Stories, how do they work?
13/11/12 17:37![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
owlectomyThere's something I've been chewing over.
I'll begin here: I really really like reading screenwriting advice. Novel-writing advice, not so much anymore; but I have persistent issues with story structure, and that's the thing that good screenwriting advice nails. (Bad screenwriting advice reduces it so much to formula that it's hard to know why anyone would ever need to see more than one movie.)
(Incidentally, I think the best screenwriting advice you can get these days comes from Cockeyed Caravan, who I respect for being able to sing the praises of both tiny uncommercial indie movies and big silly action movies.)
I guess what interests me about all this received wisdom is that it really works, and at the same time what's most interesting in a story is usually the things that can't get shoved into that box.
In the last week-or-so I watched Wreck-It Ralph, which was completely by the book as far as story structure goes, but was largely redeemed by the care that everyone put into the in-jokes, the visual gags, the voice-acting, and so forth. But the formula actually worked, however transparently. And I watched X-Men: First Class, which was sort of a mess at a story structure level (too many characters, unlikeable protagonist, the mix of the Cuban Missile Crisis with the superhero story is kind of wonky and muddles the themes) but has such a rich soup of opposing loyalties and opposing worldviews that it works better than it should. (That, plus two good-looking male leads? No wonder fandom was all over that.)
And the thing that I've kind of been thinking about is this: having a story that works structurally, and having a story that's personal and intimate, aren't things that are opposed to each other. But they're things that are never going to be 100% in sync with each other, either. You're going to generate tension between the demands of the formula and the demands of your characters.
I think that the great stories are the ones that come out of that friction. Out of letting the formula hone your personal vision like a whetsone, rather than smash it like a hammer. Ignore the weird, the quirky, the personal, and you get something that's too slick to really get under your skin; but you need good bones, too (though that can often be more complicated than following the three-act formula) or you risk having a story seem shapeless and meandering. (Or, you know, you have a story that looks shapeless and meandering for 250 pages and then you have that gorgeous revelation at the end that pulls anything together. Would that I were good enough to pull that off.)
I'll begin here: I really really like reading screenwriting advice. Novel-writing advice, not so much anymore; but I have persistent issues with story structure, and that's the thing that good screenwriting advice nails. (Bad screenwriting advice reduces it so much to formula that it's hard to know why anyone would ever need to see more than one movie.)
(Incidentally, I think the best screenwriting advice you can get these days comes from Cockeyed Caravan, who I respect for being able to sing the praises of both tiny uncommercial indie movies and big silly action movies.)
I guess what interests me about all this received wisdom is that it really works, and at the same time what's most interesting in a story is usually the things that can't get shoved into that box.
In the last week-or-so I watched Wreck-It Ralph, which was completely by the book as far as story structure goes, but was largely redeemed by the care that everyone put into the in-jokes, the visual gags, the voice-acting, and so forth. But the formula actually worked, however transparently. And I watched X-Men: First Class, which was sort of a mess at a story structure level (too many characters, unlikeable protagonist, the mix of the Cuban Missile Crisis with the superhero story is kind of wonky and muddles the themes) but has such a rich soup of opposing loyalties and opposing worldviews that it works better than it should. (That, plus two good-looking male leads? No wonder fandom was all over that.)
And the thing that I've kind of been thinking about is this: having a story that works structurally, and having a story that's personal and intimate, aren't things that are opposed to each other. But they're things that are never going to be 100% in sync with each other, either. You're going to generate tension between the demands of the formula and the demands of your characters.
I think that the great stories are the ones that come out of that friction. Out of letting the formula hone your personal vision like a whetsone, rather than smash it like a hammer. Ignore the weird, the quirky, the personal, and you get something that's too slick to really get under your skin; but you need good bones, too (though that can often be more complicated than following the three-act formula) or you risk having a story seem shapeless and meandering. (Or, you know, you have a story that looks shapeless and meandering for 250 pages and then you have that gorgeous revelation at the end that pulls anything together. Would that I were good enough to pull that off.)