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Sorry I wasn't there Thursday. We've built in extra hours in both courses so that even with my occasional absences (we're going to a convention in France for one of the weeks, for instance) you will still get the full number of classroom hours in the course.
The reading assignments aren't unreasonable. You should see the classes where they're reading Victorian novels <grin>. and at least the magazines will be free.
The content of the class will be similar to my writing workshops, especially at first. We'll do the thousand-ideas session and some of the same exercises. But we have time to go into more depth. And the class writes TWO stories, so there's a chance to progress from one to the next. Spreading it out over a semester gives time for the ideas to gel.
The drawback is ... college life. The students who embrace the idea of liberal arts education and take their studies seriously do fine, of course. But those who haven't adjusted to having days "off" (there ARE no days "off" in college, just days when you don't work as you should <grin>) and getting far less supervision end up treating it like high school lite - and getting similar results.
In the SF lit course, there will be a coherency that develops over time as students present essays on each story and the class discusses it. It will be vital that students arrive having read and THOUGHT ABOUT each story ... but my experience is that only a quarter of the students will do this without prodding; another half will do it WITH prodding (i.e., quizzes that they fail; embarrassment when they don't know what they're talking about in discussion), and the other quarter will never learn to prepare adequately and thus will gain - and contribute - little. Kind of a shame, considering the cost of tuition.
The Tolkien and Lewis courses will contrast their views on religion and how it should be integrated into fiction. We'll look at allegory (of course) and themed fiction (the reason that Perelandra doesn't work as well as Narnia - themes that control the plot don't work as well as clear allegory) and fiction that is inherently moral, and how that morality works, using Lord of the Rings (of course) and Till We Have Faces, Lewis's finest work of fiction.
And we get to play with Leaf by Niggle and Farmer Giles of Ham ...
But that's next semester. This semester, we'll get a pretty good overview of the history of sci-fi as a commercial genre in America, AND get a strong theory of how fiction works on its audience, regardless of genre.
Still, a word of warning: While my goal is to be helpful and interesting and informative, what makes you "lucky" to take the class is not me, it's the fiction and the ideas and the whole atmosphere at SVU. SVU is liberal arts education at its best (and cheapest) - tuition is kept at half or LESS than the going rate at other LibArt schools, and the teachers are paid in bags of dirt, which is why tuition is so low and yet they offer a full range of course work.
SVU will provide a great education for students whoDON'T think of college as getting a meal ticket - meeting the prerequisites for a particular job - but rather think of it is a place where they can take charge of their own education and begin the lifelong effort to learn everything about everything. The result will be that instead of being prepared for ONE job, they'll be prepared to learn ANY job.
And so I don't regard either my writing class or my lit class as being "about" nothing more than fiction. If the fiction you read and write is not a discernably important way of enlightening our understanding of the real world and helping shape us into civilized people, then it wouldn't be worth the time to teach it. So when I teach both the reading and writing of fiction, my concentration is on the transaction between writer and reader - what is this story doing to you as a reader? And, perhaps more importantly, what is this story doing to US as a society.
Enough babble. I'm excited, too. See you on Tuesday.
Right now, however, I'm still in LA. Catching a red-eye home on Friday night. Not a good plan, after having just seen the movie Red Eye....
Posts: 2005 | Registered: Jul 1999
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It can't be more reading than some of my classes in college were, and I made it okay.
Actually, the only classes where I didn't do my reading were the ones where the reading was pointless (i.e., the teacher touched all the high points of the reading or summarized the reading in class the next day so you didn't need to both go to class and read to get all the same information). I had one class in particular where there was a lot of reading, and I did it at the beginning. Then I realized that the teacher spent the 50 minute class period summarizing the reading, so I quickly stopped doing it. Then partway through the semester he started doing an oral quiz on the reading, and it became obvious that no one had done it. He acted all offended at the laziness of college students, and I was thinking, "Duh. College students are busy. They won't do what they don't have to do, just like you."
Posts: 1903 | Registered: Sep 2003
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quote:And we get to play with Leaf by Niggle and Farmer Giles of Ham ...
Leaf by Niggle is a great short story, and for all Tolkien's talk about allegory, it's pretty hard to view it as anything but. Of course, the purgatory stuff leaps out of the story, but I find the subcreation theme more compelling.
Farmer Giles is probably the most fun thing Tolkien wrote.
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I used to try to read everything that was assigned, and in grad school I realized that this was hurting me. I'd have to read maybe three novels in a week and write one paper and a reaction or two, all while working, and I was staying up until two or three every night. I knew from conversations that most people were skimming a lot more than I was. Then in one seminar I realized than in many cases they were doing better than I was. They were well-rested, and could BS well-enough, and I wasn't getting enough out of the reading from reading it as I was. But I was too O/C to be able to do it any other way, so I never did learn this skill.
Posts: 289 | Registered: Apr 2005
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Zarex, the only thing that got me through my honors classes I took a few semesters ago was my Last Minute Maniac method- or LMM as some as my class mates said.
I was so busy that semester that everything was done at, well... at the last minute! I found that by reading or writing an assignment at the last minute, it remained fresh in my mind for class. I was on a "busy buzz high" that made me excited about class, and with OSC as an instructor that won't be too hard!
I know a lot of professor's would not like the whole last minute thing, especially when your supposed to be absorbing and interpreting what you read/write, but that was basically my only choice. Somehow it allowed me to get A's and I didn't forget the details of what I read and wrote. I wish you good times.
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That's no fun Z, but I think you're making the intelligent decision.
The reading assignment isn't monsterous, but I am having trouble finding the time to get it all done. Thank goodness it's a good read. Were it an accounting book I'd have thrown in the towel by now.
See you in class Posts: 14 | Registered: Aug 2005
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I never even knew those books existed before I read this thread. Incidentally, not 5 minutes after reading about them have I ordered OSC's books on characterisation and writing for science fiction. Posts: 14 | Registered: Aug 2005
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They're good books. One question that I have, is in his book, concerning characterization. He says that one sure way to make a character lose sympathy is to make him very intelligent, using big words and such, or to make him insane.
My question is how were the viewer's manipulated in the movie A Beautiful Mind. Since the character John Nash is both insane, and more than commonly intelligent.
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quote:Originally posted by Zarex: My question is how were the viewer's manipulated in the movie A Beautiful Mind. Since the character John Nash is both insane, and more than commonly intelligent.
So let me get this straight. You graduated college, and yet you still use apostrophes to mark plurals? Be glad I wasn't your teacher. I would have flunked you so hard you'd still be retaking to make up for it.
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oops, typo. And the whole point of this thread is that I have not yet graduated from college. Else why would I be taking a college class? Plus, don't you think it rather rude to change the subject directly after another's post?
I shall repeat my question so that other stiffnecked people will find it acceptable.
My question is how were the viewers manipulated in the movie A Beautiful Mind. Since the character John Nash is both insane, and more than commonly intelligent.
Posts: 250 | Registered: Aug 2005
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That question was addressed very well in class. Nash was presented as somewhat separate from his insanity. It was the obsticale for him to overcome.
Don't let KOM under your skin Z, he's trolling. It's an online forum, at least you're not syping in leet speak.
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Well, the first class with SC is over, we had a really interesting thousand idea session. In which we collaborated and came up with a story about a forty two year old man. Who has a midlife crisis, works for the post office, dyes his hair green, gets a snoopy tattoo, gets a divorce, sells half the family farm, moves to a micropolis, and has three daughters.
Posts: 250 | Registered: Aug 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Zarex: They're good books. One question that I have, is in his book, concerning characterization. He says that one sure way to make a character lose sympathy is to make him very intelligent, using big words and such, or to make him insane.
My question is how were the viewer's manipulated in the movie A Beautiful Mind. Since the character John Nash is both insane, and more than commonly intelligent.
Well i'm still waiting for the books to arrive so this question is based purely on that idea:
Can you avoid a loss of sympathy for your character so long as you don't portray their intelligence through an extensive vocabulary? ie: Bean.
Posts: 14 | Registered: Aug 2005
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The loss of sympathy for a character based on intelligence can be avoided. In A Beautiful Mind, we forgive Nash for his superior intellect because we see him shunned, and making fun of other people who are intelligent. The others in that story who are intelligent have an air of superiority, which is the hard and fast reason for the loss of sympathy.
Bean is another good example. He's smart, but he's small, and he's not arrogant or haughty, add to that his horrifying childhood, and the way he looks up to and respects a character we already love (Ender) and we love the kid.
I think a sense of superiority and intelligence is useful, but can be overcome by allowing the reader to see the humanity in that character. That seems true with people in our lives as well. Even people we dislike are redeemed to a degree when we become aware of the challenges they face. Like we all do.
Posts: 14 | Registered: Aug 2005
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One thing I try to make clear is that any rule can be broken, if you want to pay the price for it and compensate. A Beautiful Mind pays the price by making the entire movie absolutely and completely about his madness and his intelligence. It embraces his rudeness immediately, but contrasts him with people who are even MORE obnoxious about their intelligence (though he is smarter). It shows him loosening up with the help of his cool new roommate. So it takes the time to win us over.
It also casts Russell Crowe, something that you won't be able to do in a book <grin>.
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Just had another class, can't do a long post though since I have to go read the Illiad for Lit. of Western Civ.
Posts: 250 | Registered: Aug 2005
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Yeah, we did have another class, and since Z is no doubt asleep and drooling all over Homer, I'll offer a reflection or two.
We were treated to another 1,000 ideas session in which Prof. Card directed us using an idea rather than a character. "The Cost of Magic" to be specific. The topic took on some interesting directions, and some not terribly interesting directions. Not interesting to me that is. Professor Card has been very clear about the fact that there are no bad ideas, so I can only offer up opinions based upon my own personal tastes.
We were then reminded of just how vulnerable to him we are in the classroom environment. It's true of course. I've known that from the beginning. Whenever I've met someone who's work I've appreciated I've been keenly aware of my vulnerability to them. I think it comes from the fact that I feel some kind of a connection to the person through their work, while they feel absolutely no connection to me. My mother once told me that in any relationship, the person who cares the least has the power. I feel the truth of that statement manifest in such encounters. But I've also learned that the connection I've felt to a person's work is not in any real way associated with the person themself, Timothy Dalton is not James Bond. James Belushi is not a crooked cop. And Orson Scott Card is not Ender. Knowing this would be true I was somewhat nervous to meet Professor Card. But I'm delighted to report to anyone who has yet to have the pleasure of attending one of his workshops, that he doesn't need to be Ender, Miro, or Bean. He's a dynamic instructor who is both inspiring and encouraging. Although to be honest, what I've appreciated most about his style thus far is his unapologetic way of expressing his opinion on any subject that comes up.
In all fairness, the class has only really met twice, but I don't think I'll need to recant my initial assessment. There may be wounds to lick when my total lack of ever having written fiction is revealed. But a bruised ego does not a poor professor make. Posts: 14 | Registered: Aug 2005
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It's been a while since I've been on, I'm still swamped by the Illiad, I'm in the middle of book seven at the moment, where ajax fights hector in single combat, but enough about that, in an hour and ten minutes I will have my next class with SC. In this class session we'll have to turn in our notecard assignment. I think I'm going to read aloud my story about a blade of grass and how it feels being stepped upon.
Posts: 250 | Registered: Aug 2005
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Today in class I found out some things that you should never put into a story if it is going to be graded by SC.
1. Vampires 2. People going postal at the end ("That's not an ending, that's an excuse to finish the book." 3. People committing suicide. (Same as above) 4. Viewpoint switches: e.g. Going from first person in one paragraph to third person limited in the next. 5. Flashbacks at the beginning of the book.
To A lesser Degree
1. Central Metaphors, useless things
We also learned the Polomius(?) rule: If a character is going to preach about something you (the author) believe in, make him an idiot.
Posts: 250 | Registered: Aug 2005
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Hm. I'm now half-tempted to write a story about a bunch of vampires engaged in driving a group of captive nuns slowly insane, told from the viewpoint of one of the nuns (in flashback) and one of the vampires, who closes out the story by discovering the body of the other narrator, who has committed suicide rather than be converted to the undead. Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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So we brought in story-idea cards, that is, synopses we had dreamed up. Some discussion of POV. So what are the costs of 1st person?
* You've just ruined any suspense about whether the POV character died in the story. He didn't, or he wouldn't be telling the story now. * He's distanced from the events in the story by what happened since (his experience, wisdom, etc.); 3P limited need not be.
These don't seem like debilitating problems, necessarily. Might work well for comedy.
OSC spoke of the Evils (my word) of 1st person present tense. I have written one story this way so far: it had a memory in it, which the MC found herself literally in, as in, she couldn't stop thinking of the past and be back in the present; she was magically put into the memory. I simply couldn't do this transition in past tense w/o being clunky. But I see that as a special case. I can't imagine why someone would use this in a story without time travel.
As we discussed fixes for this and that, I personally started considering how much of my difficulties in writing result from stubbornness. That is, I know that a story has technobabble in it that's too much for many readers, but *I* like it, so too bad for them. Or, I know that people got lost in too many characters in scene 6, but I don't want to cut any. Maybe it's time to be flexible.
I'm not sure what else to do to get published. I thought I might try a totally different, potboiler route: not come up with a story and then find a market, but identify a market and then think, "What story would be perfect for this one?"
I hope we can process these story-idea cards more quickly; that is, I like the idea of being prolific, and I think it's important. That's what I liked so much about the 1000 Ideas in an Hour idea: it made me able to produce stories way, way more quickly. I don't like lecture so much (in any class); after all, it's usually in the textbook. But the exercises in this class are way cool.
Posts: 1877 | Registered: Apr 2005
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It's all about loving your readers - wanting them to enjoy the experience. Wanting to give them, as Dryden said, "sweetness and light" - honey and wisdom; entertainment and truth. They should care and believe. (same thing said four ways now)
So ... you try to be as clear as you can, show them why they should care, and give them sufficient grounding to believe. Those are the minimums. If you're doing THAT, then you can play.
That is, if you love your readers. If on the other hand you disdain them, and expect them to buy your work as a duty to your superior talent, well, good luck, have fun. Some people bring it off - yes, they do - but usually because some other value accidentally sneaks in.
i think of a story as a community-building event. Everyone who hears or reads it joins a community of people who have the same memories of an emotionally powerful event. They become, for that moment, and in that memory, One. And if you really love a story, you want the people you care about to have the same shared memory; and you're more likely to bond with those who reveal they already have that memory in common with you.
so it's not a private thing, and it's not about pleasing yourself. You build something bigger than yourself by including other people in it.
that's my belief, anyway.
The potboiler route can work, but only if you find a story within the potboiler requirements that you really do care about and believe in. Otherwise it will be junk. and the readers of "potboilers" are hungry for SOMETHING ... you'd better deliver.
There's a reason why some romance writers sell more books than others; for that matter, why some Star Wars novels sell more than others. Even when a genre is formula-driven, the writer, inadvertently or not, brings something of himself into every story. Something of what matters to him, how he sees the world.
And as for thinking you can write potboilers until you're good enough - think again. To write romances, you have to be a romance writer. To write thrillers, you have to be a thriller writer. The sheer act of writing them makes you think that way, if you're really going to master the form. So you don't write potboilers until you're ready to do the good stuff - if you ever do any good stuff, it will be a really good potboiler.
Write the kind of story you are dying to tell. don't write poor substitutes along the way. Do your best work all the time.
having said that, I did deliberately choose to write science fiction when I switched from plays to fiction, precisely because there was a short fiction market that newcomers had a chance of breaking into. But this wasn't "potboiler" writing, with all the contempt for the genre that the term implies. i loved science fiction. I also loved a lot of other kinds of fiction and wanted to write them, but they didn't have a viable short story market (I was trying to pay the debts of my theatre company). So I wrote science fiction FIRST; but I could never have done it if I disdained sci-fi and thought of it as "potboiler" work. I was able to use the sci-fi toolkit to build stories that were important and truthful to me. (I also snuck in some of the playwriting toolkit.)
Posts: 2005 | Registered: Jul 1999
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By the way, people make typos all the time online. This is a transient kind of literature, even if it stays up a long time. Few of us take the time to proofread intensely.
And typos often look like ignorance. Lately I've found myself doing the apostrophe-for-plural thing, not consciously, by unconsciously. I look at what I've written and think, What a bonehead I am. But I'm not. I'm a highly skilled copyeditor. I know all the rules, or at least where to look them up if they're obscure and I've forgotten them. In the rush of speech (which is what fast-typed internet postings are), however, the rules can slip to the side, especially if we're tired. so tired we won't see the typos anyway.
for instance, the keyboard I'm using right now doesn't have the shift key connect as high above the bottom position as i'm used to. so my habitual timing ends up releasing the shift key a split second before the letter key makes the connection. Thus - no capital letter, even though I ALWAYS press the shift key for perfect capitalization. So ... do you take that as some affectation ("Card doesn't capitalize words at the beginnings of sentences") or as ignorance ("Doesn't he know the rules about when you capitalize? Sheesh, everyone knows that one!")?
I hope you'll take it as haste and nothing more. If you have a higher standard, great. But I'd rather respond to MORE posts in the time I have, than obsessively proofread fewer posts so they're perfect.
In short, I have little patience with people who seriously criticize others for misspellings, misused punctuation, and nonstandard grammar online. Sometimes a typo is funny in its context, and there's nothing wrong with laughing at that. But when someone demeans someone else for errors, it's like somebody at a party who demands that everyone in a conversation stay ON THE TOPIC ("We're getting off the subject here, aren't we?") or NOT SAY 'UM,' How long before the conversation ends because everybody left the room?
Besides, the critic opens himself to criticism. The phrase is "graduated from college" - "graduated college" is a slovenly elision, like "a couple books" instead of "a couple of books." And "you'd still be retaking to make up for it" leaves off the object - only in your dreams is "retaking" an intransitive verb.
Oh, wait - you were speaking informally? Using your local dialect? I'm supposed to make allowances?
Then do the same for others, O King of Men ...
Posts: 2005 | Registered: Jul 1999
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Of course, demanding that people not say "um" isn't the only way to break up a conversation; calling people "insensitive pricks" will do it too!
--
TKO: yes, the biter is sometimes bit!
--
This leads me to a digression. There's a colleague of mine that I sometimes eat lunch with (along with others). He usually brings the subject around to something like, "Speaking of nut cases..." (creationists), or, "How anyone in this day and age could believe [some religious view he doesn't share]," or at the very least how Bush is slaughtering our children in Iraq. I generally find a reason to get up, make a trip back to the salad bar, and by then there's a way to change the subject...which doesn't work.
He doesn't upset me (except the time I quoted a Texas legislator he'd never heard of, and he told me the man, being Texan, was probably involved in bestiality). But I don't see any reason to participate. How is it that he doesn't get the message?
It's because others sit there with him, and nod, and discuss how moronic his opponents are.
Posts: 1877 | Registered: Apr 2005
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So your saying that he's basically preaching to the choir. Well I believe that the Polomius Rule fits him.
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Life's too short to eat lunch with close-minded, intolerant bigots. And I'll bet that's what he calls you behind your back. Posts: 232 | Registered: Jan 2005
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I've been trying to do the "one hour of your life in third person" project, its a whole lot harder than I thought it would be. I almost think it would be easier to set up a video camera to record what I'm doing for an hour and then write what I see myself doing from that perspective.
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Yes that, in a nutshell, is the assignment. I'm finding it almost impossible not to do a deep penetration POV. So yeah, right now and out of body experience would be extremely useful.
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I think I might be a megalomaniac, because I often follow my life in 3rd person. I back up and picture myself as I would appear to someone else, then I describe what I'm doing as if I'm not me. 3rd person narration, essentially.
Does that make me weird?
Posts: 5462 | Registered: Apr 2005
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Well, had another class with SC, where we went over the notecard assignment and a few of the third person ones. Will B. came up with a literally awesome story idea. I can't wait for him to right it so I can read it. Another thing we learned about writing was that one of the hardest things an author has to do is to choose where to begin the story. I learned the interesting fact that the first thing you do with a story is pick the ending. Otherwise the ending is too predictable.
Posts: 250 | Registered: Aug 2005
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Thanks, Zarex! OSC's right: it'll take some serious world building.
I want to comment on the "3rd person limited, deep penetration, hour in your life" thing. Don't we all tell stories about ourselves? Should be easy to come up with something. The challenge is to put it in 3rd person and write in this deep penetration method.
Here's my understanding.
You know you're not cinematic if you show the thoughts of someone.
You know you're limited (not omniscient) if you show only one person's thoughts.
You're using deep penetration if everything is so much from that one person's perspective that you can interject comments and it's obvious that they are the POV character's thoughts.
I would further suggest that it's best to do these things really soon. I've gotten people confused by having 3PL, deep penetration (at least in my own mind) ... then realizing that until page 2, I'd neglected to put in any of POV character's thoughts. So people didn't know who I'd chosen as the POV character.
Posts: 1877 | Registered: Apr 2005
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I'm going to make some further report on class.
First, we did the exercise in 3PL, already discussed.
We discussed 2 synopses, Zarex's and mine. Zarex's made everyone laugh, which was of course the intention. Not everyone can make a blade of grass sympathetic!
I had two characters. What if it was from Ira's perspective? From the policeman's? Having decided this, is it a milieu, idea, character, or event story? These help us determine where to start the story. The text, Characters & Viewpoint, discuss this.
For me, it's a character story, about the policeman, who might be changing his role in life from loyalist to rebel. Or not. But what if it's an idea story? It might be: what happens if we have this kind of civilization, that I set the story in? What if it's a milieu story? Then we start when Ira enters this civilization. I like this, but I'd agree with the class that this would be too much for a short story. What if it's an event story? Then we start when the universe is disturbed.
Picking POV is tougher. Ira's POV looks preferable to me, because Ira's culture (Jewish) is less alien to me than the policeman's (some weird hi-tech Maya culture). But the change in role is the policeman's. (BTW, if you're reading this, OSC, I was wrong about Christie's Poirot novels. Hastings tells them in 1st person.) So who's the POV character in this new story?
Tough situation. Cop is hard to write, and is less sympathetic. Ira can have his own story, but cop is the one that really makes things happen, in it, at least, in the version I like. Maybe you could think of it as: Ira decides to trust cop. That's his action. Then we see what happens. I'm still not sure about this. I hate passive MC's.
Could I have it from Ira's POV, but be about cop? OSC says: too confusing. I tend to think he's right, since I can't find any stories that did this.
Maybe I'll write this one. The tough work will be world-building; I hope we have a chance to address this in class. John Barnes was right: imagination is hard work.
--
We also had this discussion. I have several stories that fit one of these patterns, all of which end with a POV shift at the very end. OSC's initial reaction is, "I'd throw the book across the room if I came across a last-minute POV shift," but I don't think I made myself clear. Or maybe I did, and it's a bad idea.
Pattern 1 (using an old Asimov's story as an example): John comes back to Earth to negotiate with Lady Fiona of Scotland to buy her thousand-year-old castle. The whole thing, to be shipped to his star system, so his people can have a piece of history. Fiona seems reluctant, but Scotland is economically desperate, and nobility obliges her to see to her people's need . . . so she finally agrees. "Think what you can do for your people with this money," he says. The deal is made. # "OK," Lady Fiona tells the townspeople. "He fell for it. Time to start work on the next one!"
If I told it poorly, ignore my errors. Thing is, if we tell it from Fiona's POV, there's no twist ending. If we tell it from his POV and don't shift, we never get that there was a scam.
Pattern 2: John sees the magic unicorn painting in the castle, and thinks, "If I could just see a unicorn, I'd be happy from then on!" He's inspired to seek out unicorn rumors. This leads him on a fantastic adventure, blah, blah, and he goes on to some better world. # And even today, from time to time, someone will see the painting, and think, "If I could just see a unicorn, then I'd be happy from then on!"
This last paragraph is in omniscient, and the rest is in John's POV. Removing it wouldn't kill the story, but I wouldn't feel tricked if I read it.
Pattern 3: John does this, thinks this, etc., about and with Mary, and meets some final irreversible fate (maybe dying, maybe leaving and never returning.) # A couple of paragraphs about how Mary reacts now that John is gone, because at this point, we know her and want to know what happened at her end.
I recognize a certain cost, but I don't think it's high, provided the story really ends with John, and Mary's stuff is just a little wrap-up.
...thing is, out of some 35 stories I have written and tried to market, I think I just described 5 of them. That's a pretty high rate, if it's an unusual form. Usually, if I break a writing rule, I only did it once.
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Well remember what SC said, you can break any rule. You just have to pay the price for it. Though I have no idea of what the price may be in this case.
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Just got an E-mail from SC, classes for tomorrow and thursday are cancelled because he's going to Utah.
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The problem, Will, is that you clearly have the idea that a good ending is a twist.
But a twist is invariably possible only because you don't tell us what's happening. So when you write twist-ending stories, of COURSE you can't use an honest deep-penetration third-person viewpoint. You have to use an equally honest light penetration or shifting pov, or you have to choose a pov character who is mostly an observer and who is not in on the secret but is present for the revelation.
This has nothing to do with the effectiveness of 3rd person limited with deep penetration - it's a powerful tool, but it isn't the right tool for every story.
Twist ending stories are fun, but their effect is usually slight. Can't be helped, it's in the nature of the beast. Essentially, you're playing a prank on the reader; if it's a good story, then they'll enjoy being pranked.
But it makes it harder - as you have already noted - to turn the story into something deeper and richer. Because the deeper you make the story, the more likely it is that the twist will be annoying rather than amusing. The reader is more and more likely to think, All this, and it was a TWIST ending? (We're not talking irony here, we're talking sudden revelation of information not previously available to the reader.)
Think of Damon Knight's To Serve Man (the basis of a famous Twilight Zone episode). In fact, think of ALL the twist-ending TZs. Those were short stories - 24-minute episodes. There was no "characterization" beyond putting an actor in the part. It was all about the situation and the revelation. And we loved it. But if we had watched for TWO HOURS and the twist was all we got, we would have been disgusted.
It's all tradeoffs. Of course there are stories where 3rd person limited doesn't work. But what kind of stories are they? NOT the kind that needs the effects that 3rd person limited offers. For instance, why in the world would we need deep penetration for "Nightfall" or "Nine Billion Names of God"? Or for Br'er Rabbit and the Briar Patch, for that matter? Wonderful stories. Beloved stories. Nothing to be gained by making the understanding of character deep, because character does not matter at ALL in those stories.
Just because I want to make sure you know how to use a hammer doesn't mean I expect you to use it for every task. Sometimes you need to cut wood, and for that I suggest using a saw <grin>.
Posts: 2005 | Registered: Jul 1999
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Was was Ender's discovery that he was actually fighting the buggers and had committed xenocide not a twist ending? I certainly didn't experience it as fun, amusing, or annoying; it was heart-wrenching. It's been quite a while since I read it, and without a copy at hand to check on the POV and how it was handled, it seems to me it must have been 3rd person, deep penetration, w/ Ender as the viewpoint character. Of course, there was the commentary from the teachers at the beginning of each chapter to bring in different points of view.
Posts: 3149 | Registered: Jul 2005
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As long as we're discussing point of view... for one of my classes, we are reading the Iliad. In the Iliad, one of the key characters is Patroclus, who dons Achilles' armor to fight the trojans. Patroclus is slayne by Hector, but whenever Homer refers to Patroclus he uses the second person. Is this to make Patroclus more sympathetic?
Posts: 250 | Registered: Aug 2005
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