Describe your narratives in as few standalone terms as you can.

[Ban]

A question I have been asking myself is how I would describe my current (and to a great extent past) works if I could only do so via singular, standalone terms (i.e. "prestige", or "temptation"). And continuing from that thought; What's the lowest amount of terms I could use to encapsulate the whole in a way that does it justice, without reducing or withholding primary themes? In essence this is a writing exercise, but I am hopeful it will soon become a discussion regardless. Have fun engaging with the exercise and sharing your descriptions. As an additional exercise, I ask how you would describe those same narratives if you could only use dialectics, in the sense of a unity of opposites (i.e. nature-civilisation, pride-humility, light-dark).

 

[pmmg]

Seems a little like Lowan's Trope Maps, that was up some while back.

If I pick just my book one, The Eye of Ebon (available very soon), I think I would come up with...



Stand-Alone
Damage, Anger, Duty, Love, and Faith.

Dialectics
Determination vs Doubt, Love vs Duty, Belief vs Disbelief, Good vs Evil, Light vs Dark

 

[Incanus]

My current project is underway, but perhaps not far enough along to get this right. Ideas need to crystalize more yet.

Mystery, Threat, Doubt, Courage, Survival

--Individual vs. Community

--Cooperation vs. Everyone for themselves


I've actually been wondering lately: are those two dialectics I just spelled out the same? Or do they just overlap a bit? Do they suggest or lead to different plots? Or could the same plot tackle one or the other?

 

[Jackarandajam]

Great exercise! This took me a while and I'm still chewin on it.

Current WIP:

1. Mood: Stranger
2. Theme: Desire vs. Compassion.

Stranger:
I love the depth of this word. An unusual person or thing that you do not know and do not know what to expect from. You know what it is, sort of, but you do not yet know why. It is, for one reason or another, uncomfortable and unknown. Not quite weird and not quite scary; the mind is ready for either but hesitates. Eerie, odd, not blatantly bizarre but subtle. Not quite mysterious because for there to be a mystery there must be a question, and you're unsure of what to ask. Chilling like late autumn, not winter.
You are not yet running for your life but are decidedly not at home here. Your safety isn't compromised but is questionable.
Not horror but uneasiness.
Expectations are not discarded but they do become shifting, unreliable things.
...Creatures more curious than malevolent watching placidly from the inky shadows.
...Gangly giants, black eyes wide, their children on their shoulders, quietly loping northward toward the border in shining moonlit valleys. Secretly, silently getting out.

Desire Vs. Compassion:
Wanna know how to write a psychopath? Here’s what I think:
1. Give a normal person a Desire (never wants to be around cats, hates them).
2. Crank their narcissism to 11 (fully egocentric compassion, desire becomes objective truth). (“FACT: the world would be better if all the cats were killed. This is objectively true because I think it is. Anyone who owns a cat is evil and stupid for perpetuating the problem and doesn't deserve a choice in the matter”).
3. Slowly turn down their impulse control. (“My narcissism gives me godlike authority, and no one is looking…. Here, kitty-kitty-kitty…”)

Desire is essentially taking something not yet achieved and harnessing the ego to it.
It can be a very noble, wonderful thing to have, as long as it’s balanced with compassion.
Desire and Compassion are like two tuning knobs. If they are not carefully, constantly harmonized, the desire-harnessed ego takes over and bad things happen.

 

[Jackarandajam]

I've actually been wondering lately: are those two dialectics I just spelled out the same? Or do they just overlap a bit? Do they suggest or lead to different plots? Or could the same plot tackle one or the other?

Individual Vs. Community sounds like it explores a Lone Wolf character trying to decide if teamwork is worth it. Batman not sure about joining the Justice League, for instance.
Cooperation Vs. Everyone for Themselves sounds like a loosely associated group that should be united but isn't. A mayor dealing with a city divided into warring factions, or a coach trying to unite a football team fractured by too much inner drama.

Both are "I vs. We" questions, but one or the other may be more specific.

 

[pmmg]

Conceptually, I think they are pretty much the same. Community implies familiarity, which is not required for cooperation between strangers.

 

[Ban]

For my Strongman story the most apt terms I could come up with are the following:

Stand-Alone: Preservation, Strength, Glory, Masculinity, Acceptance
Dialectics: Nature-Civilisation, Grandeur-Simplicity, Sacrality-Mundanity

 

[Finchbearer]

Rich - Dark - Folkloric - Woven - Wyrd

Push-pull | oppression-freedom | rebelling-conforming | growing-regressing

 

[Incanus]

Individual Vs. Community sounds like it explores a Lone Wolf character trying to decide if teamwork is worth it. Batman not sure about joining the Justice League, for instance.
Cooperation Vs. Everyone for Themselves sounds like a loosely associated group that should be united but isn't. A mayor dealing with a city divided into warring factions, or a coach trying to unite a football team fractured by too much inner drama.

Both are "I vs. We" questions, but one or the other may be more specific.

To the extent these descriptions are true and accurate, then my story contains both. The MC is something of a lone wolf, and the 'community' is, in a way, rather loosely associated. Indeed, the threat that is emerging in the story serves to fracture the community even more.

 

[Mad Swede]

Hope.

Cynicism-idealism. Integrity-venality

 

[ThinkerX]

I am reminded of the #hashtags some of the promo sites ask for when I take out ads with them. Usually, there is a top limit of five or seven of these.

I usually go with stuff like -

#knights, #wizards, #horror, # eldritch, #intrigue, #demons, #empire, #unrest, #war

 

[A. E. Lowan]

This sounds very close to how loglines are conceived. Ours is...

Found families, urban fantasy, polyamory, and a city on the edge of disaster being held together by an addicted wizard physician who was never meant to lead. Welcome to Seahaven.

I've been playing a bit lately with the meets/versus author comparisons, and so far for the next two books, we have Circus Maximus meets Vampire Prom and a Comedy of Errors meets A Series of Unfortunate Events. I think it's a good way to really tear into your own work as we search the works that have left us impassioned and inspired, and how their marks have been burnt into your very soul.

And also, its good marketing.

 

[Jackarandajam]

This sounds very close to how loglines are conceived. Ours is...

Found families, urban fantasy, polyamory, and a city on the edge of disaster being held together by an addicted wizard physician who was never meant to lead. Welcome to Seahaven.

I've been playing a bit lately with the meets/versus author comparisons, and so far for the next two books, we have Circus Maximus meets Vampire Prom and a Comedy of Errors meets A Series of Unfortunate Events. I think it's a good way to really tear into your own work as we search the works that have left us impassioned and inspired, and how their marks have been burnt into your very soul.

And also, its good marketing.

So my WIP would be... .
Edward Scissorhands meets Sicario.
I think.

 

[Jackarandajam]

For my Strongman story the most apt terms I could come up with are the following:

Stand-Alone: Preservation, Strength, Glory, Masculinity, Acceptance
Dialectics: Nature-Civilisation, Grandeur-Simplicity, Sacrality-Mundanity

Just curious, are the dialectics in order? Like is it "nature/granduer/sacrality vs. Civilization/simplicity/Mundanity"?

 

[Super Fantasy]

Do you mean writing styles and words to describe them?

 

[Ban]

Just curious, are the dialectics in order? Like is it "nature/granduer/sacrality vs. Civilization/simplicity/Mundanity"?

Not quite. There isn't a Manichaean "versus" in my book, where one side or force represents either perspective. Each of my characters and the setting as a whole plays with the dynamics I listed in some manner, and are personified by them, but the thing with dialectics (as a unity of opposites) is that one cannot exist without the other. As such, none of the characters embodies grandeur without also containing that drive for simplicity to some extent, or vice versa. It is the gradient that matters.

In other words, I don't make a case of nature against civilisation, but the ebb and flow of both. I like to write about the cold, harsh elements or the untamed wildlife thriving outside the city walls of a safe and tranquil town. Neither has to oppose or overcome the other, but the difference between both sides of the same land marks the setting.

 

[Ban]

This sounds very close to how loglines are conceived. Ours is...

Found families, urban fantasy, polyamory, and a city on the edge of disaster being held together by an addicted wizard physician who was never meant to lead. Welcome to Seahaven.

I've been playing a bit lately with the meets/versus author comparisons, and so far for the next two books, we have Circus Maximus meets Vampire Prom and a Comedy of Errors meets A Series of Unfortunate Events. I think it's a good way to really tear into your own work as we search the works that have left us impassioned and inspired, and how their marks have been burnt into your very soul.

And also, its good marketing.

You already have a good start Lowan, but do you reckon you could whittle those down even further to singular words/themes?

 

[Ban]

I am reminded of the #hashtags some of the promo sites ask for when I take out ads with them. Usually, there is a top limit of five or seven of these.

I usually go with stuff like -

#knights, #wizards, #horror, # eldritch, #intrigue, #demons, #empire, #unrest, #war

Those would make the setting clear. I focused mine on overarching themes, but if I were to do these exercises for marketing instead, my focus would also shift to the visual elements. Gone with "nature" and "civilisation", and in with "snow", "fjord" or "brandy." Specificity seems the smartest approach in that field.

 

[Finchbearer]

I would agree and think that there is a difference between marketing buzzwords and this challenge of ‘encapsulation’ in few words. For my work a totally different set of words would be chosen for marketing purposes.

 

[Jackarandajam]

Not quite. There isn't a Manichaean "versus" in my book, where one side or force represents either perspective. Each of my characters and the setting as a whole plays with the dynamics I listed in some manner, and are personified by them, but the thing with dialectics (as a unity of opposites) is that one cannot exist without the other. As such, none of the characters embodies grandeur without also containing that drive for simplicity to some extent, or vice versa. It is the gradient that matters.

In other words, I don't make a case of nature against civilisation, but the ebb and flow of both. I like to write about the cold, harsh elements or the untamed wildlife thriving outside the city walls of a safe and tranquil town. Neither has to oppose or overcome the other, but the difference between both sides of the same land marks the setting.

Word. The only reason I ask is because I feel like usually civilization is presented as complex and nature simple. I'd like to see it presented the other way around for a change. There are certainly aspects of complexity and simplicity in both, but some real time and effort spent on the juxtaposition of the complexity of nature with the simplicity of civilization would be cool to see.