posted
We've been discussing train of thought in our reader-writing circle. Each of our latest and previous stories are structurally sound in the ways of plot, nonetheless we each sensed the stories were poorly formed structurally. What is off? we asked. How do we figure it out? What can be done about it? The trains of thoughts are jumpy, out of any kind of direct causal sequence, the emotional anchors drift so much that it's not possible to feel any resonance with the milieu, idea, character, or event. How do we get our stories in line?
The stories have nonlinear causation, a fallacy of logic where being "demonstrably flawed in logic or form, renders the argument invalid." In the case of story, flawed in linear causation, the emotional connection to the reader is not established, maintained, or resolved. The specific type of fallacy we've uncovered in our writing is Fallacy of False Cause or Non Sequitur where the train of causation "incorrectly assumes one thing is the cause of another." Two special cases of Non Sequitur--it does not follow--are at the root of our fallacies of causation, "post hoc ergo propter hoc, the fallacy of believing that temporal succession implies a causal relation." And "cum hoc ergo propter hoc, the fallacy of believing that happenstance implies causal relation (aka as fallacy of causation versus correlation: assumes that correlation implies causation)." Wikipedia: Logical Fallacy.
Blow me down. Sure, that's a lot of high-power thinking, in Latin no less; however, the result is that of perceiving what's not working with the stories we have under the microscope. Four scenes, each temporally related to the protagonist, but nonlinear in causation, relevant emotional clustering, or antagonism. The stories follow a stream of consciousness structure that is not rhetorically significant. Having a critical tool for evaluating linear causation has made all the difference for me. I'm incorporating this new insight into revisions of the stories that didn't have linear structure, in the ones I'm writing, and in my process of analysis for the stories of other emerging writers. I've also tested it against the published stories that I use as test beds. Huh, why didn't I see that before now?
posted
Um, so are you saying that the flaw you've discovered is a poor cause-effect relationship? Cause-effects where the cause wasn't really the cause, or the effect doesn't naturally flow from the cause?
If so...I think it's in the book called STORY (yes I am still talking about this book, it's a good book!) by Robert McKee that he went into some great detail about how to manage the cause-effect relationships so that everything in the story naturally flows from one part to the next.
posted
Causes are rather fun to play with in stories, if you know what you're doing. You can have characters operate by the fallacies extrinsic has mentioned, for example, even though you have to be sure that you, the writer, are not operating by such fallacies.
(In an attempt to help those who aren't sure what extrinsic was talking about, the two fallacies might be described as thinking "A causes B because B happens after A happens" (a priest thinks the sun rises each day because he gets up in the dark and sings to it) and thinking "A causes B because B happens under the same circumstances as A--or is related to A in some other way" (a guy thinks a girl likes him because she smiles every time she sees him--not realizing that she is smiling because of the eyeglasses he always wears). Both of these might qualify as "magical thinking" if someone tries to act on one of these "causes" to get the desired "effect.")
Another thing you can do with causes is to have a character try something in hopes of a specific result and something else happens instead (Murphy's law, anyone?). Just be sure what happens doesn't fit one of the above fallacies.
posted
Crystal Stevens, no, I'm not Vulcan, although I do approach everday life in a dispassionately logical way, anymore. A product of many facets of hardship and grief.
KayTi, no, not that the flaw is a poor causal relationship. Causality is there in the stories I'm referring to, but it's not as readily accessible at the time of reading as needed. Nor is it easily accessible on the figurative level during reading. Deciphering the causal train of thought requires more work than is convenient at the time of reading so the intended emotional connection doesn't happen between the reader and the story. Information and context that is available to the writer isn't provided as needed when needed by the reader. I see it as a matter of the narrative arch. The writer is forcing the reader's efforts to meet up past the apex of the arch and into the writer's efforts that have fallen short due to sparsely related context. Too much "show," not enough context to know what it means. Resulting in disruptions for the reader's experience.
What I've wanted is a tool for identifying how much information is enough, too little, or too much for the reader to fully appreciate the emotional meaning without being overly guided to the meaning and a tool for combing out causation so it is logical, and not necessarily chronological. Logical fallacy provides one approach to unraveling what's not needed or what's missing through both a writer's fallacy of thinking there's enough context when there isn't--or too much context--and through seeing what's illogical about the train of causation.
The way that the special fallacies of logic apply to the stories we're discussing is the writer thinking that a causal focal character correlation, or a causal happenstance, synchronous, or chronological correlation suffices to "show" the meaning of the causal train of thought intended. Causality is present but insufficient to the needs of the story, especially the emotional train of thought.
I've uncovered an extended formula for causation: cause, emotional response, action, emotional response, reaction, emotional response, effect, emotional response. The resultant effect in turn escalates into a new cause, and so on toward climax, as long as the causes entrain in direct, logical nonfallacy correlation.
What has become most apparent to me is that the linear train of events is not the sole or necessarily the organizing feature of causation, rather it's the linear, escalating train of emotional responses that is the organizing and compelling feature of causation.
As an example, I've noted how the Kübler-Ross model, the Five Stages of Grief, is a common organizing feature in many stories I've read. Some by emerging writers, though, to me, their application of the model seems at times partial and on an instinctive level rather than deliberate. Yet, no small number of the published stories I've read conform so tightly to the model that the progression through the stages is apparent but invisible and natural to the larger story.
First a First Cause that's an Inciting Moment, say, a childhood existential crisis of identity. Then;
Anger Denial Depression Bargaining Acceptance
Followed by accommodation and resolution. Denouement!
[This message has been edited by extrinsic (edited October 03, 2008).]
posted
So, are you applying this insight to all aspects of your stories - temporal, emotional, social, etc? How are you measuring this differently than a writer simply analyzing whether a character or event would or should react in a specific way to a specific event?
This possibly could relate to something on which I am currently working. It is the first of a possible series of stories loosely based on the artwork of M.C. Escher. My current project involves temporal causality and how that would be perceived if one could step outside of time. I am wrapping the story similar to Relativity, raising questions of whether specific "events" could indeed possibly occur or exist in such case. The story also has a strong emotional "rising" and "falling", which I am having difficulty pacing.
EDITED: You answered my second question while I was writing this.
[This message has been edited by philocinemas (edited October 02, 2008).]
posted
Yes, the temporal and emotional aspects--most significantly the emotional. I'm not sure what's meant by "social" aspects.
The premises of the story are what I've found need linking and flowing in logical ways. Not so much analyzing specific character reactions or specific unfolding events, but rather the way that the imaginative premise, the dramatic premise, and the emotional premise are logically linked and escalate in proportionate tension: the vertical movement of plot. Just because an imaginative premise is interesting doesn't mean it will logically influence the dramatic premise and the emotional premise, though I believe it must for a story to be good.
In H.G. Wells The Time Machine, the time machine is the imaginative premise, interesting all by itself because it hadn't been done before, but without effective emotional and dramatic structures the narrative would have been merely an interesting anecdote. Without the time machine, the dramatic premise wouldn't have meant anything. The dramatic premise that is most powerful in the novel is the answer to a what if question, what if it were possible to perceive the future the way that history perceives the past, but in person. The emotional premise is a little harder to unravel from the story, but it too is tied tightly to the imaginative and dramatic premises.
Discerning the emotional premise--the root of the emotional structure--required examining what kind of story it is. From Damon Knight's story types, conflict resolution, revelation, trick ending, decision, etc.; from Orson Scott Card's milieu, idea, character, event, I concluded that the novel is a revelation story--the revelation that humankind is destined to repeat its mistakes because we don't learn from them--and an idea-type story--looking futureward to see that the future is the past, although with the added specter of mass human extinction is an inevitable consequence of "progress." So determining how the story invests a reader emotionally required exploring the imaginative premise's emotional impact. The idea and its resulting revelation is paramount to the emotional premise, not the milieu, the character, or the event. The story's emotional structure rises and falls on the power of the idea.
None of the story's emotional structure digresses from the idea nor depends upon the character, the milieu, or the event, per se, at least not as a logical fallacy of correlating a happenstance or temporal connection distinct from the idea.
An early question I now ask of a story inspiration is, what kind of story does the inspiration suggest. From the answer and the inspiration, I can glean the emotional premise and the dramatic premise. If the inspiration hasn't included the imaginative premise, it too.
[This message has been edited by extrinsic (edited October 03, 2008).]
quote:Yes, the temporal and emotional aspects--most significantly the emotional. I'm not sure what's meant by "social" aspects.
I see literature as a reflective medium. I believe readers connect to what they experience as self-revelatory. This includes how they experience time, emotions, relationships, faith, politics, culture, understanding of history, expectations for the future, etc. Readers do not have to agree with what they read, but their most strongly held concepts and ideals must be truly challenged or reaffirmed for there to be this connection. As a writer, I aspire to challenge preconceived concepts and affirm my readers’ understanding of the nature of our existence. I concentrate deeply on duality; I find the principles of balance and paradox to be appealing. I enjoy ambiguities. Therefore, most of what I write has multiple meanings, of which my intent is to reach into the aforementioned areas of experience.
I find this topic intriguing in that I have recently been inundated with information directly related to it. I am reading a book about writing science fiction by James Gunn that addresses what makes science fiction different from other genres of literature. He discusses how characterization tends to be the primary interest in other genres and that setting and conflict tend to propel science fiction and fantasy. He also mentions that the social connection tends to be different - there is more of an inclination toward the common man/woman, representing the whole of mankind, in science fiction, and the setting or conflict is extraordinary. With other fiction, it is more concerned with the extraordinary individual and these other inclinations are also reversed. This affects the emotional relationship of the story to the reader.
There have been several discussions here in this forum that have danced around this issue. I even recently read elsewhere how the Star Wars prequels suffered due to a lack of substantiating the relationships of the characters and not investing into emotional bonds with the viewer.
posted
I'm reminded of something similar Georg Lukács says in The Historical Novel (1937), that historical narrative interprets the past through present-day perceptions and expectations. Science fiction explores fantastical futureward technological, scientific and/or societal circumstances through present-day perceptions and expectations and, due to its fantastical nature, challenges those perceptions and expectations more than literary genres.
My favorite story theme and, coincidentally, tightly linked imaginative, dramatic, and emotional premises, is that of the familiar stranger striving to belong in an alienating, hostile society and being rejected at every turn.
e3.
[This message has been edited by extrinsic (edited October 04, 2008).]
posted
Having taken extensive courses in logic I am almost ashamed to say that I understood every word you said in regards to logic theory, even those in latin.
I too have stories with linear/causation difficulties. I have aways tried to correct them by running them by a friend, however, we all now this can be embarassing when he points out thet George in the third chapter was Goergina, as somewhere along the line you had a rewrite and decided your main character should be a man but forgot to remove the scene where he/she is getting intimate with a man... Okay, so maybe we don't all share this expierence. And anyway you were probably refering to the more mundane nonlinear events that come from writing a story across many weeks, or years and having a different frame of mind when returning to your story. The different frame of mind being the cause why your character suddenly acts out of character. Or maybe your story just drifted apart time as you forgot where you were going with it, and you didnt make a good guideline.
In any event, You say you have a 'device/process' by which to make your stories more cohesive. Are you refering to critical thinking? And if it really helps, i wouldnt mind if you explained your process.
This was my reaction to your first post. Your second alludes to a method of gauging when you have 'info-dumped' then goes on about a test to see if your characters have gone out of character.
I think both of these are useful devices, which was the one you found useful?
posted
I don't have the good fortune to be able to write good stories intuitively, yet, nor the luck to have story inspirations that right [sic] themselves. Nor do I have the desire to flounder around in the dark for the next decade writing, submitting, and revising and recylcing stories until I stumble onto a productive method, or be willing to admit I won't. So I've been developing a tool kit for evaluation of my writing, the writing of other emerging writers, and the published writing of authors. My goal is to thoroughly understand the theory of story so that I can produce effective story results at will. As a part of the process, I test my theories against published work, look for methods to objectively analyze emerging writers' stories, and apply what I learn to mine.
Publishing careers interest me, at least the concept of developmental editing and the practices of production editing, vocational interests as well as giving back and paying forward to other emerging writers struggling to reinvent the wheel from scratch the way I have, and many writers have. Writing good, publishable stories also interests me. I have a remarkable story to share that's been my Sisyphian burden for thirty-some years.
In the recent past, many publishers worked with writers to develop stories, worthwhile ones anyway. That's a fading practice not pursued in many houses and agencies, and not all that much of a priority in the ones who still do. Writing workshop and writer-reader circles have largely taken on the onus of developmental editing. My experiences are mixed, the efforts are there, the results are not. I think there's a missing method in what makes workshops effective and not knowing what the best practices and methods of developmental editing are, workshops generally don't explore them. It's not in my circle either, or wasn't until recently.
We've been through discussions of story elements, what they mean to a story, how they are applied, which different ones to emphasize for what type of story, and on and on toward mechanically sound stories that nevertheless lacked in some undetermined, fundamental way. We've discussed literal and figurative meanings, high-concept premises and low-concept premises. Subtext, trope, allegory, story modes, genres, and forms, lexicons, definitions, conventions, traditions, crossovers from other art mediums, Damon Knight's story types, Orson Scott Card's story types, Norman Friedman's plot types, and so on, ad infinitum. We explored causation, not fully aware of all its ramifications. We examined antagonism as it relates to conflict-resolution type stories and how it's presented in other story types. We scrutinzed tension and plot and how they correlate in the emotional structure of story. Again, on and on around the mulberry bush, the monkey chased the weasel, with no outcome and no sense of direction into where we were going.
One of the circle members had an insight from exploring train of thought as the organizing feature of a story's dramatic structure. Gosh! our discussions have been all over the place. No wonder train of thought became a talking point. I was exploring emotional structure and we didn't think the twain would meet. A lightbulb with the candlepower of a searchlight flared across the divide. We were climbing toward the writing mountain's summit from different faces. Non sequitur, it does not follow. A logical fallacy limited all of our writing progress. Just because the protagonist is at the center of circumstances, and experiences them in a chronological or other organizing sequence, doesn't make them any less mere happenstance, solely temporally correlated, or irrationally connected circumstances. No organizing emotional structure because the dramatic structure is flawed. I read a lot of emerging writers' stories. I've got six under the microscope right now, plus other testing of stories at online writing workshops that I sample when the urge strikes me. I've found that many otherwise good stories are unpublishable, in my opinion, solely due to one insight. They're organized in happenstance and temporal non sequitur emotional and structural causations.
Critical thinking, yes, that's the entire tool kit for developmental editing, for self's stories, for analysing others'. My process is to mark a story's structural benchmarks relative to its dramatic and emotional premises. Then analyze whether their structures follow a logical and interrelated progression of causation. Does it logically follow is the question I ask of every premise, phrase, and scene. I check for linear causation in emotional reponses and action-reactions. Like nonverbal expressions--action-reactions--emotional reponses come in cluster progressions.
Surprise, a primary emotion, can be fleeting, displayed and sublimated in an instant, say, less than a sentence in narrative. Surprise can lead to wonder, then awe, then admiration, then satiation, then satisfaction. Showing the progression of those responses can be through physical description of nonverbal expressions, dialogue, or internal monologue. Surprise can also lead to anger, denial, depression, bargaining, acceptance. Anger by itself invariably has a preceding cause. Surprise as an emotional response also has a preceding cause. So my process also tests for causation from the real-world Law that cause precedes effect. What is the First Cause is the first question I ask of any story anymore.
An example, the first scene of a story (actually this is a conflation of a host of stories I've read over the last year) develops the mythology of an object. (Mythology: what an object or place or other character means to a character, emotional sentiments, not what the mythical properties are.)
The opening scene promises a potent story based upon the possibilities of the object. However, it only marginally appears in the next scene and not at all in the two subsequent scenes. That's Chekov's Gun, obviously, but it has a causal purpose that was overlooked in the story. It was meant to represent a wish fulfillment goal for the protagonist. No First Cause yet, no plot movement. A hint of a desire or goal or purpose, maybe.
The next scene is a celebratory occasion. The object is a gift but its significance as a statement of the wish desire to be fulfilled isn't developed.
The next scene is a rebellious act by the protagonist. The First Cause presents. Dissatisfaction at the protagonist's lot in life. The rebellion is a reaction to that dissatisfaction, though, presented in backwards causation. At that point, I felt the story's tension begin to build, but the protagonist side-tracked into a less tension-building alternative to rebellion, second thoughts before engaging in the trials presented by the rebellion.
The last scene, the miscreant protagonist returns defeated to suffer the authority figure's scorn, the character who'd been rebelled against and who was the recipient of the gift. Fini. One of Friedman's plot types, the maturation plot, a coming of age story, yet, the protagonist returned to the baseline of adolescence rather than advancing toward adulthood. Non sequitur, happenstances, temporal connections only, dramatic premise and emotional premise inconsistent, climax averted, resolution deflected.
What I'm getting at it is not how to discern an info dump or whether a character has stepped away from what the character is intended to be, but how to discern if something is missing, what it is, when something is superfluous to a story or out of place, and how to objectively, conclusively determine same so it can be fixed. Unraveling non sequitur is just one tool, one I've overlooked and am now happy to have in my tool kit, it's the key developmental tool I've sought for organizing a story.
e3, anyone?
[This message has been edited by extrinsic (edited October 05, 2008).]
posted
I studied movies in much the same way a few years back, analyzing what made a particular one enjoyable. A movie containing a constant succession of action, humor, romance, or suspense was not as enjoyable (nor as profitable) as one that created a series of [action], lull, emotional response, and re-action (repeating as in a crescendo) until reaching a climax and emotional response that peak together.
The best examples of this (though there are a great number) are Die Hard, Aliens, Titanic, and Ghostbusters.
posted
Since I stumbled onto these insights, many movies, television shows--including those banal Reality TV game shows--commercials, even those not-to-be-named panoplies of succession processes playing out in the news media, have bombarded me with examples of non sequitur. It is illustrative to study effective causation in good examples, but I learn more through studying it in failed examples. Grindhouse movies are a gas.
d4 (?) I'm not sure of your move. Algebraic notation marks each square with unique identifier coordinates. a1 is at the left end of White's back row. Assuming you mean d5, Nc3.
posted
Sorry for the delay, a deluge of work required my concentration. Also, I think that, without continuing an on-topic discussion, posting our moves here might be a nuisance to the membership. If we could perpetuate the discussion and tuck our moves into the message, we might not be so intrusive. Otherwise, perhaps we should take the game to e-mail. Qf3.
1. e3 d5 2. Nc3 Nf6 3. Qf3
[This message has been edited by extrinsic (edited October 07, 2008).]
posted
That would suit me fine, especially if there's an interested audience for a chess match here at Hatrack.
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posted
Zero, are you starting a new match than the one that philocinemas and I are in?
If so, I only have one board. In order to keep the games separate and be able to reset the board for each match we'll need to use the cumulative algebraic notational system. d5.
posted
Alright, Zero. I'll take you up on the challenge. I too am a little rusty. However, I do have two boards (and then some), but the challenge will be keeping my six-year-old son from using the pieces as army men.
posted
For simplicity's sake I'm going to post all the games--even the one I'm not playing, and if we keepo them all together we'll never have to hunt for the games individually.
So: extrinsic v philocinemas 1. e3 d5 2. Nc3 Nf6 3. Qf3 e6 4. Bb5+ Nc6
posted
...ah, today, I regret I never properly learned the new chess game coding, and can't follow a game in it...
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quote:...ah, today, I regret I never properly learned the new chess game coding, and can't follow a game in it...
The new coding is pretty slick. The first letter (in caps) represents the piece you are moving. K=king, Q=queen, R=rook, N=knight, B=bishop, and for pawns there is no capital letter.
Then you add the tile that the piece is moving to. So if I am moving my bishop to c7, the move would be recorded as Bc7. If my piece takes another piece, this attack is marked by an x. So if my Bishop takes any piece on c7, the move would be recorded thusly "Bxc7". 1. The piece I move 2.the fact that he captures something and 3. his destination.
For pawn movements you just state the square the pawn moves to. So my first move was e4, so it's clearly a pawn move because it isn't preceded by a capital letter.
But... if a pawn captures a piece, the moves must include the column designation of the pawn I move (for example e, or a, or g) and then the x to indicate that I captured a piece, and of course the spot where it lands. So if my pawn is moving from e4 to capture a piece on d5 (doesn't matter what the piece is), it is recorded as "exd5"
And if I am putitng the king in check, I put a + at the end of the move. Bc5+ (bishop moves to c5 and checks the King), and when it is checkmate I put a # at the end. Bc5# (Bishop moves to c5 checkmate) or if you want to be really fancy Bxc5# (Bishop captures a piece on c5 and checkmates the King)
Algebraic chess notation has been around for a while, since 1737 when Phillip Stamma introduced it. Although it didn't catch on very quickly, gradually in the 19th Century, but nearly universally by the middle of the 20th Century. Figurine algebraic notation is language independent, when the players' browsers supports the unicode for chess figures: ♔, ♕, ♖, ♗, ♘, ♙, ♚, ♛, ♜, ♝, ♞, ♟
Other notations in algebraic notation. King side castle 0-0, Queen side castle 0-0-0, pawn promotion has the chosen piece noted after the move, eg, e8Q, en passant is treated differently according to whichever standard, the least ambiguous being the original file letter, an x indicating the capture, the coordinate location of the square to which the capturing pawn moves, optionally followed by e.p., exf6 e.p. End of game, 1-0 for white won, 0-1 for black won, ½-½ for a draw. Slight variations persist in all standards of algebraic chess notation.
philocinemas v Zero 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nf6 3. Nc3 Nc6 4. Bc4 Be7 5. Ng5 O-O
Zero v extrinsic 1. e4 d5 2. xd5 Nf6 3. Nc3 Bg4 4. Be2 c6 5. Bxg4 cxd5 6. Bf3 Kc6 (that's not a legal move - did you mean Nc6? - if so then my response is 7. g3
posted
Kc6 is an illegal move. Now I'm confused. Please clarify what your 6. move was please, extrinsic?
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