melannen | In Which We Learn Why I'm Not An English Major

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In Which We Learn Why I'm Not An English Major

So as part of my heroic, gruelling efforts this month to not write a novel, I've been re-reading some of my favorite how-to-write books. Yes, yes, I know that's bad; in my defense I plead that they're all written by full-time sf writers whom I like.

Today's is Orson Scott Card's How To Write Science Fiction and Fantasy, from the Writer's Digest genre series. The business section is completely out of date, of course, pre-dating the internet, but he does the best advice for story construction I've come across-- that is, now that you've got the idea, what do you do with it? And, being the strange little person I am, it's got me thinking about fanfiction, and why some properties spawn lots and lots of fanfic, and others -- some with equally large fandoms-- don't.

In particular, he describes four basic elements of story: Milieu, Idea, Character, and Event; and emphasizes the importance of knowing which of these will dominate your story, because that will determine the vital question of what needs to be in the story that goes down on the page-- as opposed to the story in the author's head, which is much larger. It determines where the beginning and end of the story are.

So a Milieu story is about the world in which it takes place; the plot is a means of letting the reader see the world; and a Milieu story begins when the character leaves for the new world, and ends when he comes home (or turns the new place into home). Card's first example here is Gulliver's Travels; the picaresque has become less popular lately, but I would say another perfect example of this is The Hobbit (aka There and Back Again): It begins when Gandalf's arrival propels Bilbo into the wider world; it ends when he comes home to ~~the Burrow~~ Bag-End and settles back into his old life.

An Idea story is about the process of finding something out. It starts with a question, and ends with the answer. Murder mysteries are the ideal of this type, but to stay in one genre, take The Books of Amber: They begin with the character plunged into a situation where he doesn't know what's going on; the rest of the story is focussed on him finding out the things he's missing.

Character stories begin when a character is confronted with the need to change, and end when they either change, or realize they can't. These days, it's too often considered to be the only acceptable focus of a story-- but I think Card's right when he says it's overemphasized. My half-dead brain is not coming up with a great example, but take Holly Lisle's Secret Texts books-- they save the world and explore it and find things out, but really it's about the characters coming to terms with themselves.

And Event stories are about things that happen. The story begins with something that needs to be done, and ends when that thing is done. Take oh, well, all the fantasy quest novels ever written, but I'm trying to use *good* examples, so, George R. R. Martin's Song of Fire and Ice. Characters change, mysteries are resolved, but the real story is the coming of Winter and what must be done to survive it.

Card tries to make the point that a given idea can become any of these stories, depending on what choices the author makes-- the schmeerps that have eaten all the chocolate on Procyon station can become a thorough exploration of the station and its culture as they're hunted down; a desperate search to discover the one weakness that will let them be destroyed; searing personal revelations as the schmeerp-hunters face deprivation together; or to an exciting series of events as the steps are taken toward their permanent destruction. Of course, a good story will contain all of these elements, but one should predominate; and if the story's beginning promises a resolution in terms of character, but it becomes an event story, the readers will be left unsatisfied, as if it didn't really end, no matter how good the story was.

Ta! See, it does tie in to fanfic! If loving the story but feeling like it didn't really end isn't the main motivation to fanfic, then I'll eat my plot! And looking over the series that inspire lots of fanfic, it seems like they fit this pattern, of trying to be one type of story, but coming out as another. Of course, they're also great stories loved by many people, and it takes a critical mass for a fandom to really exploed, but, take the Lord of the Rings. It wants to be an Event story, the tale of the War of the Rings. And if it had begun on a different note and ended with Sam and Frodo dying on Mount Doom (as I expected it to, to the point where I put the book down then and refused to finish reading until promised that they didn't), it *would* have been an Event story. Instead, it's a character story, about four Hobbits who were forced to become heroes, and went back home to find that home wasn't there for them anymore. And people write so much fanfic I'm scared to dip into the fandom-- yet Hobbit has been a movie longer, and I'll bet more people have read the book, and hardly any fanfic uses it.

Harry Potter wants to be a character story about how Harry grows up and faces his destiny; instead, it's a milieu story about how Harry leaves the Muggles and explores the wizarding world. Pirates of the Caribbean want to be a milieu story about respectable people being thrust into the world of piracy-- instead, it's about how the four main characters are changed by their experiences. With movie and TV fandoms, actually, it often seems to be that the people become more important than they were supposed to-- but take Voyager, which seemed to have people-centric plots, and I was only interested in the scenery. Pokemon wants to be about the people but the events are more interesting. Hmm. Running out of fandoms I know much about-- anybody else want to speak up with their pet fandoms? Does it work at all with anime or game or non-sf ones?

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That agrees with my theory of "incompleteness": that we write fanfic not for the works/worlds that we see as complete, but for the works that we don't. I guess that's why I don't have much urge to fic for Middle-Earth: I grew up with reading this from the time I was about eight, and it seemed intimidatingly complete to me then. Languages! Made-up! Several of them! However, I was happily Mary-Sueing my way through Narnia, as there was so much there that Lewis didn't tell you. Oh, for a time-machine and an audio recorder...

Hmm, I think I hear you asking for an X-Files analysis here. (;

Well, let me look at your examples first. I certainly don't see Harry Potter as *not* a character story - it is very, very much, first and foremost I think, about Harry growing up. It uses his introduction and acclimatization to the wizarding world as a mechanism to accomplish that, and a background to set it against - but I would never say Harry Potter has more to do with Hogwarts and Diagon Alley and magic than it does with Harry himself.

On to LOTR/Hobbit. I *love* the hobbits - as you know. But all the other characters - Legolas, Gimli, Aragorn, etc - are pretty cardboard to me. Gandalf does get his back-from-the-dead moment, and Faramir and Boromir come across as marginally dynamic, but to me it was the characters of the hobbits that drove the story. Because of the way it starts and begins - in the shire, with the hobbits - I don't see it as *wanting* to be an "event" story, particularly. Again, it uses the events to mold the character of the hobbits. The Hobbit, on the other hand, is definitely all about exploring the world. Bilbo doesn't change *that* much - he gets braver, but big whoop. The important changes in Bilbo we don't see until FOTR. I think, though, that some bigger reasons why there's no fanfic about Hobbit are 1) no females at all except Lobelia and possibly some elves, and no really deep-seeming characters that people want to explore further on their own, and 2) there's no spare time in there to really fit another interesting story. I mean, I guess you could write about them encountering some other obstacle on the road and having to fight it off, or Bilbo talking to Thorin and learning all about Dwarf history .. but who wants to do that? If you were in love with Bilbo you could write a Mary Sue about some fair elf woman who helps him rescue the dwarves, i guess, but .. eh. I also don't see too many people getting off on hot dwarf slash, but maybe I'm just stunted that way. On the other hand, LOTR has a LOT of time that isn't written about. They hand around Rivendell for weeks, and then Lothlorien, and then Minas Tirith. There's plenty of Aragorn angst to draw on, and I imagine all that time alone in the wild can be more pleasantly (by writers, anyway) filled with hobbit/elf/men slash than dwarf slash. I have NO DESIRE WHATSOEVER to read LOTR fanfic, though.

You mention Voyager, briefly. How about TOS? Taken as a whole, the series is very much a milieu story; exploring new planets and learning about the edge of the Federation's part of the galaxy. But there's so much depth of character that's hinted at, or explored only briefly; would you call that a milieu story trying to be a character story? Certainly it's the characters that pulled me into it, and kept me reading the books for years. While some authors have a moral to impart, or a world to save, or a piece of their imagination to explore, a great number of them base the story on "let's find out about Kirk's childhood" or "let's bring Dr. McCoy face-to-face with his ex-wife." Of course, I'm probably biased because I enjoyed the character-driven ones more than the random-planet ones.

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Now what about Star Wars? That's a character story - Luke coming of age, Han being drawn into the fight, Leia falling in love - but I think it's more about the quest - destroy the Empire - and the world - let's show off all these fancy starships and planets. Is that, like LOTR, a character story that wants to be a quest? Or vice versa? I haven't really read any SW fanfic so my analysis will mostly come from the Lucasfilm-approved fanfic (that is, Spectra and Del Rey novels). The Star Wars universe is one of the more infinite fandoms that has ever existed, I think, and that is explored to the utmost in the novels. There are always new planets to find, and new ancient planets to rediscover; there can be a new enemy, anywhere, and it can take any form at all. More so than the Star Trek universe, I think, because that has such well-defined boundaries, and has an aura of being for the most part known and controlled. Star Wars authors use that infinite diversity to the utmost. There are set relationships to explore, and new ones to make, but I think the ultimate allure of Star Wars comes from its infinity.

Now, why do people write X-Files fanfic? From the very beginning, X-Files is a quest story. Mulder's quest to find the truth, to bring it to light, to punish those responsible, and to prevent the inevitable. In that way it falls into your "idea" category. In a more sweeping sense, it's an event story; everything is leading up to the alien invasion and colonization. From the very first episode, also, it's a character story - how Mulder changes as he learns more about what he's facing, as he's tempered by Scully's logic, as he realizes the truth about his own past, and tries to come to terms with the future; how Scully's life is changed irrevocably by her exposure to Mulder's obsession, how she faces the trials and changes that go along with that, and the choices she makes that lead to very different person she becomes by the end of the series. There are some other characters, too, who go through drastic, intriguing changes, most notable Krycek. Almost above all, though, X-Files is about the developing relationship between Mulder and Scully - those two have the perfect, ideal relationship, ever, but it's *extremely* understated. A shared look or a short touch on the arm is enough to make the fangirls go *squee* (guilty as charged). Episodes that have nothing to do with the mythology are fairly self-contained, and can be "event," "idea," or "milieu" stories, but generally advance the overarching characterization. So, which of these - the idea to search for, the event to prevent, and the character changes to resovle - are brought full circle after nine seasons? Well, the truth is kind of discovered, but not really - there's much, much more to discover. The final episode was called "The Truth," and claimed to dispense it; but in the minds of most fans, it wasn't the truth they were looking for, and wasn't really what Mulder was after, either. The event hasn't happened - invasion isn't due for about 9 more years yet. The characterization - well, they both seem pretty content with themselves and their choices, but they're still dynamic characters, and have plenty more exciting years ahead of them. Mulder and Scully do get together in the end, of course, but in a typically understated, off-screen sort of way. So, then. Most of the fanfic people write is about the relationships - the one aspect that actually did get resolved, at least the M&S relationship. They write about it because there's so much that may or may not have happened off screen that they're dying to know about, and because it's still tantalizing to explore even after the final episode. I have not seen much, yet, that advances the mythology at all - granted I haven't had time to look to hard, and anything that would do it right would have to be longer than 30k, which is what i've limited myself to at this point. And there are a few people who'll write stand-alone episode type fics, to use the characters they know to explore an intriguing idea.

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I'm trying to think of a hugely popular series, movie, book, etc. that *doesn't* inspire fanfic of one sort or another .. and I can't think of one. So I have to say that I think your ideas on the matter are hugely simplified at best. Card's, too. I don't think any story has to be *primarily* one or the other of those categories. LOTR is both a character and an event story, and does a good job at both. Star Wars is melieu, event, and character; same goes for Harry Potter, and X-Files is equally strong in character and idea. I will agree it is unresolved issues in these categories - and probably others - that largely inspire fanfic, but I don't think it's at all due to the story itself being mixed-up about its purpose.

I also don't really think fanfic is about feeling like the story didn't really end - it's more about not *wanting* it to end, or wanting to go deeper into an aspect that the writer chose not to explore.

But, anyway, this was an awful lot of writing about a topic I know little to nothing of, so feel free to disregard it all. As usual, it's more fun to think about this than it is to go to bed.

(end)

Gleep. You realize this is longer than my original post, yes?

Harry Potter does do a lot of character development. But Card's classifications are more about what isn't in the story than what is-- where does the story begin and end-- and that shapes the rest of what's in it. And Harry Potter doesn't begin with Harry's story, it begins with flying owls and people in cloaks, cats reading maps and putter-outers. That's what we want to find out more about from the beginning, we don't really care about Lily's son yet. We don't have an overall series ending yet, but the books end *not* with a change in Harry's character, but with him discovering something about the magical world that allows him to have hope for the summer. Similary, there's stuff all through the books that has very little to do with Harry's character arc-- the Norbert story, the Polyjuice incident, the Quidditch World Cup, all that cleaning at Grimmauld Place, etc-- which are really just excuses to show off the magical world. So people who want it to be about character are dissatisfied, and people who want it to be about the wizards are dissatisfied.

I think you still have a very different idea than I about what most fanfic is. Very, very little of the fanfic I've seen takes place during the timeline of the canon. Anyway, I think the Lord of the Rings is very clearly about an event-- the Ring needs to be destroyed, let's do what it takes to destroy the ring. (And Card agrees with me on this-- LotR was his main example of an event story.) If it was just meant to be about the Hobbits there'd be a lot less non-hobbit stuff. Like all that time on the Paths of the Dead. The fact that many of the characters seem static is a symptom of this, because an event story doesn't need dynamic characters, the events carry it. (Although Legolas and Gimli change a lot, too, if you think about it.)

The point about lack of "romantic" characters in the Hobbit *is* a good point-- as that's probably important too-- but to some extent if people need to write fanfic, they'll make the characters sexy. It's not as if LotR is exactly boiling over with available females, either (which might be another essay coming on if I get inspired.) There are plenty of things only hinted at and minor characters that could be followed, but nobody does. Few people even bring in elements from the Hobbit into LotR stories, from what I've seen. Because the Hobbit feels *finished*. It is what it is, and that's all it needs.

I stay out of LotR in general, but occasionally I read fics that are recced. You should read Pretty Good Year (http://muse.inkstigmata.net/pgy.html), which is excellent and all about the hobbit love and Frodo suffering prettily. Oh, and this (http://www.henneth-annun.net/stories/chapter.cfm?STID=1343), which is about how Gandalf's bastard son, a hard-boiled detective, and Goldberry, who's working as a hooker in Minas Tirith, team up to find out who murdered King Elessar's catamite, who was the son of Gollum and a pretty elf girl. Quote: "Cut through the lava, trenched in places, banked in others, a road of crushed and graded pumice wound in the general direction of Orodruin-- Mount Doom -- a riven heap sprouting precipitously out of the plain. A stunning location for a luxury hotel!"

It is harder with a TV series, because the structure's fundamentally different and I don't know as much about it, but yes, I'd say Star Trek is milieu-- hence "star strek" rather than "the adventures of Captain Kirk". The vast majority of episodes were just adventures in strange places which didn't change the characters-- but some of them did, just enough to make people want it to be about character. The fanfic (in which I class the novels, as that's what they *are*) is much more about character, I think. At least the good fanfic.

There doesn't seem to be much in the way of Prydain fanfic out there, at least from a quick Google search. I don't know if that counts as hugely popular, though. I can't think of any hugely popular series that has NO fanfic (there is quite a bit of soap opera fanfiction out there, to my not-very-great surprise) but Babylon 5 at least seems to have comparatively little fanfic for the size & ferocity of its fandom.

Star Wars is harder, which is why I didn't use it as an example originally. But I'd say ANH is about events, about destroying the Death Star. It begins with the plans being sent off the ship, and ends with the characters being rewarded for succeeding. ESB/ROTJ, by contrast, strikes me as a story about character. It starts with all that lovely Luke/Leia/Han stuff on Hoth-- is Han going to stay with them? Is Leia going to thaw enough to ask him? Is Luke ever going to actually be an interesting character? and ends with the party on Endor, which is significantly different than the Yavin celebration, because it emphasizes their relationships rather than their achievement. So that switch midway through is important to what fans want it to be. (And I also think half the reason episode one disappointed so many people-- it was thoroughly an event story, and people were expecting character).

As for X-files, from what I've read and the maybe two episodes I've seen, I'd say yes, it is predominantly an idea story; it's about answering questions. There's that "something which needs to be fixed" dangling in the background, but it's not a primary concern; episodes start with a question being posed and end with it being answered (or not answered, as the case may be.) Yet enough was done with the characters to make people want more of that, especially, I think, as the series progressed.

I don't actually think what the fanfic's about has much to do with what makes the fans think something's missing in the story; *every* story is infinite, and once people start looking, they'll find all sorts of stuff to write about. Usually the same sorts of stuff, no matter what the original work was like.

Arg. I keep trying to respond to this and LJ eating my answer. But there's lots of popular movies and books and shows that draw very little in the nature of fanfic; browse around the categories at ff.net for a while. Like, CRFH has massive amounts of fic and an ongoing RPG; Clan of the Cats has an order of knighthood and a lexicon being built; they are (or were, until CotC stopped updating with any regularity) about equally popular in terms of readers; why fanfic for CRFH and not CotC? I say it's because CRFH began as an event story-- c'mon, it starts with a dorm blowing up!-- but keeps trying to become about character development, whereas CotC, despite having lots of stuff happen, has never been about anything but Chelsea.

I don't think not being only one thing is *bad*, but it means there are threads that will never really be resolved to the extent we want them to be, because the story doesn't give them an even focus. Every good story leaves me wanting more at the end, but usually I'm willing to wait for the author to give it to me, or just look for similar stuff elsewhere; only certain stories to I feel like I'll have to write it for myself if I want it.

Yep. I was just trying to quantify what, exactly, that "incompleteness" was. I've never written Middle-Earth fic because, yes, the canon was *overwhelming*, there's no way I'd ever know it well enough to write-- but I do think there's something incomplete about LotR.

I, um, never actually finished Narnia. I liked Dawn Treader and Horse and His Boy and Magician's Nephew, but I never actually cared about the Lion, Witch, and Wardrobe characters. I think the ending of that one stretched belief too much for me, that they could live an entire lifetime in the other world and come back and still be able to be children. And then the religious allegory started to get a little bit heavy-handed for my taste.

Mom wants you to call home. Did you inform her that she's able to leave comments in journals herself?

I'm not *entirely* sure she's even figured out clicking on lj-cuts, actually.

LOTR feels just as finished to me as Hobbit does. But then, I have no need, at all, to go read LOTR fanfic. If one were to write a story set in middle-earth, say about elves or something, it's equally Hobbit and LOTR fic. You might even want to call it Silmarillion fanfic. I don't think that sort of story comes from a feeling of "unfinishedness", though; a desire to go play in the world, the same wellspring as a LOTR RPG or "star wars: tales from the * " books.

As you state that you don't know much about the structure of television here, I'm going to take this opportunity to state that X-Files is not a TV series; it's a 200-hour movie, and fundamentally different from Star Trek or what have you because of that. In my opinion, anyway. I still don't watch much TV. (;

Oh - LOTR begins and ends with hobbits, which parallels what you say about Harry Potter begining and ending with wizard stuff. That says to me that LOTR is meant to be a hobbit story, by the same logic.

You're watching it as a 200 hour movie. It is as serial and episodic as Star Trek, no?

--C

Arr-hmm-mm. It's not a soap opera. But it has a clear, series-wide beginning, middle, and end that star trek doesn't. Newer incarnations of ST have more overall continuity than TOS did, but there's no overall goal and direction driving the whole thing. Voyager had the goal of "get home" - but that was solved entirely in the final episode, not in bits and pieces over the length of the series.

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In Which We Learn Why I'm Not An English Major

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