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| Happy New Year to all! It is the time for resolution making in hope that it will become resolution keeping and not resolution breaking. I could go on about the effect the basal ganglia have on this process but that might prove disappointing to those looking forward to the first Fantasy Newsletter of the New Year. Instead of that, I would like to address a great question posed by one Draconicon : Do you mold the story, or does the story mold you? That’s right up there with “What came first the chicken or the egg?” |
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Granted such questions are rooted in the tradition of rhetoric and don’t actually require and answer. Instead, these questions are meant to get the audience thinking and providing creative synapse for discussion. So, why bring it up at all? Because Fantasy requires the writer to think outside the box while keeping a firm grasp on reality. If you construct the fantasy correct you will begin by molding the story but in the end the story will mold you. What? Did she just write what I think she wrote?
First, before you throw characters that are half this and three quarters that you must have a story. If you can’t describe your short story, poem, or novel in one sentence then you’re headed for a great deal of heart/head/stomachache. There are only seven basic plots (Man v Man, Man v Nature, Man v Environment, Man v Machine, Man v The Supernatural, Man v Self, Man v God), everything else is a variation on one of these themes. In Fantasy writing, as well as Science Fiction, it is imperative that you know which of these seven you plan to use because this is the foundation on which your story will be built. It doesn’t take a genius to write fantasy creatures or worlds or magic spells or robots or flesh eating aliens with bad credit, but it does take a talented writer to make any of these elements fit into a believable plotline. As a Fantasy/ScFi writer you are asking your reader to take a huge step off the cliff into unknown worlds, you owe that reader a strong commitment to a stabilized plotline. One of my all time favorite Fantasy/SciFi writers/director/producer was Rod Serling. He knew the value of the story in this genre. “Twilight Zone” set a high standard not only for Fantasy/SciFi genre, but for storytelling as a whole. Remember above everything else your fantasy must tell a story.
This leads us to diagramming the storyline and the need for adding structure in your story. I must admit, I very rarely write out my plotline because I have the uncanny ability to hold it all in my head, keep in mind I only write short stories. If you are contemplating a novel you must write out the diagram. This is important for several reasons: 1) it keeps your story focused and eliminates “bird walking” (go off in a completely unrelated direction), 2) keeps track of the rising action, or conflicts, in relation to the climax, 3) tracks all of your characters, dynamic and static, and (4 let’s you know how to tie up the lose ends for the denouement. What does it look like? Remember that funny mountain like diagram your English teacher insisted on putting on the board ad nauseam every time you studied a play, novel, or short story? Yeah, you actually needed to know how go use that in everyday life. For those who may not be familiar, or have forgotten, what a plot diagram looks like think of an EKG heartbeat: _/\_. The line on the right, flat line, represents exposition. The exposition sets time, place, basic situation, background information, introduction of protagonist any information that the authors feels necessary to draw the reader in. It sets the stage. The second line, the upward line, represents the rising action. The rising action takes the form of conflicts that get in the protagonist’s way, if the antagonist was not introduced in the exposition then it must happen here. The apex represents the climax of the story. This is where all the rising action has been heading, the turning point. This must be the point of no return and provide a great deal of tension for the reader. The fourth line, the downward line, is the resolution faze of the story and the most difficult to write. Here normalcy for the characters is returned because all conflict has been resolved and there is often a catharsis or a release of all tension for protagonist and reader. All great writers, regardless of genre, mold their stories to this diagram.
Clearly, the writer molds the story by choosing plot and diagram the plotline. Does that mean the writer is in complete control of the story? The author has complete control over the story like your grandmother’s Jell-O salad? The difference between an author and a writer is more than just publication. A writer will force the story to take twist and turns she wants regardless of logic, an author allows the story to tell itself and has the characters act and react in a logical way. Think of a book you read where you hated the ending. Did you hate the ending because you wanted it to end your way, or because you knew for a “fact” the characters wouldn’t act that way? Sometimes the ending has to be unhappy because that’s what the story wants. An author understands this, may not like it but will write the story as it must go. Just because you are writing in Fantasy/SciFi doesn’t mean that all rules of logic can be thrown out of the portal. The author is allowed to suspend reality but may not suspend logic.
There you go Draconicon and all my gentle readers, the answer to the question is “yes.” There is no easy out, the author must set up the story in order for the story to write itself. As stated above, all genres follow the same plotting rules without a story it’s only unicorns on Mars.
-------oh, oh, the chicken or the egg? Both, the egg was inside the chicken.
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Fantasy: January 09, 2008 Issue [#2170]
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