devise incidents
Jul. 23rd, 2013 08:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
marycatelliAh, the muddle in the middle. . . I took up outlining to keep from petering out in the middle of the manuscript. Not because it does not peter out in the middle of the outline, but because it is less frustrating when it does.
Less is a relative term.
One idea I had for some time -- namely, stealing half of the plot of The Lord of the Rings. Not the battle half, though I dare say it could be done, but the destroying the evil object half. Easy enough to wrench apart if you have a character happen on whatever-it-is before its Dark Lord manages to return to try to reclaim it. The problems of getting rid of it while he's searching are removed, and those of getting rid of it when it's not urgent and so hard to get assistance are replaced. I have even figured out what it is -- not a ring! -- and who will do it, and how she will do it, in the loosest possible terms.
The muddle lies in the middle. Because she starts out not knowing how to do it. Furthermore, it is not just a travelogue. There are beings in the world that are aware of it, and want to snatch it for themselves. I have the scene where they are put definitively down as a consequence of her doing it in the end. The muse loves that scene. The thing is, I need to introduce them, and let them menace her. And give her time to find it. It's not like stumbling across it in the first library she checks would be either plausible or adventurous.
Which means that I have devise incidents, somehow, to bridge the beginning and the ending. sigh. At least the next event is clear. A prince wants to help her. How helpful it will be is another matter.
Had another idea for a while, about retelling Romeo and Juliet with a happy ending -- which is to say, not tweaking the ending, but establishing throughout that the couple's problem is that they can't break themselves to wrench themselves away into exile, because their city is too toxic for life, by showing the possibility of leaving throughout. So I filed off enough numbers to get to the basic plot, introduced my two young wizards from rival towers in a rose garden, and had the conflict come to a head at a ball after which they fled. I even wrote most of it. And then I looked back and said, "Nah." The inter-tower conflict was not established well enough, and did not rise to a climax that collided dramatically enough. And our two young wizards need more time together, not being love-at-first-sight types. So back to the outline, and got it up to the garden, and the muse is humming rather than answering questions about what happens next. . . .
Less is a relative term.
One idea I had for some time -- namely, stealing half of the plot of The Lord of the Rings. Not the battle half, though I dare say it could be done, but the destroying the evil object half. Easy enough to wrench apart if you have a character happen on whatever-it-is before its Dark Lord manages to return to try to reclaim it. The problems of getting rid of it while he's searching are removed, and those of getting rid of it when it's not urgent and so hard to get assistance are replaced. I have even figured out what it is -- not a ring! -- and who will do it, and how she will do it, in the loosest possible terms.
The muddle lies in the middle. Because she starts out not knowing how to do it. Furthermore, it is not just a travelogue. There are beings in the world that are aware of it, and want to snatch it for themselves. I have the scene where they are put definitively down as a consequence of her doing it in the end. The muse loves that scene. The thing is, I need to introduce them, and let them menace her. And give her time to find it. It's not like stumbling across it in the first library she checks would be either plausible or adventurous.
Which means that I have devise incidents, somehow, to bridge the beginning and the ending. sigh. At least the next event is clear. A prince wants to help her. How helpful it will be is another matter.
Had another idea for a while, about retelling Romeo and Juliet with a happy ending -- which is to say, not tweaking the ending, but establishing throughout that the couple's problem is that they can't break themselves to wrench themselves away into exile, because their city is too toxic for life, by showing the possibility of leaving throughout. So I filed off enough numbers to get to the basic plot, introduced my two young wizards from rival towers in a rose garden, and had the conflict come to a head at a ball after which they fled. I even wrote most of it. And then I looked back and said, "Nah." The inter-tower conflict was not established well enough, and did not rise to a climax that collided dramatically enough. And our two young wizards need more time together, not being love-at-first-sight types. So back to the outline, and got it up to the garden, and the muse is humming rather than answering questions about what happens next. . . .
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no subject
Date: 2013-07-24 03:28 am (UTC)Anything beyond that would surely have been a let-down if not downright depressing from a storytelling viewpoint.
No knock on marriage, of course, but how do you compete with (or prolong) the excitement of wide-eyed youthful madcap love?
Btw, when I have written stories, I've always have found establishing a premise and then envisioning the last scene allows me to figure out a way to get there. The outline helps but sometimes a plot-line, or a character, takes a life of it's own and the writer doesn't always get to that last scene in the way he or she thought.
no subject
Date: 2013-07-24 03:32 am (UTC)Shakespeare, of course, could not have them get away because he had not set up that their problem was their attachment to their toxic city. Probably this is an Elizabethean Englishman vs. 21st-century American thing -- his audience would likely have choked on the notion of just shaking the dust from your feet and running off.
no subject
Date: 2013-07-24 03:42 am (UTC)I've always loved going back to the ending of The Graduate where the last shot you see is Ben and Elaine from the back window of the bus just kind of looking at each other like, "What have we done?"
There's the exhilaration of the final scene with Benjamin stealing Elaine right off the altar and the mad escape but then you realize - what's next?
Better not to think about it.
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Date: 2013-07-24 12:28 pm (UTC)"The wise old fairy tales never were so silly as to say that the prince and the princess lived peacefully ever afterwards. The fairy tales said that the prince and princess lived happily ever afterwards; and so they did. They lived happily, although it is very likely that from time to time they threw the furniture at each other." -- G. K. Chesterton
no subject
Date: 2013-07-24 04:09 pm (UTC)One of my favorite real-life love stories was that of George Burns and Gracie Allen.
Gracie was something and it's a delight reading about their life together from George's perspective.
She was nothing like her character (except when she was) and had quite a traumatic early life.
George told the story once about them going out to a restaurant and walking in without holding the door for her.
She always presented herself as a lady and expected to be treated like one but quickly raise her dress and kicked him in the rear.
"Next time you'll remember to hold the door for me," she said, huffing past him.
True love. I love it.
I'll have to do a post on Gracie soon.
no subject
Date: 2013-07-25 03:07 am (UTC)