Tropes are storytelling devices. This series of articles on how to use or not use them in comics was first published in my Comics & Cartoons Weekly on deviantART.
Decompressed comics
This trend that began, in the West, in the late 90s/early 00s thanks to Warren Ellis's The Authority, is now so taken for granted that it feels necessary to point out to young authors that they don't actually have to follow it.
Decompression is a cinematic practice, introducing numerous silent shots to slow down the pace of a comic, build up tension or introduce a mood.
It is also used as a more creative way of establishing a shot, or transiting from one scene to the next, than the old text labels ("Next morning", "In the meanwhile, on the other side of town..."). Decompressed scenes very much give the feeling of real-time experience (as close as possible), such as when, in a movie, the camera travels into a scene, sometimes even from the character's own point of view.
Like every tool however, it can be used poorly. For one thing, just because it's available, doesn't mean it has to be used. It's not a mark of coolness to go cinematic where there's no reason to. For another, using decompression to pad out thin plots is just sad. Big publishers are sometimes guilty of that, but in their case, that implies forcing readers to buy 10 volumes for an amount of "story-meat" that would have filled no more than two – not very nice at all. Marvels' Secret Invasion was criticized for that, stretching out a few hours of comic-book time over a year. It made business-sense for them, of course, but when it comes to independent comics it's more likely to translate into boring and losing your readers. Just because your art can redeem your poorly done pace, doesn't mean you should be content with subpar writing.
So here's a quick, but not definitive, check list of when decompression works and when it doesn't.
Good decompression:
- Establishing a scene, as it pulls the reader into the place and the mood of it, gives them to "look around" and be where the characters are.
- Suspense, as there is no shortcut for buildups, they have to be... built up. It is well-worth, even indispensable to invest a whole page or two, or more, into a decompressed sequence when the suspense is a keypoint in your plot. Naturally, you can't have this more than once in a single story, at least not in a similar way.
- Transition as mentioned above. Obvious examples: Rather than stating "The next morning", a few panels showing the sun rise over the location; Rather than stating there's been a change of location, fade out of one and back into the other by drifting out away from the scene, or zooming out, or on the contrary zooming in very close and then out again to a different scene, etc... Movies are rife with such ideas. Text labels are not necessarily a disgrace, however. When a more clipped pace is required they fill their role beautifully with minor "customization" to fit the context.
- Some storylines are made to be entirely decompressed, and that's how this device came into existence in Manga in the first place. Stories that are not so much about action as they are about characters, introspection, or about places; stories that do not follow the problem-resolution-conclusion model but instead aim to pull the reader into an experience, have everything to gain from this format and would be poorly served by a more condensed treatment.
- Providing exposition instead of doing so through much text or talk. A story set in an unusual location, for instance, whether a little-known place or a fantasy setting, can tell us much about that place by making us wander through it a while before the plot steps in. People may react negatively to a wall of text, but will most probably be interested and stimulated by the visual discovery of something new.
- Slowing down the pace after a very intense scene. When making a comic we have to remember we are not perceiving it the way a reader will: their perception includes the speed of narrative, and one does get mentally out of breath if the pace is frantic without breaks. The reverse is also true. Contrast!
Bad decompression:
- Slowing down the pace where it should be quick, such as during action scenes.
- Making the story much longer than it needs to be in the hopes of making it look like a fully developed one.
- Abuse of splash pages and spreads. They really lose their impact very quickly when overused, or when used for moments that were not worth it.
- Visually uninteresting panels. Unless you're specifically trying to convey that a place is very dreary and dull, this is missing the point. I don't mean to say that the panels should be busy and filled with details, but the eye should not be invited to skip them by lack of something there to keep it. That would defeat the purpose of slowing down the reader and letting them absorb the mood.
- Using it without knowing why, just because you see others do it. You are not a sheep. Do things because you have a reason to do them.
Showing posts with label Tropes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tropes. Show all posts
12 January 2011
19 December 2010
Trope: Naming characters
Tropes are storytelling devices. This series of articles on how to use or not use them in comics was first published in my Comics & Cartoons Weekly on deviantART.
Naming Characters
To be honest this isn't truly a trope – it started as one but ended up as the sum of my thoughts and advice on the matter. I'll start by general points to keep in mind and end with my own personal approach. This is written with comics in mind, but it applies to writing for any other medium, too.
• In real life, homonyms are rife. Back in school there were 4 Karim's in my class, as well as 2 Samer's, 2 Zeina's, 2 Joumana's... You get the point. In a comic, this is best avoided unless it's a plot point (eg. J.K. Rowling's Barty Crouch, in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire), or a potential gag. Basically if you're not going to flaunt it, avoid it because it gets very confusing.
If you have tons of characters and it's inevitable that some share first names (for instance if your story is set in 18th century England, where only a handful of Christian names were shared by the entire population), at least refer to them differently – use family names or title, or even nicknames, so there is no possible ambiguity.
I ignored this rule for this page of Malaak, but these were one-off characters, so I could allow myself the whim of having "Noor and Noor" together. I might reuse one of them but not both, so the risk of confusion is null.
• Equally confusing, though, is using the same initial or same number of syllables for different names. Readers may mistake one for the other and not even know why, but if you have a James and a Jason, or Robert and Bob, or Lois Lane and Lana Lang (alliterative names used to be very popular in comics, now they just look quaint), you're going to have people occasionally stop and backtrack because they skimmed the name and got the wrong character. While this may not be a terrible problem when you're using common names, if you're building a fantasy or alien world full of entirely original names, it becomes a critical consideration because readers already have to memorize the new names, and register the subtle differences between them. Karamerek and Kiratelek, for instance, start and end with the same sound and have the same number of syllables. People WILL stumble. The same goes, unfortunately, if the culture you're writing has a prefix or suffix system for names – like, all names are preceded by Bel- or Ga- or en in -ru. Cognitively, we rely on the beginning and end of a word to recognize it. It's no good if the middle part is unique. It's much easier to tell apart Karamerek from Starameroff than from Kiratelek, as in the example above.
Of course, it's impossible to give a unique number of syllables to every name. In Malaak most of the names are two syllables: Malaak, Tareq, Zeina, Layal, Yeraz, Hassan... Longer names just happen to be rare in our culture. But notice that I stay away from alliteration among those names. They are all quite distinct visually and phonetically.
• Speaking of alien world, do keep your invented names pronounceable. If you have one character with a hard-to-pronounce name, they'll stand out, but if your whole alien culture is made up of X'ezstra and Qk'ezik, your readers will save themselves the headache and go read something more user-friendly.
• First names can't be copyrighted, but nobody can counter the power of association. You can't create a teenage character called Harry and not expect people to believe it's a reference to Harry Potter. This goes for real life as well – I met a powerfully built, 6'6 guy called Clark and I'll let you imagine what everybody calls him. On the other hand, if your character is a middle-aged executive, you could quite safely name him Harry. So it's a matter of being aware, and possibly submitting the name to a few people before making it final, in case they catch weird associations or unintended puns you missed. Over a decade ago I was writing a fantasy story and I named a tiger Cherk. It was my brother who pointed out: "Did you mean to refer to Shere Khan?" I had never noticed the similarity!
Of course, if the homage to a famous character is deliberate, it's another matter.
• Let your choice of names make sense. To use J.K. Rowling's example again, her books are a wonderful example of thoughtful naming. If you examine the great variety of character names in her magical community you notice that Muggle-borns have "regular" names (Dean Thomas), full-bloods "wizardy" names (Draco Malfoy) and half-bloods are often a mixture (Nymphadora Tonks). Pick any name in the book and you can figure out something of the character's background or make an educated guess, which is an astute observation of the status of names in real life. By the way, in real life very modest families are as prone to using grandiloquent names as families of status, in this case as a kind of compensation (but not in all cultures, as some believe grand names attract evil spirits. I will have details on this in part 3.)
• When it comes to foreign names, please, for heaven's sake, research local names before creating a foreign character. Don't make up something that vaguely sounds right to you. Don't borrow names from famous people (like Marvel's Fabian Cortez, or another character named something Bonaparte). Rather, hunt down someone from that country on whatever online community you're a member of, and ask them for a list of popular names and likely family names. Yes, some first names are insanely popular in their respective cultures, but characters bearing "stock foreign names" (Ahmad, Jose, Boris) should be reserved for comedic stories, or for stories that have a large number of characters (and therefore of names) from that culture. Be aware that many countries have a high incidence of Western names: in Madagascar, where people have amazingly long names, they never use them with foreigners, but instead adopt for their benefit delightfully old-fashioned French names like Hippolyte and Jacquot. On top of this, countries that share a language do not necessarily share a name pool. British first and last names are very distinct from American names, even if the difference is often one of spelling; those names t exist in both countries do not do so in the same proportions. Hence the importance of talking to someone with an insider's view. In some places, both first and last names are connected with religion, and NOT in the obvious ways. A practicing Arab Christian family may have a child named Abdallah ("servant of God") while a secular Muslim family may name their kids Nadine and Carlo. These are real-life examples. By properly researching names you won't only do justice to the complexity of societies, you'll also contribute to the slow but necessary dissolving of the cultural stereotypes that writers perpetuate without even meaning to. For a long and detailed overview of naming habits around the world, see the upcoming parts 2 and 3 of this article.
• Meaningful naming is more appreciable when it's not downright cliché (although one must note that clichés are always desirable in comedy). "Adam" for a character who's going to bring about a new start for humanity is really old (pun intended). Before going to watch the movie 2012, I jokingly told a friend "Bet there's a character named Noah who's among the only survivors." Well guess what!! Emma Frost is a less than subtle example, as is Otto Octavius who becomes Dr Octopus ("Guy named Octavius winds up with eight limbs. What are the odds?" ) If you want your character's name to be prophetic and foreshadow a plot development, you may want to make it less than obvious to preserve your suspense, while giving your most observant readers something to be smug about. The astronomy-literate for instance would have figured out Sirius (the dog star) Black at once.
On the other hand, misnomers can be quite effective for hilarity or to blindside the excessively observant readers who delight in spoiling you plot.
• You can get away with almost any character name by making it an appropriated name, i.e. a nickname the character adopted after his friends or enemies or the press started calling him/her that. Many superhero names have retroactively been explained by this device, including Superman, Wonder Woman and Plasticman.
Now, a bit about how I go about naming characters, for Malaak: Angel of Peace in particular.
• I look for meaning. Malaak means "angel" and came up early during my initial brainstorming of what a Lebanese superheroine could be called. It fit my concept perfectly, but if it hadn'tt sounded good, I might have passed and kept looking, since the lead character at least needs something catchy. Yeraz means "dream", here for no particular reason related to the character herself, but as a hint of where the story in general was heading (and you never know, I haven't decided Yerz's fate yet.)
I never explain meaningful names unless specifically asked, they're kind of an Easter egg for readers to enjoy finding. I can tell you that one of the characters right now has something about them hidden in plain sight in their name. But nobody so much as wondered so far, and I can't wait for the big reveal ;)
Other meaning-based names in the comic are those from the scenes set in 525 BC. The high-ranking "priests" (not really what they are, but I'm not elaborating on this here) have long names that refer to the "deities" they serve, and they are meant to be ritual names acquired during initiation, not their original birth names. I made the names up based on the little resources available about the Phoenician language: Yodashtart means "hand of Astarte", for instance, Azmilqart "Strength of Melqart". Barkshamash is "Blessed by the Sun". In contrast, Kesep ("silver") and Mirr ("myrrh") have mundane meanings, reflecting their lower degrees as novices.
- I am society-aware. Tareq and Zeina, the first secondary characters to appear, have extremely common, almost stereotypical names. This is exactly what they were meant to be: representations of the typical young Lebanese male and female (at least at first; both grow with the story). They're also neutral names as in they don't denote a specific religious sect. (In this country, most of the time, if you know someone's name you can tell their religion and even their village of origin). When I had only 2-3 characters, I did not want them to stamp the story with any given social or religious group. When I added a handful more characters however, I deliberately gave them names that were the contrary of neutral, as I now had enough people to express the diversity of our society in a balanced way: Raffi and Yeraz, (Armenian), col. Ibrahim and his daughter Layal (Sunni), Hassan (Shia), Pierre (Christian; not named yet but he's there)...
- I don't try to have full control. Adrian and Col. Ibrahim were both named by Adrian's real-life model. Hassan, Kamal, Nour are all homages to the real people they were modeled after (Doctor Kamal being my brother). In this and in other aspects of the writing, I leave room for it to run wild, because that's what life is: random and uncontrollable. It just adds something to the writing, when it's not all governed by a single mind.
If you're looking for deeper info on the subject, I recommend to you my 5-part overview of naming habits around the world: Names and Naming.
Naming Characters
To be honest this isn't truly a trope – it started as one but ended up as the sum of my thoughts and advice on the matter. I'll start by general points to keep in mind and end with my own personal approach. This is written with comics in mind, but it applies to writing for any other medium, too.
• In real life, homonyms are rife. Back in school there were 4 Karim's in my class, as well as 2 Samer's, 2 Zeina's, 2 Joumana's... You get the point. In a comic, this is best avoided unless it's a plot point (eg. J.K. Rowling's Barty Crouch, in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire), or a potential gag. Basically if you're not going to flaunt it, avoid it because it gets very confusing.
If you have tons of characters and it's inevitable that some share first names (for instance if your story is set in 18th century England, where only a handful of Christian names were shared by the entire population), at least refer to them differently – use family names or title, or even nicknames, so there is no possible ambiguity.
I ignored this rule for this page of Malaak, but these were one-off characters, so I could allow myself the whim of having "Noor and Noor" together. I might reuse one of them but not both, so the risk of confusion is null.
• Equally confusing, though, is using the same initial or same number of syllables for different names. Readers may mistake one for the other and not even know why, but if you have a James and a Jason, or Robert and Bob, or Lois Lane and Lana Lang (alliterative names used to be very popular in comics, now they just look quaint), you're going to have people occasionally stop and backtrack because they skimmed the name and got the wrong character. While this may not be a terrible problem when you're using common names, if you're building a fantasy or alien world full of entirely original names, it becomes a critical consideration because readers already have to memorize the new names, and register the subtle differences between them. Karamerek and Kiratelek, for instance, start and end with the same sound and have the same number of syllables. People WILL stumble. The same goes, unfortunately, if the culture you're writing has a prefix or suffix system for names – like, all names are preceded by Bel- or Ga- or en in -ru. Cognitively, we rely on the beginning and end of a word to recognize it. It's no good if the middle part is unique. It's much easier to tell apart Karamerek from Starameroff than from Kiratelek, as in the example above.
Of course, it's impossible to give a unique number of syllables to every name. In Malaak most of the names are two syllables: Malaak, Tareq, Zeina, Layal, Yeraz, Hassan... Longer names just happen to be rare in our culture. But notice that I stay away from alliteration among those names. They are all quite distinct visually and phonetically.
• Speaking of alien world, do keep your invented names pronounceable. If you have one character with a hard-to-pronounce name, they'll stand out, but if your whole alien culture is made up of X'ezstra and Qk'ezik, your readers will save themselves the headache and go read something more user-friendly.
• First names can't be copyrighted, but nobody can counter the power of association. You can't create a teenage character called Harry and not expect people to believe it's a reference to Harry Potter. This goes for real life as well – I met a powerfully built, 6'6 guy called Clark and I'll let you imagine what everybody calls him. On the other hand, if your character is a middle-aged executive, you could quite safely name him Harry. So it's a matter of being aware, and possibly submitting the name to a few people before making it final, in case they catch weird associations or unintended puns you missed. Over a decade ago I was writing a fantasy story and I named a tiger Cherk. It was my brother who pointed out: "Did you mean to refer to Shere Khan?" I had never noticed the similarity!
Of course, if the homage to a famous character is deliberate, it's another matter.
• Let your choice of names make sense. To use J.K. Rowling's example again, her books are a wonderful example of thoughtful naming. If you examine the great variety of character names in her magical community you notice that Muggle-borns have "regular" names (Dean Thomas), full-bloods "wizardy" names (Draco Malfoy) and half-bloods are often a mixture (Nymphadora Tonks). Pick any name in the book and you can figure out something of the character's background or make an educated guess, which is an astute observation of the status of names in real life. By the way, in real life very modest families are as prone to using grandiloquent names as families of status, in this case as a kind of compensation (but not in all cultures, as some believe grand names attract evil spirits. I will have details on this in part 3.)
• When it comes to foreign names, please, for heaven's sake, research local names before creating a foreign character. Don't make up something that vaguely sounds right to you. Don't borrow names from famous people (like Marvel's Fabian Cortez, or another character named something Bonaparte). Rather, hunt down someone from that country on whatever online community you're a member of, and ask them for a list of popular names and likely family names. Yes, some first names are insanely popular in their respective cultures, but characters bearing "stock foreign names" (Ahmad, Jose, Boris) should be reserved for comedic stories, or for stories that have a large number of characters (and therefore of names) from that culture. Be aware that many countries have a high incidence of Western names: in Madagascar, where people have amazingly long names, they never use them with foreigners, but instead adopt for their benefit delightfully old-fashioned French names like Hippolyte and Jacquot. On top of this, countries that share a language do not necessarily share a name pool. British first and last names are very distinct from American names, even if the difference is often one of spelling; those names t exist in both countries do not do so in the same proportions. Hence the importance of talking to someone with an insider's view. In some places, both first and last names are connected with religion, and NOT in the obvious ways. A practicing Arab Christian family may have a child named Abdallah ("servant of God") while a secular Muslim family may name their kids Nadine and Carlo. These are real-life examples. By properly researching names you won't only do justice to the complexity of societies, you'll also contribute to the slow but necessary dissolving of the cultural stereotypes that writers perpetuate without even meaning to. For a long and detailed overview of naming habits around the world, see the upcoming parts 2 and 3 of this article.
• Meaningful naming is more appreciable when it's not downright cliché (although one must note that clichés are always desirable in comedy). "Adam" for a character who's going to bring about a new start for humanity is really old (pun intended). Before going to watch the movie 2012, I jokingly told a friend "Bet there's a character named Noah who's among the only survivors." Well guess what!! Emma Frost is a less than subtle example, as is Otto Octavius who becomes Dr Octopus ("Guy named Octavius winds up with eight limbs. What are the odds?" ) If you want your character's name to be prophetic and foreshadow a plot development, you may want to make it less than obvious to preserve your suspense, while giving your most observant readers something to be smug about. The astronomy-literate for instance would have figured out Sirius (the dog star) Black at once.
On the other hand, misnomers can be quite effective for hilarity or to blindside the excessively observant readers who delight in spoiling you plot.
• You can get away with almost any character name by making it an appropriated name, i.e. a nickname the character adopted after his friends or enemies or the press started calling him/her that. Many superhero names have retroactively been explained by this device, including Superman, Wonder Woman and Plasticman.
Now, a bit about how I go about naming characters, for Malaak: Angel of Peace in particular.
• I look for meaning. Malaak means "angel" and came up early during my initial brainstorming of what a Lebanese superheroine could be called. It fit my concept perfectly, but if it hadn'tt sounded good, I might have passed and kept looking, since the lead character at least needs something catchy. Yeraz means "dream", here for no particular reason related to the character herself, but as a hint of where the story in general was heading (and you never know, I haven't decided Yerz's fate yet.)
I never explain meaningful names unless specifically asked, they're kind of an Easter egg for readers to enjoy finding. I can tell you that one of the characters right now has something about them hidden in plain sight in their name. But nobody so much as wondered so far, and I can't wait for the big reveal ;)
Other meaning-based names in the comic are those from the scenes set in 525 BC. The high-ranking "priests" (not really what they are, but I'm not elaborating on this here) have long names that refer to the "deities" they serve, and they are meant to be ritual names acquired during initiation, not their original birth names. I made the names up based on the little resources available about the Phoenician language: Yodashtart means "hand of Astarte", for instance, Azmilqart "Strength of Melqart". Barkshamash is "Blessed by the Sun". In contrast, Kesep ("silver") and Mirr ("myrrh") have mundane meanings, reflecting their lower degrees as novices.
- I am society-aware. Tareq and Zeina, the first secondary characters to appear, have extremely common, almost stereotypical names. This is exactly what they were meant to be: representations of the typical young Lebanese male and female (at least at first; both grow with the story). They're also neutral names as in they don't denote a specific religious sect. (In this country, most of the time, if you know someone's name you can tell their religion and even their village of origin). When I had only 2-3 characters, I did not want them to stamp the story with any given social or religious group. When I added a handful more characters however, I deliberately gave them names that were the contrary of neutral, as I now had enough people to express the diversity of our society in a balanced way: Raffi and Yeraz, (Armenian), col. Ibrahim and his daughter Layal (Sunni), Hassan (Shia), Pierre (Christian; not named yet but he's there)...
- I don't try to have full control. Adrian and Col. Ibrahim were both named by Adrian's real-life model. Hassan, Kamal, Nour are all homages to the real people they were modeled after (Doctor Kamal being my brother). In this and in other aspects of the writing, I leave room for it to run wild, because that's what life is: random and uncontrollable. It just adds something to the writing, when it's not all governed by a single mind.
If you're looking for deeper info on the subject, I recommend to you my 5-part overview of naming habits around the world: Names and Naming.
03 October 2010
Trope: Deus Ex Machina
Please remember to vote!
Tropes are storytelling devices. This series of articles on how to use or not use them in comics was first published in my Comics & Cartoons Weekly on deviantART.
Deus Ex Machina
"Deus ex machina" means "god out of the machine", and refers to situations in Greek theater where a god was lowered onto a scene with a crane to resolve everything. In today's storytelling, it is "an outside force that solves a seemingly unsolvable problem in an extremely unlikely (and, usually, anticlimactic) way. If the secret documents are in Russian, one of the spies suddenly reveals that they learned the language. If the writers have just lost funding, a millionaire suddenly arrives, announces an interest in their movie, and offers all the finances they need to make it. If The Hero is dangling at the edge of a cliff with a villain stepping on his fingers, a flying robot suddenly appears to save him." Source: tvtropes.org
In real life, we call it a stroke of luck or, if it's amazing enough, divine intervention. In fiction, we call it cheating! Sure, the writer is the "god" of his or her world, so to speak, but it's not supposed to show. When it does, the reader is yanked out of the story and reminded that someone is pulling the strings, and not so skillfully at that. It's already described as "unbelievable" in life, and it's all the more un-believable in a story. It also, often, robs the lead character of their achievement: how disappointing is it when your hero(ine) has arrived to the final battle, and instead of pulling a moment of awesomeness with all that they have learned along the story, triumphs not by their abilities but because the big villain tripped?
There are numerous examples where the DEM was used successfully, or subverted, but in most of them the script was intentionally written around it, as opposed to it being thrown in for lack of a better idea at a sticky point in the plot.
An example of straight DEM is Batman, who is, or at least was in the past, a repeat offender, seeming to always have a gadget on him to solve any situation. The writers abused the character's inventiveness so that it became a readymade explanation for the presence of that particular gadget, no matter how ludicrous it became in the end . By now it is completely inappropriate for the more serious angle under which Batman is written nowadays.
The same usage of right-gizmo-at-the-right-time, however, works in the James Bond movies because the grand unveiling of each episodes' gadgets is a ritual part of the movies, which have to be understood as tongue-in-cheek on all levels. The more a story takes itself seriously, in the sense that it draws the reader into an experience from which he must not emerge till the last page is read, the more damage a Deus Ex Machina inflicts on it.
Here are some questions to ask yourself as a means of scanning your plot for DEM:
- Did you solve a situation by introducing something out of nowhere? (See examples in the description above).
- Did you introduce an element early in your story to solve a situation that arises later – but fail to tie this element with the frame of the story in a way that looks natural? For instance: your character acquired a tool at the beginning of the story, that ends up saving the day in the end – but there was no particular reason for him to acquire it in the first place. So the tool is floating in the story and what's more, by bringing it to the reader's attention (through its acquisition out of the blue), you announced loud and clear that this thing would save the day. (There's something to be said for making the readers feel intelligent because they guessed what was going to happen. I don't however, think it's a good thing when it also makes them feel the writer is witless.)
- Did you solve a situation using circumstances or characters that belong to the very setting of the story – but in a way that is contrived and not believable? For instance, to use an example from the site: "the local militia bursts in and shoots the villain. Maybe it was established earlier that the militia protects the countryside, but for them to somehow divine that there is a fight going on at this isolated farm and to burst in just in time to save the day is a Deus Ex Machina."
- Does your resolution rely entirely on one character's particularities, so that it only works because the situation involved that person and no other? For instance: the bank robbers pick one hostage to shoot, not knowing that they picked the very person that can't be killed by bullets? (If the character volunteered, knowing his ability, it would improve the story by removing some of the "luck" element.)
In the end, since this is not an exact science, what works and what doesn't is really to be judged on a case-by-case basis, so getting feedback on your plot before you start drawing may save you much regrets. The definite rule to be derived from this is: Avoid injecting "luck" into your plot as much as possible!
Tropes are storytelling devices. This series of articles on how to use or not use them in comics was first published in my Comics & Cartoons Weekly on deviantART.
Deus Ex Machina
"Deus ex machina" means "god out of the machine", and refers to situations in Greek theater where a god was lowered onto a scene with a crane to resolve everything. In today's storytelling, it is "an outside force that solves a seemingly unsolvable problem in an extremely unlikely (and, usually, anticlimactic) way. If the secret documents are in Russian, one of the spies suddenly reveals that they learned the language. If the writers have just lost funding, a millionaire suddenly arrives, announces an interest in their movie, and offers all the finances they need to make it. If The Hero is dangling at the edge of a cliff with a villain stepping on his fingers, a flying robot suddenly appears to save him." Source: tvtropes.org
In real life, we call it a stroke of luck or, if it's amazing enough, divine intervention. In fiction, we call it cheating! Sure, the writer is the "god" of his or her world, so to speak, but it's not supposed to show. When it does, the reader is yanked out of the story and reminded that someone is pulling the strings, and not so skillfully at that. It's already described as "unbelievable" in life, and it's all the more un-believable in a story. It also, often, robs the lead character of their achievement: how disappointing is it when your hero(ine) has arrived to the final battle, and instead of pulling a moment of awesomeness with all that they have learned along the story, triumphs not by their abilities but because the big villain tripped?
There are numerous examples where the DEM was used successfully, or subverted, but in most of them the script was intentionally written around it, as opposed to it being thrown in for lack of a better idea at a sticky point in the plot.
An example of straight DEM is Batman, who is, or at least was in the past, a repeat offender, seeming to always have a gadget on him to solve any situation. The writers abused the character's inventiveness so that it became a readymade explanation for the presence of that particular gadget, no matter how ludicrous it became in the end . By now it is completely inappropriate for the more serious angle under which Batman is written nowadays.
The same usage of right-gizmo-at-the-right-time, however, works in the James Bond movies because the grand unveiling of each episodes' gadgets is a ritual part of the movies, which have to be understood as tongue-in-cheek on all levels. The more a story takes itself seriously, in the sense that it draws the reader into an experience from which he must not emerge till the last page is read, the more damage a Deus Ex Machina inflicts on it.
Here are some questions to ask yourself as a means of scanning your plot for DEM:
- Did you solve a situation by introducing something out of nowhere? (See examples in the description above).
- Did you introduce an element early in your story to solve a situation that arises later – but fail to tie this element with the frame of the story in a way that looks natural? For instance: your character acquired a tool at the beginning of the story, that ends up saving the day in the end – but there was no particular reason for him to acquire it in the first place. So the tool is floating in the story and what's more, by bringing it to the reader's attention (through its acquisition out of the blue), you announced loud and clear that this thing would save the day. (There's something to be said for making the readers feel intelligent because they guessed what was going to happen. I don't however, think it's a good thing when it also makes them feel the writer is witless.)
- Did you solve a situation using circumstances or characters that belong to the very setting of the story – but in a way that is contrived and not believable? For instance, to use an example from the site: "the local militia bursts in and shoots the villain. Maybe it was established earlier that the militia protects the countryside, but for them to somehow divine that there is a fight going on at this isolated farm and to burst in just in time to save the day is a Deus Ex Machina."
- Does your resolution rely entirely on one character's particularities, so that it only works because the situation involved that person and no other? For instance: the bank robbers pick one hostage to shoot, not knowing that they picked the very person that can't be killed by bullets? (If the character volunteered, knowing his ability, it would improve the story by removing some of the "luck" element.)
In the end, since this is not an exact science, what works and what doesn't is really to be judged on a case-by-case basis, so getting feedback on your plot before you start drawing may save you much regrets. The definite rule to be derived from this is: Avoid injecting "luck" into your plot as much as possible!
30 July 2010
Tropes: Exposition
Please remember to vote!
Tropes are storytelling devices. This series of articles on how to use or not use them in comics was first published in my Comics & Cartoons Weekly on deviantART.
Exposition
"Exposition is a literary tool that is used to give information to the audience through dialogue, description, flashback or narrative." Source: tvtropes.org
Exposition is an essential part of many stories. It's almost inevitable that, at some point, some kind of critical info will have to be imparted, either to the reader or to the characters or both. This can be done in many ways. Skillful exposition will inform the reader without them noticing they are being filled in, but done poorly it can break the flow of the story. The worst thing you can do is an Information dump.
An infodump is an exposition sequence that is way too long, throws too much information at the reader in one go, and consequently stops the story completely for the duration. If it happens in the introduction, before the story even begins, then you're asking the reader to wade through a ton of material before they're even sure they really want to read the story! Very risky unless this is done in an attractive format. Star Trek came up with its Captain's Log for that, which presents the advantage of having the exposition done by the lead character and in a way that makes sense in context.
It's particularly easy to end up with infodumps in literature, where one can get carried away with the writing, but they can readily take place in comics, where they can take various forms:
• An endless conversation between two characters, which can result in a visually boring scene because nothing actually happens while they're talking. It's best not to have such a long dialog in the first place, but if inevitable, make sure to keep a visual interest by varying panel sizes, camera angles, perspective; have something interesting taking place in the background, close up on the characters' body language, etc.
• An "illustrated story" where the exposition takes the form of a sequence of vignettes with a narrative voice in a box. This is much less dynamic than comic narration and produces a feeling of distanciation to the narrative – which is exactly what is happening, as the characters themselves are distant from it. If it stretches across too many pages, the level of engagement drops enormously. Keep it short and visually amazing.
• A block of text, saving the trouble of drawing it all, and seemingly a painless way of getting the exposition out of the way – but in sequential art that stands out quite awkwardly. It's downright silly when the long speech issues from the mouth of a character who is in the middle of an action, for instance in the process of delivering a jump kick. Writer Chris Claremont is infamous for his absurdly long dialogues at times like this. Alan Moore on the other hand did pull off the text passages in Watchmen, where chapters are separated by pages of pure prose. In his case, they are not a pause from the story but an additional dimension to it, offering a mixture of new details and a different perspective on events already covered in the previous chapter (a curiosity catcher), taking place at points where the story has already paused and we're taking a deep breath before the next chapter.
If you find yourself committing an infodump, the first question to ask yourself is, "Do I need to explain all this at this point in the story?" You may be able to spread out the info along the story in smaller chunks, less noticeable and easier to digest. Perhaps you can simply use a lot less words and still convey what needs to be conveyed (think of this: if you were hanging out with someone and they asked you how something, how would you answer? Try this verbally and you'll find your answer tends to be much more concise than it would be in writing, because you have less time to think and you automatically select the most important bits.) Another possibility is for part of the information to be conveyed non-verbally, through things the character sees, body language, whatever is appropriate. As an example, let's say we have the following two panels of a boy talking about a date. Panel 1: "I had a date with Jenny." Panel 2: "She's dreamy! I'm so in love! I can still feel her lips on my cheek where she kissed me!" All of panel 2 is redundant. All you need is one panel of the boy saying "I had a date with Jenny", with a dreamy, soppy expression, fingers lightly touching a spot on his cheek, and you've said it all without needing to say it. No medium is as expressive as comics, and this expressiveness should be exploited to the full.
Now if you've examined your exposition and found that you really can't condense it or redistribute it, you need to consider ways of making it entertaining, to really suck the reader in. If you can't help the change in pacing, go all the way with it instead, making it a different experience through a change of style and/or medium as well. Parallel narrations can be very compelling if applicable, meaning that for the duration of the exposition you show both the current story and the backstory unfolding side by side, ideally in a way that there's a relation between the two at any given moment. Other than that, it's really all up to your creativity and having a good feel of how your story flows/what you can allow yourself to do with it. If you look closely at any comic or graphic novel that you consider to be good, you can probably spot within it well-done exposition to be learned from.
A specialized type of poor exposition is the Intro dump, where you introduce a truckload of characters in a very short space of time. Have you ever walked into a party and been introduced to 12 people in a row? You probably only remembered the first couple of names. A comic is no different. When a reader learns a new character's name, they also need to find out why this character is worth remembering before another one calls upon their attention. This isn't to say that you should start with just one character and wait several pages before daring to bring another one in, but do start small and introduce the rest at an organic pace. This insures that readers develop interest in each of them; this connection between reader and protagonists is highly desirable.
There are a few well-established devices used to make a character launch into an explanation. A favorite is to make a character arrive in the midst of a situation and ask: "What's going on?" Simple, but unquestionably natural.
But many devices are beginning to verge on caricatural by now and can almost only be used tongue-in-cheek, unless the writer gives them a new polish. This is the case of As You Know, where one character explains to another something they both know but the audience doesn't. If there is no good reason within the story for the characters to discuss whatever it is they both know, this sounds poor. In Scrubs, for instance, the presence of interns, which is perfectly normal, is conveniently used to make doctors explain procedures for the audience's benefit. In CSI on the other hand, the detectives keep explaining rudimentary forensics to each other for no good reason at all.
Also poor is the Postponed question – a characters asks a question that they would logically have asked a long time ago. It is only asked now because the viewer or reader needs to hear the answer now.
Captain Obvious, a character who is made to point out things that are already obvious to other characters as well as to the reader, is in definite disgrace by now. This trope was so rampant in Silver Age comic books that today instances of it are usually accompanied by another character responding "No kidding!" It was already rather noticed in the 70s, where an episode of Star Wars has Han Solo snap at C3PO: "I'm glad you're here to tell us these things!" Similarly dumb but surprisingly endurant is the habit of some superheroes to explain how their powers will protect them – undoubtedly for the benefit of new readers but completely maddening for everyone else. Cyclops: "Only my ruby-quartz visor can contain my optic blasts." Rogue: "Ah cain't touch another human bein', or mah powers'll absorb their thoughts and abilities." It almost sounds like they have a hard time remembering them doesn't it? How about this example, thought by Random while being blasted into a puddle: "What's happening? Mutant power to randomly deflect any other mutant power thrown at me isn't working!" *groan*
A character may be present whose raison d'être is to ask questions in the audience's place. This can be a child, a newcomer, someone with no expertise among a specialized crew, or even the Watson, named after Sherlock Holmes's chronicler, who was there to provide a bridge into the detective's mind. All these, when used wisely, make for smoother exposition than having a character who is a full-time Mr. Exposition, that is he (or she) exists solely to explain things to the protagonists, whether they really need the explanation or not.
Whatever you do, avoid Expospeak! This is the funny way in which characters often find themselves speaking when they're in the middle of an exposition. Suddenly they sound like they're reading an essay, which is exactly what their lines are, as the writer was so intent on the exposition s/he overlooked the fact people just don't speak that way. A simple way of avoiding this: read your dialogues out loud, or have them read to you. If it sounds unnatural, revise! People usually speak in shorter sentences than they write, using more familiar words, with a high likelihood of idiomatic expressions
As a final piece of advice I would add: Don't be afraid to not explain everything. Outside plot-essential points, there is nothing wrong with letting a reader wonder about things s/he sees in the world you're drawing. The sense of wonder comes from not having all the answers.
Tropes are storytelling devices. This series of articles on how to use or not use them in comics was first published in my Comics & Cartoons Weekly on deviantART.
Exposition
"Exposition is a literary tool that is used to give information to the audience through dialogue, description, flashback or narrative." Source: tvtropes.org
Exposition is an essential part of many stories. It's almost inevitable that, at some point, some kind of critical info will have to be imparted, either to the reader or to the characters or both. This can be done in many ways. Skillful exposition will inform the reader without them noticing they are being filled in, but done poorly it can break the flow of the story. The worst thing you can do is an Information dump.
An infodump is an exposition sequence that is way too long, throws too much information at the reader in one go, and consequently stops the story completely for the duration. If it happens in the introduction, before the story even begins, then you're asking the reader to wade through a ton of material before they're even sure they really want to read the story! Very risky unless this is done in an attractive format. Star Trek came up with its Captain's Log for that, which presents the advantage of having the exposition done by the lead character and in a way that makes sense in context.
It's particularly easy to end up with infodumps in literature, where one can get carried away with the writing, but they can readily take place in comics, where they can take various forms:
• An endless conversation between two characters, which can result in a visually boring scene because nothing actually happens while they're talking. It's best not to have such a long dialog in the first place, but if inevitable, make sure to keep a visual interest by varying panel sizes, camera angles, perspective; have something interesting taking place in the background, close up on the characters' body language, etc.
• An "illustrated story" where the exposition takes the form of a sequence of vignettes with a narrative voice in a box. This is much less dynamic than comic narration and produces a feeling of distanciation to the narrative – which is exactly what is happening, as the characters themselves are distant from it. If it stretches across too many pages, the level of engagement drops enormously. Keep it short and visually amazing.
• A block of text, saving the trouble of drawing it all, and seemingly a painless way of getting the exposition out of the way – but in sequential art that stands out quite awkwardly. It's downright silly when the long speech issues from the mouth of a character who is in the middle of an action, for instance in the process of delivering a jump kick. Writer Chris Claremont is infamous for his absurdly long dialogues at times like this. Alan Moore on the other hand did pull off the text passages in Watchmen, where chapters are separated by pages of pure prose. In his case, they are not a pause from the story but an additional dimension to it, offering a mixture of new details and a different perspective on events already covered in the previous chapter (a curiosity catcher), taking place at points where the story has already paused and we're taking a deep breath before the next chapter.
If you find yourself committing an infodump, the first question to ask yourself is, "Do I need to explain all this at this point in the story?" You may be able to spread out the info along the story in smaller chunks, less noticeable and easier to digest. Perhaps you can simply use a lot less words and still convey what needs to be conveyed (think of this: if you were hanging out with someone and they asked you how something, how would you answer? Try this verbally and you'll find your answer tends to be much more concise than it would be in writing, because you have less time to think and you automatically select the most important bits.) Another possibility is for part of the information to be conveyed non-verbally, through things the character sees, body language, whatever is appropriate. As an example, let's say we have the following two panels of a boy talking about a date. Panel 1: "I had a date with Jenny." Panel 2: "She's dreamy! I'm so in love! I can still feel her lips on my cheek where she kissed me!" All of panel 2 is redundant. All you need is one panel of the boy saying "I had a date with Jenny", with a dreamy, soppy expression, fingers lightly touching a spot on his cheek, and you've said it all without needing to say it. No medium is as expressive as comics, and this expressiveness should be exploited to the full.
Now if you've examined your exposition and found that you really can't condense it or redistribute it, you need to consider ways of making it entertaining, to really suck the reader in. If you can't help the change in pacing, go all the way with it instead, making it a different experience through a change of style and/or medium as well. Parallel narrations can be very compelling if applicable, meaning that for the duration of the exposition you show both the current story and the backstory unfolding side by side, ideally in a way that there's a relation between the two at any given moment. Other than that, it's really all up to your creativity and having a good feel of how your story flows/what you can allow yourself to do with it. If you look closely at any comic or graphic novel that you consider to be good, you can probably spot within it well-done exposition to be learned from.
A specialized type of poor exposition is the Intro dump, where you introduce a truckload of characters in a very short space of time. Have you ever walked into a party and been introduced to 12 people in a row? You probably only remembered the first couple of names. A comic is no different. When a reader learns a new character's name, they also need to find out why this character is worth remembering before another one calls upon their attention. This isn't to say that you should start with just one character and wait several pages before daring to bring another one in, but do start small and introduce the rest at an organic pace. This insures that readers develop interest in each of them; this connection between reader and protagonists is highly desirable.
There are a few well-established devices used to make a character launch into an explanation. A favorite is to make a character arrive in the midst of a situation and ask: "What's going on?" Simple, but unquestionably natural.
But many devices are beginning to verge on caricatural by now and can almost only be used tongue-in-cheek, unless the writer gives them a new polish. This is the case of As You Know, where one character explains to another something they both know but the audience doesn't. If there is no good reason within the story for the characters to discuss whatever it is they both know, this sounds poor. In Scrubs, for instance, the presence of interns, which is perfectly normal, is conveniently used to make doctors explain procedures for the audience's benefit. In CSI on the other hand, the detectives keep explaining rudimentary forensics to each other for no good reason at all.
Also poor is the Postponed question – a characters asks a question that they would logically have asked a long time ago. It is only asked now because the viewer or reader needs to hear the answer now.
Captain Obvious, a character who is made to point out things that are already obvious to other characters as well as to the reader, is in definite disgrace by now. This trope was so rampant in Silver Age comic books that today instances of it are usually accompanied by another character responding "No kidding!" It was already rather noticed in the 70s, where an episode of Star Wars has Han Solo snap at C3PO: "I'm glad you're here to tell us these things!" Similarly dumb but surprisingly endurant is the habit of some superheroes to explain how their powers will protect them – undoubtedly for the benefit of new readers but completely maddening for everyone else. Cyclops: "Only my ruby-quartz visor can contain my optic blasts." Rogue: "Ah cain't touch another human bein', or mah powers'll absorb their thoughts and abilities." It almost sounds like they have a hard time remembering them doesn't it? How about this example, thought by Random while being blasted into a puddle: "What's happening? Mutant power to randomly deflect any other mutant power thrown at me isn't working!" *groan*
A character may be present whose raison d'être is to ask questions in the audience's place. This can be a child, a newcomer, someone with no expertise among a specialized crew, or even the Watson, named after Sherlock Holmes's chronicler, who was there to provide a bridge into the detective's mind. All these, when used wisely, make for smoother exposition than having a character who is a full-time Mr. Exposition, that is he (or she) exists solely to explain things to the protagonists, whether they really need the explanation or not.
Whatever you do, avoid Expospeak! This is the funny way in which characters often find themselves speaking when they're in the middle of an exposition. Suddenly they sound like they're reading an essay, which is exactly what their lines are, as the writer was so intent on the exposition s/he overlooked the fact people just don't speak that way. A simple way of avoiding this: read your dialogues out loud, or have them read to you. If it sounds unnatural, revise! People usually speak in shorter sentences than they write, using more familiar words, with a high likelihood of idiomatic expressions
As a final piece of advice I would add: Don't be afraid to not explain everything. Outside plot-essential points, there is nothing wrong with letting a reader wonder about things s/he sees in the world you're drawing. The sense of wonder comes from not having all the answers.
27 June 2010
Tropes: Always Chaotic Evil
Voting reminder, a new incentive is up!
Tropes are storytelling devices. This series of articles on how to use or not use them in comics was first published in my Comics & Cartoons Weekly on deviantART.
Always Chaotic Evil
This is when a story contains an entire race of bad guys, a common case of bad writing. Not a case of relativity where each side thinks they are the good guys and the others are bad – no, these people know they are evil and may even brag about it. The whole culture somehow agreed to all serve the same evil purpose (because it's easy in real life to make a mass of people agree on one thing, right?)
This was seen so much in the past, in all media, and the trend has not quite disappeared, though nowadays [open] racism is decidedly out of favor, so the evil races tend to be alien and no longer human*. One thing worse than having an entire evil race, is to have an entire evil race with one or two "good" exceptions. This is patronizing at best, and no way to create three-dimensional characters.
[* Exception made for Nazi Germany,which seems to still be a convenient nest of evil to use, as there is a not-so-unspoken consensus that this is noncontroversial to the vast majority (not that I agree or disagree with this, but from a storytelling perspective it's getting old).]
In this day and age, with the world at our fingertips making us all much more aware of shades of grey, it is nearly impossible for any writer to get away with such a characterization unless it's framed in a convincing way. Without drifting into politico-social issues, the question that interests us is: How do we avoid Always Chaotic Evil when our story tends to head that way? The simple answer is also the answer, I think, to most writing-related questions: look at real life and historical examples. There are plenty of reasons why a human group can be perceived as, or seem to act as, a single-minded entity, without actually being one. These real-life situations may inspire you solutions to fit your story.
• An example that deals with perception is that of the biased narrator: Any chronicler who ever wrote about his nation's enemies, from Julius Caesar to WW2 Russian columnists, has demonized them and so that it becomes impossible to think of them as fellow human beings. A story explicitly told from such a subjective point of view can get away with any amount of this, provided you make it very clear that this is a case of biased narrator. 300 makes use of this approach in its portrayal of the Persians.
• Another example where a population can, as a whole, be unsafe to outsiders is that of a population under dictatorship. Such regimes imply secret services so that it is highly dangerous to speak against the regime or have any contact with its enemies (cf. Myanmar, Stalinian Russia). An outsider has to take care not to speak against the regime, and an "enemy", if found out, would be promptly "disappeared" – as would anyone they dealt with. This is a real-life situation where the danger has nothing to do with personal evil. Plenty of plot-driving tension can be derived from such a reference. Looking into religious taboos, caste systems, propaganda, tribal warfare etc can also yield different approaches.
These were just suggestions off the top of my head. The most important thing is to take a careful look at your story if you think you may have erred in this direction, and do what's appropriate for your plot.
Tropes are storytelling devices. This series of articles on how to use or not use them in comics was first published in my Comics & Cartoons Weekly on deviantART.
Always Chaotic Evil
This is when a story contains an entire race of bad guys, a common case of bad writing. Not a case of relativity where each side thinks they are the good guys and the others are bad – no, these people know they are evil and may even brag about it. The whole culture somehow agreed to all serve the same evil purpose (because it's easy in real life to make a mass of people agree on one thing, right?)
This was seen so much in the past, in all media, and the trend has not quite disappeared, though nowadays [open] racism is decidedly out of favor, so the evil races tend to be alien and no longer human*. One thing worse than having an entire evil race, is to have an entire evil race with one or two "good" exceptions. This is patronizing at best, and no way to create three-dimensional characters.
[* Exception made for Nazi Germany,which seems to still be a convenient nest of evil to use, as there is a not-so-unspoken consensus that this is noncontroversial to the vast majority (not that I agree or disagree with this, but from a storytelling perspective it's getting old).]
In this day and age, with the world at our fingertips making us all much more aware of shades of grey, it is nearly impossible for any writer to get away with such a characterization unless it's framed in a convincing way. Without drifting into politico-social issues, the question that interests us is: How do we avoid Always Chaotic Evil when our story tends to head that way? The simple answer is also the answer, I think, to most writing-related questions: look at real life and historical examples. There are plenty of reasons why a human group can be perceived as, or seem to act as, a single-minded entity, without actually being one. These real-life situations may inspire you solutions to fit your story.
• An example that deals with perception is that of the biased narrator: Any chronicler who ever wrote about his nation's enemies, from Julius Caesar to WW2 Russian columnists, has demonized them and so that it becomes impossible to think of them as fellow human beings. A story explicitly told from such a subjective point of view can get away with any amount of this, provided you make it very clear that this is a case of biased narrator. 300 makes use of this approach in its portrayal of the Persians.
• Another example where a population can, as a whole, be unsafe to outsiders is that of a population under dictatorship. Such regimes imply secret services so that it is highly dangerous to speak against the regime or have any contact with its enemies (cf. Myanmar, Stalinian Russia). An outsider has to take care not to speak against the regime, and an "enemy", if found out, would be promptly "disappeared" – as would anyone they dealt with. This is a real-life situation where the danger has nothing to do with personal evil. Plenty of plot-driving tension can be derived from such a reference. Looking into religious taboos, caste systems, propaganda, tribal warfare etc can also yield different approaches.
These were just suggestions off the top of my head. The most important thing is to take a careful look at your story if you think you may have erred in this direction, and do what's appropriate for your plot.
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