the world and the work
Jun. 2nd, 2011 11:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
marycatelliThere's one real disadvantage of really weird, wonderful, wacky world-building.
You've still got to move the story along.
All right, you can distract to some extent. Brilliant local color interacting with your main character in a lively manner can distract from a lot. In Alice's Adventures In Wonderland, during many adventures, Alice wasn't even considering getting into the garden. That was the only desire that had actually moved her to action in the story without being "how do I cope with this thing right here in my lap?" Wonderland did make it hard to make plans, but the Alice books do tend to be short on dramatic tension and conflict because those elements tend to be confined within a scene.
But even she had some motivations that she acted upon -- which even sometimes work . If things are transforming around your hero, or he's being shifted from one location to the next, motivations may be easy, but action is harder. How to piece together knowledge of what you need, how to get it once you know it. . . plotting can be a bear.
Of course, it does let you show up your hero's sterling character, that he persists like that.
You've still got to move the story along.
All right, you can distract to some extent. Brilliant local color interacting with your main character in a lively manner can distract from a lot. In Alice's Adventures In Wonderland, during many adventures, Alice wasn't even considering getting into the garden. That was the only desire that had actually moved her to action in the story without being "how do I cope with this thing right here in my lap?" Wonderland did make it hard to make plans, but the Alice books do tend to be short on dramatic tension and conflict because those elements tend to be confined within a scene.
But even she had some motivations that she acted upon -- which even sometimes work . If things are transforming around your hero, or he's being shifted from one location to the next, motivations may be easy, but action is harder. How to piece together knowledge of what you need, how to get it once you know it. . . plotting can be a bear.
Of course, it does let you show up your hero's sterling character, that he persists like that.
no subject
Date: 2011-06-03 10:55 pm (UTC)