The Plot Thickens

[rowyn]

A comment from level_head yesterday about "Man vs Nature" stories, where the central conflict revolves around people struggling against natural forces, reminded me of a couple of books that I've read. In them, the author posited a type of magic/psionics/whatever wherein certain people had the ability to prevent natural disasters. The world itself was rife with natural disasters, so there was a ton of demand for these services.

I thought this was a pretty neat concept, allowing for a class of people with powerful, protective abilities but not ones used in combat. However, while the books were about some of these supernaturally endowed people, the plots of both novels revolved around conflicts with other people and uses of their powers that weren't covered by the initial set-up of the book.

This strikes me as a very common thread in books: whatever conflict is presented at the outset of a novel is not the real conflict of the book. Some mystery or twist will reveal itself partway through to change the direction or the nature of the story. If the story at the outset seems to be "who will win this big race?" then later on it'll turn out to be about the people who are trying to fix the results of the race, or the lesson that protagonist needs to learn about the importance of winning, or that the trophy for winning the game contains a hidden doomsday device, etc. You get the idea.

And I wonder: is this an inevitable feature of novels? Is it particularly hard to tell a good story that's also straightforward, that's simply about winning the race, or catching the killer, or rescuing the princess? Or does the plot have to thicken from there, to make the story something new and unexpected?

Comments

[level-head.livejournal.com]

The nature of the twist is important, I think.

Let me ramble for a moment: Nature exists for us mostly as meta-patterns, behaviors that arise out of often surprisingly simple rules. They produce results that often seem unpredictable, but really do logically follow from the rules once understood.

No one would have predicted a snowflake, for example, from the 100 degree or so offset between hydrogen atoms in a water molecule -- but knowing snowflakes exist, we can figure out how they worked.

A good story works this way. Early on, the rules have been established, and the best-feeling "twist" may be completely unexpected, but you can understand after the fact how it logically follows from the premises and constraints laid down.

Your own stories are quite good this way. Nanodevices have often played important (and surprising) roles, but you laid down enough rules beforehand that the effects could have been anticipated, and thus the twists don't feel like "cheating".

Too often, with magic, a new magical ability appears ... magically ... to save the day, and the idea of empathizing with the struggle is as nonsensical as the "battles" in the later Matrix movies. Lots of show and flash, but I no longer cared.

And a good novel must make you care to be completely satisfying.

Your own story evolved somewhat in this aspect. When Breya was bound and faced with immediate torture, we were detached enough to think it was funny (as you intended). When exactly the same thing happened to Bunni years later, you had your audience quite anxious indeed.

Part of that was because we knew the rules, more or less, and knew that you weren't going to break them to solve the damsel's dire distress.

And yes, the solution was a surprise -- but it logically followed. And you've got to be careful, since you really DO have a super-powerful being with a tendency to put his finger into things and change worlds.

===|==============/ Level Head

[the-gneech.livejournal.com]

No one would have predicted a snowflake, for example, from the 100 degree or so offset between hydrogen atoms in a water molecule -- but knowing snowflakes exist, we can figure out how they worked.

A good story works this way. Early on, the rules have been established, and the best-feeling "twist" may be completely unexpected, but you can understand after the fact how it logically follows from the premises and constraints laid down.

Nicely put!

-The Gneech