 amYou're probably fascinated by how stories evolve from their first itty-bitty conception to their final appearance in your hot little hands. After all, who hasn't looked at an IMDB Trivia page saying "Originally this sci-fi action epic was a small-budget crime drama about an Irish wine-seller to be directed by Francis Ford Coppola" and wondered what's the story there?
So, in the unlikely event that you're curious about something I'm writing, here's what's new with me.
Solved two problems, one major, one minor, with the writing. We'll start with the minor.
The hero and the villain are in a fight. The hero goes over a waterfall. He picks himself up, dusts himself off, and is surprised to find that the villain has tracked him down and is now holding a crossbow on him. The villain tells him smugly that "I could never understand all those fairy tales where the villain never took the time to make sure the hero was dead" and fires a quarrel into the hero.
Pick up with the hero injured but alive, due for his third act torture scene.
You can probably see the problem, although a lot of it is from context. It's a lesser version of nuking the fridge. The hero has taken so much punishment, including having his arm dislocated so many times it's a plot point, that reminding the audience of his meta-immortality minutes before a perilous sequence is... stupid?
The answer is so remarkably easy it makes you want to smack yourself. Instead of the villain shooting the hero, he merely holds him at gunpoint (errr, arrowpoint). We cut away with the same threatened implication... a bit less severe, but also less of a cheat to the audience... but it's all much nicer and cleaner.
The second problem was major, and just one of stupid preconception. As soon as it became clear that there was just too much material for one book if I didn't want to go into the lucrative novel/doorstop business (there's also the novel/toilet paper business, but no one wants to go into that, except possibly Christopher Paolini). So split it at the cliffhanger ending (hero presumed dead, new Big Bad on the horizon, all the existing plots are tied up with the new ones just waiting in the wings to come about). Think of it like Back to the Future II and III. Only problem was, I was planning Back to the Future IV.
Act 1: Hero and company set out on a clichéd fantasy quest (with the audience hopefully divining that this is more of a piss-take than an actual... ahem... Dragonlance novel).
Act 2: Big Bad comes in with uncomfortable revelations about just about everything. Everything that's happened so far is just a piece of a larger puzzle. The Hero, the Villains, and Everyone In-Between takes off for Ye Old Floating City. In a huge climax, the city is destroyed.
Act 3: The Hero marshals the various nations of the world and leads them against the Big Bad for one final showdown.
Act 3 is the least fleshed out and the most cliched. For all its reactionary potential, fantasy has a traditional ending of elves and dwarves and all the other races coming together to kick some Chaotic Evil ass. The only really memorable part I could think of was the final, one-on-one showdown... a corollary to the final battle. Writing the book would just have the story treading water until the final showdown. Character A going to Nation A to get help might be exciting, but by the time Character F goes to Nation F the audience would see the writing on the wall and wonder when things get started?
So eliminate the entire third part and move the showdown up to the end of Act 2. The stakes are higher anyway, the ending would come right on the heels of the "Will they or won't they?" subplot and such being resolved, and in general the whole story would be leaner and easier to read.
And by clean, I mean that instead of the villains using Sky Pirates as intermediaries, they get off their asses and go after Ye Old Floating City themselves. It means losing the Sky Pirates, but as cool as they are, they're never going to be as cool as Jack Sparrow with a jetpack.
So, there you go. Two problems solved to make for a shorter, more believable story. Next time: Where to start the story and (hopefully) where to end it.
So, in the unlikely event that you're curious about something I'm writing, here's what's new with me.
Solved two problems, one major, one minor, with the writing. We'll start with the minor.
The hero and the villain are in a fight. The hero goes over a waterfall. He picks himself up, dusts himself off, and is surprised to find that the villain has tracked him down and is now holding a crossbow on him. The villain tells him smugly that "I could never understand all those fairy tales where the villain never took the time to make sure the hero was dead" and fires a quarrel into the hero.
Pick up with the hero injured but alive, due for his third act torture scene.
You can probably see the problem, although a lot of it is from context. It's a lesser version of nuking the fridge. The hero has taken so much punishment, including having his arm dislocated so many times it's a plot point, that reminding the audience of his meta-immortality minutes before a perilous sequence is... stupid?
The answer is so remarkably easy it makes you want to smack yourself. Instead of the villain shooting the hero, he merely holds him at gunpoint (errr, arrowpoint). We cut away with the same threatened implication... a bit less severe, but also less of a cheat to the audience... but it's all much nicer and cleaner.
The second problem was major, and just one of stupid preconception. As soon as it became clear that there was just too much material for one book if I didn't want to go into the lucrative novel/doorstop business (there's also the novel/toilet paper business, but no one wants to go into that, except possibly Christopher Paolini). So split it at the cliffhanger ending (hero presumed dead, new Big Bad on the horizon, all the existing plots are tied up with the new ones just waiting in the wings to come about). Think of it like Back to the Future II and III. Only problem was, I was planning Back to the Future IV.
Act 1: Hero and company set out on a clichéd fantasy quest (with the audience hopefully divining that this is more of a piss-take than an actual... ahem... Dragonlance novel).
Act 2: Big Bad comes in with uncomfortable revelations about just about everything. Everything that's happened so far is just a piece of a larger puzzle. The Hero, the Villains, and Everyone In-Between takes off for Ye Old Floating City. In a huge climax, the city is destroyed.
Act 3: The Hero marshals the various nations of the world and leads them against the Big Bad for one final showdown.
Act 3 is the least fleshed out and the most cliched. For all its reactionary potential, fantasy has a traditional ending of elves and dwarves and all the other races coming together to kick some Chaotic Evil ass. The only really memorable part I could think of was the final, one-on-one showdown... a corollary to the final battle. Writing the book would just have the story treading water until the final showdown. Character A going to Nation A to get help might be exciting, but by the time Character F goes to Nation F the audience would see the writing on the wall and wonder when things get started?
So eliminate the entire third part and move the showdown up to the end of Act 2. The stakes are higher anyway, the ending would come right on the heels of the "Will they or won't they?" subplot and such being resolved, and in general the whole story would be leaner and easier to read.
And by clean, I mean that instead of the villains using Sky Pirates as intermediaries, they get off their asses and go after Ye Old Floating City themselves. It means losing the Sky Pirates, but as cool as they are, they're never going to be as cool as Jack Sparrow with a jetpack.
So, there you go. Two problems solved to make for a shorter, more believable story. Next time: Where to start the story and (hopefully) where to end it.
