2012/10/02

Inside the Lines

Was trying to find out how to outline a story, because I kept getting sidetracked in writing my fantasy thing—all my coolest stuff did nothing for the plot, or even took it in bizarre and useless directions.

Found out why I've never really outlined: the whole process is geared to a kind of plot I am constitutionally incapable of doing. Namely, they seem to think you should have one protagonist and one main goal.

To which the only reply is, "Nani!?" It's in Japanese because, like many anime, I have whole bunches of characters with various intermeshing or conflicting goals—a common piece of liner-swag in anime DVDs is charts of the various relationships among the characters.

Admittedly, it's easy to take that too far (e.g., Bleach), and if too many characters are given protagonist- or near-protagonist-level weight, it requires very deft handling not to screw up (again, compare Bleach to Naruto, which probably only manages to avoid Bleach's problem by everyone's goals-plot being related to their ninja villages).

In my SF book, I have a total of ten viewpoint characters (actually eleven, but two of them never appear together and have the same role). In my werewolf book I have nine. In my not-RPG fantasy book I have five. And in my RPG stories? Still three.

See, all my plots revolve around, well, plots. Schemes. Machinations. You need multiple viewpoint characters to show events that your primary protagonist isn't present for. I don't know about you but the Harry Potter device of having Harry, our sole POV character apart from in the prologues, coincidentally blunder into exposition time and time again while coincidentally wearing an invisibility cloak is just plain inelegant.

I guess my 'outline' is going to have to look like the map of my town's bus routes. I have characters whose plotlines coincide for a while before diverging, then reunite, then diverge again; other characters meanwhile have the inverse plotline as they try to achieve the opposite goals. Each for reasons of their own.

And hey, you know how the thing's deliberately set in my D&D setting? You should've seen my campaign. I barely used any notes, just the Monstrous Manual (2nd Edition back then) and other rulebooks, some sourcebooks, and a map. Sometimes not even the map.

1 comment:

penny farthing said...

Not having a map in D&D can be a good thing or a bad thing. If I draw the map, it has odd hyperspace areas on it....... Rather like my plots. I really ought to try and do an outline too, especially since my story is not as intricate as yours (every time it gets like that I freak out) I don't know how you can write so much, with as many characters as you have, and have it actually make sense, but it's impressive. And you throw in philosophizing to boot!