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Waiting on the Train Home

I’ve been working on an exercise suggested by a writing website.  Make generalized notes summarizing the actions of each scene in a movie: Introduction of Bad Guy; Main Character discovers Evil Plan; Main Character set back by Bad Guy Henchmen.  The notations should be non-specific enough that another reader couldn’t easily identify the movie you’d reviewed.  Which presumably makes them generic enough to be used as an outline for your original story.
I can see how the notes I’ve made would be useful to another writer or a better writer than I am.  If I used them as an outline not recalling the movie to mind would be difficult.  It’s a few more scenes before I can get to that point anyhow.
What I am discovering is the volume of information conveyed in each scene of a well made story like the one I’m using.  My expectations going in were that I’d be using phrases as succinct as the examples above.  I’m not.  Objectifying the factors inherent in the story is easier on a per scene basis than it is when you then have to string those scenes together.  One object that started off as New Partner soon evolved into Other Main because New Partner implied too much.  Even using Henchmen, which could be interpreted loosely if one chose, likely conveys too much so I re-termed them Bad Guy Proxy.  I suspect Bad Guy could even carry descriptive conotations that would direct a writer’s hand more than I’d intended.
I do like that I described the arrival of Police as “Story Appropriate Environmental Factors”.
Another aspect of story telling I’m uncovering is the bulk of story in a story.  Before as I’d laid out parts of my aborted NaNoWriMo I’d not put in nearly the amount of action in each outlined scene as I’m decanting from this effort.

I’ve been working on an exercise suggested by a writing website.  Make generalized notes summarizing the actions of each scene in a movie: Introduction of Bad Guy; Main Character discovers Evil Plan; Main Character set back by Bad Guy Henchmen.  The notations should be non-specific enough that another reader couldn’t easily identify the movie you’d reviewed.  Which presumably makes them generic enough to be used as an outline for your original story.

I can see how the notes I’ve made would be useful to another writer or a better writer than I am.  If I used them as an outline not recalling the movie to mind would be difficult.  It’s a few more scenes before I can get to that point anyhow.

What I am discovering is the volume of information conveyed in each scene of a well made story like the one I’m using.  My expectations going in were that I’d be using phrases as succinct as the examples above.  I’m not.  Objectifying the factors inherent in the story is easier on a per scene basis than it is when you then have to string those scenes together.  One object that started off as New Partner soon evolved into Other Main because New Partner implied too much.  Even using Henchmen, which could be interpreted loosely if one chose, likely conveys too much so I re-termed them Bad Guy Proxy.  I suspect Bad Guy could even carry descriptive conotations that would direct a writer’s hand more than I’d intended.

I do like that I described the arrival of Police as “Story Appropriate Environmental Factors”.

Another aspect of story telling I’m uncovering is the bulk of story in a story.  Before as I’d laid out parts of my aborted NaNoWriMo I’d not put in nearly the amount of action in each outlined scene as I’m decanting from this effort.

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Evil Mary Sue and Then Not

Yesterday’s bit wasn’t meant to be about what I turned out.  I’d meant to capture the other in a character.   I meant to find something unrelated to me and push that.  I meant to find a character who was evil in a way I felt comfortable writing.  I didn’t hit that target.  Two hurdles rise to my mind: I don’t believe anyone is truly evil and I am rather fearful of writing a character that could be perceived as stemming from who I am but have not revealed to others.

I won’t worry the first one since I feel that making an enemy motivated by more than unspecified evil is a flat way to write.  The second concerns me most for an unlikely reason: if I write a character who murders and maims and rapes for the joy of each destruction and I worry I’m exposing some hidden darkness in my soul, then why don’t I worry I’m blithely writing my goodness into the heroes?

“Hello there,” said Mary Sue.

“Fuck you bitch,” replied Evil Mary Sue

Taking a moment out to read up on the popular concept of Mary Sues I learn potentially I’m worrying over much.  If the Internet is to be believed Mary Sues suffer from ideal characteristics than from telegraphed ones.

Were I to write that a character stabbed another then relished and delighted in the warmth of the arterial blood spouting up from the wound and onto her face I wouldn’t know from where that enjoyment stemmed.  Now I’m forced to trace that back to some root reason, something common and believable but unexpected twisted or tainted.  Maybe with yesterday’s Michael I could blend not only his enthusiasm for disorder with some Just World Theory.  Blame the victim.  According to the studies it looks like an audience could really relate to that—and yet still be appalled.

I quickly see how that might be applied to an assassin.  How might the same be applied to a typical high school bully?  A bully might be acting on the motivation that strength’s responsibility is to out weakness.  To test it and find it either wanting or measuring up.  Weakness itself is a tacit request for such a litmus.  He asked for it.  He had it coming.  He needed to know he was less than me.  And this was the only way to show him.

Makes everything prior to the ultimate showdown, each snipe, each taunt, a probing question to level set the aggressiveness of the definitive test.

Nice job veering off topic.  Again.

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Like ‘Be Prepared’ or ‘Semper Fidelis’

Michael would say he was interested in how things came apart.  Where other children were carefully architecting wooden blocks to stand in tall many-colored towers he snatched the cornerstone and enjoyed the tumble.  [increasingly destructive and aging appropriate incidents here; maybe with physical harm maybe not].  As an adult he termed his knack the Least Effort For Maximum Entropy.  He’d even written it out in a notebook like a motto, like “Be Prepared” or “Semper Fidelis“.  Sometimes the acronym would earworm him and he’d find himself muttering, “Lef’ me.  Lef’ me. Lef’ me.”  He could make it feel like betrayal though he’d never been wronged.

[Turn all the above into an awesome exchange between a psychologist and a police officer; but not now]

“We would call him an assassin,” said Dr Trunket.

“Don’t romance it up.  He’s a murderer.  Plain.  Simple, ” countered Detective Ralph Barnes. “But I still don’t get it.  Why’s he come out here to Okarche?  Can’t be the money.  Revenge seems unlikely.”

“Revenge isn’t even part of the equation…not his revenge anyway.  And there’s a better than fair chance he did this one gratis.”

“Old John had lung cancer.  You tellin’ me you think this was mercy?”

“Exactly.  I have a theory our international assassin does domestic charity work.”

Before I run out of time I need to say this is forming up in my head faster than I can capture it in the discussion format I was attempting to get across.  My knowledge of police detectives, psychologists, assassins, and Okarche are sort of holding me back.

The central idea forming here is of a Bourne/Bond type assassin who for potentially guilt-based reasons  operates in an alter ego of more of a Kevorkian/Equalizer role.  Helping loved ones go to the grave with as little suffering as possible—while still stirring up trouble.

Maybe the upside is the loved one gets offed in an acceptable insurance manner that allows those left behind to benefit, but the action typically results in feelings of transferred guilt for the unknowing.  Maybe this is the ‘destruction’ Michael likes/seeks.

In any case it turns out Detective Barnes ends up on the case and cracking the thing wide open.  And that I’ve unwittingly started writing a mystery which even has the feel of serialization to it.  Classic. Crap.