Inkabout L. Darby Gibbs

Science Fiction & Fantasy author

ideas

Narrative Mode: #7 Cinderella plot

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Cinderella plot: simplicity

Writing a modern Cinderella story is quite popular.  The simplicity of it makes for an easy plot and that increases the opportunity to add complexity to it.

  • Life is good between the two people, and the one dependent they have is healthy and happy.  [I am keeping this vague because like many of the other narrative modes, you can enlarge this one to encompass the business world, economics, politics, etc.  Imagine two political allies and their constituents.]  All is well until one suffers a death (political or personal).  
  • So a separation of some sort pulls the two apart.  The dependent must cling to the one who is left.  But he (or she) takes on a new partner, one certain to embrace the dependent.  All seems well in this change of events.
  • Until the original caretaker also dies.  Now the dependent is at the mercy of the replacement, and that individual is not the trustworthy person (business, system, etc.) that was first assumed.
  • Life gets very difficult for the dependent.  She (he, they) suffer greatly, must complete menial tasks in order to remain in this relatively safe condition.  The dependent loses hope and thinks she will never rise out of this lowly position.
  • Until opportunity arrives.  A young man (or new comer with high ideals) must make a connection and through the acts of individuals or groups who have sympathized with the plight of the dependent finds him or her or it.
  • They struggle with various difficulties that pull them apart. Then the magic moment, and life is sweet and promising again.

It does not take a girl, her father, step-mother, step-sisters and a prince to make this narrative work.  Any number of things can replace this simple story framework and add complexity.

 The Little Handbook of Narrative Frameworks available on Smashwords and Amazon.

Narrative Modes ~ #2 Faustian Legend

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Fame & Fortune, but at what cost?

Using a tried and true narrative mode to set up a story, as mentioned in last week’s post, is quite useful.  The Faust Legend is another popular format.    If you are familiar with the old movie Oh God, then you have seen it used in the more modern gentler form: the Faustus character escapes his fate.  More recently, the movie Meet Joe Black used the Faustian legend, and though the main character did indeed die, is was still far gentler then in the original Christopher Marlowe version The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus: the main character gives up his soul to satisfy his thirst
for knowledge and as a result of his hubris is damned to Hell for all
eternity.

  • First you need the Faustus character who is well-learned, highly respected and incredibly thirsty for knowledge, fame, social position, take your pick.
  • The main character reaches a point when there is no more to gain and he remains unsatisfied.  At this point, he is vulnerable to corruption.  (The alternative is the character has been pursuing his dream for so long but has failed to achieve it and is therefore ripe for making the tragic choice.)
  • He or she is approached by people posing as trustworthy or at least viable sources of advancement.  What they offer is 24 years of fame/money/position/power, etc., in exchange for the soul or some other valuable item (though not necessarily to the main character at the time or at least not in comparison to what is being offered).
  • He spends 24 great years getting everything he wants (the 24 years is not mandatory, but it is the standard time span).  For Faustus this is largely knowledge, but there is fame and power thrown in now and then to hold his attention.
  • During the agreed upon time, the main character does suffer from periods of remorse, guilt, fear, conscience, etc., and waffles back and forth about pulling out of the deal by the one means that was provided.  Faustus could have repented and asked for God’s forgiveness, but though he considers it numerous times, he never does.  So, there are necessary periods of reconsideration that open up all sorts of opportunity to trifle with the character’s resolve and integrity or lack of.
  • In the Faustus tragedy, he does not believe that he will actually have to give up his life.  In essence, he thinks the devil or death or ? is a fool, Hell doesn’t really exist, no one can actually take someone’s soul or remove fame and fortune at a tip of the hat, etc.  He is so full of himself, he thinks even God, the devil, death, or any magic provider can be controlled.  And he goes into denial or willingly accepts blinders to avoid seeing the danger.
  • He is dead wrong (literally in Faustus), but in Oh God, there is wiggle room, and in Meet Joe Black, well, he goes willingly and almost appears to have gained from having to follow through with the promise, and Death isn’t as bad a character as originally thought.  Having the devil switched for the personified Death is what makes the Joe Black story not so frightening, since everybody must yield to that ultimate end sometime.
  • In the end, Faustus is dragged into Hell body and soul for eternity.  In Oh God, he is saved in the nick of time (no pun intended) and I already gave away the ending in Meet Joe Black.

The Little Handbook of Narrative Frameworks available on Smashwords and Amazon.

Tuesday prompt: #52 2012

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Success going up the ladder

Choose an idea: happiness, success, despair, governance, laziness or….  Give it human qualities (yes, personification) and let it wander through a room or down a road, take a seat at a desk or settle in comfortably against a tree along a byway.  Describe it thoroughly from the button on the top of its cap to the nails in the soles of its shoes.

Tuesday prompt: #46 2012

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What’s upstairs?  Take your reader up those stairs, barefoot.  Let them feel every creak, rough edge, small nail poking up.  Make each step an adventure in itself.  Then show them what is on the second floor (or third floor, or in the attic).  But make is a slow trip where every word is ultimately connected to the object or place you will take them to. 

Advice: the value of external hard drives

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I have spoken before about backing up one’s computer regularly (post Back up Your Computer). I have four of a seven book series drafted on my computer, so not doing an occasional back up would be downright silly of me.  However, for convenience sake, I also keep my documents on an external hard drive.  The drive that is inside my computer case only holds my programs.  But the external drive has my documents.  My father, who was an electrical engineer and computer builder in his retirement, felt this was essential to increase security, so I have been in the habit for a long time of keeping these two items separate in case of a computer virus or crash.  (In the early days of computer ownership, I had to partition my hard drive to create this kind of separateness.  I like an external drive much better for the reasons I mention below.)

Internal drive in external case

Well, that habit paid off recently when my all-in-one computer’s monitor began to fail.  Sure my files are saved, but if I can’t see them, what good are they?  I can’t even run a back up or open them up and print them if the monitor won’t display.  When my daughter’s computer suffered this same problem a couple years back, I had to open the computer up, pull the hard drive and insert it into an external drive case. Sure this is no big deal (though it took me some time I didn’t have handy to pull the drive, order the drive case and get them together), but when my computer began to falter, all I had to do was unplug the external drive full of my work and plug it into my laptop.  Bingo, complete access to all my work, which, of course, is also backed up on my WD storage drive.

I suppose one could say I am a bit over cautious, but I’ll get the last laugh later.

Another advantage: you know that silly question about what do you grab if your house is on fire?  Well, chances are I can grab an external drive faster than I can carry out a computer or even a laptop.