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I spent a lot of yesterday evening reading plot dissections of various movies, which has given me, at least temporarily, a new perspective on the subject of constructing plot... always my weak point, in terms of writing, and (along with the more general problem of sustaining motivation) one of the main things that has prevented me from writing long and/or plot-based fiction as opposed to short character pieces.
I would like to write long fiction. Obviously motivation is, as always, the larger issue, but I think if I felt better able to construct plots I would find it at least a little easier to stay motivated.
Because I have nothing better to do, I'm choosing to approach this meme-style. I've picked out the longer and more plot-reliant ideas from my list of stuff I want to write, particularly the original fiction ideas, and I'm poking them until things fall out.
Or not, as the case may be.
Today's question starts from something I'm familiar with - character. Specifically, the protagonist's goals. And it's funny because the question What does the protagonist want? seems like it should practically answer itself, but when I apply it to my existing ideas, sometimes it's a bit of a stumper.
What I'm finding with my original ideas is that the male leads have fairly clear, straightforward goals: Get revenge. Free my country. Protect my neighborhood. Get these ghosts to stop messing with me, wtf.
The female leads... don't, so much. They tend to start off with no particular goal beyond going on as they started off and, you know, not dying, and while not dying is a valid goal, it's not setting the bar very high. And all things considered, if your primary goal is "to not die," the reasonable course of action would be to stay the hell away from plot. That shit will kill you.
It's kind of disturbing to realize this about my own ideas, especially since my intent is for the ladies to be the ones making things happen, and yet I seem to have set them up to be reacting instead of acting.
It's a little easier with the fanfic ideas since the characters tend to come prepackaged with existing goals before I ever get hold of them. I'm not noticing that the ladies in my fanfic ideas have the same passivity as the ones in my original ideas, which is both encouraging (in that it's not happening in everything I write, which would be really creepy) and troubling (so why is it happening in my original fiction?).
Will have to work on this.
I would like to write long fiction. Obviously motivation is, as always, the larger issue, but I think if I felt better able to construct plots I would find it at least a little easier to stay motivated.
Because I have nothing better to do, I'm choosing to approach this meme-style. I've picked out the longer and more plot-reliant ideas from my list of stuff I want to write, particularly the original fiction ideas, and I'm poking them until things fall out.
Or not, as the case may be.
Today's question starts from something I'm familiar with - character. Specifically, the protagonist's goals. And it's funny because the question What does the protagonist want? seems like it should practically answer itself, but when I apply it to my existing ideas, sometimes it's a bit of a stumper.
What I'm finding with my original ideas is that the male leads have fairly clear, straightforward goals: Get revenge. Free my country. Protect my neighborhood. Get these ghosts to stop messing with me, wtf.
The female leads... don't, so much. They tend to start off with no particular goal beyond going on as they started off and, you know, not dying, and while not dying is a valid goal, it's not setting the bar very high. And all things considered, if your primary goal is "to not die," the reasonable course of action would be to stay the hell away from plot. That shit will kill you.
It's kind of disturbing to realize this about my own ideas, especially since my intent is for the ladies to be the ones making things happen, and yet I seem to have set them up to be reacting instead of acting.
It's a little easier with the fanfic ideas since the characters tend to come prepackaged with existing goals before I ever get hold of them. I'm not noticing that the ladies in my fanfic ideas have the same passivity as the ones in my original ideas, which is both encouraging (in that it's not happening in everything I write, which would be really creepy) and troubling (so why is it happening in my original fiction?).
Will have to work on this.
