How can it get any WORSE?

[FifthView]

Consider this: SETTING

How can you Make it Worse?

Think of the movie The Patriot, starring Mel Gibson. When Mel's band of rebels is on the lamb from the redcoats, where do they hide?

They hide in a swamp.

Now, that setting could've been written any number of ways, but a swamp is a worsening for the characters. It's bleak. It's damp (which wreaks havoc on a soldier's body and equipment. I know that from personal experience). It's difficult to even build a fire to cook food. Hell, it's hard to even maintain food supplies. Dangerous reptiles abound. And the bugs...don't even get me started on insects. I once saw a bug in a South Carolina swamp that was so large it actually had smaller bug on it! No joke.

Point being, they aren't hiding out in a dry, cozy barn at the edge of town. They're in a setting that makes things worse.

I've been thinking about various ways to M.I.W. via M.I.C.E., both at the macro level of a story and at the micro level.

I'm reasonably sure how I might go about doing that with milieu, character, event....But idea? That one stumps me. Withholding information from characters? Using religious, moral quandaries (but how would that be distinguished from M.I.W. at "c" —characters?)

Edit: Well I may have answered my own question. Idea stories are typically mysteries of one sort or another. Probably lack of information, conflicting information, and misinformation are ways to M.I.W. via "I."

 

[Heliotrope]

Hi FV,

Arthur C Clarke's short story "The Star" if often called an "Idea" Story. It starts with the team wondering why the planet exploded, and by the end they come to realize that the sun supernovad.


Not exactly a Hollywood High Concept plot line! lol.

Here is the story to have a read for context:

https://www.uni.edu/morgans/astro/course/TheStar.pdf


I might argue that ACC made the story "worse" in a few ways:

1) He purposly chose a character who had a very strong faith in Christianity, and through the discovery of this exploded civilization has had his faith put into question, deepening the theme of the story as well as the emotional impact. If the character had merely been a scientific mind, with no connection or care that the star was the one seen over Bethlehem so many years ago, the story would not quite carry the same emotional weight.

2) So the stakes in this particular story is the narrator's religious beliefs and values. ACC did a great job of heightening those stakes and making them public, as the narrator notes that there are others on the ship that are greatly troubled by what this event means.

*Edit: I just realized the stakes are must worse than I originally posted. The stakes here are all of CChristianity itself. The implication is that if it has shaken up the faithfull on the ship, what will that information do when they bring it back to Earth? What will that mean for the future of Christianity? Those are some pretty huge stakes! And a pretty huge inner conflict or choice on the crew: Do they tell what really happened? Or do they keep it a secret to save a religion?

3) The tension for the reader comes from the withheld information. We, until the very end, have no clue why he is so disturbed by this event, so we keep reading to find out why this disaster occured, and why it is so emotional for him.

4) It is also made worse by the back story, of how the people knew what was happening, and tried to save the memory of their civilization by planting a vault for others to find later. Seeing the faces of the real people who unknowingly gave thier lives to a 'higher calling' is highly emotional for the MC.

I hope that helps a little bit. A mystery novel is a mystery novel is a mystery novel... it is when you can tie it all together and make it emotional, life changing for the MC then it becomes high impact.

 

[FifthView]

Thanks Helio, that helps.

I know there are "types" of stories for each area addressed by MICE. But all stories have elements of each of the areas milieu, idea, character, event.

I've been thinking of Harry Potter again and the way each book was framed as a mystery. There was a lot of hidden information needing discovering, sometimes misinformation or conflicting information for the characters. (Harry & Co. thinking Snape was behind their problems in Sorcerer's Stone, the impostor "Mad-Eye" Moody, Who is the Half-Blood Prince? Etc.)

 

[Heliotrope]

Yes, for sure, I guess I tend to think of MIW as more like, increasing emotional impact, both for the character and for the reader.

So while the secrets, mystery and misinformation in HP made for fantastic plot points, I think of MIW as more of a way of making those plot points matter on a grand scale emotionally, sort of a ripple effect if you will.

So for example, Cedric Diggory.

Ok, so Harry needed to win in the maze, obviously. But how can we make his win really impact everyone on a large scale?

Well,she can give it a price. She can give it high stakes. She had to show how hard that win was. (Similar to Indiana Jones. The harder it appears, the more the 'win' feels like a win.) So, Cedric Diggory had to die, as a contrast to Harry's success. It made his success feel bigger. It made it feel like there was a price.

But that was not enough.

How could she make that matter even more? How could she make Cedric's death have a ripple effect?

Well, maybe someone was in love with Cedric. Someone really cared about him.

*Post edited because of Ireth's new information

Cho Chang, a girl who Harry had a crush on at the time.

So Harry is forced to feel this sort of terrible and strange mix of feelings. Jealousy mixed with this terrible sadness that he couldn't save him.

So Cedric dying, while serving a wonderful purpose, was felt down the line in many ways for many people.

Here is a wonderful quote from the book:

"Obviously, she is feeling very sad, because of Cedric dying. Then I expect she's feeling confused because she liked Cedric and now she likes Harry, and she can't work out who she likes best. Then she'll be feeling guilty, thinking it's an insult to Cedric's memory to be kissing Harry at all... And she probably can't work out what her feelings are towards Harry anyway, because he was the one who was with Cedric when Cedric died, so that's all very mixed up and painful."

*note the mixed feelings? The inner conflict? Cedric's death has a huge ripple effect, not just because he was popular, but because he really meant something to someone on a personal level, and so this deeply impacts Harry on a personal level.

When I look at, for example, her making the Dursley's so terrible, this also served many purposes through the story. One, like I noted earlier, it was sort of reverse engineering to make his 'salvation' feel huge. But also, it served as that 'simmering under the surface tension" through the entire book. Every time Harry broke a rule at Hogwarts, every time he crept around at night, every time he was almost caught, there was that lingering knowing in the back of the reader's mind, what will happen if he is caught? Well, he will have to go back to the Dursley's. The worse she made the Dursley's at the beginning, the more that under the surface tension is felt by the reader through the book.

She built in that "under the surface" tension in many ways. If I look at the first book, by Chapter two we have the dissapearing glass and the episode with the snakes, which puts this sort of "anything can happen at any time" thought in the reader's mind. This way, any time Harry turns a corner or decends a staircase or puts on a hat, the reader is partially 'expecting' something to happen, turning pages to find out what will happen next.

When we did our little brainstorm much earlier in the thread, and I threw out some ideas, I was considering them as just possible brainstorms for that 'under the surface' tension. Not so much plot points. So maybe the infected blood is being sold on the black market, and that might come up off handedly in the first few chapters. He knows someone this has happened to. To make it worse, perhaps it was someone he was very close to, or a mentor of some sort. Now, it would not be a plot point, per se, the plot could still go in whatever direction you chose, but it would be something in the back of the readers mind, so every time the character stepped out his door onto the streets there was that added element of danger. Something might happen. It also now gives the condition a bit of emotion weight. Some emotional baggage, showing the reader what the stakes of this condition are on a deeper level..

Does that make sense?

 

[Incanus]

Just popping in to say that I think this is a great thread; I read through most of it. I wish I had had time to participate in it more substantively. Fascinating discussion. Thank you Scribians! Keep it up.

And now, back to the discussion in progress...

 

[Heliotrope]

Later edit (after Incanus's post)

So CM's example,

She originally had a plot point where a friend sends her a note saying someone is looking for her. Ok, interesting plot point. Not really too much going on there. Pretty straighforward. How could we increase the emotional impact of this plot point?

So CM figured that he could just sell her out, because that made more sense. Having a close friend sell you out is pretty emotional. Problem was, she needed the note to happen, because it's important SO she considered whether he could sell her out and then send the note because he felt bad about it. (Ahhhhh, mixed emotions are always good, mixed emotions are like candy for readers).

But, CM thought.... Hmmmmm, that is good but why stop there? What else could I do? How could I really make this impact the MC in a big way?

Well, what about the friend's best agent, a guy who knew all his secrets, sent the note. Ok, but the clincher of why it's "worse" is that the MC just murdered him, thinking HE was the shady character, and THEN she got his note, warning her that their mutual friend betrayed her. Totally worse, because now the MC knows she killed a guy that was actually trying to help her, and his note actually provided her with safety. So now she'll be feeling pretty guilty about poisoning that one guy...

CM took a basic plot point, one that we necessary to the story, but sort of 'vanilla', industrial, or what was the word you once used...? Utilitarian, and she found a way to give it some serious emotional weight. A twist, if you may, that has ripple effects through the story.

 

[Ireth]

So for example, Cedric Diggory.

Ok, so Harry needed to win in the maze, obviously. But how can we make his win really impact everyone on a large scale?

Well,she can give it a price. She can give it high stakes. She had to show how hard that win was. (Similar to Indiana Jones. The harder it appears, the more the 'win' feels like a win.) So, Cedric Diggory had to die, as a contrast to Harry's success. It made his success feel bigger. It made it feel like there was a price.

But that was not enough.

How could she make that matter even more? How could she make Cedric's death have a ripple effect?

Well, maybe someone was in love with Cedric. Someone really cared about him.

Hermione.

How can we make it worse? How can we make that ripple further?

Maybe someone else was in love with Hermione? That would be interesting. That would be a strange mix of feelings. Jealousy mixed with this terrible sadness...

Ron.

So Cedric dying, while serving a wonderful purpose, was felt down the line in many ways for many people.

Sorry to say, but your argument falls flat here. Hermione never had a romantic relationship with Cedric -- you're thinking of Cho Chang, whom Harry also had a crush on at the time. Hermione's relationship with Ron had zero to do with Cedric or Cho.

 

[Heliotrope]

Ahhhhh, yes, it's been a while for me, I'll admit. (I'm 32 years old, I haven't read HP in probably 15 years). I knew there was a romantic triangle in there somewhere. At any rate, the argument still stands, but actually, is even worse, because it is is the MC feeling the strange mix of emotions.

*original post edited

 

[FifthView]

Yes, for sure, I guess I tend to think of MIW as more like, increasing emotional impact, both for the character and for the reader.

So while the secrets, mystery and misinformation in HP made for fantastic plot points, I think of MIW as more of a way of making those plot points matter on a grand scale emotionally, sort of a ripple effect if you will.

Why?

Must MIW be useful only through emotional suffering? Or, for angsty characters, or troubled characters?

Which emotions are targets of MIW?

Within this thread, there have been slightly varying definitions of MIW and with those, a difference of ideas about what MIW does. Here, you are saying "increasing emotional impact." Previously, it was increasing tension. There was Russ's, which was interesting:

The definition of MIW, to my mind, is fairly simple:

It is a change in circumstances that makes it more difficult for the MC to achieve a goal.

As I've said before, Harry Potter might be a difficult example because we only see the end result. So let's imagine that in Sorcerer's Stone, Harry and his two friends had discovered very early in the book that Professor Quirrell was Voldemort's servant and, what's more, that Voldemort was surviving on in his diminished form at the back of Quirrell's head. This would have led to a significantly different book. Then, Harry & Co. would have focused on exposing and defeating him, which probably would have been easy if nothing else about the book had been changed—to throw up roadblocks, to make it more tense.

Plus, since it's the first book in the series and introducing Snape, we might still have had a hateful potions master, but without the suspicion of him as the culprit, Snape's presence might have been a far less tense reality.

If one were writing a detective novel, must it be necessary to give the character deep-seated angst, personal issues/problems, and so forth if one wanted to utilize MIW? Or would we be able to make the MC's journey worse by the way we revealed information, raised false flags, and so forth?

(And are paranoia, tensions, doubt, underlying fear and trepidation, uncertainty....emotions, if you want to see MIW through the lens of "emotional impact"?)*

I do suspect that MIW through "I" (idea) can really have a major impact on plotting, more than, say, the sort that just gives the MC magic-hating guardians. So Mary Robinette Kowal's caution to avoid plot bloat seems a good thing to keep in mind.

*Edit: Curiosity?

 

[Heliotrope]

Ahhhhhhh, I see what you are saying.

Ok, new quote:

" A story's action generates in readers excitment and interest. Conflcit - especially micro-tension keeps readers involved. Associated devices like metaphor, simile, symbols, parallels, reversals, and references contribute to a sense of meaning. Meaning itself in the form of theme is necessary for high impact.

But what is it that moves reader's hearts? What conjures in readers imaginations a reality that, for a while, feels more real that their own lives? What glues readers to characters and makes those characters onjects of identification: people with whom readers feel intimately involved, about whom they care, and whose outcome matters greatly?

Emotions. When readers feel little or nothing, then a story is just a collection of words. It's empty.

So I guess, it is the idea that, when a plot point, whatever it is, matters greatly to a character on an emotional level, then it matters to the reader on an emotional level. Avoiding plot bloat is an absolute MUST for sure, I agree with that, so perhaps chosing those few plot points that you really want to matter to the reader, and finding a way to make them matter more? In a broader way? When you can do that, then you are in turn raising tension, raising stakes, making the reader more invested, making the plot point feel like it really means something, there was growth and change and development?

I guess that is why?

So no, I don't think that having an angsty character is necessary, but I think that giving the character an emotional landscape can help to make the story feel more "real" and "alive"?

 

[FifthView]

Ahhhhhhh, I see what you are saying.

So I guess, it is the idea that, when a plot point, whatever it is, matters greatly to a character on an emotional level, then it matters to the reader on an emotional level. Avoiding plot bloat is an absolute MUST for sure, I agree with that, so perhaps chosing those few plot points that you really want to matter to the reader, and finding a way to make them matter more? In a broader way? When you can do that, then you are in turn raising tension, raising stakes, making the reader more invested, making the plot point feel like it really means something, there was growth and change and development?

I'm not sure we are on the same wavelength yet, although I do agree that, most of the time, MIW should key in to the character's motivation—in one way or another.

But, and I'm not sure about this, I wonder if you are still viewing MIW through "I", of the sort I mentioned for Harry Potter books, as merely a matter of plot. You had originally said that it's just plotting (more or less!)

I may be biased, because I tend to view the glut of YA novels, combined with very tight 3rd-person in other novels, as pushing more and more characters toward the angsty, or even neurotic, end of the scale. I'm not saying those novels are bad for this reason, but only mean to imply, until I can better state what I mean, that this stressing of "emotional impact" may be a little overblown.

May be. I don't know, because what falls under "emotional impact" is unclear, both in the first word of that phrase and in the second word!

But let's look at T.A.S.'s example of MIW through setting. Those people had to hide out in a swamp. This idea of making the setting worse naturally tied into my thoughts about looking at MICE. Milieu on the macro level could mean the whole world, large structures like the society and culture of a world, and so forth, but on the micro level "M" would cover setting for any given scene or span of scenes. Now, people who must hide in a swamp might have an emotional response....but what? I can fully picture some YA approaches focusing on the yuckiness of it, or the creepy crawlies, or, gosh, who knows maybe it makes them think of the time their hateful step-dad took them camping in a swamp. (Exaggerating here—just a little.) But in the context that T.A.S. gave, is the frustration of having to deal with hiding in a swamp—a sufficiently "impacted" emotion? Is it the delay it causes, because they really want to get to their goal and a swamp severely hinders that? And so forth.

Same with using mystery and deception (manipulation of information) to MIW.

Incidentally, there's also the question of whether info is being withheld from just the character or both character and reader, and whether the character must be immediately affected emotionally for the reader to be affected. But then I run into this problem when considering tension also. I think that it's far more important for the reader to feel tension, less so for the character also to be made tense, although often both may be the case.

 

[Heliotrope]

Yes, I agree, lets get away from YA for a while, because I myself can't stand the overblown angsty-ness. lol.

Ok, so let's look at The Patriot again (thought it is a film, and not a book, so that makes it slightly more difficult.)

So, in the Patriot they set us up with immediate emotional investment, (what might be called sympathy on the character scale).

He had a wife, family, a farm, a good life (Gee... Similar to Gladator), which was all taken away, his outer goal is to stop the Loyalists, but his inner goal, really, is to protect his family. So he is driven deeply by emotion, exactly how you are saying about MIW being a key to a character's motivation.

Ok, so if I think about fiction as a sort of thumb screw device (lol), as the character goes through the trials and tribulations every little worsening, like the swamp, is another turn in that screw. It can be a small thing, like choosing to put them in a swamp instead of a warm barn, or it can be a HUGE life alterating thing, like having a friend betray you, or kill a person who was actually trying to help you. At any rate, the more turns you can add, the more it will feel like a "win" at the end. Like a HUGE victory.

At any rate, it is all emotional in some way, because every little thing brings them further and further away from achieving that inner goal, or it may even end up changing the goal in some way, or adding a new layer to the goal, or whatever.

Now, this is where movies are harder to do this with...

So in movies we as the audience see the character. We see his family and his home and the war and the blood, and his facial expressions and his grief and his fear and his love, and I think it is slightly more easy to identify with characters in movies. In fiction we have to show it all somehow. We have to show how each thing effects the character in some way.

So in CM's example, the MC recieves a letter that someone is chasing her. Ok, sort of flat. Maybe she feels fear. There is some mystery there. There is some sense of "Ok, what is she going to do?"

But, with her new scene, the reader is shown so much more about the MC's life. The danger. The lack of trust. The inability to really know who your friends are. The world is brought to life that much more. The MC's mixed feelings, inner tension, is heightened more, and the reader can really see "Why" she needs out. How she is really not safe. It intensifies her motive, while at the same time turning the screw a little more.

 

[FifthView]

Helio, I do agree that the things you've pointed out work and can work very well.

But at the same time, I think it's only a partial view of the potential. But maybe I'm stretching the idea of MIW a tad too far in one respect, in my mind, because I think it's possible to MIW for a character without the character even knowing his situation has been made worse. Now, yes, having that emotional connection to the MC is a prerequisite. But it's not necessary that we feel through the MC's also feeling the worsening or any of the emotional impact of the worsening.

We have to show how each thing effects the character in some way.

Maybe we can show it will affect a character at some point in the future, or would if the character ever knew about it, or is affecting the character without the character even knowing that it already is. This might run counter to the idea of "put them through hell," and certainly counter to some 3rd-limited approaches in which the world at large exists only insofar as the character has direct feelings and/or knowledge about it. (Although this is one reason why having multiple POV characters can work so well.)

But back to the idea of playing with information to MIW.

Ok, so if I think about fiction as a sort of thumb screw device (lol), as the character goes through the trials and tribulations every little worsening, like the swamp, is another turn in that screw. It can be a small thing, like choosing to put them in a swamp instead of a warm barn, or it can be a HUGE life alterating thing, like having a friend betray you, or kill a person who was actually trying to help you. At any rate, the more turns you can add, the more it will feel like a "win" at the end. Like a HUGE victory.

Similarly, when Harry & Co. have to run through the hoops, trying to discover what's happening, it's like being in a swamp, or a desert, etc.–to the degree that they care about that information and what's truly happening.

 

[Heliotrope]

But at the same time, I think it's only a partial view of the potential. But maybe I'm stretching the idea of MIW a tad too far in one respect, in my mind, because I think it's possible to MIW for a character without the character even knowing his situation has been made worse. Now, yes, having that emotional connection to the MC is a prerequisite. But it's not necessary that we feel through the MC's also feeling the worsening or any of the emotional impact of the worsening.



.

No, I don't think you are at all. I think you are absolutely right. I'm wondering, though (my curiousity now), about a story becoming episodic? I am sort of envisioning a character being tossed about in a storm, instead of an active participant with choices (as terrible as they may be)? (That may be just me going too far?)

Please expand on your thought process as I'm not sure I fully understand.....

 

[FifthView]

Well I didn't have anything too exotic in mind. In one chapter your MC is going about his business, whatever you have him doing to further the story. And in the next chapter, POV character is the villain, and someone comes to that villain's throne room and reveals your MC's name–finally! the villain has been trying to find out who opposes him! But your MC doesn't know this has happened. His situation's now worse, but he just doesn't know it.

 

[Heliotrope]

Yes!!! So much yes, what a way to raise reader tension!

But I might then analyze a scene like that and wonder if it could have more impact... If it wasn't going to cause too much plot bloat I might wonder if I could keep that persons identity a secret (raising reader tension) and then have that identity be a gut punch to the mc later on... If it would be too much, then maybe not... But, if it was possible to combine characters to make the betrayal that much worse for the mc then why not?

Totally though, make it effect the mc is some way does not mean right away. And it may be a small ripple or a huge wave.

 

[Caged Maiden]

This is good stuff, you guys!

 

[Incanus]

It is great stuff. The reason I can't really participate is because this thread is moving at the speed of an autobahn, and I'm on a trike.

 

[Caged Maiden]

Today I wrote a story. Well, not really wrote it, but wrote out the idea on paper, for fleshing out later. It's a silly little thing, but I picked up the idea from the book I spent three hours reading this morning (while I was supposed to be making my other scene worse...

Anyways, I wrote a very short story about a day a door-to-door salesman came to my house selling cleaning products.

The book was called How to Write Short. It really goes along with this discussion, which was why I mentioned it here. It focuses on very short stories, even poems. Even 6-word stories. What a great book!

 

[Heliotrope]

Oohh! Fun!

Watching The Revenant right now. Holy Sh*t is that a lesson in MIW lol.