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National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) is upon us again, dear writers. It’s a fantastic event that has permanently welded together my love of fall (warm coffee, muffins, and all things squash) to my love of intense creative output. NaNoWriMo challenges writers to write The challenge is to write 50,000 words in 30 days. But even if you don’t have novel bursting forth from your… chest or whatnot—you can still participate in spirit. Last year I wrote an academic article in November instead of something fictional, but it was still intense and I used NaNoWriMo’s encouragement to get me through.
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Today I’m going to talk to you about critiquing with "double vision." It's always fun to analyze a work and give it your undivided attention, but sometimes looking too long at just one work makes it difficult to imagine what might have been. At some point in history, Jane Austen, Shakespeare, and Virgil all made narrative choices. Their works were once "in progress." With the ever-growing popularity of retellings, franchises, and sequels, writers and editors need to hone their "double vision" so they can see how subtle, small changes can completely change the meaning of a work.
WARNING: There will be minor spoilers for Disney’s Moana in this post.
Last week I talked about the importance of the false goal, and I wanted to expand on that topic this week. And sometimes, the easiest way to explain what something should look like is to give you an example of what it shouldn’t. Enter Moana.  Sometimes storytellers get so excited about getting to the end, the gooey center gets forgotten. And really, who doesn’t love the gooey center? A lot happens in the heart of that murky swamp of act two that gets pushed aside. We know how to start, and we certainly know how to end (you know, WITH EXPLOSIONS) but the weird, swirly middle doesn’t get the same love and attention. So what should you be doing in the murky swamp? One thing the brilliant Matt Bird emphasizes in his Secrets of Story (a book so good I returned my library copy and bought my own) is that your protagonist should “pursue a false or shortsighted goal for the first half of your story.” (pg 107) Since this topic doesn’t get enough dedicated pages, let’s talk about false goals.
 The Major vs. The Major Don’t worry, I won’t spoil Ghost in the Shell (2017) for you… but the reviews are in, and they are decidedly “meh.” Despite Ghost in the Shell (2017) being visually and aurally stunning, no one seems to like it. So where did it all go wrong?
The concept. That may surprise you, because the original anime movie is loved by legions. Many of the scenes are lifted almost completely from the original movie, so it should be a no brainer, right? But when rewriting the 2017 version, the central question of the film (the question that holds your concept together) was changed. Once you mess with a story’s core-- it’s skeletal framework-- the flesh won’t hang on it the right way and it becomes an unwieldy lump. I’ll let Manohla Dargis of The New York Times describe the results:  Sometimes a work gets under your skin, and it itches. You don't know why, but the novel/play/film sticks to your soul. I'm talking about that lingering sensation there's a puzzle piece missing but you just can't...
If you ever feel this itch, sit up and pay attention. Epiphany is on the horizon. Ernest Cline's novel Ready Player One clung to me this way. I kept thinking "Why does everything feel just a little off, as though I've fallen through a dazzling mirror?" That's when realized, Cline saturated his novel with the very nostalgia the book critiques. The characters, situations, and themes are all extensions of a 1980’s imaginative universe. Queue epiphany. It wasn't only the characters in Ready Player One that are obsessed with the '80's. The tone, themes, and the very architecture of Ready Player One celebrates the '80's in every way possible. It is an immersive experience that rivals virtual reality. Ready Player One's level of cohesion should be an aspiration for writers. |
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