Author Topic: The Art of Weaving Loose Threads  (Read 3238 times)

Scattercat

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on: March 04, 2010, 10:31:12 PM
So one criticism that I hear a LOT, and that I see on a lot of stories that I absolutely adore, is: "This feels like a part of a larger story."  I cannot for the life of me understand why this is thought to be a negative thing.  For myself, I actively prefer stories that feel larger than they are, stories where hints are given of other routes the story might have gone (or even of entirely different stories that could be told in the same world.)  Most of my favorite short stories are the ones that made me go, "Man, I wish that could have been a novel.  There was so much left to explore!"  To me, more to explore is a great trait because it means I've got room left to think and imagine for myself. 

(FWIW, I also tend to dislike roleplaying games set in canonical universes like Star Wars or LOTR because those epics, great as they are, don't leave anything left for me to do with my player character.  It feels very squeezed to try and roleplay around the edges.)

As near as I can tell, the criticism seems to be that leaving threads open and implications unrealized is "messy" and denotes sloppy work, that a "complete" story is one in which everything ties up together at the end.  Is that close? 

*disappears in a puff of End of Break Time at Work



DKT

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Reply #1 on: March 04, 2010, 10:42:37 PM
I'm pretty much in agreement with you.

For me personally, there's a difference between stories that feel incomplete, or don't work, and stories that feel like they're part of a larger fabric, but are complete in and of themselves. If someone can make me feel like I've had a novel experience, or make me feel like I've been swallowed by a world in several thousand words, well, I'm a happy Dave.

NOT that I wouldn't mind seeing some of those worlds expanded upon, mind you (he says, as he waits eagerly to read novels of Osteomancer's Son and Cinderella Suicide).


Sgarre1

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Reply #2 on: March 04, 2010, 11:16:55 PM
I imagine there's all kinds of variables at work here.  Is it a "simple idea" short story? (by which I mean, is it really mostly about getting to sharp idea or twist?) - if so, then concision should be king and everything else should be blown away with Chekov's gun, because it's all about achieving the effect, tightening momentum to reach goal.  If it's more of a character piece, than I guess more implied detail is not only okay but kind of expected, as it rounds the piece out a bit (the art of small details implying larger ones).  If it's both, then loose detail is okay, but less so than a pure character piece.

Probably part of the problem is that we're talking about genre work, implicitly, but not being more specific than that.  I mean, I assume that heroic fantasy short fiction and world-building SF short fiction readers adore those kind of "floating drapery ends" of details because they do the same thing they'd do in a non-genre piece, imply a larger world, but in a much more evocative way because the world isn't real.  But me, I don't really have much time for world-building, I like attempted realism with a small twist, mostly.  The hardest to write.

The two things I think might be relevant here are:

If the implied, untold "larger story" this feels "part of" is more immediately, obviously compelling than the story you just read, this registers as a cheat or anti-climactic to the reader, especially if they LIKED the story up until the moment they realized that the other one (that they have NO assurance they will ever get - this may seem old-fashioned in the internet age of instant access, but you still don't know)) is actually better.  It's like waking up and gradually realizing you're on some funky little schooner, admiring the woodwork and the cooking smells, and just as you step onto the deck to view the sunrise, an enormous cruise ship with naked people laughing and drinking on deck, bejeweled sails a'flappin' in the wind, passes you....heading a few degrees away from your course.  Look, there it goes...

I guess the other point may be the individual tolerance for series stories.  Generally, I don't like them too much.  Oh, they work well in certain genres (fantasy, sf) than others (horror) but, even when they do work, I HATE the feeling while reading that scattered details  ("oh no, that call from Margwar the soulless on my answering machine again!") are all planted there to be spun out into their (*giggle*) delicious little own stories...whether they deserve to or not, whether you desire it or not (call it bur- out from reading too many comic books in my youth - Chris Claremont is never going to tell us why Dragonfly was on Muir Island that one time, is he?).

I'm not saying it (serialized stories) can't be done, or even done well, but it always makes me feel like a lab rat when all I signed on for was reading a story (again, though, this really has to do a lot more with temperament and genre type, and also whether you know going in that it's a series story).  I personally think telling a self-contained, resonant story is a hell of a lot harder than telling a story packed with teasers that the writers may want to "expand on some day" - but, again, I realize that in some genres that's almost an expectation nowadays - everythings a potential serial, radio show, breakfast cereal, lip balm.

Do the work, punch the clock, round the ends - write me a whole story, I say.  YMMV.




Scattercat

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Reply #3 on: March 05, 2010, 12:45:29 AM
Indeed, I'm not discounting the existence or effectiveness of Chekhov's-Gun-style stories; clean lines can be as interesting as fuzzy lines in any sort of art.  What makes me confused is the attitude that ONLY clean lines are good, and that anything hinted at should be promptly and fully explored.  It feels a bit, "I hate bacon because it's not chocolate."  Or maybe just saying, "This chocolate is smooth and sweet, not crispy and salty at all," as though it's a critique of chocolate.  I dunno.

The serials thing is interesting.  I've never run into that problem, but I do tend to avoid that sort of morass on instinct.  If anything claims to be a series of interconnected stories, then it needs to appear to be really really good before I'm willing to waste the time in getting up to speed.  This is why I have never (and probably will never) watch "Lost."



eytanz

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Reply #4 on: March 05, 2010, 04:54:03 PM
This is a good question. But, before answering, it's worthwhile remembering that this is partially a matter of taste. Not everyone will like the same stories, and not everyone will like the same things about stories. You (scattercat), have expressed a liking to mysteries and stories that don't reveal too much. For me, I like stories where everything ends up explained (though not necessarily explicitly so - for me, a story where nothing is spelled out explicitly but the answers are all there if you are observant is the best). Not that I don't like stories with ambiguous/unsolved mysteries, but they're a harder sell.

However, the "part of a greater story" is somewhat disjoint from that. I have made that criticism in the past in the forums, and I mean some rather specific things by it; things that may not be clear to others here. So it's worth explaining what that means to me and why I usually think of it as a negative.

When I say that a story "feels like part of a greater story", I do not mean that it is messy. Almost all stories (though there are exceptions) are part of a greater story in some sense or other. The question is, how do the stories in question relate to the greater context. If I say that a story "feels like it's part of a greater story", I usually mean that it seems that it does not stand on its own, as a complete story, without stuff that was left out of it.

Take Star Wars (episode IV). It is part of a greater story, one that was expanded in many ways (sequels, prequels, TV shows, books) over the years. But it is a complete story. It is the story of a farm boy who discovers he has special abilities, learns to control them, saves the princess and delivers a crippling blow to the evil empire that (he believes) killed his father. There is much more to be said about the world, but the story stands on its own. I would not, when commenting on it, think that it's greater context is a negative.

But now think of what would have happened if George Lucas would have cut the beginning and ending of the movie. If the movie began in the cantina scene, and then the movie ended in the strategy debriefing before the death star. No introduction to the characters, no death star scene, no celebration at the end; but also no other changes to the story. This would not be a complete story. It would be part of a story, but that's it. That's what I mean when I say something feels to me like it is part of a greater story - it means that the story, essentially, felt incomplete.

To give a less extreme example, Empire Strikes Back is not a complete story either. It does not achieve an ending, it just stops. It is one part of a two-part story. This is perfectly fine, because that's what it was supposed to be. But if it were sold to me as a stand-alone, without Return of the Jedi (and indeed, without Star Wars), then I would probably have taken issue with it.

That is one thing that I mean by "part of a greater story". The other thing I mean by it is the following - the background story sounds more interesting than the story we got. Some stories are rather boring, but they contain allusions to something interesting happening in the background. In this case, I often want to hear more about the background and less about the story. I can't think of any concrete examples here, but if you look back on episode threads, I'm sure you'll see cases where I claimed this.



DKT

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Reply #5 on: March 05, 2010, 05:08:46 PM
Good insight, eytanz. Thanks :)


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Reply #6 on: March 05, 2010, 05:12:47 PM
For me personally, there's a difference between stories that feel incomplete, or don't work, and stories that feel like they're part of a larger fabric, but are complete in and of themselves. If someone can make me feel like I've had a novel experience, or make me feel like I've been swallowed by a world in several thousand words, well, I'm a happy Dave.

Yeah, that's kind of how I feel too.

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