Truby's method DOES seem like a way of writing something that promises to have an incredible amount of density and character / external arcs that line up, but man I can think of so many shows and stories I love that aren't about that life. No character arc. Episodic chapter adventures. Side characters that don't contribute. Sometimes that's what I want. Sometimes I just want to see someone who has "weaknesses" that are not directly attacked by the plot, because sometimes that's inspiring. Batman has weaknesses. Batman is a control freak that works alone and thinks he should be in charge of everyone, but sometimes I just want to watch him do some karate and solve a mystery by himself and learn nothing, cause it is cool.
Maybe I should budge a little on this specific matter, and give them a read. I say that because that *is* something I want to be able to do. It's one of the things that I love so much about Fate: stay night. How all the different arcs are progressing, intertwining, and eventually culminate in the end. But more than that, it's how that's accomplished so seamlessly and doesn't feel contrived. It would seem to require an admirable understanding of pacing. You're right though. That's also why I like Batman. And James Bond. Iron Man, Indiana Jones, Han Solo, Sherlock Holmes...
You might like Anatomy of Story if you are interested in "Fate." He has whole chapters about how to map out, organize, combine, and weave scenes together to get that sort of effect. Honestly, the part that feels fake is the prescribed order you brainstorm in. Normally, internet writing advice says you should think of a compelling character, and then throw rocks at them until they die or get what they want and can take a break, and that it is all about attaching to that character through the little details, sympathy, and so on. In Truby's book, you come up with the action taken first, like, "A high school student learns to command a powerful familiar and the associated magical spells in order to defeat 12 great warriors and save the world." Then, you ask yourself, "what kinds of people have a mental problem that keeps them from doing it." Cowardice would be good. Aloofness would be another. Then you figure out how their mental problem is hurting people. Say, people are suffering because the main character is too aloof. Then you figure out how he changes. "Aloof high school student becomes engaged with his friends and family by entering a wizarding contest and winning." Or better: An aloof high school student is forced into a contest of wizards, and through the deepening friendships with his friends and family, is able to master the magics and familiars to win." Then you come up with an opponent that directly attacks his weakness--someone that does more damage because he is aloof. Like he starts infecting his friends and family, and his influence goes unnoticed. You give the hero and opponent the same goal, and figure out how their conflicting worldviews cause them to go at it in different ways. and so on and on. This build out keeps going until you have a huge outline, and then your write the book/script or whatever. And yeah, it felt canned when I started it, but my mind just kept working it until I got to something I loved that fit the bill. Edit: I was trying to use "Fate" in my examples but I haven't seen it for awhile.
I try to be very conscious of the differences between media, since it’s very easy to fall into the trap of writing from the perspective of an audience member at the movies. However, I do have one stylistic approach that is mostly inspired by other media, namely video games, and that’s my preference for minimal backstory and setup. I think I can specifically trace it to the game Inside where I picked up on it for the first time. But there are plenty of games that drop you into the world with absolutely no explanation and make you figure out what’s going on by yourself. Again, though, it’s important to recognize the difference. In these games, you have the visual aspect—things can play out in the background to clue the player in. You don’t have that in prose. But even still, games like Inside, The Last Guardian, or Rime show just how little people really need to get a story going. And the author can still use things going on in the background as clues—it just has to be written the right way. I find I’ve struggled much less with my openings ever since.
I wanna see how that translates to book form , with actual examples. And without being annoying (I've read examples of that one, thankyouverymuch, and the novelty of it wears off very quickly). The movie industry borrows heavily from book storytelling, so most of it's tricks have already been done in books and not the other way around. The above examples (of transitions) are more of a movie original but it's something that heavily relies on visuals and sound, and those are quite difficult to do right in a book so I don't think they are especially useful to a writer. Anime on the other hand tends to be very choppy in it's storytelling, so that doesn't translate well to books either.
That's cool. We sort of found the same thing through video games, except the game I'd personally trace it to is Dark Souls. I agree that once you realize part of the hook *is* figuring out what's going on, this totally changes your approach to telling the story. "And the author can still use things going on in the background as clues -- it just has to be written the right way." Exactly. EDIT: Another thing I always struggled with was worrying over getting the reader to believe in the story. It took me a long time to realize there's a significant difference between "believability" and "realism". Or, maybe more accurately, "realism" is relative to the universe you've created. Your rules have to be consistent. Well yeah, such transitions would certainly be something that's used sparingly. And the nature of the medium would require them to be executed differently. I don't think the difficulty of getting visuals and sound right in a book has any weight on how "especially useful" they are or aren't. You do bring up a good point though that since the book is the oldest form of storytelling aside from oral tradition, that it sometimes may be the other way around in terms of which medium is the original influence. That also depends on the anime. I have found the storytelling of many anime movies / shows to be choppy too, but I would argue that Fate: stay night is very well paced, and only cuts abruptly from all-out action to very slow down-time for effect. This is also only one aspect of the anime medium; its "binge-ableness" I think is remarkable, and might be something to incorporate into a written story by paying careful attention to pacing and the ends of your chapters. I'd also like to mention that I'm not sure if it's so much "choppiness" as it is having to best utilize a ~20 minute space of time. Having an episode that's purely slow character development can leave one feeling like nothing exciting happened (which is different than nothing interesting happening), but 20 straight minutes of action would also be way too much. Balancing that in every ~20 minute episode, for 25+ episodes, is incredibly difficult I'd imagine. So one thing I've noticed is that a lot of action animes (I'll refer to Fate: stay night again here) like to reveal things about characters either mid-battle, or before / after a battle. It's efficient, and if done well it isn't jolting but rather flows together. I might add that I'm not purely interested in techniques that are unique to other entertainment mediums. That is to say, I am well aware that pacing is important in *any* storytelling medium; I believe that analyzing how it's done in another medium may give some new insights or refreshing ways of looking at things. It's led me to ask questions like: In what ways can chapters be structured in a similar way to anime episodes, and why (what would be the benefit)? How does a good anime structure its narrative in a way where the arcs all intertwine and weave together by means that feel natural but also not too predictably?
I listen to all kinds of music from progressive rock to blues and folk rock. One album in particular that interested me is Frances the Mute by The Mars Volta. It is a concept album about a young male prostitute who is looking for his mother and the way the music sounds is eerily and hauntingly effective. The vocals, the melodies and notes of the instruments all compliment each other to bring the sense and feel of what's going on in the concept. I try to make my work read the way the music tells that story. In other words, I'll be content if my work evokes the same feeling as the music of that album brings.
I go from two girls screaming in a storm, to whistling and hollering from a crowd at a fighting match. Is that what you mean?
Yes, that would be a solid example to demonstrate the point. --- @Carriage Return I'm still a sort-of newcomer to anime (I may not have gotten into it if I hadn't decided to see Your Name in theaters randomly one night) but I have seen the first few episodes of Goblin Slayer and I decided I'm going to wait until the season is finished and binge it. The new Steins;Gate and Attack on Titan (haven't started AoT at all yet, so no spoilers pls senpai) are currently on my watchlist, as well as the new movie in the Fate: Heaven's Feel series. Oh, and I want to watch Cowboy Bebop. In fact, I do consider myself a noob simply because I still have difficulty buying anime. I mean yeah, my friend shares his crunchyroll account with me and I know of a couple other places I can watch almost any anime I want for free, but when I find an anime I *really* like, I want to buy it. The first time I was surprised that Amazon didn't have something was when I went to buy an anime. Can't remember what it was now, but it happens quite often when I try to buy anime. Anyway, I like the "conceived-of holistically" concept. Winging a television show is such a bad idea. It's not like a rough draft of a novel where you can go back, edit, revise to your heart's content. Nope, that shit is on a tight, strict deadline and published straight away. It's no wonder that shows meander and drag on and the horse continues to be beaten after it's been beaten to death, or the show stops making sense and leaves you Lost, or have TWO HUNDRED episodes of filler like Naruto after the story was finished lol. You say that Michelangelo saw David in the stone before he started. I don't know if he did or not but I certainly believe it. What do you see when you go to write a story and look at the "stone" you're going to be carving, so to speak? What would holistically-conceiving a novel look like?
I'm so new to anime I don't really know the terminology or anything like that. I don't like shows such as Naruto or Dragon Ball Z. The first anime I was ever exposed to was when I was very little, I would stay up past my bad time until Adult Swim started and Inuyasha would come on. I had no idea what the Hell was happening but it was terrifying yet transfixing at the same time. I've thought about going back and watching it every now and then. Anyway, my tastes tend to be eclectic and - admittedly - highbrow. I treasure Makoto Shinkai's "Your Name", and I've seen some of his other work: The Garden of Words and 5 Centimeters Per Second. The animation style is incredibly beautiful. I've also really enjoyed Fate Zero and Fate: stay night. My dirty anime secret is watching Scum's Wish and liking it. Steins;Gate is amazing as well, and I think next on my list is Steins;Gate Zero. I don't read manga or play any of the games though. Maybe I'm not as hardcore as some anime viewers but it doesn't matter to me if its dubbed or subbed unless the voice acting is noticeably bad. I can understand not enjoying dubbed movies because their mouths literally don't match what's being said and I find that very distracting and takes me out of the immersion, but in anime it makes no difference for me. However, I do admit that if I watch an anime in Japanese, I can't then go watch the English dub, and vice versa. Whichever language I watch first is the one I stick with. That being said, it's good to know the dub for Cowboy Bebop is good! I can't wait. What are your favorites? --- I tend to be a mix of pantser and plotter when it comes to writing. I finished reading a book today. It had nothing to do with writing but the author mentioned an advice that had been given to her, which was something to the effect of only writing a book if it'd be impossible for you not to. That is, write it only if you HAVE to, not just because you'd like to / want to. I have plenty of ideas, often too many, but the ones that stick around and "haunt" me are the best ones that I need to do justice. I shouldn't even say they're *my* ideas. They come to me but I agree with Carl Jung that ideas have people, not the other way around. It's what we do with them that is in our control. What you say about having a single vision makes total sense to me. I get what you're saying. In journalism we call this the angle. This is even critically important outside of artistic or writing endeavors; take starting a business for example, and Simon Sinek's books about "finding your why". Regarding advocating for the sanctity of the individual artist, this is sometimes why I don't get involved in discussions of marketing on here, because it can fall into selling out on the integrity of the story and / or its author. It can be difficult balancing making a living with artistic expression, but I guess its just my choice to value the latter over the former, even though getting published and selling it is still very important. The same book I read today ("The Defining Decade" by Meg Jay) also mentioned John Irving very briefly, in a quote about how he starts from the ending and works backwards. I don't really have a set formula myself - maybe I will at some point in the future - so when I first look at the stone sometimes I see the beginning, sometimes I see the end, sometimes somewhere in the middle. But I think for one of the few novels that's been incubating in my head for almost a year now, I'm going to try starting from the end and working backwards and see what happens. Why in the Hell not?
@Carriage Return Do you have any idea where I can find (as in, watch or purchase) Violet Evergarden? I don't understand why I have such trouble finding anime lol. I think it might be on Netflix but I don't have an account to verify that. Holy Hell it looks amazing. And I guess a movie with a whole new story is supposed to come out sometime in 2020. Man oh man, there's just too much to watch. Some of your suggestions interested me, especially Hyouka which I'd heard of before but had forgotten about. I didn't know about all the different genres, so thanks for the explanations. I guess I sort of just watch whatever I like without caring too much about genre (although I do like some genres or styles more than others). That being said, you're right that I enjoy slice of life anime. I don't know what categories Steins;Gate or the Fate series would be under, but they definitely seem to be strictly for more of an 18+ audience. There's Cowboy Bebop, Samurai Champloo, Akame Ga Kill, Attack on Titan, Death Note, A Certain Magical Index, A Certain Scientific Railgun, Psycho Pass, Ghost in the Shell... I need to get started or else my watchlist is going to become as long as my reading list. --- Yeah, one of the issues I'm running into right now is genre. I don't want to corner myself into a genre because I've written everything from horror to sci-fi to romance t0 action and adventure. It always confused me how the gatekeepers you speak of act as if a writer starts the writing process by wondering, "Hmm. What genre do I want to write?" I don't know about you, but I just start with the story first, and then later on I run into the issue of trying to figure out what damn genre it could be marketed as. And as far as audience goes, I write for myself. Trying to write for other people just isn't a good idea in my opinion; it's a fruitless endeavor because you cannot please everybody or meet their expectations. I dread the publishing process but I won't worry about that until I'm actually ready to try and cross the Delaware River.
That's because TNT pushed for another season. JMS thought it was over, so did everyone else. "Day of The Dead" was the awesome exception. Awesome, Jelly-man...
Sounds a lot like bureaucracy. The circle of shirking fault. I'd be willing to venture that the market of readers also has something to do with it. But, how will you know if something will sell or not until you actually try it? And in addition to that, just because it didn't work a previous time doesn't mean it doesn't work period. Good luck getting a publisher to take a risk that amounts to more than penny shavings though. I was reading the afterword of the Strugatsky brothers' Roadside Picnic, and the western publishing industry doesn't seem to be as bad as the USSR's was. Yet. But I wasn't aware of "genre blending". Good to know, I'll keep it in mind. A lot of what I write ends up being sci-fi. It's not really a conscious choice and I don't know if I'd really consider myself a "sci-fi writer", but I'll worry about that once I actually have a real body of work that I'm proud of. The trend seems to be that if you actually establish yourself and earn some street-cred, you have a lot more publishing freedom (although not full control, obviously). That's the price I'm willing to pay for being creative. Never sell out. Others may decide differently, such is their prerogative. The money will never be more important to me. "Story uber alles" and "I wrote it for me" are words to live by. (I shouldn't make it seem like I don't make any concessions or make compromises, but really just trying to make the point that artistic integrity and doing justice to the vision aren't things I'm going to sacrifice, and serving those comes before others on my list of priorities.) Can't say I'm surprised. There's a new market and the big players are realizing they're missing out. I don't mind too much; my biggest concern is the executives forgetting their place and thinking they're creative writers. Because that turned out so well for The Hobbit movies. Yeah Crunchyroll seems like the best option for now, but I know what you mean about being concerned for monopolization. That's the last thing that we need to have happen. Although I don't know if that's any worse than having a dozen different paywalls and keeping track of a username/password for each of them, as you mention. I'm going to guess that the major reason cable hasn't gotten their hand in the cookie jar yet is because of Japan's "cultural defense team". And hey, more power to them. While they're by no means perfect, I've always had great respect for Japan's policies and how greatly they care about their culture, at least in this context. I personally wish the US would feel more the same way. Unless you meant it the other way around: the US doesn't want more of "that degenerate weeb shit" on TV? lol, well, if there's one thing that's sadly true in this country, money talks. When their shit stops selling, they'll change their tune. Especially considering cable is on its death bed and kept alive like a vegetable. I was sort of afraid of that answer, but it's good to finally know it. "Wherever I can" it shall be.
If this were a game of Civilization, I feel like the US would have something like 0 Culture per turn, and a lot of Unhappiness as a result. Or when I'm feeling particularly cynical, we have consumerism, soulless glitz and glamor, instant-gratification, senseless drama in the form of tabloids or everyone's favorite doublespeak "reality TV", and idiot politics to offer to the world. I use "weeb" sarcastically and affectionately. I am of the opinion that avoiding the word and forsaking it just gives unnecessary power to the word and people who use it as a pejorative.
