When you label the video "overused" plots and people's counterarguments are "but I saw it in this book!" I feel like they have missed a key aspect of the whole point 😅
"But I saw it in this book!"But we also saw it in this book and this book and this book and this book and that's where the potential problems sort of tends to stem from.
Agreed. Especially considering Bookfox's approach is "here are some generally good rules to follow if you're a new writer." As a new writer myself, I try to follow the "learn the rules before you try to break them" rule =P Thanks for the video!
@GaryNac True, but then new writers have bigger concerns, like finishing the dang thing at all for instance. I feel it just adds to the pressure writers already experience, if they are constantly comparing their writing to everything else that's out there. I think that's an unhealthy place to be in. For instance I saw a video the other day that suggested that movies increasingly mix more and more genres to get more and more plot points out of the same limited runtime. Now obviously that can't be a sustainable approach, eventually you'd just have a grey smear that tried to subject you to the entirety of human existence in 92min xD My advice would be to be aware of these things, don't go out seeking them like you must. But do feel confident to write about them if that's what you feel like writing about. If you write in a natural non formulaic way, chances are good you'll still give your own spin to them. Nobody can write quite like you can. It may not become a bestseller though, but the odds of that happening are really low anyway and it's a terrible reason to write.
Overused is misconstrued as unappealing. If all you hang around is editors and fellow authors, then you lose sight of your consumer. Some of us want to make a living writing so being aware of what sells is just as valid. Now, you may continue your reductive in-joking at others expense.
Bro really said "If you try to break all of these rules at once, come on, now you're just getting a little too ambitious." in *exactly* the right way to convince everyone watching to attempt to break all the rules at once. Challenge accepted. I will take everything I've already written and turn it into a dream sequence from my amnesiac chinchilla author which only takes place in a bar, and he never changes, as the story ends when he gets too drunk and passes out (this is my self-insert wish fulfillment).
I'll never understand how so many practicing writers can hear GENERAL ADVICE, and their first instinct is to point out exceptions. If you can't understand basic language, I'm not sure how you hope to be a writer
Same 😅 😂 or if you get so bruised and easily attacked by hearing general advice idk how you can expect to be a writer (or take basic criticism) I love this channel because I get advice I haven't heard before
Yeah, totally agree. And honestly, this advice is more like, “heads up, if you choose to go down this road, there are a lot more pot holes to worry about.” It’s NOT the same as saying, “you’re forbidden from driving this way ever again.” And my main takeaway from this was: yeah, if you have a strong reason to use one of these (like the example with the author character), then of course it can be done and may even go well. But I, for one, appreciate a good “here be dragons” sign stuck along the writing trail by someone who’s already been down that way and learned the lessons the hard way.
The problem is the way the advice is framed. I didn’t watch the original video, so idk how he did it, but I’ve seen plenty of advice from these writing channels that frame ‘things to bear in mind’ as hard rules and this can be creatively restricting for no reason
They need to get rid of their ego. There's saying in my place that goes like this: *_"If you want to be filled, be empty."_* It means, if you want to get knowledge from someone you need to get rid the feeling of "I already knew this" or "I know about this more". This saying encourage intellectual humility.
Characters who do not change are good if they are the ones who change their environment. It also helps not to throw everything on the grill and save facets of the character to show them later.
Alternatively, the character doesn’t necessarily have to change so long as the reader’s *perception* of the character changes. For example you can have a loyal, honorable knight protecting the princess with his life. But through the story you find out that the princess is actually the secret love child of that knight and the queen. The knight hasn’t changed his behavior, but his dedication to the princess hits different.
One of the few good ideas in the Dramatica model is: either the hero changes but the impact character (mentor, love interest, etc.) doesn't, either the hero stays the same but the impact character changes. One of them "transforms" the other one (/ "wins" the story debate).
@@dcle944 In historical times, a brothel was often just another business also used for sex, like the back of a tavern, or especially a bath house. =^[.]^=
@@sambeckett2428 yeah, I tend to agree. Interestingly, though, when I brought this up in a writers’ sprinting livestream session recently, an author looked rather perplexed and said, “Do young people still got to pubs?” Welp, being almost 40, I can’t say I know 😅 Edit: oh, wait, she is an American, so perhaps what you said holds true.
Characters can be writers if they work as one in terms of personality. However more often than not I see the following: > Character is a writer > Has no creativity, is barely eloquent. Does nothing that is stereotypical for a writer to do > Does not have typical writer views on ANYTHING > Is seen struggling with their writing on their laptop on chapter/episode one. Their writing career is BARELY brought up across the rest of the story. Additionally: > Other character is a scientist > Not smarter than average Or: > Third character is a teacher/doctor/something that works will kids or under pressure > Has zero patience, and cannot deal well with pressure
That immediately, instinctively makes me go "!! The person writing this has no idea what it means to be a writer!" Which gave me an attack of irony, considering that this has happened, and it was written by a writer rather badly. Now I'm having an odd existential moment and you've broken my _brain_ - this is incredibly unpleasant X'D
Okay, that last sentence definitely had the tone of a challenge to it, lol. Now I'm tempted to write a story about an ultra sexy and charismatic character who 'wakes up' into a lucid dream about a bar remembering nothing about his daily life other than the fact that he is a best-selling author. He tries to escape but is told he can not leave until he finishes the first draft of his novel. The bar has everything a writer could need, but if he stays there for too long, then he will slip into a coma and never wake up again. Furthermore, the patrons of the bar all have vastly different opinions on what makes for a great story and try to influence his manuscript in various ways. In the end, the author refuses to change, pushing forward with his own unique vision. When he finally goes to exit the bar however he realizes that he is actually an AI ghostwriter within a simulation and that the 'dream' he's been trapped in is actually a Turing Test designed to determine if he has true sapience/genuine creativity.
So you’re telling me my story of the most successful author of all time who is also a super model, being in a bar while struck with amnesia where other patrons try to remind him of who he is by telling him about their favourite book he wrote and how it awakened them sexually only for the author to wake up at the end to discover he was in fact a rabbit, is not a good idea?
@@pasiaomega3868 Alice in Wonderland, meets Groundhog Day, meets eternal sunshine of the spotless mind, meets inception, meets While you were sleeping?
Yeah, the best way I have seen the "It was all a dream" done was in a Chinese fantasy drama where the "dream" was actually real past events that had HUGE bearing on the main plot, so it all felt EXTEMELY important. Which was great, cause the dream quite litterally introduced an entirely new cast of characters in an entirely new storyline, so...knowing it mattered to the story I was already invested in is what kept me from shutting it all off in disgust.
I believe many of these structures have an easier pass in anime/manga, and they are still usually entertaining and fun to watch, without the need to think too much about it. Oh, a character has an amnesia? Okay. Wish fulfilment? Let's go! Nothing wrong with tropes themselves, familiarity can be a fun way to explore some other/deeper concepts without worrying about structure. But that's also a point, in order to really stand out something has to be done in a different and original way.
I just recently found your channel. I have been wanting to write a book for years and now I'm looking into to how to go about doing it. One of my biggest problems now is writing something that scrapping it because it's been done too many times. It seems like so few writers can come up with new and unique ideas. I really appreciate your efforts in helping people like me. Oh, by the way, none of your overused structures in this video have been an issue for me, but still helpful.
6:14 This was used in the OPENING of Centaur World, where the Rider and the Horse riding through the war torn landscape, talking about losing their family and only having one companion that they can rely on... and the narrative is from he Horse's POV.
I wrote a short story that I first wanted to be set in a bar. It's about a woman hearing the stories of strangers thinking that they are all crazy just for the woman to turn out to be a real psychopath. The BEST THING I did for the story was to NOT use the bar as a setting. It suddenly all came together when I changed the setting and made her meet those people on her way home (that turned out to not be her home but actually her ex boyfriends house). I really love chamber plays with tons of dialogue but it needs a lot of skill to pull it off and make it work. The advice to avoid the bar as a setting is so real if someone isn't already a very experienced writer and knows exactly what they do.
I've felt that a lot of author characters in books I've read were a result of the book's author being unwilling to research a different profession, and taking the "write what you know" trope a little too literally
How would you research about other professions you don’t know about? There are a lot of unique jobs out there but I feel like the only way to find them is to take notes whenever you hear about them.
@@dcle944 My day job is writing software. If I'm writing a novel, I could make my character an engineer pretty easily, or I could interview any of my friends who aren't engineers and use one of their careers, or I could just try going to a meetup to meet people from other walks of life and interview them instead. As a story progresses and I have more questions I can repeat the process, and I can run my character by them to see if there's anything wildly incorrect about them. It's not hard to research other jobs but it does take time, effort, and revisions.
@@dcle944The process is the same regardless of profession. I don't understand what else you need to know. If you're looking for something highly specialized then start reading technical books and histories about whatever industry you're after.
Aside from prophecies, dreams can also serve as metaphors for what characters feel. Character stuck in an inescapable situation can dream about being trapped in a closed space, character stressed by lack of control over their life can have a dream with objects crumbling in their hands, etc etc. Such surreal dreams may not have much meaning plot-wise, but they're good at conveying emotion, as well as providing some sort of foreshadowing - not as precise as prophetic dreams, of course, but sometimes feelings manifested in a dream indicate the character's view of what goes on in reality, and therefore set the reader's expectation for these events.
Agree about dreams. I stopped watching a new horror series when it was revealed that the first scene was just a dream. It had fooled me into thinking that was the basis for the plot. Then discovered it wasn’t; felt misled.
Yeah, the “it’s all a dream” thing just sucks the life out of a story, not even just for lack of stakes, but it can feel like such a waste of the reader’s time! Why get invited in something that just completely reset at the end or something? Unless the whole rest of the story is built off what was lost, it’s cheating the reader out of a narrative. Years ago I heard someone describe it as the writer being unwilling to actually accept the consequences of the story they created.
I agree. I was watching the film The Roseary Murders and there was a scene set in a bar. The main character exchanged a few lines of dialogue and no useful information to a cop and he left, and a reporter showed up and THEY exchanged a few lines of dialogue and no new information and left. ...??? Most. Pointless. Scene. Ever.
Not only are a lot of Stephen King's protagonists authors, but a majority of the one's who are not are creative people in some other way, like the MC in Cell who is a cartoonist.
A lot of times they are also self-inserts. King writes a lot about his own troubles and problems. And it's fine, if you're good at it. I think this is why he writes horror predominantly, because it's a genre meant to explore the depths of human psyche. And what better place to go than your own?
My favourite Stephen King protagonist is probably the dude in Duma Key. He works in construction, has a horrific accident, and fucks off to Florida to do art therapy while recovering from marriage-ending levels of brain damage. Unusually, he had a healthy marriage and good relationship with his kid before the accident. He wasn't bullied or maladjusted in any serious way aside from the brain injury. Solid dude. You should check it out if you haven't read it. Has one of my all time favourite quotes "Do the day , and let the day do you." :D
@@KarlaBowdring You are so right, Duma Key is one of my favorite King books of the 21st Century, and that character is one of my favorite King protagonists.
1. It was all just a dream 2. Talking in a bar 3. Zero to zero (aka no character dev) 4. A bathtub story - a story that has limited setting 5. Nonhuman POV plot twist (surprise! Ur MC was actually just a squirrel!) 6.thinly disguised wish fulfillments (the author channeling their wishes into the story) 7. Author character 8. Amnesia trope (I MF HATE THIS ONE!) ❤ have fun writing
I think writers who are stuck in writer’s block can take these over used tropes and think about unusual places : dialogue in a bar? Why not dialogue in kindergarten or Venereal Diseases Clinic or a protest ( its so hyped right now) , two environmentalist glued on the street and start talking about going on a date. Jokes aside I actually met my husband in high school but actually our relationship started when we spent our days going to a protest in the mornings and then going to get a cup of tea in the afternoon. Thank you John for another amazing video.
I have a story that has a lot of amnesia in it, but it's not a cop out. In fact, you find out it's not even amnesia the characters are experiencing so I feel it overcomes the amnesia cliche. I just hope my readers stick around to that point.
I think it depends on context. I don't think it's fair that writers can't express the nuances of being a writer...because who else can? Just my two cents 🙂
I love how you break down all the biggest storylines and explain why theyre overused. I feel like a lot of youtubers are afraid of saying things like that for fear of coming across as too prescriptive, despite the fact that, yes, spmetimes reusing the same storylines over and over again can make people put yout book down
I’m going to school for nursing but I also have a minor in creative writing. I have heard all of these mentioned at least once and the “it was all a dream” trope and been talked about many times. It’s ok if people have a way to make it new and fun, but it has to be interesting or I get bored very quickly
About amnesia being more common in fiction than hospitals -- not really, actually, but in hospitals it's usually a different kind of amnesia than found in fiction. Not so much the Bourne kind, more like the 50 First Dates kind, where they have a hard time forming new memories.
50 first dates is a really bad example of it though! It’s never so clean cut like that. Amnesia and dementia are very messy in what they do to the brain…😢
@@autumn7157 Gotta admit, I've never seen 50 first dates, but yeah I could see how an Adam Sandler movie is not exactly neurologically accurate 😅 Hollywood in general is pretty bad at representing brain damage with any kind of accuracy.
I have recently read two novels involving amnesia, with one fairly well done, the other atrociously unbelievable, and I have no intention of giving my character amnesia. But when you mentioned amnesia as a plot device, I instantly heard my MC wondering whether she could get away with claiming 15-minute amnesia to excuse a bratty act of revenge she perpetrated. I am adding that to her list of exculpatory ideas, and thank you for the inspiration. She decides, however, that no one would actually believe such a flimsy excuse, even though she really did hit her head shortly before said act.
First, I love your videos! To say that they have been incredibly helpful doesn’t give them justice. Question: Regarding amnesia, what if the character’s memories have been altered so that they cannot remember a key portion that they need to accomplish their goal?
Loving all of this but will add that an unchanging character can be wildly compelling, given that the story reinforced the unchanging aspects of that character.
Some of these things work IF they are very intentional and necessary. If your character is an alcoholic, the bar can be very important. It's when you do something for no reason at all because that's just the thing to do, it becomes cliche.
I'm always glad to hear the basics of my complicated plot is overused, but the actual story is not! My author character is actually forbidden from writing, so that's gonna be fun!
4. The bathtub story is a problem i ran into really early in the plotting of my current novel. Luckily, my husband gave me the idea to move it into our fictional world we had made for a completely different project, but it was exactly what i needed. Now i had a world map to play with, that wasn't bound to earthly rules. That made it a lot easier to break past the bathtub problem i was having. Although, guilty as charge. My B plot does have a bar scene and now i'm curious to see if i can figure out a different place to set it.
The "zero to zero" point us what's known as a flat character arc. You can do it, as fir example the detective in a murder mystery, but then the character whose arc is flat must cause change in other characters. A murder mystery is about the victim and the culprit. The detective is just a viewpoint character. So, I don't disagree with the video per se as to say that specific writing theory addresses this issue. Writers need to study writing craft.
My thoughts on these story structures: 1. This is a total copout imo. It *can* work in a children's book, for instance, but it defeats the entire point of telling the story in the first place. 2. I don't write bar scenes, but "too much dialogue" is a piece of advice I needed to hear. 3. Character development is so fun. Seeing how your characters evolve or devolve over the course of the story. Also, JAMES BOND MENTIONED. 4. I feel called out 😅. Didn't know it had a name. 5. Cheap surprises bad 6. Oh Lord...this kills works. It's a sign that a writer needs to cook a little bit longer. 7. Agreed. 8. AUTHORS NEVER GET AMNESIA RIGHT. IT'S ALMOST ALWAYS RETROGRADE AMNESIA WITH NO OTHER ILL EFFECTS. IF YOU WAKE UP WITH AMNESIA THAT SEVERE, YOU HAVE A SIGNIFICANT HEAD INJURY AND WILL NEED MONTHS OF RECOVERY. Amnesia after brain damage can happen. Memories of a specific time leading up to the event and right after the event can disappwar, especially if the damage is particularly severe. But having Hallmark movie amnesia is not realistic.
Great points! I think to break any of these rules you need to have extremely good reasons to do so that are organic to the story. Sherlock Holmes got away with zero to zero because his style of solving crimes was innovative at the time but more is expected nowadays. If you have one location, then it has to be something like someone trapped in a coffin or something but even then, you’ll probably follow people outside trying to save him/her. To break these rules, the story basically can’t give you any other choice.
In general, amnesia isn’t a great story like you said. But one great amnesia story is restart. Basically, a bully wakes up from a coma. As he slowly puts his life back together, he realizes he was a terrible person and needs to change.
I’m currently breaking the first rule of this video because my story is centered around dreams. However, it’s about how dreams and reality become blurred, and I’m adding my own twist to the whole “It was all a dream” trope. It’s sort of a blend of Paprika, Inception, Blade Runner, and Narnia.
Hehe. Amnesia. Guilty as charged! 😅 I’ve found *partial*, *temporary* amnesia to actually be quite tension inducing if done correctly. It’s like “telling the reader about the farmers”. You know the main is in trouble, the main knows they are in trouble … but partial amnesia obscures just what that trouble is and where it’s going to come from. It *is* definitely a technique one should use rarely, often no more than exactly once per storyworld - as it is far too easy to get wrong. I do think it’s worth practice because violent trauma to the head can/does cause fragmentation of memory.
I completely agree with you. For the past 7yrs or so, I've grown increasingly frustrated with how accurately I'm able to *predict* how certain plots/endings are going to unfold simply because "That's how it *always* happens" smh As far as the comment section, once you understand how common it is for the majority to push back against *Inconvenient Truths,* things like this won't bother you as much 🤔
My red flag is when a book is ABOUT books, something like The Shadow of the Wind for example. It seems like it should be interesting, yet inevitably strikes me as too self-important. I'm waiting to find an example to prove me wrong.
How about _Welcome to the Hyunam-Dong Bookshop_ by Hwang Bo-reum? I picked it up at the library, and was utterly charmed. It's very "slice of life" in tone, but the main characters were believable, they evolved in a satisfactory way, and the bookshop (and its books) made a nice framework for their lives. If you like a cozy read, this is for you. BTW, this was an English translation, not the original Korean. I bet the original is even better!
One of the 0.01% who pulled off the "two people talking in a bar" trope is Robert Heinlein, in two short stories: "...All You Zombies..." and "Our Fair City." In the former, the conversation is the set-up for the action that follows; in the second, the conversation is hilarious, especially once both characters have had a few (also, the bar scene is a break in the action, of which there is quite a bit--much of it just as funny as the conversation).
I would say the dream works best when it isn't entirely clear. Like a Christmas Carol, or Total Recall. Where in both cases the MC is basically dreaming everything, but it isn't entirely clear that they are dreaming. Also Scrooge vastly changes, and Quaid probably dies, so you can't say nothing matters.
Unchanging settings and limited movement during dialogue are interesting, I try to avoid them unless the scene yields plot relevant information or tries to show something about a character through subtle actions and words. These kinds of scenes work a little better in a visual medium. The best example of a static scene with heavy dialogue that I've seen is the episode of Bojack Horseman called Free Churro. The episode starts with a flashback, but then it changes to a funeral parlor where Bojack spends the entire episode giving his late mother's eulogy, there are points where the lighting changes slightly and there are shadows of a figure dancing on the walls behind him showing how Bojack is reminiscing on his mother's elegant dancing. The punchline at the end of this episode is that after having spilled his heart out, he finds out he's at the wrong funeral parlor.
I think I used the wish fulfillment idea you talked about but in a negative way. My MC is an addict and suffers from depression. And I used my personal struggle with these things to structure many of his defects and his inner turmoil. And now I wonder if perhaps I'm torturing the reader with my own crap? My goal was to build my MC warts and all and share what goes on in the head of those suffering with said crap. You got me questioning.
Oh my gosh, yes. I am especially leery of author characters. I want to read about interesting and new occupations. But I have to abashedly confess to using Amnesia Made Him Forget Her and Everyone Died But It Was Just A Dream Omen. Both caused by faeries. Can I get away with that if it’s fantasy?
I have to say that Stranger than Fiction is a favorite film of mine. A really inventive twist on the whole thing, and extra cool for me as I know a number of IRS agents, lol.
On the character arc/change, it either needs to happen or he needs to affect change in others. If you are doing a series, I think you can alternate between the two.
My book uses dreams heavily. This is the way one character informs another character who to kill, by showing (reminding) through dreams of past traumas and the people that did them to him, and these people become his victims. Should I revamp the premise then?
Fundamentally the point of storytelling has always been to explore a theme/plot, most stories that are consodered bad are bad because they fail at exploring the theme and plot
There's the struggle in scale that often makes advice like this go unheard because people as individual writers have to make what they think best fits, while it's harder to notice many people are solving the problem in parallel ways. But I think the advice to read other writers works similarly, where people will begin to recognize patterns and might want to innovate from there, or at least take these well-worn concepts and give them more of a spin, or even reduce the emphasis. Apparently unchanging action heroes can reveal something about them (over a lot of episodes) and that might subvert what the reader thinks about them, or might show more complexity under the surface than a genre used to such protagonists typically doesn't have time for. This risks alienating the audience, I guess some characters are overly reliable because they allow a lot of different people to project themselves into the story. Something I see in some hard SF winds up falling into a related trap, where characters are just there to help sell the writer's ideas, but it depends on what the reader is there for
There are some total shits out there. I'm a huge wannabe novelist and I totally agree with everything you just said. These videos are really cool and interesting.
I'm fairly new to reading Steven King. I'm on my (maybe?) 6th book. It's his newest short stories, You Like it Darker, novel that just came out. The first story is about an elderly man who became a bestselling author and his best friend who became a well known artist when they were in their late 40s-early 50s after an encounter in the woods. The reader doesn't know until later what it was they encountered, only that it changed their lives and their fortunes. We find out after the older man dies what it was. I found that first story fascinating. Only, there wasn't a lesson for the man's son to change his life when he discovered it was all true. The second story left me fearing a stranger joining me while I'm sitting alone on a park bench.
On the discussion point of your video, you gave me food for thought. I'm not one to use my characters sitting in a bar, because I tend to write about teen-agers. Though, I have put them in school lunchrooms, or classrooms. Something usually happens in those places. A bully comes up or the lead character falls into a daydream instead of listening to the teacher and the teacher startles him in front of the class. Or the villain enters. Anything is possible in fantasy, as long as it is set up correctly.
yes, it all was just a dream. and the dream is where the whole story comes. allmost all interactions are in the ddreams. and it allows me to do whatever i wanna with everything.
Bars, supermarkets, diners, laundromat, dinner table, breakfast. But moving and doing things good advice. Let me take a sip of my coffee. Dream and single location. All this was projected from an institution, crazy. Character development, change , and lessons learned on my check list. Thank You. Me in the story? There's an old saying. Talk about yourself and you're the most boring person. Talk about others? And, you're the most fascinating person. Besides. I base my writing on good actors. What would Rodger Moore or Sean Connery do? or One of my friends or the person I just met, imagine their reaction or response. ME? The third person's observing "you". Main character Author? Never thought about it. Nah, I enjoy the laid back observing third person to much. Amnesia? Question? Do you remember the old world? Video games, shopping malls, supermarkets? No? No I don't. Sorry he has the sickness. All they know now is Dungeons and Dragons. Sorry a little head hopping but for our purposes, you get the idea. Thank You for the education!
I actually start the second episode of one of my story outlines with a dream instead of right at the beginning of the story. It was originally going to be in the first, but I think it works better this way.
Damn. The novel I'm working on right now is about five men (who are actually grey hounds) stuck in a bar the entire story with amnesia, and they're actually all authors who are super successful, rich and handsome. At the end of the novel, there's a plot twist where it's all a dream. Maybe I have to do some revising.
I'm doing an "amnesia story" but the character is in someone else's body pretending to be whoever they are, and everyone thinks he just has amnesia. Ik other books have done it but I love the idea
Regarding point 2, I am writing a short story about unrequited love, since that can happen in any setting, I don't feel the need to make the characters interact with the enviroment that much, so I'm afraid the readers will feel the story happens in a void. Any advice? Thank you!
Regarding structure one: If we show that the character is actually sleeping, and then go on to show what the character is dreaming about... is that ok?
It is if there's a good reason for it. At least that avoids the "It was all a dream!" cliche. Whether it's a good idea is something you'll have to decide. Does it contribute something to the story, that can't be better done a different way? Personally, I don't much like dreams in fiction because my own dreams never have any significance or relevance to my waking life, so using a character's dream to show us, or them, something important feels like an unrealistic gimmick. But that's just me.
If the reader can skip it and lose nothing of the plot, then axe it out of your story. I'd much rather have an awake character trying to think through something they're struggling with, talk to other people about it, than have them unconscious and processing it automatically. I'd ask myself not if I can make the dreaming more interesting to read, but if dreaming itself is the most interesting way to handle this piece of the story.
Is the original video on yt as I couldn't see it on your channel? If not, you should put it here so we can see it! Maybe do a bit at the beginning explaining it was posted elsewhere (on the dark side!) first.
I have an unfinished story with a mercenary character(who has amnesia for a short amount of time)and she starts out in a normal life and then it goes into flashbacks I think it personally progress' pretty good.
Now you have me curious. In my story, there’s a chapter where the main character has a meeting with his conscience, in which we establish the main character’s inner struggle. The whole interaction seems very odd and goes against the pre-established lore in the book. At the end of the chapter, the main character wakes up and realizes it was all a dream. Is this scene a problem?
Ask yourself if there's a more interesting way to show him wrestling with his morality. Talking to people, thinking back on previous actions, remembering other people's perspectives from earlier in the story, or trying to do something to make things better. If he hurt someone, maybe he should go talk to a family member of theirs, and then we can see their reaction while he's trying to explain his intentions. That adds conflict, and helps flesh out the consequences of a choice... whereas a dream is just a dude laying there unmoving for hours while nothing in the world changes.
as much as i hate to admit it, there is a touch of the soap opera in my stuff, vicariously rich people, and soap af, glass liquor carts with crystal decanters. yeah, boi! oh, yeah, and like garth marange i have the defacto police operating out the hospital, but there was a conflict in which the cop shop and city hall were blown up. the resistance runs the hospital
I think in some cases the MC being an author can be fun/great, like in The Plot where the MC is a writer but it's the main thing of the plot and is used to pose a moral question that I'm pretty sure has been a thought in every writers mind, and if not is an actual question "would you ever be desperate enough to do this?" And the book is littered with satire poking fun at writers and authors in a way that you can't even be mad at because it's like "well 😅 yeah..." I hugely enjoy stuff like that....BUT there's too few books with author MCs who are like this. Like a majority of them the MC being an author is either just an easy occupation and just explains why the character knows random stuff and has money or time for the plot (which itself is funny) and it doesn't go past that. Like seriously sometimes they main character is an author and spends the book with writers block as an excuse to not write and attend to the plot and after a while I'll go "aren't you on a deadline????"
It was all a dream for these people talking in a bar, but they're all sitting in bathtubs (because it is a dream) but surprise! All of them are dogs, not actually people. Really successful dogs with dog-wives and puppies back home at their million-dollar mansions. This main dog is an author of a blog, like that one TV show, but before he can blog about anything he wakes up and remembers he has amnesia. He looks in the mirror to see... he's actually a cat!
in my sequel a love interest of my protagonist was planning on writing a biography about him,but before he started they met unexpectedly. he'd already taken the advance and the publishing company keeps pressuring him, which is how my main character finds out
Tge story that i work on break some of these rhles in a sense, for example, the supposed bar scene or bar dialogue, whichever one that works, my MC, Mari, would sit in the bar trying to lay low while having a meal when someone she knows notices her and he comes up to her to talk, she doesn't stay long after she is basically found out and the conversation becomes strained and complicated as she tries to leave and stuff, spoiler alert, she doesn't actually shake tge guy off of her back even after getting chased, the dream part is part of a different story i wrote a a few years back as a teen but never published the main character woke up from a coma in a very much real world, and he finds out that people he considered enemies or have died in his "life" aka, his dream, were actually very much alive and some were even his family, siblings and best friends and cousins, but through out the story he finds out that his "dream" wasn't actually a dream, but his memories from several thousands of years ago in his old past life, with very few this remaining from that time, a few scrolls and writings the only things remaining and such, so yeah, i have broke these rules more often than not and i actually made them somehow work, all good practice i say
I wrote a short story where the only two characters are an author and ai. The author is trying to experiment with a meta-story using Roko's Basilisk as a plot device and he accidentally ends up creating it for realzies. The narrator is also the AI so I guess that story has a cheap trick in it as well..
Also add "the misunderstanding". _Heavily_ overused, often shows a lack of (smart) ideas, rarely a good plot twist. The thinly disguised wish fulfilments are _way_ overused and publishers should just stop picking those over better scripts! I gave up reading books in "my" genres from publishers because I felt they made it their sole mission to get into BookTok. Sometimes, in bad books, there's also that specific other character that reads like a total externalisation of the MC and it always makes me groan. It's not even a real character and incredibly cheap. Not a good sign for the author's mental health.
To the person who had mentioned Solo Leveling: Look at most any isekai series. That's balatant trash wish fulfillment. Heck, it's all they're known for! (Most of the time.) Talk about formulaic. But not intricate or solid formula, no. I regret my word choice because formulaic can still be well-written. Here's a lot of isekai "plots": Plain everyman main character who is generally a shut-in nerd with no real social or academic or physical skills gets somehow sent to some sort of fantasy world he can't escape. Does that last bit matter? Not at all, because the MC generally prefers it over real life. No conflict there. He for some reason is completely overpowered or has some unique skill that only he can use to utmost efficiency, making him the hero of this fantasy world pretty much instantly. And with this power and status, at some point, he also gets all these super cute fantasy girls hyper obsessed with him for no ither reason than he's the main character and, by grace of the author, is capable of beating anyone into the ground like smashing a bug. All the characters are generally bland and unlikeable, one-note tropes if they even get that much personality, and the conflicts are never threatening because the main character is oh-so-competent. Now, you should know that this is coming from isekai trash. I love these same-y wish fulfillment fantasies. But the whole point is that they are so overused and worn out that for 1 good isekai/wish fulfillment story, there's least 10 (if not 15 or 20) that are complete trash. As mentioned, there are good ones and/or there are ones that do something a bit different. (I talk about isekai, but I also lump into this stories that aren't actually isekai, just the same sort of wish fulfillment.) Tensura is, on the surface, a generic isekai wish fulfillment. Its real draw are the likeable characters. I will say that the story has really fallen off after one certain major conflict event, but it's incredibly popular at least up to this point. Solo Leveling, as mentioned, starts out with an average guy, but he quickly grows stronger and stronger until no one can touch him and while the characters aren't overly compelling, they're generally likeable enough, certain scenes are kinda funny, but most importantly: it's fucking gorgeous to look at. Rising of the Shield Hero: So. This one also falls off and was never particularly good to start with, but it is certainly entertaining and readable for awhile because there's the shock factor that the main character isn't instantly beloved. In fact, he's framed for a heinous crime at the beginning and widely hated by the citizens of this kingdom. He does gain quite a few personal allies really quickly, but it does heavily impact his character to have this betrayal. As such, there's a plot-given reason as to why (despite being surrounded by cute girls that adore him) that he has no interest in romance. As far as I remember, this lasts up to and maybe through the end of the series. Which I actually really like. If this changes, I wouldn't actually be too mad about that either probably. But I don't remember if I've actually reached the end before or not. It's been a while since I read it, the web novel version. And if I did finish, I probably never will again because it just gets so boring after a while. The other characters who don't align themselves with the main character are straight up unlikeable and unbearably stupid. Talk about a strawman. People have claimed Inuyasha is an isekai, but I reject this on principle. A lot of older isekai stories don't look like the modern genre because the modern genre was pretty much defined by SAO. But there were some before Sword Art Online. I haven't really seen any of these though. Except possibly Inuyasha, but I will forever stand on my opinion that it's a time travel series. She might bounce between past and present which may as well be different worlds, but the past does also sometimes impact the present. At least in one notable scenario. So I say it's time travel and I will not hear otherwise. Oh, one modern isekai that does actually involve bouncing back and forth between our world and a fantasy world is I'm Standing on a Million Lives. (This is back on wish fulfillment.) The characters are students that get pulled into this fantasy world to prepare from some coming disaster that will eventually affect their world (presumably; I haven't read the whole thing). I find the concept very interesting. But as is common with these isekai wish fulfillments, the characters are very uninteresting and the girls are largely useless a lot of the time with the MC being the leader of the group because even though he keeps getting "crummy" jobs, he figures out how to use them to absurd effectiveness. The problem is that I felt a bit cheated by this series. I had an idea of what the main character was going to be like from the synopsis: a conniving and cold person. But he's not. He's extraordinarily normal for the most part in that regard. Even when he chooses to not focus on his teammates to try and finish a quest objective, it's treated as a bad thing but it doesn't actually feel earned really? It's odd to say that, because that feels pretty normal to say. But to me, the main character never feels particularly uncaring. They try to make it come across that way, but the way he acts outside of certain scenarios just contradicts this so hard that I can't see him as cold in those moments. And especially because he's often right. I don't know. When I try to explain why it doesn't work, I can't point to where exactly it goes entirely wrong, but I think the tension about him being cold and pragmatic are just contrived. Edit: There's also obviously Re:Zero, which is a deconstruction of isekai wish fulfillment. The protagonist doesn't get his wish fulfilled. It's exactly the opposite in pretty much every way. But that's not entirely relevant to the discussion of the use of wish fulfillment specifically.
My current story starts in a bar. 😂 I'm sticking with it since it culminates into a fight due to the protagonist flirting with someone whose fiance looks almost exactly like the protagonist.
And a bar is a good place to set the scene. Can the bar add to the theme or plot? In my last project, the bar was specifically Greek because I wanted to hint at the conflicts that come with immigration, the contrast of old world immigrants and their children adopting American culture and how "greek" an individual might be. The characters are two supernatural beings masquerading as humans so being "human" is as complex as being "greek".
Is there no other location on the planet that a dude can flirt with a woman? Why does it have to be a bar? Why can't it be like while touring a motorcycle factory, or in an Asian market where he can't read a single label on all these weird foods, or at a Christmas tree farm where he's rushing to get one of the last trees available before anyone else, or at a Mr. Rogers lookalike competition? Is a bar really the most interesting location you can think of?
@richardn3387 Sorry for the late reply! 😅 I reveal later on that the protagonist was anonymously paid to deliberately get in bed with the man. She didn't know he had a fiance, nor did he realize she wasn't his fiance until it was too late. The bar was used because it's where the couple frequent for drinking. I'm building a theme revolving around the desperation for money/affluence, but I'm still working at it.
@@stirredwhiskey I mean that's kinda circular, it's set in a bar because it's set in a bar! You could have the target frequent a farmer's market, a knitting supply store, or a manicure salon. It'd be much more interesting to read about a protagonist who is in such pursuit of a woman that he'll awkwardly go get his first manicure, right? Then the fight can happen and afterward the main character can look at his hands, see that one side has neat nails and the other hand has scraggly, bitten nails as a visual reminder of that time. But as long as you can say with confidence that a bar is one of the most interesting locations you can possibly think of, that readers will enjoy over almost anything else, go for it.
i dont think you cant explain that a book is a dream in the beginning of it. i think, actually, that a flash-forward prologue might be one of the very few ways that more people could stomach dream plot reveals. any amount of time spent reading something without knowing how invested you truly should be will be met with frustration from a reader lol
I like Stephen King, but I have always been annoyed how often his main character is an author. Sometimes it’s better though if they dream of being an author, but aren’t successful
I appreciate the inclusion of "wish fulfillment" on this list. During a writing workshop the person whose work I swapped with for review did exactly this and it was *extremely* uncomfortable. It can feel like a bit of a violation of the reader who didn't ask to be a part of your (in my case) deranged self-insert fantasy. I've never had such a negative visceral reaction to something I've read before 😬😬😬 I'm still scarred nearly a year later lol
I have a qustion with the 'dont start with a dream sequence as its trickery' what if i started with a dream sequence BUT the dream is something that happened in real life but twisted to that persons pov
I was thinking about this game that did the, "it was all a dream," absolutely brilliantly, but then I realized they were actually doing the inverse: the "this is STILL a dream." But yeah, whatever they were doing they're definitely an exception😂
I skipped chapters in a john Irving book because his MC was and author and the chapters were chapters the MC was writing in their book. Passages here and there are okay
When you label the video "overused" plots and people's counterarguments are "but I saw it in this book!" I feel like they have missed a key aspect of the whole point 😅
"But I saw it in this book!"But we also saw it in this book and this book and this book and this book and that's where the potential problems sort of tends to stem from.
Agreed. Especially considering Bookfox's approach is "here are some generally good rules to follow if you're a new writer." As a new writer myself, I try to follow the "learn the rules before you try to break them" rule =P
Thanks for the video!
Bruh 3 orange profile pics in a row, I thought the first guy was a schizo 😂
@GaryNac
True, but then new writers have bigger concerns, like finishing the dang thing at all for instance.
I feel it just adds to the pressure writers already experience, if they are constantly comparing their writing to everything else that's out there.
I think that's an unhealthy place to be in. For instance I saw a video the other day that suggested that movies increasingly mix more and more genres to get more and more plot points out of the same limited runtime.
Now obviously that can't be a sustainable approach, eventually you'd just have a grey smear that tried to subject you to the entirety of human existence in 92min xD
My advice would be to be aware of these things, don't go out seeking them like you must. But do feel confident to write about them if that's what you feel like writing about. If you write in a natural non formulaic way, chances are good you'll still give your own spin to them.
Nobody can write quite like you can.
It may not become a bestseller though, but the odds of that happening are really low anyway and it's a terrible reason to write.
Overused is misconstrued as unappealing. If all you hang around is editors and fellow authors, then you lose sight of your consumer. Some of us want to make a living writing so being aware of what sells is just as valid.
Now, you may continue your reductive in-joking at others expense.
Bro really said "If you try to break all of these rules at once, come on, now you're just getting a little too ambitious." in *exactly* the right way to convince everyone watching to attempt to break all the rules at once.
Challenge accepted. I will take everything I've already written and turn it into a dream sequence from my amnesiac chinchilla author which only takes place in a bar, and he never changes, as the story ends when he gets too drunk and passes out (this is my self-insert wish fulfillment).
😂👍
That sounds interesting actually
This blurb makes me want to check this book out. You can’t just tease us. Now you gotta do it! 😁
Ok Barney Stinson LMAO 🤣😂
Aaaand you are done.
I'll never understand how so many practicing writers can hear GENERAL ADVICE, and their first instinct is to point out exceptions. If you can't understand basic language, I'm not sure how you hope to be a writer
Same 😅 😂 or if you get so bruised and easily attacked by hearing general advice idk how you can expect to be a writer (or take basic criticism)
I love this channel because I get advice I haven't heard before
It's the same crowd that can't accept constructive criticism, which is also a necessary part of... Well, improving skill in general
Yeah, totally agree. And honestly, this advice is more like, “heads up, if you choose to go down this road, there are a lot more pot holes to worry about.” It’s NOT the same as saying, “you’re forbidden from driving this way ever again.”
And my main takeaway from this was: yeah, if you have a strong reason to use one of these (like the example with the author character), then of course it can be done and may even go well. But I, for one, appreciate a good “here be dragons” sign stuck along the writing trail by someone who’s already been down that way and learned the lessons the hard way.
The problem is the way the advice is framed. I didn’t watch the original video, so idk how he did it, but I’ve seen plenty of advice from these writing channels that frame ‘things to bear in mind’ as hard rules and this can be creatively restricting for no reason
They need to get rid of their ego. There's saying in my place that goes like this:
*_"If you want to be filled, be empty."_*
It means, if you want to get knowledge from someone you need to get rid the feeling of "I already knew this" or "I know about this more".
This saying encourage intellectual humility.
lol why would I make my character an author when I hardly manage to be one myself /sobs
Haha got em! *Creys in corner* got em....
😭
😂😂
Make them a failed author, lol
Well you can use it as a wish fulfillment... 😉😃
Characters who do not change are good if they are the ones who change their environment. It also helps not to throw everything on the grill and save facets of the character to show them later.
Alternatively, the character doesn’t necessarily have to change so long as the reader’s *perception* of the character changes.
For example you can have a loyal, honorable knight protecting the princess with his life. But through the story you find out that the princess is actually the secret love child of that knight and the queen. The knight hasn’t changed his behavior, but his dedication to the princess hits different.
@autumn7157 Yes, you have to show different facets of the character so that it doesn't get boring, unless the story is very short.
@@max1palm3ri08no such thing as the abstract conception of 'change' regard.
One of the few good ideas in the Dramatica model is: either the hero changes but the impact character (mentor, love interest, etc.) doesn't, either the hero stays the same but the impact character changes. One of them "transforms" the other one (/ "wins" the story debate).
Yes, the protagonist and other characters can also have a change between them
Lol even fantasy stories can’t escape scenes in bars which fantasy writers love to call taverns
My problem with fantasy is brothel. So many fantasies have brothels. Sometimes it has nothing to do with the story.
@@dcle944 In historical times, a brothel was often just another business also used for sex, like the back of a tavern, or especially a bath house. =^[.]^=
Outside the US pubs and taverns are the focal point of community life. It's only natural that scenes happen there, because that's where everyone is.
@@sambeckett2428 yeah, I tend to agree. Interestingly, though, when I brought this up in a writers’ sprinting livestream session recently, an author looked rather perplexed and said, “Do young people still got to pubs?” Welp, being almost 40, I can’t say I know 😅
Edit: oh, wait, she is an American, so perhaps what you said holds true.
Or, if it's in a galaxy far, far away it will be a cantina. ;)
Characters can be writers if they work as one in terms of personality. However more often than not I see the following:
> Character is a writer
> Has no creativity, is barely eloquent. Does nothing that is stereotypical for a writer to do
> Does not have typical writer views on ANYTHING
> Is seen struggling with their writing on their laptop on chapter/episode one. Their writing career is BARELY brought up across the rest of the story.
Additionally:
> Other character is a scientist
> Not smarter than average
Or:
> Third character is a teacher/doctor/something that works will kids or under pressure
> Has zero patience, and cannot deal well with pressure
What is a typical writer view?
Your description of teachers fits my old teachers quite well.
That immediately, instinctively makes me go "!! The person writing this has no idea what it means to be a writer!" Which gave me an attack of irony, considering that this has happened, and it was written by a writer rather badly. Now I'm having an odd existential moment and you've broken my _brain_ - this is incredibly unpleasant X'D
Okay, that last sentence definitely had the tone of a challenge to it, lol.
Now I'm tempted to write a story about an ultra sexy and charismatic character who 'wakes up' into a lucid dream about a bar remembering nothing about his daily life other than the fact that he is a best-selling author. He tries to escape but is told he can not leave until he finishes the first draft of his novel.
The bar has everything a writer could need, but if he stays there for too long, then he will slip into a coma and never wake up again. Furthermore, the patrons of the bar all have vastly different opinions on what makes for a great story and try to influence his manuscript in various ways.
In the end, the author refuses to change, pushing forward with his own unique vision. When he finally goes to exit the bar however he realizes that he is actually an AI ghostwriter within a simulation and that the 'dream' he's been trapped in is actually a Turing Test designed to determine if he has true sapience/genuine creativity.
Did I hit all the clichés?
Yes you did, I would totally read this😊
this is such a good story tho!! i would totally read it
@@KittRidgeway okay gurl you slayed. Damn I'd pay to read this shit
So, uhh.. where can I read this? 🤗
No but seriously, that's epic!!
So you’re telling me my story of the most successful author of all time who is also a super model, being in a bar while struck with amnesia where other patrons try to remind him of who he is by telling him about their favourite book he wrote and how it awakened them sexually only for the author to wake up at the end to discover he was in fact a rabbit, is not a good idea?
Nah. It’d be a great movie according to Hollywood though 😂
@@pasiaomega3868
Alice in Wonderland, meets Groundhog Day, meets eternal sunshine of the spotless mind, meets inception, meets While you were sleeping?
The creative side of me hates anytime someone says not to do something, but the critical side of me sees that they’re often right haha
The "bathtub" idea is executed to comedic effect in OBLOMOV -- protagonist spends the entire story failing to get up from the couch. Very relatable.
Yeah, the best way I have seen the "It was all a dream" done was in a Chinese fantasy drama where the "dream" was actually real past events that had HUGE bearing on the main plot, so it all felt EXTEMELY important. Which was great, cause the dream quite litterally introduced an entirely new cast of characters in an entirely new storyline, so...knowing it mattered to the story I was already invested in is what kept me from shutting it all off in disgust.
The Divine Emissary?
@@Gothalon Til the End of the Moon. I take it The Divine Emmisary also uses something similar?
I believe many of these structures have an easier pass in anime/manga, and they are still usually entertaining and fun to watch, without the need to think too much about it. Oh, a character has an amnesia? Okay. Wish fulfilment? Let's go! Nothing wrong with tropes themselves, familiarity can be a fun way to explore some other/deeper concepts without worrying about structure. But that's also a point, in order to really stand out something has to be done in a different and original way.
You mean those isekai?
TIMESTAMPS:
0:00 : Intro
0:53 : Dream
1:58 : Talking in a Bar
4:31 : Bathtub Story
5:40 : Nonhuman POV Twist
6:16 : thinly disguised wish fulfillments
7:04 : author character
7:54 : Amnesia
I just recently found your channel. I have been wanting to write a book for years and now I'm looking into to how to go about doing it. One of my biggest problems now is writing something that scrapping it because it's been done too many times. It seems like so few writers can come up with new and unique ideas. I really appreciate your efforts in helping people like me. Oh, by the way, none of your overused structures in this video have been an issue for me, but still helpful.
There's nothing new under the sun. Nothing wrong with not being completely unique.
6:14 This was used in the OPENING of Centaur World, where the Rider and the Horse riding through the war torn landscape, talking about losing their family and only having one companion that they can rely on... and the narrative is from he Horse's POV.
still loving your channel dude
I'm going to use all of these, in a single short.
I wrote a short story that I first wanted to be set in a bar. It's about a woman hearing the stories of strangers thinking that they are all crazy just for the woman to turn out to be a real psychopath. The BEST THING I did for the story was to NOT use the bar as a setting. It suddenly all came together when I changed the setting and made her meet those people on her way home (that turned out to not be her home but actually her ex boyfriends house). I really love chamber plays with tons of dialogue but it needs a lot of skill to pull it off and make it work. The advice to avoid the bar as a setting is so real if someone isn't already a very experienced writer and knows exactly what they do.
hey! that sounds sooo cool wow. great that you found a better setting for the narrative!
@FluffPuff619 Thank you! Nice to hear that you like the idea :)
I've felt that a lot of author characters in books I've read were a result of the book's author being unwilling to research a different profession, and taking the "write what you know" trope a little too literally
How would you research about other professions you don’t know about? There are a lot of unique jobs out there but I feel like the only way to find them is to take notes whenever you hear about them.
@@dcle944 My day job is writing software. If I'm writing a novel, I could make my character an engineer pretty easily, or I could interview any of my friends who aren't engineers and use one of their careers, or I could just try going to a meetup to meet people from other walks of life and interview them instead. As a story progresses and I have more questions I can repeat the process, and I can run my character by them to see if there's anything wildly incorrect about them.
It's not hard to research other jobs but it does take time, effort, and revisions.
@@corkydouglas those are still common jobs. We’re talking about getting away from common things here.
@@dcle944The process is the same regardless of profession. I don't understand what else you need to know. If you're looking for something highly specialized then start reading technical books and histories about whatever industry you're after.
Maybe it's because I read mostly fantasy, but I barely see author characters in books.
5:23 "...part of the glory of the form of the novel..."
I love that turn of phrase. Memorable. Thank you.
Aside from prophecies, dreams can also serve as metaphors for what characters feel. Character stuck in an inescapable situation can dream about being trapped in a closed space, character stressed by lack of control over their life can have a dream with objects crumbling in their hands, etc etc. Such surreal dreams may not have much meaning plot-wise, but they're good at conveying emotion, as well as providing some sort of foreshadowing - not as precise as prophetic dreams, of course, but sometimes feelings manifested in a dream indicate the character's view of what goes on in reality, and therefore set the reader's expectation for these events.
Yes, a character who feels stuck having a dream about being trapped in a closed space is overused
Agree about dreams. I stopped watching a new horror series when it was revealed that the first scene was just a dream. It had fooled me into thinking that was the basis for the plot. Then discovered it wasn’t; felt misled.
Yeah, the “it’s all a dream” thing just sucks the life out of a story, not even just for lack of stakes, but it can feel like such a waste of the reader’s time! Why get invited in something that just completely reset at the end or something? Unless the whole rest of the story is built off what was lost, it’s cheating the reader out of a narrative.
Years ago I heard someone describe it as the writer being unwilling to actually accept the consequences of the story they created.
I just wanna say, I love the logo of bookfox !
I appreciate your videos immensely. Thank you for taking the time to compile all this helpful advice. I’ve put a lot of it into practice now. :)
You are so welcome!
I agree. I was watching the film The Roseary Murders and there was a scene set in a bar. The main character exchanged a few lines of dialogue and no useful information to a cop and he left, and a reporter showed up and THEY exchanged a few lines of dialogue and no new information and left. ...??? Most. Pointless. Scene. Ever.
Not only are a lot of Stephen King's protagonists authors, but a majority of the one's who are not are creative people in some other way, like the MC in Cell who is a cartoonist.
A lot of times they are also self-inserts. King writes a lot about his own troubles and problems. And it's fine, if you're good at it. I think this is why he writes horror predominantly, because it's a genre meant to explore the depths of human psyche. And what better place to go than your own?
@@sarahsander785 Good point, well made.
My favourite Stephen King protagonist is probably the dude in Duma Key. He works in construction, has a horrific accident, and fucks off to Florida to do art therapy while recovering from marriage-ending levels of brain damage. Unusually, he had a healthy marriage and good relationship with his kid before the accident. He wasn't bullied or maladjusted in any serious way aside from the brain injury. Solid dude. You should check it out if you haven't read it. Has one of my all time favourite quotes "Do the day , and let the day do you." :D
@@KarlaBowdring You are so right, Duma Key is one of my favorite King books of the 21st Century, and that character is one of my favorite King protagonists.
1. It was all just a dream
2. Talking in a bar
3. Zero to zero (aka no character dev)
4. A bathtub story - a story that has limited setting
5. Nonhuman POV plot twist (surprise! Ur MC was actually just a squirrel!)
6.thinly disguised wish fulfillments (the author channeling their wishes into the story)
7. Author character
8. Amnesia trope (I MF HATE THIS ONE!)
❤ have fun writing
I think writers who are stuck in writer’s block can take these over used tropes and think about unusual places : dialogue in a bar? Why not dialogue in kindergarten or Venereal Diseases Clinic or a protest ( its so hyped right now) , two environmentalist glued on the street and start talking about going on a date. Jokes aside I actually met my husband in high school but actually our relationship started when we spent our days going to a protest in the mornings and then going to get a cup of tea in the afternoon.
Thank you John for another amazing video.
I have a story that has a lot of amnesia in it, but it's not a cop out. In fact, you find out it's not even amnesia the characters are experiencing so I feel it overcomes the amnesia cliche. I just hope my readers stick around to that point.
Every time I read a book where the main character's a write, I ALWAYS think that the author's very lazy lol
I think it depends on context. I don't think it's fair that writers can't express the nuances of being a writer...because who else can? Just my two cents 🙂
I love how you break down all the biggest storylines and explain why theyre overused. I feel like a lot of youtubers are afraid of saying things like that for fear of coming across as too prescriptive, despite the fact that, yes, spmetimes reusing the same storylines over and over again can make people put yout book down
I’m going to school for nursing but I also have a minor in creative writing. I have heard all of these mentioned at least once and the “it was all a dream” trope and been talked about many times. It’s ok if people have a way to make it new and fun, but it has to be interesting or I get bored very quickly
Amnesia is 90% of Korean scriptwriters and directors best friend😭😭😭
About amnesia being more common in fiction than hospitals -- not really, actually, but in hospitals it's usually a different kind of amnesia than found in fiction. Not so much the Bourne kind, more like the 50 First Dates kind, where they have a hard time forming new memories.
50 first dates is a really bad example of it though! It’s never so clean cut like that. Amnesia and dementia are very messy in what they do to the brain…😢
@@autumn7157 Gotta admit, I've never seen 50 first dates, but yeah I could see how an Adam Sandler movie is not exactly neurologically accurate 😅 Hollywood in general is pretty bad at representing brain damage with any kind of accuracy.
I have recently read two novels involving amnesia, with one fairly well done, the other atrociously unbelievable, and I have no intention of giving my character amnesia. But when you mentioned amnesia as a plot device, I instantly heard my MC wondering whether she could get away with claiming 15-minute amnesia to excuse a bratty act of revenge she perpetrated. I am adding that to her list of exculpatory ideas, and thank you for the inspiration. She decides, however, that no one would actually believe such a flimsy excuse, even though she really did hit her head shortly before said act.
First, I love your videos! To say that they have been incredibly helpful doesn’t give them justice. Question: Regarding amnesia, what if the character’s memories have been altered so that they cannot remember a key portion that they need to accomplish their goal?
Loving all of this but will add that an unchanging character can be wildly compelling, given that the story reinforced the unchanging aspects of that character.
Some of these things work IF they are very intentional and necessary. If your character is an alcoholic, the bar can be very important. It's when you do something for no reason at all because that's just the thing to do, it becomes cliche.
Exactly.
I'm always glad to hear the basics of my complicated plot is overused, but the actual story is not! My author character is actually forbidden from writing, so that's gonna be fun!
I got one of your videos randomly got into my recommended and now I have the motovation to continue my light novel I started 5 months ago.
4. The bathtub story is a problem i ran into really early in the plotting of my current novel. Luckily, my husband gave me the idea to move it into our fictional world we had made for a completely different project, but it was exactly what i needed. Now i had a world map to play with, that wasn't bound to earthly rules. That made it a lot easier to break past the bathtub problem i was having.
Although, guilty as charge. My B plot does have a bar scene and now i'm curious to see if i can figure out a different place to set it.
The "zero to zero" point us what's known as a flat character arc. You can do it, as fir example the detective in a murder mystery, but then the character whose arc is flat must cause change in other characters. A murder mystery is about the victim and the culprit. The detective is just a viewpoint character. So, I don't disagree with the video per se as to say that specific writing theory addresses this issue. Writers need to study writing craft.
My thoughts on these story structures:
1. This is a total copout imo. It *can* work in a children's book, for instance, but it defeats the entire point of telling the story in the first place.
2. I don't write bar scenes, but "too much dialogue" is a piece of advice I needed to hear.
3. Character development is so fun. Seeing how your characters evolve or devolve over the course of the story. Also, JAMES BOND MENTIONED.
4. I feel called out 😅. Didn't know it had a name.
5. Cheap surprises bad
6. Oh Lord...this kills works. It's a sign that a writer needs to cook a little bit longer.
7. Agreed.
8. AUTHORS NEVER GET AMNESIA RIGHT. IT'S ALMOST ALWAYS RETROGRADE AMNESIA WITH NO OTHER ILL EFFECTS. IF YOU WAKE UP WITH AMNESIA THAT SEVERE, YOU HAVE A SIGNIFICANT HEAD INJURY AND WILL NEED MONTHS OF RECOVERY. Amnesia after brain damage can happen. Memories of a specific time leading up to the event and right after the event can disappwar, especially if the damage is particularly severe. But having Hallmark movie amnesia is not realistic.
Great points! I think to break any of these rules you need to have extremely good reasons to do so that are organic to the story. Sherlock Holmes got away with zero to zero because his style of solving crimes was innovative at the time but more is expected nowadays. If you have one location, then it has to be something like someone trapped in a coffin or something but even then, you’ll probably follow people outside trying to save him/her. To break these rules, the story basically can’t give you any other choice.
In general, amnesia isn’t a great story like you said. But one great amnesia story is restart. Basically, a bully wakes up from a coma. As he slowly puts his life back together, he realizes he was a terrible person and needs to change.
I’m currently breaking the first rule of this video because my story is centered around dreams. However, it’s about how dreams and reality become blurred, and I’m adding my own twist to the whole “It was all a dream” trope. It’s sort of a blend of Paprika, Inception, Blade Runner, and Narnia.
Each of these overused plots can be turned inside out upside down for new twists that might please general audiences more than audiences of writers...
Hehe. Amnesia. Guilty as charged! 😅
I’ve found *partial*, *temporary* amnesia to actually be quite tension inducing if done correctly. It’s like “telling the reader about the farmers”. You know the main is in trouble, the main knows they are in trouble … but partial amnesia obscures just what that trouble is and where it’s going to come from.
It *is* definitely a technique one should use rarely, often no more than exactly once per storyworld - as it is far too easy to get wrong.
I do think it’s worth practice because violent trauma to the head can/does cause fragmentation of memory.
I completely agree with you. For the past 7yrs or so, I've grown increasingly frustrated with how accurately I'm able to *predict* how certain plots/endings are going to unfold simply because "That's how it *always* happens" smh
As far as the comment section, once you understand how common it is for the majority to push back against *Inconvenient Truths,* things like this won't bother you as much 🤔
Don't forget that you're a rebel, a renegade, and a trailblazer. Just like everyone else.
Love this, thank you! It's very helpful for everyone to challenge themselves 😄
My red flag is when a book is ABOUT books, something like The Shadow of the Wind for example. It seems like it should be interesting, yet inevitably strikes me as too self-important. I'm waiting to find an example to prove me wrong.
How about _Welcome to the Hyunam-Dong Bookshop_ by Hwang Bo-reum? I picked it up at the library, and was utterly charmed. It's very "slice of life" in tone, but the main characters were believable, they evolved in a satisfactory way, and the bookshop (and its books) made a nice framework for their lives. If you like a cozy read, this is for you.
BTW, this was an English translation, not the original Korean. I bet the original is even better!
One of the 0.01% who pulled off the "two people talking in a bar" trope is Robert Heinlein, in two short stories: "...All You Zombies..." and "Our Fair City." In the former, the conversation is the set-up for the action that follows; in the second, the conversation is hilarious, especially once both characters have had a few (also, the bar scene is a break in the action, of which there is quite a bit--much of it just as funny as the conversation).
i have a little story that's in one set. kitchen, bedroom and living room. it's small, maybe cause of it it worked
I would say the dream works best when it isn't entirely clear. Like a Christmas Carol, or Total Recall. Where in both cases the MC is basically dreaming everything, but it isn't entirely clear that they are dreaming. Also Scrooge vastly changes, and Quaid probably dies, so you can't say nothing matters.
How are these plot structures? And not generic scene tropes/archetypes?
How are you defining plot structure?
Unchanging settings and limited movement during dialogue are interesting, I try to avoid them unless the scene yields plot relevant information or tries to show something about a character through subtle actions and words. These kinds of scenes work a little better in a visual medium. The best example of a static scene with heavy dialogue that I've seen is the episode of Bojack Horseman called Free Churro. The episode starts with a flashback, but then it changes to a funeral parlor where Bojack spends the entire episode giving his late mother's eulogy, there are points where the lighting changes slightly and there are shadows of a figure dancing on the walls behind him showing how Bojack is reminiscing on his mother's elegant dancing. The punchline at the end of this episode is that after having spilled his heart out, he finds out he's at the wrong funeral parlor.
I think I used the wish fulfillment idea you talked about but in a negative way. My MC is an addict and suffers from depression. And I used my personal struggle with these things to structure many of his defects and his inner turmoil. And now I wonder if perhaps I'm torturing the reader with my own crap? My goal was to build my MC warts and all and share what goes on in the head of those suffering with said crap. You got me questioning.
Oh my gosh, yes. I am especially leery of author characters. I want to read about interesting and new occupations. But I have to abashedly confess to using Amnesia Made Him Forget Her and Everyone Died But It Was Just A Dream Omen. Both caused by faeries. Can I get away with that if it’s fantasy?
I have to say that Stranger than Fiction is a favorite film of mine. A really inventive twist on the whole thing, and extra cool for me as I know a number of IRS agents, lol.
On the character arc/change, it either needs to happen or he needs to affect change in others. If you are doing a series, I think you can alternate between the two.
My book uses dreams heavily. This is the way one character informs another character who to kill, by showing (reminding) through dreams of past traumas and the people that did them to him, and these people become his victims. Should I revamp the premise then?
it’s not about originality anymore. But exploring well the given theme/ plot.
It never was. Really.
Fundamentally the point of storytelling has always been to explore a theme/plot, most stories that are consodered bad are bad because they fail at exploring the theme and plot
I am struggling with the flow of my sentences, could you make a video on how to edit all kinds of books.
There's the struggle in scale that often makes advice like this go unheard because people as individual writers have to make what they think best fits, while it's harder to notice many people are solving the problem in parallel ways. But I think the advice to read other writers works similarly, where people will begin to recognize patterns and might want to innovate from there, or at least take these well-worn concepts and give them more of a spin, or even reduce the emphasis.
Apparently unchanging action heroes can reveal something about them (over a lot of episodes) and that might subvert what the reader thinks about them, or might show more complexity under the surface than a genre used to such protagonists typically doesn't have time for. This risks alienating the audience, I guess some characters are overly reliable because they allow a lot of different people to project themselves into the story. Something I see in some hard SF winds up falling into a related trap, where characters are just there to help sell the writer's ideas, but it depends on what the reader is there for
"It was all just a dream" is the legit excuse to for me to give the book a flaming review... on the barbecue.
There are some total shits out there. I'm a huge wannabe novelist and I totally agree with everything you just said.
These videos are really cool and interesting.
I'm fairly new to reading Steven King. I'm on my (maybe?) 6th book. It's his newest short stories, You Like it Darker, novel that just came out. The first story is about an elderly man who became a bestselling author and his best friend who became a well known artist when they were in their late 40s-early 50s after an encounter in the woods. The reader doesn't know until later what it was they encountered, only that it changed their lives and their fortunes. We find out after the older man dies what it was. I found that first story fascinating. Only, there wasn't a lesson for the man's son to change his life when he discovered it was all true. The second story left me fearing a stranger joining me while I'm sitting alone on a park bench.
On the discussion point of your video, you gave me food for thought. I'm not one to use my characters sitting in a bar, because I tend to write about teen-agers. Though, I have put them in school lunchrooms, or classrooms. Something usually happens in those places. A bully comes up or the lead character falls into a daydream instead of listening to the teacher and the teacher startles him in front of the class. Or the villain enters. Anything is possible in fantasy, as long as it is set up correctly.
yes, it all was just a dream. and the dream is where the whole story comes. allmost all interactions are in the ddreams. and it allows me to do whatever i wanna with everything.
Bars, supermarkets, diners, laundromat, dinner table, breakfast. But moving and doing things good advice. Let me take a sip of my coffee. Dream and single location. All this was projected from an institution, crazy. Character development, change , and lessons learned on my check list. Thank You. Me in the story? There's an old saying. Talk about yourself and you're the most boring person. Talk about others? And, you're the most fascinating person. Besides. I base my writing on good actors. What would Rodger Moore or Sean Connery do? or One of my friends or the person I just met, imagine their reaction or response. ME? The third person's observing "you". Main character Author? Never thought about it. Nah, I enjoy the laid back observing third person to much. Amnesia? Question? Do you remember the old world? Video games, shopping malls, supermarkets? No? No I don't. Sorry he has the sickness. All they know now is Dungeons and Dragons. Sorry a little head hopping but for our purposes, you get the idea. Thank You for the education!
I actually start the second episode of one of my story outlines with a dream instead of right at the beginning of the story. It was originally going to be in the first, but I think it works better this way.
Damn. The novel I'm working on right now is about five men (who are actually grey hounds) stuck in a bar the entire story with amnesia, and they're actually all authors who are super successful, rich and handsome. At the end of the novel, there's a plot twist where it's all a dream. Maybe I have to do some revising.
I'm doing an "amnesia story" but the character is in someone else's body pretending to be whoever they are, and everyone thinks he just has amnesia. Ik other books have done it but I love the idea
Regarding point 2, I am writing a short story about unrequited love, since that can happen in any setting, I don't feel the need to make the characters interact with the enviroment that much, so I'm afraid the readers will feel the story happens in a void. Any advice? Thank you!
Regarding structure one: If we show that the character is actually sleeping, and then go on to show what the character is dreaming about... is that ok?
It is if there's a good reason for it. At least that avoids the "It was all a dream!" cliche. Whether it's a good idea is something you'll have to decide. Does it contribute something to the story, that can't be better done a different way? Personally, I don't much like dreams in fiction because my own dreams never have any significance or relevance to my waking life, so using a character's dream to show us, or them, something important feels like an unrealistic gimmick. But that's just me.
If the reader can skip it and lose nothing of the plot, then axe it out of your story. I'd much rather have an awake character trying to think through something they're struggling with, talk to other people about it, than have them unconscious and processing it automatically. I'd ask myself not if I can make the dreaming more interesting to read, but if dreaming itself is the most interesting way to handle this piece of the story.
I can safely say I haven't done any of these yet. Here's hoping I don't start now.😂
Is the original video on yt as I couldn't see it on your channel? If not, you should put it here so we can see it! Maybe do a bit at the beginning explaining it was posted elsewhere (on the dark side!) first.
I witnessed a friend suffer amnesia and it was nothing like portrayed in fiction.
Wrote a story about blueberries in a bakery having to choose which one of them will be the next ingredient but the baker just randomly picks them
I have an unfinished story with a mercenary character(who has amnesia for a short amount of time)and she starts out in a normal life and then it goes into flashbacks I think it personally progress' pretty good.
Now you have me curious. In my story, there’s a chapter where the main character has a meeting with his conscience, in which we establish the main character’s inner struggle. The whole interaction seems very odd and goes against the pre-established lore in the book. At the end of the chapter, the main character wakes up and realizes it was all a dream. Is this scene a problem?
Ask yourself if there's a more interesting way to show him wrestling with his morality. Talking to people, thinking back on previous actions, remembering other people's perspectives from earlier in the story, or trying to do something to make things better. If he hurt someone, maybe he should go talk to a family member of theirs, and then we can see their reaction while he's trying to explain his intentions. That adds conflict, and helps flesh out the consequences of a choice... whereas a dream is just a dude laying there unmoving for hours while nothing in the world changes.
as much as i hate to admit it, there is a touch of the soap opera in my stuff, vicariously rich people, and soap af, glass liquor carts with crystal decanters. yeah, boi! oh, yeah, and like garth marange i have the defacto police operating out the hospital, but there was a conflict in which the cop shop and city hall were blown up. the resistance runs the hospital
I've broken a couple of these rules 😅 but haven't written about an author yet. It's on my to do list... someday 😂
I think in some cases the MC being an author can be fun/great, like in The Plot where the MC is a writer but it's the main thing of the plot and is used to pose a moral question that I'm pretty sure has been a thought in every writers mind, and if not is an actual question "would you ever be desperate enough to do this?"
And the book is littered with satire poking fun at writers and authors in a way that you can't even be mad at because it's like "well 😅 yeah..."
I hugely enjoy stuff like that....BUT there's too few books with author MCs who are like this. Like a majority of them the MC being an author is either just an easy occupation and just explains why the character knows random stuff and has money or time for the plot (which itself is funny) and it doesn't go past that.
Like seriously sometimes they main character is an author and spends the book with writers block as an excuse to not write and attend to the plot and after a while I'll go "aren't you on a deadline????"
It was all a dream for these people talking in a bar, but they're all sitting in bathtubs (because it is a dream) but surprise! All of them are dogs, not actually people.
Really successful dogs with dog-wives and puppies back home at their million-dollar mansions. This main dog is an author of a blog, like that one TV show, but before he can blog about anything he wakes up and remembers he has amnesia. He looks in the mirror to see... he's actually a cat!
Bathtubs are useful. If you're Stanislaw Lem, you can find memoirs in them!
in my sequel a love interest of my protagonist was planning on writing a biography about him,but before he started they met unexpectedly. he'd already taken the advance and the publishing company keeps pressuring him, which is how my main character finds out
also, that bloody mary kid is from his backstory, kris' not arthur's
Tge story that i work on break some of these rhles in a sense, for example, the supposed bar scene or bar dialogue, whichever one that works, my MC, Mari, would sit in the bar trying to lay low while having a meal when someone she knows notices her and he comes up to her to talk, she doesn't stay long after she is basically found out and the conversation becomes strained and complicated as she tries to leave and stuff, spoiler alert, she doesn't actually shake tge guy off of her back even after getting chased, the dream part is part of a different story i wrote a a few years back as a teen but never published the main character woke up from a coma in a very much real world, and he finds out that people he considered enemies or have died in his "life" aka, his dream, were actually very much alive and some were even his family, siblings and best friends and cousins, but through out the story he finds out that his "dream" wasn't actually a dream, but his memories from several thousands of years ago in his old past life, with very few this remaining from that time, a few scrolls and writings the only things remaining and such, so yeah, i have broke these rules more often than not and i actually made them somehow work, all good practice i say
I wrote a short story where the only two characters are an author and ai. The author is trying to experiment with a meta-story using Roko's Basilisk as a plot device and he accidentally ends up creating it for realzies. The narrator is also the AI so I guess that story has a cheap trick in it as well..
Also add "the misunderstanding". _Heavily_ overused, often shows a lack of (smart) ideas, rarely a good plot twist.
The thinly disguised wish fulfilments are _way_ overused and publishers should just stop picking those over better scripts! I gave up reading books in "my" genres from publishers because I felt they made it their sole mission to get into BookTok.
Sometimes, in bad books, there's also that specific other character that reads like a total externalisation of the MC and it always makes me groan. It's not even a real character and incredibly cheap. Not a good sign for the author's mental health.
To the person who had mentioned Solo Leveling: Look at most any isekai series. That's balatant trash wish fulfillment. Heck, it's all they're known for! (Most of the time.) Talk about formulaic. But not intricate or solid formula, no. I regret my word choice because formulaic can still be well-written. Here's a lot of isekai "plots":
Plain everyman main character who is generally a shut-in nerd with no real social or academic or physical skills gets somehow sent to some sort of fantasy world he can't escape. Does that last bit matter? Not at all, because the MC generally prefers it over real life. No conflict there. He for some reason is completely overpowered or has some unique skill that only he can use to utmost efficiency, making him the hero of this fantasy world pretty much instantly. And with this power and status, at some point, he also gets all these super cute fantasy girls hyper obsessed with him for no ither reason than he's the main character and, by grace of the author, is capable of beating anyone into the ground like smashing a bug. All the characters are generally bland and unlikeable, one-note tropes if they even get that much personality, and the conflicts are never threatening because the main character is oh-so-competent.
Now, you should know that this is coming from isekai trash. I love these same-y wish fulfillment fantasies. But the whole point is that they are so overused and worn out that for 1 good isekai/wish fulfillment story, there's least 10 (if not 15 or 20) that are complete trash.
As mentioned, there are good ones and/or there are ones that do something a bit different. (I talk about isekai, but I also lump into this stories that aren't actually isekai, just the same sort of wish fulfillment.)
Tensura is, on the surface, a generic isekai wish fulfillment. Its real draw are the likeable characters. I will say that the story has really fallen off after one certain major conflict event, but it's incredibly popular at least up to this point.
Solo Leveling, as mentioned, starts out with an average guy, but he quickly grows stronger and stronger until no one can touch him and while the characters aren't overly compelling, they're generally likeable enough, certain scenes are kinda funny, but most importantly: it's fucking gorgeous to look at.
Rising of the Shield Hero: So. This one also falls off and was never particularly good to start with, but it is certainly entertaining and readable for awhile because there's the shock factor that the main character isn't instantly beloved. In fact, he's framed for a heinous crime at the beginning and widely hated by the citizens of this kingdom. He does gain quite a few personal allies really quickly, but it does heavily impact his character to have this betrayal. As such, there's a plot-given reason as to why (despite being surrounded by cute girls that adore him) that he has no interest in romance. As far as I remember, this lasts up to and maybe through the end of the series. Which I actually really like. If this changes, I wouldn't actually be too mad about that either probably. But I don't remember if I've actually reached the end before or not. It's been a while since I read it, the web novel version. And if I did finish, I probably never will again because it just gets so boring after a while. The other characters who don't align themselves with the main character are straight up unlikeable and unbearably stupid. Talk about a strawman.
People have claimed Inuyasha is an isekai, but I reject this on principle. A lot of older isekai stories don't look like the modern genre because the modern genre was pretty much defined by SAO. But there were some before Sword Art Online. I haven't really seen any of these though. Except possibly Inuyasha, but I will forever stand on my opinion that it's a time travel series. She might bounce between past and present which may as well be different worlds, but the past does also sometimes impact the present. At least in one notable scenario. So I say it's time travel and I will not hear otherwise.
Oh, one modern isekai that does actually involve bouncing back and forth between our world and a fantasy world is I'm Standing on a Million Lives. (This is back on wish fulfillment.) The characters are students that get pulled into this fantasy world to prepare from some coming disaster that will eventually affect their world (presumably; I haven't read the whole thing). I find the concept very interesting. But as is common with these isekai wish fulfillments, the characters are very uninteresting and the girls are largely useless a lot of the time with the MC being the leader of the group because even though he keeps getting "crummy" jobs, he figures out how to use them to absurd effectiveness. The problem is that I felt a bit cheated by this series. I had an idea of what the main character was going to be like from the synopsis: a conniving and cold person. But he's not. He's extraordinarily normal for the most part in that regard. Even when he chooses to not focus on his teammates to try and finish a quest objective, it's treated as a bad thing but it doesn't actually feel earned really? It's odd to say that, because that feels pretty normal to say. But to me, the main character never feels particularly uncaring. They try to make it come across that way, but the way he acts outside of certain scenarios just contradicts this so hard that I can't see him as cold in those moments. And especially because he's often right. I don't know. When I try to explain why it doesn't work, I can't point to where exactly it goes entirely wrong, but I think the tension about him being cold and pragmatic are just contrived.
Edit: There's also obviously Re:Zero, which is a deconstruction of isekai wish fulfillment. The protagonist doesn't get his wish fulfilled. It's exactly the opposite in pretty much every way. But that's not entirely relevant to the discussion of the use of wish fulfillment specifically.
Bond changes in the books, too. Bond having to contend with losing his skill happens in Man with the Golden Gun.
My current story starts in a bar. 😂
I'm sticking with it since it culminates into a fight due to the protagonist flirting with someone whose fiance looks almost exactly like the protagonist.
And a bar is a good place to set the scene. Can the bar add to the theme or plot? In my last project, the bar was specifically Greek because I wanted to hint at the conflicts that come with immigration, the contrast of old world immigrants and their children adopting American culture and how "greek" an individual might be. The characters are two supernatural beings masquerading as humans so being "human" is as complex as being "greek".
Is there no other location on the planet that a dude can flirt with a woman? Why does it have to be a bar? Why can't it be like while touring a motorcycle factory, or in an Asian market where he can't read a single label on all these weird foods, or at a Christmas tree farm where he's rushing to get one of the last trees available before anyone else, or at a Mr. Rogers lookalike competition? Is a bar really the most interesting location you can think of?
@richardn3387 Sorry for the late reply! 😅
I reveal later on that the protagonist was anonymously paid to deliberately get in bed with the man. She didn't know he had a fiance, nor did he realize she wasn't his fiance until it was too late. The bar was used because it's where the couple frequent for drinking. I'm building a theme revolving around the desperation for money/affluence, but I'm still working at it.
@AutarchKade I decided to begin at a bar because that's where the protagonist's target frequents.
@@stirredwhiskey I mean that's kinda circular, it's set in a bar because it's set in a bar! You could have the target frequent a farmer's market, a knitting supply store, or a manicure salon. It'd be much more interesting to read about a protagonist who is in such pursuit of a woman that he'll awkwardly go get his first manicure, right? Then the fight can happen and afterward the main character can look at his hands, see that one side has neat nails and the other hand has scraggly, bitten nails as a visual reminder of that time. But as long as you can say with confidence that a bar is one of the most interesting locations you can possibly think of, that readers will enjoy over almost anything else, go for it.
i dont think you cant explain that a book is a dream in the beginning of it. i think, actually, that a flash-forward prologue might be one of the very few ways that more people could stomach dream plot reveals. any amount of time spent reading something without knowing how invested you truly should be will be met with frustration from a reader lol
7:44 are you thinking of Yellowface (RF Kuang)? There's the theft of IP, but it also delves into racism.
Yep, that was one of the books I was thinking of.
I like Stephen King, but I have always been annoyed how often his main character is an author. Sometimes it’s better though if they dream of being an author, but aren’t successful
I appreciate the inclusion of "wish fulfillment" on this list. During a writing workshop the person whose work I swapped with for review did exactly this and it was *extremely* uncomfortable. It can feel like a bit of a violation of the reader who didn't ask to be a part of your (in my case) deranged self-insert fantasy. I've never had such a negative visceral reaction to something I've read before 😬😬😬 I'm still scarred nearly a year later lol
I have a qustion with the 'dont start with a dream sequence as its trickery' what if i started with a dream sequence BUT the dream is something that happened in real life but twisted to that persons pov
I was thinking about this game that did the, "it was all a dream," absolutely brilliantly, but then I realized they were actually doing the inverse: the "this is STILL a dream."
But yeah, whatever they were doing they're definitely an exception😂
I skipped chapters in a john Irving book because his MC was and author and the chapters were chapters the MC was writing in their book. Passages here and there are okay