GRUNT - Revision history

DavidWhitten: /* ‘’’Cephalization’’’ */

2021-05-20T17:08:56Z

‎‘’’Cephalization’’’

DavidWhitten at 17:08, 20 May 2021

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DavidWhitten at 15:19, 20 May 2021

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DavidWhitten at 18:53, 31 January 2021

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DavidWhitten at 18:14, 31 January 2021

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DavidWhitten at 17:23, 31 January 2021

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DavidWhitten at 17:23, 31 January 2021

2021-01-31T17:23:19Z

DavidWhitten at 17:17, 31 January 2021

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 What follows is an attempt at a universal anatomy of fiction - organs composed of "ETP" that all fictional life require to function. It's possible to depart from this anatomy, but I would predict major problems as a result. If a story isn’t working, the existence, strength, and pacing of the following narrative elements is where I’d start my diagnosis.
-=== ‘’’Cephalization’’’ ===
+=== '’’Cephalization’’’ ===
 The longer the fiction, the stronger the narrative pressure for it to have at least one ‘’’protagonist’’’, i.e. ‘’’a character who the audience enjoys reading about’’’. They can be objectively good or evil, strong or weak, smart or stupid, and you can use all kinds of different perspectives to connect the reader to them (first person, third person distant, etc.), but the first principle is that the longer the story, the harder it is to convince readers to care about mere descriptions of things or sequences of events: the necessity of a focus on people, and on their actions and struggles becomes ever-greater. Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino is the only work I can recall that comes close to escaping from this principle, and even it is (i) framed by a conversation between a protagonist, Marco Polo, and Kublai Khan, and (ii) only about 25,000 words.
@@ Line 84: / Line 84: @@
 (Note that I often use the word "hero" instead of protagonist because it's easier to type and less of a mouthful to read, even though it's technically not accurate. Mea culpa.)
-The elements of a compelling protagonist are not the focus of this essay ([[GRUNT/Elements of a Compelling Character]]), but suffice it to say for now that the best protagonists lend themselves to the introduction of exposition and the maintenance of tension: they assist the exposition by being intriguing, empathetic, and enjoyable to read about, and they have character traits that make them good material on which to load tension, e.g. by having a tendency to take action, however foolhardy, instead of merely moaning about their troubles. Sometimes the "point of view" character is not actually the protagonist, but merely a sort of living camera trained on the protagonist, although this is difficult to do well.
+The elements of a compelling {{g|protagonist}} are not the focus of this essay ([[GRUNT/Elements of a Compelling Character]]), but suffice it to say for now that the best protagonists lend themselves to the introduction of exposition and the maintenance of tension: they assist the exposition by being intriguing, empathetic, and enjoyable to read about, and they have character traits that make them good material on which to load tension, e.g. by having a tendency to take action, however foolhardy, instead of merely moaning about their troubles. Sometimes the "point of view" character is not actually the protagonist, but merely a sort of living camera trained on the protagonist, although this is difficult to do well.
 In keeping with the concept of fractal growth, the story of each protagonist will likely contain both major and minor moments of exposition, tension, and pay-off, and you can stack protagonists, each with their own exposition, tension, and pay-off, into an even larger version of the same, as GRRM is doing with the intertwining stories of a dozen-odd protagonists in ASOIAF.

← Older revision		Revision as of 15:19, 20 May 2021
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−	From http://www.Reddit.com/r/fantasy_workshop by http://www.Reddit.com/u/grizwald87	+	== From http://www.Reddit.com/r/fantasy_workshop by http://www.Reddit.com/u/grizwald87 ==

	''''Grizwald's Universal Narrative Theory (G.R.U.N.T.)''''		''''Grizwald's Universal Narrative Theory (G.R.U.N.T.)''''

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
 From http://www.Reddit.com/r/fantasy_workshop by http://www.Reddit.com/u/grizwald87
-''''Grizwald's Universal Narrative Theory (G.R.U.N.T.)’’’’
+''''Grizwald's Universal Narrative Theory (G.R.U.N.T.)''''
 [Warning: spoilers within for Appaloosa, A Song of Ice and Fire, The Bourne Identity, Breaking Bad, Braveheart, The Dark Tower, Edge of Tomorrow, The Fellowship of the Ring, Harrison Bergeron, The Last Kingdom, The Last Samurai, The Last of Us, Slumdog Millionaire, Taken, and The Wire.]

← Older revision		Revision as of 18:53, 31 January 2021
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	What GRUNT suggests is that whether you're constructing an emergency lean-to or a skyscraper, the same principles apply, and awareness of them will allow you to figure out why your structure is working or not, and how to improve it. GRUNT doesn't suggest, though, that you must do things a certain way in order to achieve a positive result. It's partially diagnostic (this is why your building fell down) and partially suggestive (here are some rules of thumb that will, if followed, make it less likely that your building will fall down). Like, I suppose it's possible to build a structure without load-bearing walls, but in all probability you're going to have some, and you should know which ones they are.		What GRUNT suggests is that whether you're constructing an emergency lean-to or a skyscraper, the same principles apply, and awareness of them will allow you to figure out why your structure is working or not, and how to improve it. GRUNT doesn't suggest, though, that you must do things a certain way in order to achieve a positive result. It's partially diagnostic (this is why your building fell down) and partially suggestive (here are some rules of thumb that will, if followed, make it less likely that your building will fall down). Like, I suppose it's possible to build a structure without load-bearing walls, but in all probability you're going to have some, and you should know which ones they are.
		+	== tartifloutte ==
		+	This is some great insights Grizwald, and definitely nice to see the effort that went into this post!
		+	== grizwald ==
		+	If anyone thinks they've spotted a hole in this, I'd love to hear it. Likewise (maybe more so), if you can think of a piece of fiction that successfully flies in the face of this, let me know about it!
		+
		+	== Wes-F-89 ==
		+	I'll post something my instructor taught me in my Advanced Fiction course that may also help people.
		+
		+	To break it down to it's simplest model: Every novel should be made up of dozens, if not hundreds, of "scenes and sequels." Which is a balance between plot and story, action and reaction
		+	.
		+	Scene is where stuff happens
		+
		+	Sequel is the reaction.
		+
		+	Scene is where the tension is built up
		+
		+	Sequel is the release of tension.
		+
		+	This doesn't have to be tension of life or death. It's not like your protagonist should run into a life or death situation in every chapter. That would be redundant. But the tension can be small and simple. Such as showing up late somewhere; or missing an important phone call. It is these short scene and sequels which help build tension and conflict throughout the novel
		+
		+	Then the author should focus on keeping reader's interest. This is done through escalation. A murder threat on page 10 turns into an actual murder on page 40.
		+
		+	Then there's narrative pacing. This is controlling time in your novel by using proper transitions. If you have a scene full of suspense and conflict resulting in rising tension, don't dive deep into a character's thoughts about when he/she was a child, etc etc.
		+
		+	Use foreshadowing and Chekhov's gun. Reader's like to think they may have guessed a future plot point early in the book. They noticed something on page 5 that sticks in their heads, so when page 70 comes around and they learn they were right about the foreshadowing, they become that much more involved in the story, as if they were a part of the story.
		+
		+	== Snappy_Dave ==
		+	<blockquote >
		+	The Iliad and Water Margin I have an awkward question about: are they great because they're timelessly good? Or are they great the way Battleship Potemkin or a football player from the leatherhead era is great: as a shining example of the the best of its era, but that perhaps doesn't hold up to modern scrutiny? I haven't read Water Margin, but I have read The Iliad, and I was hyper aware as I was reading that every frustration it caused me came with a big fat asterisk, which is that this is one of the oldest stories ever told, and experiencing it is therefore more like handling a piece of living antiquity than, say, enjoying a story for the sake of the story. Let's be honest, if someone handed you The Iliad as a modern work for critique and you didn't know its provenance, you would tear it to shreds.
		+	</blockquote >
		+
		+	This conversation got so long I couldn't figure out where to properly reply so I'm sticking this at the bottom.
		+
		+	First of all, I have no problem with G.R.U.N.T. I think it does it's stated purpose well enough. This is more just my response to the increasingly derailed conversation.
		+
		+	I think you're implying that there's a progression to story-telling. That people in the Classical area weren't as good of story tellers. I'm concluding this from your comparison using leatherhead footballs players and the "modern scrutiny" statement.
		+
		+	I believe there's some argument to be made for progression in a narrow sense. For example, I think the Sword of Shanaara, while entertaining, is mediocre at best; it just happened to be the right thing at the right time to prove that adult epic fantasy was a profitable market.
		+
		+	But I'm not a fan of applying "universal" across all cultures and times. We, as English-speaking Westerners in 2020, have been conditioned by a massive intake of media into liking certain things. We can't say for certain what people in Classical Greece liked, but apparently the Iliad resonated with them.
		+
		+	Other examples of works that may be considered very atypical that are well-acclaimed:
		+
		+	1. War and Peace
		+
		+	2. American Psycho
		+
		+	3. Dante's Inferno
		+
		+	4. Possibly the Mahabarata (I haven't read it though so maybe I'm wrong)
		+
		+	Indeed, in a lot of medieval and ancient literature, this seems to apply:
		+
		+	<blockquote >
		+	I think we can only conclude that they weren't looking for the same things as us in the story. It wasn't about suspense, resolution or character growth, but rather about the depth of emotion conveyed, the epic tone of the heroic battles, the cleverness of the poetic metaphors, the foreshadowing of Achilles' death and Troy's fall. These, after all, are the areas where it may surpass the Odyssey, whereas in narrative completeness, character development and suspense/revelation it does not.
		+	</blockquote >
		+
		+	I don't see story-telling as a progression from primitive to more advanced. Rather, it's a reflection of what a society values, of the technology available, and of many other factors I don't feel like getting into.
		+
		+	Also, I admit my understanding of non-Western literature is next to none, so I can't go into any depth, but I wouldn't be surprised if many Chinese, Indian, and Japanese stories would seem really off to Westerners.

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	Remember that growth is only one aspect of metamorphosis: the other aspect is revelation, and I came to that recognition particularly on consideration of myth, in which the hero is generally revealed to be of worthy character by the trials placed before him. As for the endings, I think many myths (Biblical, Greek, etc.) are primordial horror stories at heart. Leaving the reader with ghoulish thrills and chills is absolutely emotionally satisfying, which is the criteria for a good prestige, not necessarily "happy". Lot's wife turning into a pillar of salt / Orpheus looking over his shoulder at the last minute is epic campfire material, even today.		Remember that growth is only one aspect of metamorphosis: the other aspect is revelation, and I came to that recognition particularly on consideration of myth, in which the hero is generally revealed to be of worthy character by the trials placed before him. As for the endings, I think many myths (Biblical, Greek, etc.) are primordial horror stories at heart. Leaving the reader with ghoulish thrills and chills is absolutely emotionally satisfying, which is the criteria for a good prestige, not necessarily "happy". Lot's wife turning into a pillar of salt / Orpheus looking over his shoulder at the last minute is epic campfire material, even today.
		+	<blockquote >
		+	Foucault’s Pendulum (Umberto Eco) - One of my all-time favourite books, I would particularly highlight this as a postmodern novel that mocks conventional modern narrative's attempts to provide clarity and finality. The plot revolves around characters' uncertain search for meaning, in deeper and deeper literary readings, until
		+
		+	finally it all unravels and the characters are killed in a conspiracy that they know to be predicated on meaningless nonsense. It ends with the POV character, running for his life from mad cultists, discovering that his friend may have even fabricated the entire project they worked on in an attempt to recover the sense of meaning he briefly had as a child, and leaves the reader uncertain whether the POV character escapes his would-be assassins or even whether they are actually chasing him.
		+	</blockquote >
		+
		+	Full disclosure, I haven't read it, but let's apply GRUNT, which I will never get tired of saying, to Foucault's Pendulum and see how it performs.
		+
		+	<blockquote >
		+	The book opens with narrator Casaubon hiding in the Parisian technical museum Musée des Arts et Métiers after closing time. He believes that members of a secret society have kidnapped his friend Jacopo Belbo and are now after him. Most of the novel is then told in flashback as Casaubon waits in the museum.
		+	</blockquote >
		+
		+	Okay, pretty standard "prologue": we are given a taste of tension in order to hold us over during the more expository phase of the work.
		+
		+	<blockquote >
		+	In 1970s Milan, Casaubon is studying the history of the Knights Templar
		+	</blockquote >
		+
		+	Equilibrium.
		+
		+	<blockquote >
		+	Belbo, Diotallevi and Casaubon become submerged in occult manuscripts that draw flimsy connections between historical events
		+	</blockquote >
		+
		+	Inciting incident.
		+
		+	<blockquote >
		+	and have the idea to develop their own as a game.
		+	</blockquote >
		+
		+	Commitment.
		+	<blockquote >
		+	The three increasingly become involved in The Plan and begin to wonder if it could be true.
		+	</blockquote >
		+
		+	'''Metamorphosis'''
		+
		+	Metamorphosis. This is an interesting point and I'm going to revise OP to make it, but in a tragedy (a type of fiction which I think includes most of the horror genre) the metamorphosis is often reversed: it still occurs, but instead of the character growing, they may be systematically destroyed by events, and instead of revelation of virtue, their character is revealed to be corrupt. A Lovecraftian story about a protagonist driven insane during his search is a good example of the former; Moby Dick is an excellent example of the latter: Ahab, who is introduced as a man who used to be deeply concerned for the lives of his men, is slowly revealed to be maniacally obsessed with the white whale, to the exclusion of his responsibilities to his crew, which sets up the tragic climax of the destruction of the ship.
		+	<blockquote>
		+	Although the main plot does detail a conspiratorial "Plan", the book focuses on the development of the characters, and their slow transition from skeptical editors, mocking the Manutius manuscripts to credulous Diabolicals themselves
		+	</blockquote >
		+
		+	In Foucault's Pendulum, Belbo, Diotallevi and Casaubon are experiencing a metamorphosis, it's just a negative one: a descent into paranoia and delusion.
		+	<blockquote >
		+	In 'the present as Casaubon hides in the museum, a group of people gather around the pendulum for an arcane ritual. Belbo is questioned but he refuses to reveal what he knows, inciting a riot...
		+	</blockquote >
		+
		+	'''Crisis'''
		+	<blockquote >
		+	Casaubon escapes the museum through the Paris sewers, eventually fleeing to the countryside villa where Belbo had grown up.
		+
		+	While waiting in the villa, Casaubon finds an old manuscript by Belbo that relates a mystical experience he had when he was twelve, in which he perceived ultimate meaning beyond signs and semiotics. He realizes that much of Belbo's behavior and possibly his creation of the Plan and even his death was inspired by Belbo's desire to recapture that lost meaning.
		+	</blockquote >
		+
		+	Climax.
		+
		+	Have I misunderstood anything about the structure of the book? I get that it has lots of profound things to say, but as a piece of fiction, it seems pretty straightforward: the protagonist is a scholar who creates an occult conspiracy for fun, only to be caught up in his own hoax and nearly destroyed by it. That's a great plot!
		+
		+	<blockquote >
		+	leaves the reader uncertain whether the POV character escapes his would-be assassins or even whether they are actually chasing him.
		+	</blockquote >
		+
		+
		+	This isn't a problem: as I explained in OP, the question is whether the climax of the story is emotionally satisfying, not whether it ties off every factual question the reader has. Joe Abercrombie ends The Last Argument of Kings with his protagonist jumping out a high window to escape an attempt to murder him, and we have no idea if he even survives impact. Didn't matter, because the factual question of whether he survived wasn't what was relevant to a successful climax, it was the emotional question "what becomes of Logen Ninefingers?", and the emotional answer is both tragic and slightly comedic: he ends as he began the story, friendless and on the run due to his character flaws. And that was satisfying.

← Older revision		Revision as of 17:23, 31 January 2021
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	</blockquote >		</blockquote >

−	Remember that growth is only one aspect of metamorphosis: the other aspect is revelation, and I came to that recognition particularly on consideration of myth, in which the hero is generally revealed to be of worthy character by the trials placed before him. As for the endings, I think many myths (Biblical, Greek, etc.) are primordial horror stories at heart. Leaving the reader with ghoulish thrills and chills is absolutely emotionally satisfying, which is the criteria for a good prestige, not necessarily "happy". Lot's wife turning into a pillar of salt/Orpheus looking over his shoulder at the last minute is epic campfire material, even today.	+	Remember that growth is only one aspect of metamorphosis: the other aspect is revelation, and I came to that recognition particularly on consideration of myth, in which the hero is generally revealed to be of worthy character by the trials placed before him. As for the endings, I think many myths (Biblical, Greek, etc.) are primordial horror stories at heart. Leaving the reader with ghoulish thrills and chills is absolutely emotionally satisfying, which is the criteria for a good prestige, not necessarily "happy". Lot's wife turning into a pillar of salt / Orpheus looking over his shoulder at the last minute is epic campfire material, even today.

← Older revision		Revision as of 17:23, 31 January 2021
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	Also going to add that I think The Dark Tower has the worst ending of any book/series I’ve ever read - the quality of the books declined hugely and it seemed to me that King was out of his depth with the epic narrative, resorting to lame gimmicks like SPOILER in order to keep raising the stakes.		Also going to add that I think The Dark Tower has the worst ending of any book/series I’ve ever read - the quality of the books declined hugely and it seemed to me that King was out of his depth with the epic narrative, resorting to lame gimmicks like SPOILER in order to keep raising the stakes.
		+
		+	== reply by Grizwald87 ==
		+
		+	Amazing reply. I have to respond in pieces because I can't process it all at once.
		+	<blockquote>
		+	The Dark Tower has the worst ending of any book/series I’ve ever read - the quality of the books declined hugely
		+	</blockquote>
		+	Oh, they're totally unreadable by the last few novels, but the ending itself? The Sisyphean moment of cosmic horror? Delightful.
		+	<blockquote>
		+
		+	The Wake
		+
		+	As we think we are progressing with the plot, we are consistently undermined by the POV character's descent into madness, until finally the ending reveals that he was in fact always mad, and we cannot be certain that anything really took place as reported.
		+	</blockquote >
		+
		+	Unreliable narrators are fantastic, but I shit on the head of any story that ends with anything even remotely along the lines of "it was all a dream" or in this case, "it was all a madman's hallucination". It's the biggest middle finger a writer could possibly raise to a reader, because it thoroughly undermines the emotional stakes previously established. It declares the reader a fool for caring, which is the most profound insult a writer can deliver. To be clear, unreliable narrators are great (Barney's Version by Mordecai Richler being an all-timer), and an unreliable narrator who's a madman can also be top shelf, see Shutter Island by Dennis Lehane, but "it was all a dream" can die in a fire.
		+
		+	I am going to have more to say about this later responding with respect to the Hesse and Eco suggestions.
		+
		+	The Iliad and Water Margin I have an awkward question about: are they great because they're timelessly good? Or are they great the way Battleship Potemkin or a football player from the leatherhead era is great: as a shining example of the the best of its era, but that perhaps doesn't hold up to modern scrutiny? I haven't read Water Margin, but I have read The Iliad, and I was hyper aware as I was reading that every frustration it caused me came with a big fat asterisk, which is that this is one of the oldest stories ever told, and experiencing it is therefore more like handling a piece of living antiquity than, say, enjoying a story for the sake of the story. Let's be honest, if someone handed you The Iliad as a modern work for critique and you didn't know its provenance, you would tear it to shreds.
		+	<blockquote >
		+	Greek tragedy as a genre - the overall tension/resolution cycle is there, but the protagonist doesn't grow and the ending normally works in a way that I can't describe as satisyfing to a modern reader/watcher (is Oedipus blinding himself with his mother's hairpins satisfying?).
		+	</blockquote >
		+
		+	Remember that growth is only one aspect of metamorphosis: the other aspect is revelation, and I came to that recognition particularly on consideration of myth, in which the hero is generally revealed to be of worthy character by the trials placed before him. As for the endings, I think many myths (Biblical, Greek, etc.) are primordial horror stories at heart. Leaving the reader with ghoulish thrills and chills is absolutely emotionally satisfying, which is the criteria for a good prestige, not necessarily "happy". Lot's wife turning into a pillar of salt/Orpheus looking over his shoulder at the last minute is epic campfire material, even today.

← Older revision		Revision as of 17:17, 31 January 2021
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	This reminds me of Karl Popper's critique of Marx and Freud. In both cases, the thinker identified a fundamental framework that they claimed could explain all human experience (class struggle and subconscious neurosis respectively). The problem with that, Popper argued, is that such analysis can explain anything and everything with yet more layers of class struggle (most famously when Lenin explained the continued stable growth of capitalism by identifying the meta-class struggle stage of imperialism) or subconscious neurosis (most famously when Freud / undergrad philosophy students accused detractors of reacting badly to his theories due to their own subconscious neuroses).		This reminds me of Karl Popper's critique of Marx and Freud. In both cases, the thinker identified a fundamental framework that they claimed could explain all human experience (class struggle and subconscious neurosis respectively). The problem with that, Popper argued, is that such analysis can explain anything and everything with yet more layers of class struggle (most famously when Lenin explained the continued stable growth of capitalism by identifying the meta-class struggle stage of imperialism) or subconscious neurosis (most famously when Freud / undergrad philosophy students accused detractors of reacting badly to his theories due to their own subconscious neuroses).

−	If something works in a way that doesn't seem like PTP, you can just read yet more PTP into it until it fits, so I'm not sure how helpful it is to analyse complex fiction.	+	If something works in a way that doesn't seem like PTP, you can just read yet more PTP into it until it fits, so I'm not sure how helpful it is to analyse complex fiction
		+
		+	Examples that I don’t think have your overall structure: I'm going to caveat that as I said above, you can definitely read PTP cycles etc into a lot of these, but I don't think that they are what make the story good. Spoilers ahead but tagged.
		+
		+	Water Margin (Shi Nai'an) - One of the all time great Chinese "novels", the plot revolves around a huge number of sometimes-indistinguishable characters, who are caught up in fate and forced to become bandits. Many of these characters appear episodically but do not really come together for a long time, making the stakes unclear and not establishing the sort of emotional investment that a modern audience would expect.
		+
		+	The Handmaid’s Tale (Margaret Atwood) - The story is told as a series of diary entries, with an almost completely powerless protagonist who reflects on how she has come to be where she is and the society around her. SPOILER
		+
		+	The Man in the High Castle (Philip K Dick) - This book is an interweaving of different narrative strands SPOILER
		+
		+	The Remains of the Day (Kazuo Ishiguro) - talked about this before on a different TFW thread
		+	Foucault’s Pendulum (Umberto Eco) - One of my all-time favourite books, I would particularly highlight this as a postmodern novel that mocks conventional modern narrative's attempts to provide clarity and finality. The plot revolves around characters' uncertain search for meaning, in deeper and deeper literary readings, until SPOILER
		+
		+	The Iliad - Despite its huge and lasting influence on the Western canon, the Iliad differs from what one would expect in many ways. On first reading it, I was very surprised to discover how little is resolved during the poem. The war doesn't start or end, and Achilles doesn't even die. The poem feels like a fragment, an inconclusive episode of a wider narrative which is repeatedly punctured by the gods to the point where it feels like the mortal protagonists barely have any agency. Achilles is almost the opposite of what you'd expect from a good protagonist: he is almost completely invulnerable (and during the events of the poem he is invulnerable, only suffering even minor inconvenience when gods intervene directly against him), but he has no clear goals for most of the poem, choosing to sulk in his tent for something that the narrative presents as a pretty stupid reason.
		+
		+	Greek tragedy as a genre - the overall tension/resolution cycle is there, but the protagonist doesn't grow and the ending normally works in a way that I can't describe as satisyfing to a modern reader/watcher (is Oedipus blinding himself with his mother's hairpins satisfying?).
		+
		+	The Glass Bead Game (Hermann Hesse) - Like Foucault's Pendulum, I read the ending of this book to be almost provocatively unrewarding. The book is written as a fake biography, so we never really get a sense that we fully know what motivates the main character, and when the main crisis of the book arrives,SPOILER
		+
		+	The Great Gatsby (F Scott-Fitzgerald) - Most of the characters doesn't really have clear goals, and those that do don't get anywhere with them (SPOILER). The book feels set up to me to generate a feeling of meaninglessness, that what we are reaching for cannot be reached. I think it's a great book, but not because of having a clear narrative.
		+
		+	The Wake (Paul Kingsnorth) - Another postmodern book that I think revolts against any sense of narrative meaning. As we think we are progressing with the plot, we are consistently undermined by SPOILER (I don't think it's an amazing book, but my objections to it aren't really anything to do with the narrative, which I think is pretty cool.)
		+
		+	Also going to add that I think The Dark Tower has the worst ending of any book/series I’ve ever read - the quality of the books declined hugely and it seemed to me that King was out of his depth with the epic narrative, resorting to lame gimmicks like SPOILER in order to keep raising the stakes.