How can it get any WORSE?

[Caged Maiden]

...continued

Any generic story isn't more engaging just because someone is hung in the first scene. If that's the kind of story you're telling, I suppose it's fine, a dramatic opening, though readers aren't likely to care about the chap on the gallows. I think you could use any scene to open a story, so long as you have a character who is unique in some way, engaging, good dialogue, good descriptions, and something immediate happening. But to begin with an initial concept is usually not the same as editing that concept, putting it through the grinder, and coming up with a more tense situation, a more interesting circumstance. Taking what works well and increasing it from there. That's why I think making it worse is really important.

@ Sheila, I don't think anyone's ignoring you outright, but I think you're missing the spirit of my initial post, the breakthrough experience I had, and instead summing up my message as "Write like THIS" which it isn't.

What about your writing experience? Well, what about mine? I've written a dozen novels and over a hundred shorts, and while some of the short stories have blown some people's socks off, the novels have time and time again failed to impress. I was perfectly inspired when I wrote them, I was even knowledgeable about craft and technique for the last ones. Yet they still failed to engage readers. Was I aiming at the wrong people? Was I simply trying too hard to impress everyone? Was I staying too true to my original vision and not taking into account that readers want certain things to sink their teeth into?

Who knows. The point is, the novels are mediocre, despite all my writing experience. I'm not telling anyone how to do anything, just sharing something that worked for me. And though this conversation has taken many twists, defining "Make it Worse" and relating it to many facets of the writer's journey to tell a gripping tale, the disagreement over whether it's valid advice seems rather silly to me. Any advice is just that, a tool you MAY want to think about using in certain circumstances. There's no harm in that, any more than there's harm in someone saying, "Hey folks, here's how I outlined my latest novel, and it went really well!" I mean, would people suddenly speak out against outlining as the death of creativity? Ludicrous. It's obviously just one writer's experience, disseminated for our community, so others may benefit if it suits them.

If inspiration alone is working for you, that's great! But it hasn't really worked for me. I'm not going to be able to explain it any better than that. It isn't a matter of quality, or a matter of story concepts, or even of dedication. It just is what it is. My stories needed something more, and by making it worse, I found a big thing I was lacking.

I feel really drawn to the excitement I felt when Tyrion's trial went sideways, and I'm going to implement that tactic in my own work, now that i have been inspired by actually seeing and feeling the way it can impact a story and a reader, when something gets surprisingly worse. I'm not even using the trial as my goal to shoot for, because like I said, I was sore when Jaime just let him escape in the end, because that felt cheap, because he could have done that in the beginning.

Anyways, this thread wasn't ever meant to undermine inspiration or anyone's writing process. All I wanted to share was the deeply personal realization I had, in hopes that it might help a good writer trying to be great. Trying to strengthen their story they love that hasn't really excited readers. I mean, at the end of the day, we all have different goals. I don't want to sound harsh, because I have a lot of respect for this community and everyone here. My friends, my partners, those who inspire me and push me, those who challenge me and criticize my work to make it better. All of them. But at this point in my journey, I'm working to get to the next level in MY GENRE. And for anyone looking for commercial success in their genre ought to be looking for what works within that scope. The product they're selling ought to be their own, yes, but it should also respectfully give target readers what they want. And that's still defined (loosely) by genre. Your genre isn't mine, so my tactics might not be the ones you'd choose. Same for everyone else. Choose what works for you. Choose what's right for your goals. But I don't feel like that means my moving experience is invalid.

I'm fine looking at every counterpoint in any conversation, but some of the things that have been stated about the danger of the advice in this post are simply ludicrous to me.

The main reason for my offensive against the M.I.W. as a storytelling advice is that I have realized that many people in our community are trying to find something like a perfect formula for writing great stories... Such a formula simply does not exist, it's the wrong path to follow.

Making it worse isn't a formula at all. It's giving careful consideration to everything you said you felt here:

However, one single moment of inspiration can mean that an entire story comes to me all of a sudden and starts screaming: Tell me! Tell me! Tell me, now!, and that's all that it takes to start a wonderful journey with new characters and new adventures to cherish and enjoy.

BY taking that moment of inspiration and writing it, and then later (as I'm doing) giving that inspired event more immediacy, I'm personally telling a better story. Maybe that isn't your process. I'm fine with admitting my inspiration hasn't gone over well with readers. Maybe i'm in the minority here. I have a snaking suspicion that's not the case. I've read hundreds of stories and novels for other writers, and about 95% of them could do with a "worsening" of some kind, in the beginning, in the middle, and maybe even at the end. Something more immediate. Something to take the story from it's initial "logical" path and throw a really ugly wrench in the gears. And it needn't be graphic violence or anything else that doesn't align with the spirit of the novel. It can be a scene that makes your character have to make a choice to stay on her current path, or choose another. Even if you don't change the outcome at all, the very presence of the CHOICE has made the character and her situation stronger for the reader. And that's how I see this advice playing out in my own stories.

In my opening, my character wanted to get out of the criminal network. She had plans to do it in the first draft, but took no steps to make it happen, until she's taken prisoner and then can never go back. It had drama, it had danger. But it didn't have a character making a conscious choice. BY giving her some actions to take now, things that make her uncomfortable, I am showing her commitment to making her wants real.

So many stories I read follow that exact sort of inspiration. A boy is in the field when he sees smoke, and he returns home to see his family died when their house burned down. Oh, well, I guess he'll have to find something new to do. Maybe avenge them, maybe find a new home, enlist in the king's army. Even if written beautifully, with all technical correctness, the story might feel lacking to a reader. And that's the hardest thing to teach new writers, so that's why this thread is really important, I think. Now, if that same boy has a choice to make, maybe he comes home just in time to see someone light the fire, he's got a certain decision. Save his little sister lying under his mother's dead body, or go after the jerk who lit the fire. That makes it worse. The course of the story wouldn't be changed at all from its original inspiration, it's original outcome, but the situation might be more engaging to a reader. And that's why I listen to all my readers, those who have nice things to say, and those that couldn't find much nice to say at all. I keep myself humble and work harder. I change my viewpoint and break the chains on my heart, those that felt connected to the original inspiration. I hope that as I get better at this whole thing, I'll be more likely to come up with a winner of an idea for a first draft, and I can stop rewriting! HA!

I've chosen to at this point in my writing journey, to look for places where I can make things just one or two steps worse, editing stories that I love and was inspired to write, but that fell flat for readers because readers don't want subtlety and beautiful sentence structure, and all the other technical things I've gotten really great at, they want a more gripping story right form page one. And I'm finally feeling like I can deliver on that.

 

[Caged Maiden]

Plus, you are assuming that the advice M.I.W. doesn't come with cautions, various potential strategies of applying it, different potential degrees of "worse." The poor idiot new writers will just kill off their entire cast of main characters in chapter 3 and have nothing to write for chapter 4 because they will go insane making it worse

This is exactly what I said was so ludicrous about where this thread has gone. So much this!

Why does making it worse have to immediately feel like a bad thing? I read a story by a young writer (not on this site), and in it, a priest and little girl sat by a river, chatting about useless things (can't remember), and neither seemed to have a purpose for being there, a goal, or even a reason to exist.

Late in the drab story, we see some evil presence come into the setting, and some really shocking things happen. My question (as I was giving this story a score for a challenge) was why did it open where it did? What was the author trying to get across to the reader? What importance could the characters have played in the final outcome, if they'd only hinted at their fears, rather than throwing picked flowers into a river, musing about the weather and their dull lives?

Too often, that's exactly the story new writers put out. They want to capture the beauty of the scenery, the wind, the sunshine, the girl's cute curls, and the wise priest's haggard face. But nothing is happening. Now, what if they were there at the river performing a protection ritual? What if there was some inkling of a clue for the reader in the beginning, that they weren't to folks living in Happyville? What if they didn't agree on something? What if the little girl was the one with confidence in the ritual, and the priest was scared witless? I mean, by making that scene mean something, the writer would have engaged me, But she didn't. And I scored her low for it.

Now, I'm not saying her friends didn't think it was a cute story. Some people scored her high on it. Even if I can't understand why, it means someone liked the story, or at least thought it fit their tastes. So again, what works for some readers, won't work for others. But to disregard tried and true methods, for the sake of worrying new writers will go too far...well, let's just say I've NEVER seen a new writer go too far. Ever. Most stories are plagued by not going far enough.

When they go too far, it's in character descriptions, back story info dumps, setting the scene, and generally avoiding those things that make a story more engaging for a reader who desperately wants to be connected with the story and character.

I've used the analogy so many times, but when I read for anyone else, I see myself as an excited person who wants to get in the door to the party. I want go have fun. I want to be with my friends (the characters). And sometimes, weak writing stands like an ominous bouncer at the door. And that info dump and scene setting stands like a stiff-arm pushing me back out the door.

BY Making it worse at the opening of a story, giving the character a reason to act NOW, to FEEl something in this moment, we give the reader their invitation into the party. We open the door wide and welcome them right into the situation, not hold them at arm's length and tell them to quietly observe as we take them on a boring tour of the grounds before letting them enter.

I wasn't a fan of immediacy and making it worse, because I mistakenly thought that by doing so, I'd fail to tell the reader what they needed to know before they could care. But I was SO WRONG!

Sure, we can call that strategy "Making an opening engaging" or whatever else you want to call it, but in my head, it's simply "making it worse" making it matter now. And new writers are the worst offenders in this regard. And I'm not new, and i'm still terribly guilty of it. And there are PLENTY of published writers who are, too.

And whatever works for an individual writer is great. Kudos to them. But for me, I'm embracing this concept because I can see the need for it. But I'm not afraid that sharing my experience will suddenly turn the next generation of MS participants into wanton slaughterers of characters (as this awesome and laugh out loud funny example exemplifies).

Wish I could thank that comment again

 

[FifthView]

The group of Writing Excuses podcasters had some episodes where they discussed 3-pronged character development, using sliders for three areas that can make a character engaging for a reader: Sympathy, Competence, Proactivity. I've linked those before.

In one of those podcasts, Harry Potter was used as an example of a character who might not be high in Competence and Proactivity, but whose Sympathy bar is way up, through the roof. They also gave him as an example of one way to increase sympathy for a character: Make him suffer. That's not the only way that Harry is made sympathetic, of course. Plus, giving those glimmers of hope and happiness, the possibility of the end to the suffering, is probably key for building up the sort of engaged sympathy that wants to keep reading. If a reader begins to feel that the suffering will be neverending, then why keep reading? (Well, a character who suffers but whose main draw is in his Competence and/or Proactivity might still engage a reader even without those glimmers of hope.)

 

[Heliotrope]

Exactly, FV, and I think that goes to show how interconnected this entire concept is.

In order for the reader to be sympathetic to the character, you have to give them something to be sympathetic about.
If the character needs to be pro-active, give them something to be pro-active about.
If the character needs to be competent, give them something to do to show competence...

BUT...

The bigger the problem, the more the sliders will slide in favor of the character. Small problem = small slide forward. BIG, seemingly impossible problems = HUGE slide for the character.

I know we have talked about GRRM a lot in a negative way on this thread, but I will bring him up again.. He always writes himself into a corner. He has fully admitted that. He will write Tyrion into a corner and have no clue how to get him out of it. He likes when this happens because if he doesn't know how Tyrion will get out, the reader won't either. He will work on Arya for a while, or give it a few days until a solution appears for the Tyrion problem. This is what makes his work unpredictable, exciting, not generic. And this is what gives the characters those seemingly insurmountable obsticles that raise their sliders exponentially every time they succeed.

 

[Demesnedenoir]

Sympathy for the devil is something (again to bring up the OP's example of GoT) GRRM exercises well. How many characters do we hate, and then follow because they're put through the ringer? Now don't get me wrong, Jaime Lannister dies I'm not shedding any tears... but still, the empathy for his situation grows as he suffers and grows from it. The Hound? Again, not lovable by any stretch, but still, kind of come to like him. Cersei is going through major moments of this growth in understanding/sympathy.

The group of Writing Excuses podcasters had some episodes where they discussed 3-pronged character development, using sliders for three areas that can make a character engaging for a reader: Sympathy, Competence, Proactivity. I've linked those before.

In one of those podcasts, Harry Potter was used as an example of a character who might not be high in Competence and Proactivity, but whose Sympathy bar is way up, through the roof. They also gave him as an example of one way to increase sympathy for a character: Make him suffer. That's not the only way that Harry is made sympathetic, of course. Plus, giving those glimmers of hope and happiness, the possibility of the end to the suffering, is probably key for building up the sort of engaged sympathy that wants to keep reading. If a reader begins to feel that the suffering will be neverending, then why keep reading? (Well, a character who suffers but whose main draw is in his Competence and/or Proactivity might still engage a reader even without those glimmers of hope.)

 

[Sheilawisz]

Very well, I am already tired of all the negativity that is being thrown at me simply because I have been trying to help and guide people. We are in literally different planets as far as Storytelling is concerned, and maybe that's the best, you stay in your world and I'll stay in mine.

This is most likely going to be my final post in this thread, unless I have to defend myself again because at this point you are trying to make me look like a fool.

Penpilot and Russ: In my example, the person that already creates good wooden sculptures is the equivalent of a storyteller that is successful writing and finishing good stories, while the second person is somebody that knows all the technical details about writing but does not know how to tell a story.

Of course there is a technical side in our craft, I have never denied that. The first step is to actually being able to read and write, and to know how to write good sentences and good paragraphs… Still, not even the best technical skills will get the storytelling job done because it's a completely different world.

As far as M.I.W. is presented as a Tool or as a Brainstorming Device, I am fine with it.

The problem for me is that it was being presented with such enthusiasm (in particular by Heliotrope) and with such a powerful desire to quickly demonstrate how it works so incredibly, that it really came across as a magical formula for great storytelling.

If we agree that it's just a tool and that people should use it with great caution instead of assuming that it's the answer to everything, we are fine.

I wanted to use the Fanfictions site example again:

After a long time of reading Showcase entries and the replies to them, I discovered that the feedback most of the times aims at pointing out the technical flaws instead of the story. In the Fanfictions site, the feedback almost always speaks about the story itself and they rarely go technical.

I believe that we should change this approach that so many people have in Mythic Scribes.

I know that many of our members want to get published and make a living out of what we do, and that's why we need to focus more on the quality of our stories and less on the technical side. There are famous authors out there (like Rowling) that do not have elevated technical skills, but their stories, characters and worlds are so good and they tell the story so well, that they are successful anyway.

Good storytelling beats bad writing.

Also, if my own experience in the craft (all those stories that I have finished and that you can read in our Showcase) is so meaningless and has no importance, then the same can be applied to you. Why would your views be any more valid than mine, after all?

Maybe you think that my stories were completed by sheer luck, I am not sure.

I am not angry at either of you, but I am indeed very saddened and hurt to see how it's assumed that I know nothing of how to tell good stories.

FifthView: At the start the M.I.W. was described as a way to develop a more interesting plot and ideas to start a story, but now you and others are describing it as a very broad concept that involves character development, emotional impact on the readers, story depth, a way to discover hidden conflict and more.

Essentially, you are reducing the entire art of Storytelling to M.I.W., you are just giving it a new name.

I am not trying to prove that M.I.W. is a terrible thing. In my previous posts, I already accepted the usefulness of it for certain situations (as a brainstorming device, for example) but I am warning people that it should not be used as a solution for everything and that telling stories is much more than just increasing tension.

I said that this advice has a great potential to ruin stories instead of making them better, not that it will always ruin stories no matter how you use it. If we can agree that it's just a tool that must be used with caution and not a formula for fixing everything, I am fine with that.

And no, I never said that new writers are idiots, you are putting words into my mouth. What I have been trying to explain is that telling stories is a very complex and tricky art, and that if a novice believes that M.I.W. is the answer to everything, it can end in a very bad outcome.

Maiden: You present the advice as just a tool, while others presented it as a wonderful way to write great stories at the same time that they ignored other aspects of what we do. I never had any problem with anything you posted, except for the Game of Thrones examples because I still think that GoT is a terrible influence on Fantasy.

Good luck with your writing and storytelling, everybody.

 

[Heliotrope]

I get enthusiastic about stuff. What can I say? lol. I'm a happy, excitable kind of person.

 

[Chessie]

Exactly, FV, and I think that goes to show how interconnected this entire concept is.

In order for the reader to be sympathetic to the character, you have to give them something to be sympathetic about.
If the character needs to be pro-active, give them something to be pro-active about.
If the character needs to be competent, give them something to do to show competence...

BUT...

The bigger the problem, the more the sliders will slide in favor of the character. Small problem = small slide forward. BIG, seemingly impossible problems = HUGE slide for the character.

I know we have talked about GRRM a lot in a negative way on this thread, but I will bring him up again.. He always writes himself into a corner. He has fully admitted that. He will write Tyrion into a corner and have no clue how to get him out of it. He likes when this happens because if he doesn't know how Tyrion will get out, the reader won't either. He will work on Arya for a while, or give it a few days until a solution appears for the Tyrion problem. This is what makes his work unpredictable, exciting, not generic. And this is what gives the characters those seemingly insurmountable obsticles that raise their sliders exponentially every time they succeed.

Okay...this is slightly off topic but I couldn't help myself...

So when G.R.R. Martin writes himself into a corner...then his work becomes unpredictable. But when other writers who don't outline do the same thing, then we're told that we're doing it wrong and that we should go and outline. ??

His process is similar to what Sheila described and what I do which is "pantsing". I don't care what it's called anymore, but I write myself into dead ends all the time. And in fact, I read Writing Into The Dark by DWS just recently where he talks about this very phenomenon of getting stuck, sleeping on it or doing something to distract yourself, and coming back to the story later when our minds have had a chance to subconciously marinate on the problem.

Writing isn't any easier for pantsers than it is for outliners. We all need the box of tools to write a story and it doesn't matter how we use them or which ones we use either. Writing is hard for me, too, even though I've been writing for a long time. It's not suddenly easy because I just sit down and start typing. That's not how it works. Not at all! I often have the story and characters in my heart and head for a while before I draft. It's not easy to navigate a story without an outline and I've done both. Sorry, but I'm tired of reading bits of that in this thread that assume writers who don't outline somehow have it easier than everyone else. If that's the case, then try it and come tell me how it works for you. (you as a generalism, not anyone in particular here)

I believe in try/fail cycles the same way I believe in being truthful about my story. It's something I have on my mind constantly as I steer and mold the story, using the characters as a sort of beacon. MIW may not sound right to me, but it's still super valid and important advice.

Caged Maiden, I thank you for starting this awesome thread that's produced a lot of deep discussion. And even though I may not work in the same way others here work, I'm always open to how other writers work because that's how I've personally been able to try new things and either added them to my toolbox or not. I also agree with you 100% in that a lot of beginning writers focus on perfecting their prose when it should be the story they put their energy into.

The best pieces of advice I can give a new writer are to read for enjoyment in your genre A LOT, study study study story structure and techniques, work on finding your voice. Adding in MIW or try/fail cycles or whatever you want to call it is part of story structure and all writers do well to keep that in mind as they draft.

 

[Heliotrope]

??? That's not what I'm saying at all! Oh dear. No, this is not a plotter vs. Pantser debate at all. I used GRRM because he is a pantser. He doesn't outline. Instead he does exactly what you do! I was giving merit to that style, to your style, saying that is absolutely effective. This is not about plotting or pantsing. Both styles are totally valid and I do both as well. Both styles work. I was merely showing how writing yourself into a corner was sort of a good way of creating great obstacles.

 

[Chessie]

Right. I was merely making a general statement.

 

[Caged Maiden]

@ Sheila perhaps I didn't read the negativity as directed at you personally. I felt we were discussing a tool for great storytelling, and that was it.

I do however, think you're missing one thing in your example about Harry Potter. How much of her great storytelling was actually situations made worse. The horcruxes Dumbledore knew about, and he lost his life over one. The tri-wizard tournament Harry got thrust into. Kreacher being problematic. I can go on forever. there were so many instances where Harry did nothing wrong but was constantly under scrutiny, being told to butt out of everything and behave. I mean, the whole story was compelling because of every book containing multiple layers of mystery. Sure, there was fantastic world-building, but we didn't fall in love with the books over the world. Or the school. Or characters like Sirius Black or Ginny Weasley. We fell in love with Harry's story. The buy who wanted to be good but time and again was caught at the wrong place at the wrong time. He was duped by the Half-blood Prince, tormented by Draco, belittled by Snape, despised by his family, mistrusted by the press, called a liar by the whole wizarding community. It went on and on forever, just getting worse. It wasn't a heroic tale about a boy who was good at stuff and celebrated by his peers, with the occasional hiccup. It was a tale of pain and loss and overcoming huge adversity, with the ultimate sacrifice at the end.

While we'd all let our kids red Harry Potter (unlike GOT), the subject matter is such that any fantasy writer could include many of Harry's struggles in their adult-thees novels. I think Harry Potter is a perfect example of making situations worse. They could have been written without many of those elements, but the reason they were so compelling was because of how Harry was always the underdog. And when he wasn't, he still wasn't trusted by any but his closest allies. What a great example of making a character really desperate and up against the odds.

 

[Russ]

Right. I was merely making a general statement.

My personal style is neither hear nor there, but I believe it is much harder to be a pantser, but it can still really work.

My wife is a pantser and I love her work.

Perhaps more to the point, I just read a book about how Lee Child writes, and he is a pantser for all the ages, but when he brings it all together the results are amazing.

 

[Chessie]

Now I have to Google his book. Thank you for the recommendation, Russ.

 

[Russ]

Now I have to Google his book. Thank you for the recommendation, Russ.

It is actually not by Lee, it is by an academic who virtually moved in with Lee to observe and discuss his process with him while he was writing "Make Me."

Reacher Said Nothing: Lee Child and the Making of Make Me: Andy Martin: 9781101965450: Creative Writing & Composition: Amazon Canada

I was stunned at the level of his pantserness. Astounded. The man is a genius.

 

[Sheilawisz]

Hello Maiden.

Personally, I love the Harry Potter series more because of its world and magic style than because of Harry himself. I think that Harry is a great character, but my favorites are others like Luna, Ginny and Fleur. Many fans are in love with Harry's personal story indeed, but also loads of us just dream that the HP world could be real and we could live in it.

I believe that this is a crucial element for our success as Fantasy narrators: To have a great setting that people fall in love with, and to develop the capability to virtually transport our readers there and make it feel like a real place.

So much of Rowling's great work is situations that get quite complicated and challenge the protagonists and others a lot, that's true. However, adding good challenges and difficulties to a story is such a basic concept that I am very surprised at how some people seem to have suddenly discovered it like they had never realized it before.

We should note that not everything keeps getting worse for Harry:

After knowing nothing but an adoptive family that mistreats him, Harry discovers that he is actually a Wizard and he belongs to this incredible new world. At first he does not even believe it, but very soon he starts a new life that was much better than the entire first eleven years of his life...

Harry meets great new people, incredible friends, his future wife and mother of his children, a magical place (Hogwarts) that he comes to love so much that he adopts it as his true home... And he meets enemies and challenges too, of course, but not everything is worsening and tensions.

I think that Harry Potter is an example of the many elements that make a Fantasy story great and successful, and not just of the worsening/challenges concept.

 

[Caged Maiden]

Ooh, I just made this worse, too!!!

Just gotta make it less convenient, less "easy" and more grounded in action and consequence. Like I said, why does her friend have to send her the letter warning her she's in danger? It makes more sense he'd just sell her out. Maybe he did it and sends the note because he feels guilty?

So again, originally, I had a friend send the MC a note, saying she had someone looking for her. Then I figured he could just sell her out, because that made more sense. Problem was, I NEED the note to happen, because it's important SO I considered whether he could sell her out and then send the note because he felt guilty. But that didn't really make sense to me. So now, I'm going a step further. His best agent, a guy who knew all his secrets (the friend's), sent the note. But the clincher of why it's "worse" is that the MC just murdered him, and THEN she got his note, warning her that their mutual friend betrayed her. HA! Totally worse, because now the MC knows she killed a guy that really wasn't trying to hurt her, and his note actually provided her with safety. So now she'll be feeling pretty guilty about poisoning that one guy...

I love making it worse!

 

[Heliotrope]

CM - THat is awesome! I love that!

Sheila, in regards to all the great things that happen to Harry (I will use him getting saved from his aunt and uncle's house and going to Hogwarts as an example)... why did all those things feel so great? Why did you want to jump for joy when the Dursleys are ridiculed? Why do you want to cry for Harry when good things happen? Because they were so terribly bad first.

Maah's calls this "reverse engineering".

"We first meet Eliza as a London urchin, her mother recently deceased, who has been taken in by an uscrupulous fosther-mother with the deliciously evocative name Mrs. Swindill. Eliza scavenges the streets, the coins and meagre treasures she finds are immediatly surrendered to Mrs. Swindell as payment. One day a pair of do-gooders arrives to take Eliza to a workhouse. She struggles, buthe tussle is interupted....

"Daughter of Gorgiana Mountrachet?" He handed a photograph to Eliza. It was mother. Much younger, dressed in teh fine clothing of a lady. Eliza's eyes widened. She nodded, confused.

"I am Phineas Newton. On behalf of Lord Mountrachet of Blackhurst Manor, i Have come to collect you .To bring you home to the family estate."

It's a reversal of fortune moment that would make Dickens proud...

If you think about it though, Eliza's story could have had any sort of beginnig at all. Although the story requires that Eliza's mother be estranged from her family, and be deceased, in fact Eliza could have been living quite comfortably. Her hardscrabble circumstances provide contrast. The turn this represents, then is one engineered to feel more like a turn that it really is."

So in Harry's case, what if he had been living happily with the Dursely's? Would if feel quite as good when he is finally saved? Probably not. It is only in initially making it worse that it feels so great when those great things happen.

 

[psychotick]

Hi Guys,

Thought I'd add one more thing to this debate - the reader who largely seems to have been forgotten here. Writing is a communicative art. It depends as much on the reader as it does on the artist for it's success as a work - whatever you measure that success as. And you'll remember that I previously said that no tool should ever be simply accepted as gospel because what works for one scene, one book and one author will not work for another. It may well destroy them.

Imagine if this rule was applied to Catch 22 - it would be a disaster. Add pretty much all of Simak's work, Harry Harrison's Stainless Steel Rat, Panshin's Starwell trilogy etc etc. If the book's not about tension then adding it is only going to detract from what it is actually about.

Which is why judgement is everything in this game.

But lets add the reader to this debate. One writing tool may work on one reader but equally not on another.

It was actually all the comments on Harry Potter that set me off on this path. Personally I've never seen the appeal in the books or the films. Maybe I'm not the target audience. But one of the things that distinctly turned me off was that he was a kid in a bad place, and too many bad things kept happening to him. I personally don't like that. Many do obviously, but others don't. And I've already mentioned both Donaldson's Gap series and GRRM's GOT, which again I don't particularly like. This entire theme of making things worse for your characters, breaking them down, making them suffer, is simply too much. And as I think I said before in th GAP series I gave up on one of the authors I consider an absolute master of fantasy, purely because it was horrible. There was no light at the end of the tunnel even by the start of the second book. I gave up on the GOT's books because again it was children going through all these nightmares, and because every character I could identify was being killed or broken down into something I couldn't even like. This is all MIW gone too far in my view.

And then Caged you mentioned that obviously we didn't fall in love with the world build of Harry Potter though it was fantastic, or the characters. Obviously that applies to me too. But that's only for this book.

When I read Donaldson's first trilogy of Thomas Covenant, I was literally blown away by the beauty of The Land. I absolutely adored it. I loved the characters. Who doesn't ache for a friend like Saltheart Foamfollower? Likewise with the Tek's (I am a Trekkie as I think I've said previously) for me the best series was Enterprise, because it burrowed so deeply into characters and the universe. It tied up, or tried to tie up so many loose threads in the bible. Yes the plot's there and it matters, but it's far from the most important thing to me. Other's however love the original series, where character and world build are a very distant second to the action of the show in my view.

My point is that readers aren't going to all respond to MIW even if correctly used with considerable judgement on the part of the author. Some of us are going to look at it unfavourably. I probably will. And then you have to ask - is a great book one that no one likes?

Even in films this applies. Hands up (metaphorically of course) how many people absolutely hated the Lost in Space movie! Guess why it is hated. Because the one thing in the original tv series that was absolutely loved was Doctor Smith. He was an absolutely billiant character. Beuatifully written, beautifully acted. And in the movie what is he? He's a psychopath. They ramped up the tension by changing him into this nightmare and lost the character. And then they added scary steel spiders which turned what was previously a fun romp that no one took seriously but most people enjoyed, into a scare fest.

I come back once more to my central point. There is no cookie cutter template for writing a good book. You can't simply apply an idea like MIW and expect it to make your book better. It just doesn't work like that. Every scene, every book, every character, every author and every reader is different.

Caged I am not criticising you. In fact I'm glad you've found a tool that seems to help you in your writing. And it may make your books better - I don't know. But my thought would be that if this is something new to your writing and it changes things markedly, then many readers who liked your books before are not going to be so impressed by this change. This is Donaldson going from Thomas Covenant to the Gap series. Simon Green going from his earlier work like Blue Moon Rising to Deathstalker and Eddy Drood where the change is mainly in narrative and pace.

And again I come to the point that what can be a useful tool for an experienced writer can be a disaster for a new writer. Because they come across as rules. I mean just go back to your first edit / beta read. Where you put your work out there and people came back and criticised it. How bad was that? And more importantly how great was the drive to simply do what those who criticised your work said to do?

For me, twenty five books on, that has changed. These days I read every comment and every change my editor gives me. I probably accept about 70% of them - mostly the smaller obvious typos. But I also reject a large bunch because I know who I am as a writer and what I wanted to say. That's simply me growing as an author and finding my voice. That's my not simply accepting someone else's judgement over my own.

And that is in my view the most important journey every writer has to make. To find their voice.

Cheers, Greg.

 

[T.Allen.Smith]

I come back once more to my central point. There is no cookie cutter template for writing a good book. You can't simply apply an idea like MIW and expect it to make your book better. It just doesn't work like that. Every scene, every book, every character, every author and every reader is different.

First, no one here has claimed that MIW is some secret formula for crafting a great story. Honestly, I don't have a clue how any inferred that intention. Rather, we've argued that it is one of many considerations an author might consider to make a story better. One tool of many.

Secondly, of course every scene, character, & story is different. However, if a particular scene is lacking tension where the writer INTENDS greater tension, making it worse might be a valuable consideration.

My point is that readers aren't going to all respond to MIW even if correctly used with considerable judgement on the part of the author. Some of us are going to look at it unfavourably. I probably will. And then you have to ask - is a great book one that no one likes?
Cheers, Greg.

Readers are always going to react differently to this or that. I have critique partners in my live group who are constantly telling me I shouldn't have the MC swear so much. Guess what? That's how he talks. He isn't the kind of guy you'd invite to Sunday dinner. I don't care...as long as he's interesting.

If that turns some readers off, so be it. I'd rather wow some then offer some watered down version to all.

Any author who thinks they can write a book that will appeal to everyone is fooling themselves. If you want to write a book that has a lot of tension, gritty conflict, & desperate times, then do so. If you'd rather write with another goal in mind or a different style of storytelling, go for it. There's plenty of room for all.

You don't like GRRM. I love his story.

You love Thomas Covenant's tale. It bored me to tears. Never made it through book 1.

We prefer different story types. We probably write very different stories as well. That's okay.

Why is that so hard to accept?

P.S. Greg, I'm not trying to antagonize you, or single you out. I'm merely trying to understand the disconnect.

 

[Sheilawisz]

Heliotrope:

In my case, I would still be thrilled when Harry discovers his new life in the Wizarding world even if he had been living happily with the Dursleys, to begin with. To me, the charm of the whole thing is to dream that the same could happen to me, that somehow I could be taken to a magical world just like it happened to Harry.

My alternative scenario would be a Harry that lives fine with his adoptive family, but he has never felt quite alright, never really quite fitting in the muggle world... Strange things keep happening to him like the Zoo incident and he always wondered why, so the discovery of his true nature, his true world and his true life would still be very appealing to most readers.

I feel a similar fascination for Isabella Swan, in Twilight.

She loved her mother and her father, her life was good and yet she always felt that she did not quite fit in the world. Then she suddenly discovers that there are magical creatures and her life gets pulled into all the supernatural stuff, and in the end she discovers that she was always destined to become a vampire and be part of that world after all.

That kind of thing has a lot of power over me and many others, because we are escapists.

Harry was never saved from the Dursleys anyway, because he was forced to return there every summer until he became of age. I do like when the Dursleys get in trouble with Wizards, and not because they were so mean to Harry but because they are unlikable characters and they represent the complete opposite of the magic that I love.

I still cannot understand why you are so fascinated by this M.I.W. thing.

I have been giving challenges and difficult times to my characters ever since I wrote my first Thundercats fanfictions when I was like ten years old, because every episode showed them overcoming difficulties, and the discussion about what should be the appropriate challenges for characters in Fantasy has been present in Mythic Scribes ever since I joined.

In fact, many people have criticized some of my most powerful magical characters, because they think that such characters cannot encounter enough challenge (given how powerful they are) and the story would not work well.

Now, you are presenting exactly the same thing as some kind of divine revelation that should leave us all dazzled and dashing to apply it to our own stories, like we had never done it, like the world had never seen it...

Just why?