Inkabout L. Darby Gibbs

Science Fiction & Fantasy author

writing ideas

Narrative Mode ~ #4 Cain & Abel

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The Cain and Abel narrative is very versatile with lots of opportunities for adjustment:  two brothers, two sisters, two siblings, two cousins, two co-workers, two businesses, etc.

  • You need opposing factors in single or equal multiples who seem at first to be on the same side.  Brothers in the same family, friendly competitors, step-sisters who get along well.
  • They start out friendly and social, but one starts getting more recognition, more appreciation.  Parents don’t feel there is any preference, but the older child sees things differently.  Or one company notices stock market increases where the two companies used to be rising equally.
  • Some denied jealousy, a little frustration when efforts are made to get that recognition and it doesn’t work.  Everybody loves a little sibling rivalry, improves the effort.  Companies always rise and fall in value over time.
  • Things escalate, but the brotherly love seems safe from damage.  A little argument here, a friendly challenge maybe taken to extreme.  But one uses less than quality workmanship.
  • Until the tipping point arrives and one destroys the other.
  • No sign of guilt or taking reponsibility.  Then punishment, ostracism, life of misery.  Or earned forgiveness.

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

Narrative Mode ~ #3 Coming of Age

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The Coming of Age format is often used for YA novels because the main character is often a young character, usually on the verge of coming to terms with the difficult realities of life.  It is also not unusual for the main character to be an adult, one with a rather innocent view of life.  A writer can certainly make numerous tweaks to this narrative mode, but below is a fairly standard plot.

  • The young character finds his/her current life is understandable and carries demands that can be managed.  There may be struggles, but these are challenges to be expected and he/she is prepared for them.
  • A sudden event changes everything.  This can come in the form of a death of a parent, the loss of economic stability, grave illness or injury, any major tragedy of which the child (or innocent adult) cannot negotiate easily.
  • This young person has personal strength and a strong sense of self and the rules of his society.  But these beliefs come into questions as he/she works through the rising difficulties.  People he counted on may fall short.  Rules long reliable may lose power.  Places always safe are not.  He/she must revise the solid set of values that have been a part of life for as long as he/she can remember.  Consider Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Huckleberry has believed and followed the law of slavery.  He views slaves as a subgroup that are appropriately under the control of their slave owners.  As a result when he comes to know an adult slave he has always viewed as lacking intelligence and sensibilities, he must questions these recognized laws.  In fact, as he spends more time with Jim, he finds him a caring man, a substitute father, and unexpected life guide, limited only by opportunity and education. 
  • Negotiation of the often negative demands of the new order become a necessary action of the main character.  In some way, the character must come to terms and establish a new sense of ethics or hold the original ethics as inviolate.  Huck had to make a decision: live by the rules he has always accepted or proceed to break those rules knowing what the consequences will be.  He chooses to view Jim as a human deserving of the same rights he has, and he works to give Jim a chance to acquire those rights through getting him into non-slave territory.  He knows he is working against society and the laws of his group, and he accepts he will be punished for this.  He was guilty of treating Jim as less than human, but he has learned the true value of friendship and promises.  He has come of age.

Well, I am still thinking about what will be next week’s narrative mode.  I’ll let you know then.
The Little Handbook of Narrative Frameworks available on Smashwords and Amazon.

Tuesday prompt: #9 2013

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Regional stories are wrapped around the cultural, traditional, and environmental qualities of the area.  Often dialect is a feature, but not a requirement.  So work on a few paragraphs of a story that can only happen where you are.  Make it utterly dependent on the locale, can’t happen anywhere else but there.

Read Faulkner’s “Barn Burning” or Wolfe’s “Only the Dead Know Brooklyn” for example.

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.

Jasper Fford, Shades of Grey, What a world! What a world!

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I am reading Jasper Fforde’s Shades of Grey and after the opening pages, which were a bit slow, I found myself striding along with the Russetts, up-and-coming red-hue percepted individuals.  Now about 100 pages in, I am amazed how this world is created and wrapped about the perception of color, both true colors and artificial.  The art of world building is one I am still learning, but reading Shades of Grey as a resource alone is fun, though I am drawn by the story as well.

shades of red on grey

Fforde has built these characters who demonstrate the perception of color in every aspect of their behavior, desires, relationships, social status and careers.  Imagining the scope of his plan before he even began writing is daunting.  This is the first time I have read this book, and I doubt it will be the last. Usually as a reader, I just dive into the story head first, don’t even worry about finding nearby exit routes, confirming there are handrails, checking for a lifeguard or preparing snacks or making a quick visit to the restroom.  I won’t come up for air until my eyes won’t stay open, my stomach won’t stop growling even when I growl back at it or I am having to cross my legs.  I am a full on reader.  But Shades of Grey makes me, the writer, keep sitting back and wondering how he pulled this all together with just one brain.  That is not to say I am pulled out of the story, for I am not.  But this other side of me is pulled just as inextricably.

I started Shades of Grey a couple of months ago and found those first pages so sloggy that I turned to two other books and read them before returning to this one just a few days ago.  What is funny is that only a few pages later I was hooked.  It’s like when a person goes to the doctor for a pain she has been suffering through for weeks and finally just as she has has enough and is sitting in the doctor’s office, she starts feeling better.  That is how I feel: if I had only read five more pages, I would have been enthralled.

Now I don’t want to look at another book until I have finished this one
and then I may just read it again to let my writer self get a more focused
view of what Fforde did with this story.  It makes me want to quote the
witch of the west: What a world, what a world!  But with approbation
rather than frustration.

Daily Workout Apps and writing

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I am a happier writer when I am fit, but working as a teacher, parenting a teen, wifing a husband, running a household and writing often keep me out of my fitness loop.  However, once February hits, my time seems to be less congested.  I haven’t quite figured out why this is, but every year it happens. So here I am about three days early getting back into my fitness routine.

Daily Workout App

The best source of quick fitness I have been able to find came after I got an iPod touch which I have since replaced with an iPhone.  But what I found was an app called Daily Ab Workout by Daniel Miller.  The free version is set up with a 5-minute workout that really works my abs.  I soon found several other Daily Workouts for other muscle groups by the same person and downloaded them all. Combined together, they form a good 20-minute workout and are individually set up to be extended to 7 1.2 minutes and 10 minutes for each workout focus area as I grow in fitness. (I did download the full versions in the end, which gave me a second workout for each and the ability to randomize or customize the workouts.  But the free versions are great.)

When I am fit, I feel good, and I write with more vigor because my mind is sharper. I am pretty happy with myself generally, but when I am fit, I am that bit more confident and comfortable with my self.  So now I am pleasantly sore and feel my muse gaining muscle.