Writing plot that doesn't seem fake
Nov. 8th, 2018 01:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jackThis is something that is likely obvious to other people but appeared in my head and I couldn't easily put into words.
Often, when plot happens in a book, it feels like it kind of comes out of nowhere. It feels like (and maybe was) that the author had written a note that at that point "then the main characters have a big argument" or "then the assassins guild attack them". And then that's what happens. Even if it feels out of character or doesn't make sense with what happened before.
But if instead, I think of it as, "X resents Y for foo but doesn't admit it as long as bar" and "Y thinks X is bad at baz but doesn't want to say so" and "the assassins guild put a bounty on them but have't found them yet", then that typically shows through in previous scenes, naturally creating some amount of factual or thematic foreshadowing.
Like, instead of the current status quo being a natural peaceful state and each plot development being instigated by a new impetus, imagine the status quo is an equilibrium between many opposing forces, both internal to the character (what they want to do, what they're scared of) and external (other factions, things that will likely go wrong, etc). And then every event occurs naturally if you just knock the situation off balance a bit, without needing to contrive new forces of motion.
Also, if the characters have a smaller number of motivations they pursue through many situations, it feels more like a whole plot instead of a series of coincidences.
Roleplaying
If anything, that's probably even more important in roleplaying, and was the way I was thinking of roleplaying scenarios even if I didn't put it in those terms. If you have an overall force pushing the players towards the main antagonist (revenge, macguffin, curiosity, he's hunting them down, whatever), and a force pushing them away (typically, "he's too tough"), then the scenario will likely end up with a big showdown somewhere even if it goes off the rails at every intermediate point. If the momentum is already in that direction, it's easy to improvise some of the details, e.g. they don't know where he is, all you need to do is drop an appropriate clue.
But if you don't have existing motivation shared and understood by the players (often subconsciously), then every event feels tacked on, with the players constantly looking for clues what they're "supposed" to do.
Caveats
Obviously, this is just a way of thinking, it's not actually a solution. And even if you do show problems coming they can feel fake: you repeatedly show a characters' anger, but the reader doesn't accept it and is shocked when it bubbles out of control; or you repeatedly reference the risk of death from something, but without even small consequences, it doesn't feel "real" and when it actually kills someone, it feels "unfair".
Often, when plot happens in a book, it feels like it kind of comes out of nowhere. It feels like (and maybe was) that the author had written a note that at that point "then the main characters have a big argument" or "then the assassins guild attack them". And then that's what happens. Even if it feels out of character or doesn't make sense with what happened before.
But if instead, I think of it as, "X resents Y for foo but doesn't admit it as long as bar" and "Y thinks X is bad at baz but doesn't want to say so" and "the assassins guild put a bounty on them but have't found them yet", then that typically shows through in previous scenes, naturally creating some amount of factual or thematic foreshadowing.
Like, instead of the current status quo being a natural peaceful state and each plot development being instigated by a new impetus, imagine the status quo is an equilibrium between many opposing forces, both internal to the character (what they want to do, what they're scared of) and external (other factions, things that will likely go wrong, etc). And then every event occurs naturally if you just knock the situation off balance a bit, without needing to contrive new forces of motion.
Also, if the characters have a smaller number of motivations they pursue through many situations, it feels more like a whole plot instead of a series of coincidences.
Roleplaying
If anything, that's probably even more important in roleplaying, and was the way I was thinking of roleplaying scenarios even if I didn't put it in those terms. If you have an overall force pushing the players towards the main antagonist (revenge, macguffin, curiosity, he's hunting them down, whatever), and a force pushing them away (typically, "he's too tough"), then the scenario will likely end up with a big showdown somewhere even if it goes off the rails at every intermediate point. If the momentum is already in that direction, it's easy to improvise some of the details, e.g. they don't know where he is, all you need to do is drop an appropriate clue.
But if you don't have existing motivation shared and understood by the players (often subconsciously), then every event feels tacked on, with the players constantly looking for clues what they're "supposed" to do.
Caveats
Obviously, this is just a way of thinking, it's not actually a solution. And even if you do show problems coming they can feel fake: you repeatedly show a characters' anger, but the reader doesn't accept it and is shocked when it bubbles out of control; or you repeatedly reference the risk of death from something, but without even small consequences, it doesn't feel "real" and when it actually kills someone, it feels "unfair".
no subject
Date: 2018-11-21 03:57 am (UTC)Your description of the mental model makes a lot of sense. I think I share a lot of your reading in terms of 'but character wouldn't do X' but manage to put my genre savviness to sleep a bit more whilst actually reading. I do notice that there are books you've recommended which I didn't read for a while because your reviews tend to focus on quite meta issues (e.g. balance of gender and (real-world) races, relevance to real-life societal issues) rather than whether it's a good story, which I found interesting but led me to wonder if there was much point in actually reading the book after having read the review - but actually when I did it was a really good story with great characters and so forth. So it makes sense that we do engage with them slightly differently.
Two slight digressions but on this theme:
- An author not setting up these expectations definitely causes problems too. One reason I found Raising Steam so unsatisfying (of course, I recognize the challenging circumstances in which it was written) was that it never made me believe there was any genuine threat to the protagonists. Some of Eddings' later books do this too.
- In the book I've written and the (part-finished) sequel, one of the things I've tried to do is leave deliberate ambiguity as to whether the objects of religious belief are real or not (or could be explained by magic/coincidence). So I'm trying to deliberately write in a way which is consistent with two different mental models of the world, which is sometimes tricky.
no subject
Date: 2018-11-21 02:45 pm (UTC)I think that's my reviews not the way I read :) If I bother to write about it at all, it was usually interesting/engaging and that had the biggest impression on my enjoyment as I was reading it, but somehow I just always fail to get any of that into the post in any way which might be useful to people who haven't already read it.
I'm interested to know which ones you have tried/enjoyed.
it never made me believe there was any genuine threat to the protagonists
Yeah, that's a great example of what I was trying to talk about. That the author had an idea of what should happen (protagonists face danger, overcome it), but even though they SAID there was danger, that never really came across to the reader.
leave deliberate ambiguity as to whether the objects of religious belief are real or not
That's an example where ambiguity can work well, since it can naturally be unknown and the readers and the characters can be in a similar position. Although it can end up with the reader having a very different idea than the author expected, which can turn out very well or very badly depending.
no subject
Date: 2018-11-29 08:57 pm (UTC)