Category Archives: Craft

June 11, 2013

How Time Team can help with fantasy worldbuilding

By Ellen Gregory

I’ve recently been watching a lot of old Time Team episodes (a British TV show hosted by Tony Robinson in which a bunch of archaeologists excavate exciting things over three days).

I think they have the best job ever. I absolutely love the fact there’s so much history buried under pretty much every innocuous field or footpath across the UK… Today they are excavating Roman roads and bridges… Last week it was an unfinished medieval castle… Next it’ll probably be an iron-age village…

Simply wow.

Roman aqueduct in Segovia, Spain -- remnant of a lost civilisation

Gratuitous travel photo (albeit on topic, sort of): Roman aqueduct in Segovia, Spain — remnant of a lost civilisation

Time Team also really gets me thinking about fantasy worldbuilding. From a research perspective, real world archaeology provides great insight into how people lived in pre-industrial times. Every time they dig up an old buckle, or fragments of clay pots, or a carved tool, or decorative beads… I start wondering how items such as these could be injected into my primary fantastical world of the moment.

Colour and light and telling detail.

But it also inspires me to incorporate archaeological principles into my fantastical worlds. After all, every inhabited imagined world also has a history. Why should they not have an ancient collapsed bridge from a lost civilisation (or an, er, aqueduct) — and more besides?

Three great fantasy examples

There are three fantasy works that stand out in my mind for their use of history and archaeology as part of their worldbuilding: Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, Guy Gavriel Kay’s A Song for Arbonne, and Robin Hobb’s sprawling Farseer/Liveship/Rainwild Trader books.

It’s been a long time since I read ‘Song’, but I distinctly remember the use of ‘romanesque’ ruins in its more medieval ‘alternate France/Provence’ setting. And then there’s LOTR, which is saturated with historical references — and the Peter Jackson movies bring these brilliantly to life.

Robin Hobb’s books keep returning to the mystery of the near-forgotten Elderlings, whose ancient excavated cities and standing stones play pivotal roles throughout the various books. I’m sure there are many more fantasy works dealing with ancient and lost civilisations, but these are the ones which stand out for me.

Inventing histories

I tend to invent fairly detailed histories for my imagined worlds. I like to know who inhabited the lands first and who conquered them (and why), how they adapted/integrated (or not) etc. Using archaeological references in the narrative to convey setting is one really effective way of illustrating these histories without great swathes of exposition.

Of course, there is a fine line to walk here. It’s all very well inventing histories and remnants of lost civilisations to add texture and depth to the world, but unless they impact the plot, many readers would chastise the author for including them in the narrative. Although I embrace such details as a reader (in moderation), it’s far better if the writer in me can use them as solid foundations for plot points.

Aspiring archaeo-metallurgist

I did, in fact, once write a story in which the protagonist is an archaeo-metallurgy doctoral student. It has never been published (because it needs work), but I keep on thinking I’ll drag it out and take another look at it. It’s a piece of writing very close to my heart, because I based aspects of it on research I did back when I was a metallurgist (right down to the grumpy supervisor!). It was an attempt to use the whole ‘write what you know’ advice in the most literal fashion.

And so… every time they dig up a metallic object — or ‘find’ — on Time Team I feel an extra pang of envy. Given my metallurgical background, the role of archaeo-metallurgist seems tailor-made for me. I think if I lived in the UK or Europe, I might very well have headed down that track. (There are not too many ancient metallic objects being dug up in Australia.)

As it is, my inner archaeologist will just have to continue to live vicariously through Time Team.

Are there any other Time Team fans here today? What would be your ultimate dream archaeological discovery? If you’re a fantasy reader, can you share any other works that make good use of history and archaeology as part of the worldbuilding?

 

10 comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , | posted in Craft, Reflection

May 3, 2013

On novel pitching: an insight and an epiphany

By Ellen Gregory

The recent Conflux Science Fiction convention in Canberra was the first conference I’ve attended where formal pitching sessions were available to authors. It’s probably not surprising therefore that the art of pitching was the subject of much general conversation.

I attended a panel about pitching on the second day of the con, featuring panellists Tara Wynn, literary agent with Curtis Brown; Alex Adsett, literary agent and publishing industry consultant; and Marc Gascoigne, publisher at Angry Robot. They discussed the following pitching scenarios:

  • “elevator pitching” — the art of describing your novel in one or two sentences to any interested party (and, let’s face it, the question “what’s your novel about?” comes up quite often in a room full of authors). It’s also useful for describing your novel to friends, family and work colleagues…
  • formal pitching to agents or publishers — the art of convincing said industry professional that your novel is something they really need to read for consideration, usually in five or ten minutes (or thereabouts).

From the title of the panel, I thought it was going to focus more on the former — which is what I desperately need help with — but it actually focused more on the latter. No matter — that proved most interesting and informative too.

I’ll quickly summarise a few of the insights provided by the three panellists:

  • The elevator pitch is essential. Even once your book is requested, the one-sentence pitch is used to describe your book quickly to sales and marketing teams and all manner of other people involved in the publishing process.
  • In the pitch, you need to be able to describe what your story is about, PLUS what it’s “like” (ie a recent similar genre novel). This can sometimes be considered the second half of the elevator pitch.
  • In the pitch, you need to highlight the kernel that makes it original, the hook that’s going to make your book stand out from all the others. Especially if it’s a fantastical world. (AA)
  • MG said several times that he considers a formal pitch like a job interview. He wants to see a professional individual who can potentially deliver a manuscript every 8 months (yikes) for a few years. He wants a clear indication that you have more books in you.
  • TW said she also wants to gain insight into the person behind the pitch — she wants to see evidence of passion and another well of ideas.

The most interesting insight I gained from this panel, however, is that every one of these agents/publishers want to hear about your story.

Yep. That’s right. Despite all the horror stories about drunken pitches in bars and manuscripts being shoved under toilet doors, these guys will still listen to you and/or take a look at that first page if it’s put before them.

They’re so eager to find something great, they won’t rule anything out without at least a glance. In fact, it’s highly likely they’ll request at least a partial after a pitch, simply because there’s still a chance the writing will be fantastic. (Of course, it could get scrapped very quickly after that!)

The moral of this story is: Make sure you’re ready for that moment when opportunity strikes.

NOTE: I am not advocating acting unprofessionally, ever… But if you do happen to be chatting in the bar, and the question comes up… BE READY and at all times professional.

The importance of this was borne upon me during the convention as I actively avoided one-on-one situations that could get sticky if the “what’s your novel about?” question was asked… And when I found myself getting tangled and defensive when trying to tell one or two others about it.

You see, I haven’t really practised the best way of describing my current novel WIP, and it matters. Because there’s nothing worse than launching into a description and making it sound dreadfully dull, so much less interesting than it really is. (You hope.) I certainly don’t want to come across all glib and rehearsed, but I’d rather like to sound coherent, and as though I have some idea about what it is I’m doing.

I learnt I definitely need to lift my game in this department. I need to practise telling people about my work, discussing it, not being defensive when they ask perfectly natural questions with the best possible intentions. It’s something for me to work on — and is probably my major take-away from this convention.

Does anyone else have any pitching (or not pitching) horror stories they’d care to share? Or success stories? Any tips for developing pitches and becoming comfortable talking about our work? I’d love to hear from you.

***

ADDENDUM 4 May: As luck would have it, Marcy Kennedy has a guest post on Kristen Lamb’s blog about how to develop the perfect pitch. It breaks it down wonderfully well. Go and check it out!

21 comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , , | posted in Conventions, workshops & seminars, Craft, Publishing

May 1, 2013

More on building fantastical worlds

By Ellen Gregory

I recently attended the Australian National Science Fiction Convention – Conflux 9 — a fabulous four days of hanging out with other writers, industry professionals and speculative fiction fans.

The convention offered many valuable panel discussions and workshops (among other things); I attended a worldbuilding session with Glenda Larke, an Australian epic fantasy author whose innovative and multi-dimensional worlds regularly garner much acclaim. As regular readers of this blog will know, worldbuilding is important to me and I thought perhaps Glenda might reveal some of her secrets.

She did! And I’m going to share some of the key points here today.

To start with, the following two points were emphasised. A successful fantasy world is dependent on two quite separate factors:

  • Building the world
  • Introducing the world to readers

Building the fantastical world

When creating a fantastical world, it’s essential to make it solid and believable — and give it some pizzazz. The author must know more than is revealed to the reader to give it that multi-dimensional quality, that sense the world extends beyond the immediate story.

Some authors spend a great deal of time developing a fully realised world up front, and allow the story to unfold within it. (As I have done to-date.) Glenda, on the other hand, develops her world in parallel with the story.

She said several times that one of her starting questions is “Who has the power?” and then “What do they do with it?”. Everything derives from here. She continuously adjusts the world to fit the plot, and sometimes even the map is changing right up to the final draft. The world exists to fit the story.

This doesn’t mean she skimps on the worldbuilding. But she says she doesn’t need to know everything at the beginning of the story — so long as by the end she has a comprehensive understanding.

Moreover, it’s important to identify at least one thing to make your world original, different from all the others…

As for the details, there are any number of questionnaires and worldbuilding templates available online to assist authors these days. It’s not usually necessary to fill out every single item on each list, but it can be helpful to have an idea, however roughly formed, about aspects such as economics, geography, climate, social structure and so on.

This is all assuming the fantastical world is not based directly on a particular period of our own. If that is the case, then comprehensive research from original sources is recommended.

Introducing the world to readers

Here, the key is achieving the perfect balance between what the author knows and what the reader needs to know. There’s no sense revealing irrelevant details — they’ll only bore the reader and create false expectation.

Moreover, (we all know this, but I’ll reiterate it anyway), authors must avoid the info-dump. The secret to introducing the world to readers is inserting threads of detail gradually, so the reader builds up a picture one tiny element at a time.

Some of Glenda’s tips for subtle inclusion of world detail are:

  • Creating small incidents, which also convey important characterisation, plot information, etc
  • Creating curse words to reflect culture
  • Using calendars of festivals, religious celebrations etc
  • Using unique similes and metaphors in the narrative and dialogue to convey culture and world detail
  • Referring to historical and cultural events

Finally, Glenda says don’t get hung up with getting it right the first time round! She says layering and texturing of the world can take place in subsequent drafts and revisions.

And I agree — my favourite part!

Does anyone else have any worldbuilding tips? I’d love to hear thoughts on fantastical worlds. Let me know your favourite fantasy worlds and their authors too. I’m always on the lookout for great new fantasy reading experiences.

***

Coming up soon will be a post exploring something else I learnt at Conflux — how important it is to be prepared to talk about your work! We’ll be talking pitching and dealing with that innocent question: “What’s your novel about?”

 

25 comments   |  tags: , , , , , | posted in Conventions, workshops & seminars, Craft

March 28, 2012

Two touchstones for worldbuilding

By Ellen Gregory

Another WIP Wednesday, and today I’m going to talk about one aspect of the fantasy genre you just can’t escape from: Worldbuilding. This is perhaps one of the most attractive aspects of writing and reading fantasy for me. I just love the opportunity to explore amazing worlds, and when an author gets it right, it’s a transcending experience.

But it is hard work to do well, and the story suffers when you try to cut corners. I speak from recent experience, because I’ve just come out of the worldbuilding arena, after being forced in there by some vague and sketchy ideas masquerading as a rather important plot element!

As a result, I’ve come up with the following two touchstones for worldbuilding:

1. No room to be lazy!

To effectively write in a fantasy world, your worldbuilding needs to be rigorous — but not necessarily in every aspect of the world. Readers will fill in the gaps for common concepts. The main aspects you need to concentrate on are those which define your world and make it unique.  If these are elements which drive the story, then even more thorough development is required.

This is what stymied me recently. My story is heavily dependent on the politicising of certain cultural beliefs in a made-up land, and I realised I didn’t understand these people well enough myself. I knew the hand-wavy basics, but I hadn’t quite figured out where their deep-seated beliefs had come from. I was being lazy and trying to plough on with the first draft on the assumption that ‘it just was’ and I’d figure out why later. Nope. It all came out as rubbish, because how can you know how characters will act without understanding their faith?

2. Peel back the layers of history

What I’ve found is that when it comes to plotting in the absence of adequate worldbuilding, a cascading series of questions leads you to delve back and back and back to find the route cause of what you need to know.

Example: I’m having plot problems and I write down the question: “How did they pull-off D?”

In order to answer this, I need to know the answer to: “How does one become F?” And in order to answer that, I need to look even deeper into the cultural intricacies I’m trying to ignore.

Thus it was back to worldbuilding for me. For this type of thing, I usually start far back in the annals of history and look at how a culture develops over time. There are impacts of other cultures, advances in ‘technology’ (for want of a better word — we’re talking a pre-industrial society), the injection of an occasional leader who catalyses significant change, wars, trade . . . and this helps me to understand the what, how and most importantly the why.

Of course we all know the iceberg rule when it comes to worldbuilding — only 10% is ever revealed in the story — but I truly believe it makes for a more richly woven tale. Moreover, there many aspects of worldbuilding I’ve not mentioned here. These two touchstones are merely those which have struck me this week.

So now over to you! If you’re into fantasy or any kind of speculative fiction — what are your thoughts on worldbuilding? Any special tips or processes you’d like to share?

And if you’re not into SF — How do you think worldbuilding differs in non-SF genre fiction?

13 comments   |  tags: , , | posted in Craft, The WIP

February 28, 2012

Character and conflict in The Liveship Traders

By Ellen Gregory

I’m currently reliving Robin Hobb’s Liveship Traders trilogy during my commute to and from work in the car. (Have I mentioned how much I love audiobooks?) I first read this amazing fantasy trilogy back in 2005 and it has since resided firmly near the top of my all-time favourite novels/series. Even so, I’ve previously read the trilogy only the once. Reliving it again now is a delicious treat – so much so that I find myself deliberately opting for peak hour, just so I can drive in the worst traffic and have 10 minutes longer each morning and evening with this brilliant story.

The Liveship Traders tells the story of the Vestrit Trader family, whose fortunes are derived from trade conducted by their liveship, Vivacia – a ship built of wizardwood, whose animated figurehead holds generations of family knowledge – and their struggle for survival in a world that is rapidly changing.

Unlike most ‘epic’ fantasy novels, the books do not have a single ‘all-powerful’ antagonist. Rather, the story relies on the life-and-death struggle of a cast of well-drawn and disparate (and desperate) characters in conflict with each other.

Some characters are more sympathetic to the reader than others, but even the ‘nice’ ones are supremely flawed. All are filled with conviction, and each character’s individual story is compelling and believable. Each acts according to his/her nature and the resulting events reflect cascading collisions of motive and desire.

In my view, The Liveship Traders is about the struggle for survival. The first book, Ship of Magic, focuses primarily on the struggle by several characters for mastery over the Vestrit family’s liveship, Vivacia (symbolic of life):

  • Althea Vestrit – Upon her father’s death, Althea learns that her beloved ship has been bequeathed to her sister and detested brother-in-law (Kyle Haven), who throws her off the ship. She vows to recover Vivacia through proving herself as a sailor and out manoeuvring Kyle.
  • Wintrow Vestrit – The son of Kyle Haven in training to become a priest, Wintrow is dragged from his chosen life by his father and forced to live aboard Vivacia and become a sailor. He battles his father’s dominance over him, while reluctantly coming to love Vivacia.
  • Ronica Vestrit – Mother of Althea and the business brain behind the family, Ronica needs Vivacia to be profitable to prevent an ancient family vow from committing her granddaughter in marriage to pay the liveship debt.
  • Captain Kennit – A notorious pirate, Kennit longs to be crowned king of the pirates and sail in his own liveship. Vivacia becomes his target.
  • Kyle Haven – Married to and ‘responsible’ for the Vestrit family, Kyle believes it is his role to save the family from ruin. (Kyle is the least sympathetic of all characters, and undoubtedly plays the role of ‘the villain’ in this first book for both Althea and Wintrow.) He attempts to turn the family fortunes around by using Vivacia to traffic in slaves.
  • Brashen Trell – Disowned by his Trader family, Brashen is struggling to ‘make a new life’ as a common sailor and dispel the taint of his youthful indiscretions. He alone of the major characters has no vested interest in Vivacia; his story is entwined with Althea’s, as he provides unconditional friendship, love and support for her.

Thus is Vivacia the bone of contention in Ship of Magic: loved and desired by Althea, resented and reluctantly loved by Wintrow, used and abused by Kyle; coveted and ultimately captured by Kennit; the vessel of hope for Ronica. The symbol of life thus becomes the object that threatens to tear apart the lives of these characters.

As a writer, I learnt a lot about character and conflict through reading this series. I love (and am in awe of) the way Hobb sets up a large cast of characters, gives each of them such strong, believable goals and then pits one character up against another. Because they have directly conflicting desires, each sees the other as an antagonist. Even Kyle (whom I detest) – misguided, foolish and cruel – believes he is acting in the best interests of his family.

Even more impressive to me is the way Hobb escalates the story through the trilogy and broadens her focus to reveal just how trivial the battle for Vivacia really is.

But the best thing about this series (and Hobb’s writing in general) is the way she makes me feel when I’m reading. I laugh, I hate, I love, I cry when I’m reading these books. Her characters are among the best I’ve ever encountered.

Which books have affected you most powerfully? Fellow writers: What’s the best writing lesson you’ve learnt from reading?

14 comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , | posted in Book Review, Craft, Reading, Reflection

November 16, 2011

World Fantasy highlights: Connie Willis (with Neil Gaiman)

By Ellen Gregory

I’m still in World Fantasy wind-down mode, and today bring you the highlights provided by Toastmaster, Connie Willis.

If you read this blog regularly, you’ll know that I was recently blown away by her novel Doomsday Book, so was particularly keen to hear what she had to say in person. And what a delight! I attended her Friday Toastmaster Speech and Q&A, her Saturday conversation with GOH Neil Gaiman (who yesterday tweeted the following: “Probably the best panel I’ve ever been on, in 28 years of con panels. Just Connie Willis & me talking craft for an hour“), and then there was her witty Toastmaster’s speech at the banquet on the final day.

Here are the key nuggets I took away.

From her Toastmaster Q&A

It takes Connie 1 to 1.5 years to plot each novel. She talked a little about her next project, which she described as part alien abduction, part Romantic comedy, set in the US town of Roswell.

She outlined her three levels of research:
- 1st level is general, top-level research that is largely situational
- 2nd level concerns specific detail
- 3rd level  involves ‘the secret nerves of the book’; the piece of information that adds more than colour, that becomes critical to the story. (She usually doesn’t know what it is until she finds it.)

The secret nerves of the book! Oh, how I love this. It was worth my entire trip to San Diego to hear this piece of wisdom from such a master storyteller. She went on to illustrate what she meant, using (fortunately for me!) Doomsday Book… In which the key fact, the secret nerve of the book, was that every English village back in the Middle Ages had its own unique-sounding bell, and that you could hear the plague coming closer and closer from the bells tolling death over and over… and then silence. It gives me shudders now to think of it — and I remain in awe of this book.

She also raved about a UK TV series called Primeval.

From the conversation with Neil Gaiman

First off, it’s worth spending the hour to watch the You Tube video below. Seriously. But otherwise here is just a sprinkling of gold dust from both of them (from my hastily scrawled notes).

CW – Can’t remember not wanting to be a writer
NG – You’re not a writer until you finish something.
CW – You’re not a writer until you start writing. The need for validation (sales, success) never stops.
NG – Influences are everything you read before the age of 11. For him huge influences were Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass.
NG – Aims to write stories that creep into people’s heads; readers get to fill in all the gaps; readers are complicit in all deaths of characters. [I love this in particular!] The Graveyard Book is the only book that turned out better than what was in his head. None of the others came close.

NG – Cited Gene Wolfe quote along the lines of “Never figure out how to write a novel. Only figure out how to write the novel you’re writing now.”
CW – Every novel needs a new skill set (unless you write the same novel over and over again).
NG – Said there’s often a sudden magical moment in a novel, when he realises he knew what he was doing the whole time.
CW – Getting through the bad bits is what proves you have what it takes to be a writer.
NG – He has days when he’s convinced every word is the wrong word, that every sentence is deformed… and later he can’t even tell which sections that was. He compared writing to building a dry stone wall, one stone at a time.
CW – added that then at some point a truck drives through it. [laughter!]

NG(?) – The originality of a story doesn’t lie in one idea, it’s in the combination of ideas and how the writer deals with it.
NG – said sometimes there’s something going on between you and book that no-one else can quite share or see. He cited CW’s story All my darling daughters as his favourite piece of her writing.

Advice!
NG – Quoted Heinlein, something like: “Know when to stop rewriting, then submit, then start the next story.”
CW – Don’t give up. And read inspiring books. She recommended Steve Martin’s Born Standing Up, and All Hallows Eve by Charles Williams.
NG – Recommended reading outside your comfort zone and use primary sources for research.

I didn’t take any notes during Connie’s Toastmaster speech, but it was very funny and smart. And it has got me convinced I need to watch Primeval! It was a real privilege to be present at both her panels and I got a lot out of just listening to her and Neil speak.

2 comments   |  tags: , , , , , , | posted in Conventions, workshops & seminars, Craft, Process, Reading

October 11, 2011

The 10 commandments according to McKee

By Ellen Gregory

This just arrived with me on email and I feel compelled to share:

Robert McKee’s 10 Commandments of STORY

I. Thou shalt respect thine audience.

II. Thou shalt research.

III. Thou shalt dramatize thine exposition.

IV. Thou shalt layer a subtext under every text.

V. Thou shalt create complex characters rather than merely complicated story.

VI. Thou shalt use neither false mystery nor cheap surprise.

VII. Thou shalt not use deus ex machina to get thine ending.

VIII. Thou shalt not make life easy for thine protagonist.

IX. Thou shalt take thine story into the depth and breadth of human experience.

X. Thou shalt not sleep with anyone who has more problems than thou.

Leave a comment   |  tags: , | posted in Craft

August 17, 2011

Endless editing conundrum

By Ellen Gregory

I’ve thought of another argument against showing your WIP to your writing group: it instills a desire to spend time fine-tuning chapters that shouldn’t really be fine-tuned until the entire draft is written.

I mean, what’s the point in wasting all that time fine-tuning material that you’ll probably need to revise later anyway? But, the thing is, if you’re going to show your work to other writers, you don’t really want to show them the clunky phrasing and lame dialogue and excessive exposition that might spew forth during the first draft. It’s a pride thing.

My problem is that I really like the fine-tuning; I revel in it. Some writers prefer the blank canvass, the forging ahead into the unknown; but I rather enjoy editing, the process of making the story sing (or trying to). So it’s very easy for me to get sucked in to the endless tweaking.

And so that’s what I’ve been doing for the past week and a bit. Making revisions to the opening short chapter I had critiqued recently, and then following through with revisions to the rest of the opening sequence, with the ultimate aim of having the whole lot critiqued.

I think it’s OK to do this to some extent, to make sure that the opening is solid and establishing strong foundations for the rest of the story, but there’s a limit to how much tweaking at this stage of the manuscript is worthwhile.

So do you listen to your heart or your head in this case? It’s a conundrum . . .

(Just to be clear – I’m actually mostly for the process of getting your WIP critiqued, as discussed in the previous post.)

7 comments   |  tags: , , , | posted in Craft, Process

July 27, 2011

Robert McKee Thriller Day – part 3

By Ellen Gregory

And now for part 3 of my Thriller Day summary, in which the craft and conventions of writing thrillers are contemplated.

Story design

I mentioned in an earlier post that McKee is famous for his four-day ‘Story’ seminar and accompanying book, both of which sound extremely worthwhile. Most people in the audience were familiar with one or other of these, but he still went over the basics of his ‘story design’ philosophy to facilitate discussions (and particularly the movie breakdown).

Basically, McKee breaks a story down into a series of elements defined by the magnitude of change:

  • Scene—The basic building block, defined as a single event in which meaningful change occurs. On its own, this may be a MINOR change in life situation that comes about through some form of conflict.
  • Sequence—A series of 3-5 scenes that together result in more significant change than a single scene can accomplish; culminates in a sequence climax or turning point that has greater and broader impact; MODERATE change. These moderate turning points are often forgotten, but help with good story pacing.
  • Act—A series of sequences that lead to MAJOR change occurring at the act climax, often known as a major turning point.
  • Story—A series of acts that culminate in the story climax, which sees ABSOLUTE and irreversible change. [NOTE: Some conventions suggest stories traditionally have 3 acts, but this is no longer so; 4 or 5 acts are not uncommon these days.]

Climaxes

And so we come to the end of the story, when the protagonist prevails – or doesn’t. In fact, McKee says there are six possible positive climaxes to a thriller, based on the method by which the protagonist defeats the antagonist:

  • Antagonist overpowered—The protagonist masters the power of the antagonist by becoming as violent or as strong. Essentially the protagonist, pushed to the edge of endurance, has to descend to antagonist’s level… using evil to escape evil. This can either result in a truly positive outcome, or involve irony. (2 possible endings)
  • Antagonist outsmarted—The protagonist discovers a weakness in the antagonist and exploits it. Once again, can be a a truly positive outcome or involve irony. (2 possible endings)
  • Antagonist overpowered and outsmarted, with or without irony. (2 possible endings)

Similarly, there are six possible negative endings, where the roles are reversed and the protagonist is defeated.

Conventions

Most genres have story conventions and thrillers are no different. Some of the most fundamental, already discussed, include a normally urban setting, the committal and discovery of a crime that leads to damnation, the key roles of protagonist and antagonist, and the primary values at stake of survival and justice.

In addition to these, there are what McKee calls the ‘3 conventions of suspense’:

  • The ‘closed’ thriller/mystery, where the identity of the antagonist is unknown
  • The ‘open’ thriller/suspense, where the identity of the antagonist is known and the crime may have been witnessed.
  • The ‘closed-to-open’ thriller/’mystery-to-suspense’, where the initially unknown antagonist is identified through the course of the story; the focus changes from finding out ‘whodunnit’ to figuring out how to to catch them.

Other thriller conventions include:

  • The moment where the protagonist, at the extreme mercy of the villain, somehow turns the tables on the antagonist to prevail.
  • The cheap surprise, when something pops or moves and basically makes the audience jump
  • The fake ending, when you think it’s all over, but it’s not quite . . .
  • The speech in praise of the villain, where the protagonist finds an occasion to remind everyone just how powerful he is. This is important, as it builds up the power of the antagonist for the audience.
  • Making it personal, when the antagonist finds a way to get at the protagonist and truly make him the victim, but shifting the stakes from professional to personal.

The main point about conventions is to make sure they are present but dealt with in a non-clichéd way.

———————————————-

So that concludes my summary of all the ‘theory’ covered during the Thriller Day seminar, and certainly provides a fantastic starting point for writing a psychological thriller. (I’m not sure at this stage whether I will include a post on deconstructing the movie SE7EN, since it heavily relies on a screening. Basically, the film was screened in ‘sequences’ and analysed taking all the theory into consideration. A very worthwhile exercise, but perhaps not so easy to write and read about.)

Finally I want to note that despite the emphasis on thrillers, I believe much of the content in these three posts will also be of great use for writing stories in general – for in what genre do we not attempt to push the protagonist to the edge, or contemplate how they will rise to defeat their antagonist? On the whole, an extremely worthwhile day of listening and note-taking.

Links to part 1 and part 2 in this series.

2 comments   |  tags: , , , , , , | posted in Conventions, workshops & seminars, Craft

July 21, 2011

Robert McKee Thriller Day – part 2

By Ellen Gregory

So, in the previous post I only got as far as the introduction in my summary of the McKee Thriller day. Here is part 2, in which the crime is committed and the protagonist victimised . . .

Antagonist is key

When writing crime stories, it turns out you always start by creating the perfect crime (and then work backwards). And when you’re talking about the psychological thriller, that means beginning with the antagonist ­– who turns out to be the most important character of all.

McKee advocates that the antagonist’s character, motive and goal need to be defined first, because the antagonist (who holds the balance of power, remember) dictates how events will unfold. Thus the thriller antagonist (often a sociopath) gets everything in the attribute stakes: mental prowess (typically high intelligence, strong willpower and no conscience), physical or institutional prowess, and the spirit of evil*. Also, quite often, a degree of natural charm.

But to this despicable creature, violence is divine, a transcendent experience – albeit a means to an end. The cold-blooded antagonist typically has a Great Project, the perfect crime, greater than themselves. They cannot be bought off; their price is the victim’s soul. They often like to brag about their proclivities, convinced of their divine right to inflict terror.

* The ‘spirit of evil’ was defined as the capacity for doing harm and taking pleasure in suffering; also the desire to reverse nature and make the victim beg for death/hell/damnation.

Creating the crime

Once the antagonist is created and their motives and goals defined, it is time to invent the crime(s). This needs to be a ‘perfect’ crime, that can’t be figured out, that you could conceivably get away with. Then you need to try to outsmart yourself and find a flaw in the perfection. (The flaw should never be built in, because that would be too obvious.)

Alas, McKee didn’t tell us how to find the flaw – I guess that comes with experience and a lot of reading – but he did give some tips on how to create and plant the clues (including a comprehensive checklist of how information can be gathered, sifted, used and concealed):

  • Write out all the aspects of the crime (means, motive, execution etc) and break them into clues.
  • The clues need to be distributed in the story out of sequence, with any causal and temporal relationships concealed.
  • Each clue should encourage misinterpretation the first time it is discovered; the true meaning of the clue should be hidden and inconspicuous.
  • Even when the right meaning of the clue is discovered, create red herrings to mislead the audience.

The key to a good clue/crime is the plausibility of all possible clue meanings, and a sense of inevitability and/or revelation when the truth is finally discovered.

Pushing the protagonist to the edge

The other key character in the mix is the underdog protagonist. Here it’s a matter of stacking as much conflict against them as possible:

  • External conflict – The antagonist preys upon the protagonist using lies, deception and violence, intending to incite terror (extreme fear) and horror (extreme revulsion). (There may also be natural/incidental physical and social obstacles unrelated to the antagonist.)
  • Internal conflict – The protagonist may already have issues they’re trying to deal with; these may be related to the general trauma of life.
  • Psychological conflict – The various pressures inflicted start to play havoc with the protagonist/victim’s mind and they begin to doubt. They may start questioning reality, their judgement, the meaning of life, their identity and purpose . . . right up to the point they start to question morality (right v wrong).

Ultimately the protagonist (and the value at stake) needs to be pushed to the edge, to the very limit of human experience.

To achieve this, the character of the protagonist needs to have great capacity to be hurt. It was suggested that characters with large imaginations can be made to suffer more than those who don’t. The writer needs to establish the potential for great depth and breadth of suffering, and then inflict it on the protagonist. (This takes ‘hurt your characters’ to a new level . . .)

The greater, more complex and powerful the forces of antagonism, then the greater the protagonist must become in order to rise above. The protagonist ultimately has to choose between conscience and survival, and often must be moved to commit violence – to use evil to escape evil.

The most powerful stories are those involving ‘the negation of the negation’. If the protagonist represents a positive charge towards the value at stake (e.g. survival), then the antagonist represents a negative charge. If the negative of survival is death, then the negation of the negation would be damned (for example). The antagonist should push the story – and the protagonist – towards this for greatest impact.

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Links to part 1 and part 3 in this series.

Leave a comment   |  tags: , , , , | posted in Conventions, workshops & seminars, Craft

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