plot structures - Loops & resets

[beccaelizabeth]

I was thinking about the constraints of pro tie-in fic, compared to fanfic's wild proliferation. I think it was DDuane mentioned how playing inside the lines is like sonnets, and since sonnet is one of my current college keywords that made me think.

Sonnets start out saying one thing, expand on it, then turn around and say opposites, then sum it up. Sort of. I oversimplify a bit. But, point is, sonnet takes an idea and changes it.

Situation one, thing happens, situation two.

Fanfic does that a lot too. Quite often with 'situation one' being 'not shagging' and ending up with 'shagging'.

But what pro tie-in fic has to do is start with situation one and end with it too. And not by staying still. Instead by doing a big looptheloop.

One way is to hit the great rewind button in the sky. Take the characters, do things to them that should change them forever, then use the retcon or the time travel so those things never happened in the first place.

But I think the challenge is rather to take the characters, do things to them, then show why those particular things would not have a lasting effect on them.

So... if a character is stuck in some way... Say they're Buffy trying to live a normal life, you can take her off to LA to get a McJob and avoid demons. But Then, because she's a Slayer, she finds there's demons everywhere, and getting a job simply means you get job demons. And you have the episode Anne, more or less. But you also have the situation loop - Be Slayer, be not Slayer, Be Slayer again.

To question the call to heroism and then end up firmly back kicking arse is one good loop.

Then there's the problem - attempted solution - still a problem thing. Like Oz - his problem he defined as him being a werewolf, he tried to suppress it, that didn't work out, so by the end of the day he was still back with that same problem. Tie-in novels could do that.

Relationship loops are another one. Frequently about The Other Guy. You know, the one who is just like the canon boyfriend except for XYZ being apparently cooler, but by the end of the book they turn out to be Just Not Right. Back to status quo ante.

And that return to status quo is actually the last stage in one of those Narrative Is Like This plans with some dude's name on that I'm supposed to remember from last term. I could look it up in my notes. But the whole shape was status quo - disruption - return to status quo. One of the things about A Doll's House that made it so weird was that they didn't return to the start, they did a whole new thing.

So... tie-in novels necessarily follow that return to status quo pattern, but modern audiences not always so much liking the idea.


I can pull examples from canon of exactly this looptheloop approach, and they're not even the episodes we like least. But then again they're not exactly the ones we're here for either. We want to see them break out of the loop.
(er, for certain values of 'we'. *handwavey*)


Fanfic? Not always loop breaking. I mean, especially if you're starting with canon relationships, the whole point is to have them end the way they began, still shagging.

But unlike tie-ins they can loop break without it breaking the 'verse, and they don't need to resort to cheap dream/mindwipe/timetwist endings to get rid of it. So people who are looking for changes can get what they want there.


Some tie-ins I get to the end of and I sulk because they hit the magic reset button. Those are the ones that make me despair of the structure. They haven't taken them around a natural, inevitable, organic loop. Unlike Buffy-reaffirms-her-calling or Oz-is-a-werewolf... With those you start out with aspect or essence of character and go through a lot of adventure to make it stronger. Character is the start and end of it. But if you have a magic reset button then character isn't usually what brings the button into play. Although when it is - when Angel reckons Angel-the-man is so useless he turns back time to get Angel-the-monster - you get some classic stuff out of it.


Other tie-ins, unfortunately, don't start with recogniseable characters at all. Those just make me *facepalm* that someone got paid money for them. I mean at least with fanfic they... only get a bazillion more feedbacks than me and I sulk. Huh. Okay, so that too is a Thing. But, in neither case, particularly a Thing related to fan-or-pro. Even that 'more gatekeepers' theory of pro-fic only works if the gatekeepers are any good, and have the same idea of good as the readers. The number of times I start out liking a series and then find as I go on that the things I considered key and core someone in the making of apparently thought were flaws to get rid of...
(/tangent)


The thing I was thinking to start with, though, is... The trick with tie-ins, with return-to-start stories in general, is to find the thing about a character that you're going to take through its paces. What is it about them you want to test? What is it you want, for story purposes, to keep the same? Because it can be a sad thing they can't loop-break, but you're going to spend a lot of pages demonstrating it either way, so it's got to be an interesting thing. And if it is a thing the character wants to break, why is this particular thing not an out? Xander wants cool so he gets a car - why is the car not cool? Not just get to the end of the story and have the car crash, that's kind of boring, even if it does leave him carless for the reset. Make the inevitable future lack of car be the thing the story explores. Then the structure and content match up, FTW.


... okay, so Xander's cool was not about the car and did not reset at story end, and car crashing could be funny in a cartoon blows himself up again way, but I'm not coming up with a better example here.


I don't know as any of this lot is any use. I'll post it and go to sleep. sleep is good.

Comments

[alixtii.livejournal.com]

This is pretty brilliant.

[beccaelizabeth]

:-)