Writer's Block Daily

^ I assume it's of the "choose two" variety?

"Allah may guide their bullets, but Jesus helps those who aim down the sights."

No, of the "moving towards one moves you away from the other two." Mostly as a cure for the "neutral means schizophrenic hopping between good and evil" problem in most Karma Meters.

edited 26th Apr '13 5:15:41 PM by KillerClowns

Brilliant idea, I actually would have thought that instead of a character occupying a fixed point on the scale, it would be one of those graphs where the character's traits are mapped via a triangle inside the bigger one with the longest side being their dominant trait.

Since everyone has different levels of those things, and Pure Evil and Incorruptible Pure Pureness don't exist.

Project progress: The Adroan (102k words), The Pigeon Witch, (40k). Done but in need of reworking: Yume Hime, (50k)

Hey guys. I found a list. What do you think about it?

Not a bad list. Granted, some of those can be done well, but I think it's a good rule of thumb to say that using even those without seriously thinking them through and properly justifying their presence is a very bad idea. The point is that a writer must not be lazy.

I'll hide your name inside a word and paint your eyes with false perception.

It's very...interesting how knocking characters out is such a pervasive convention, despite reality being much less convenient and much more dangerous. No matter the medium, you see it all the time. It's definitely going to be an Undead Horse Trope for the next few decades just because it's convenient.

On the other hand, on television, police characters tend to whip out their guns much too often. It can go.

Also, the countdown clock. The particular example described in the article sounds arbitrary, but the general trope can stay around. Deadlines still work.

edited 26th Apr '13 7:23:38 PM by chihuahua0

Re: "Veiling your message in a dream". Parodying this was one of the first funny moments in Alan Wake. A mysterious figure relates an incredibly cryptic prophecy to Alan in a dream, then asks, "Do you understand?" Alan immediately responds with a confused, "No." Yeah, that's how we all feel.

Although I feel like the reason for "Countdown clocks" is just an excuse to complain about The Dark Knight Rises.

Yeah, I really disagreed with them about the countdown clock. The Chosen One and the dream example I agree with, though.

Eh, countdown clocks are pretty cheap at this point. Deadlines in general are not necessarily so, but the all-encompassing "counting down the seconds to disaster" kind is pretty stupid.

I'll hide your name inside a word and paint your eyes with false perception.

Regarding the list?

1. Should have probably gone in Article Dumping thread, but whatever.
2. To say I dislike The Chosen One — or, more specifically, the archaic and morally repugnant mindset it represents — would be an understatement of epic proportions.
3. I totally did the mirror thing in my first draft. I've learned a lot since then...
4. I'm surprised the complaint against Magical Negroes and Noble Savages failed to mention the most problematic part of those tropes: reducing a character to an archetype on basis of race to serve as a tool in a white main character's story is inherently dehumanizing, whether or not the archetype is positive or negative.

This might be odd to say, but this is why the many tropes that spring from Men Act, Women Are infuriate me. Men Are the Expendable Gender may theoretically make women "more important," but it also tacitly deprives them of agency. It's all very insulting.

edited 26th Apr '13 8:26:45 PM by JHM

I'll hide your name inside a word and paint your eyes with false perception.

I hate lists like that with a passion. I may (and do in this case) agree with most of the items on them, but I think the mentality is completely wrongheaded. They actually remind me a lot of my personal bête noire Mary Sue tests: instead of attacking the underlying issues, they just focus on surface detail, freely mixing legitimate problems with the author's personal pet peeves while doing so. In fact, that's why I've always been so zealously opposed to allowing negativity on this site - TV Tropes is literally the only place I know of that tries to list this sort of thing in a non-prescriptive fashion.

And yeah, the countdown clock one may as well be wearing a sign saying "THIS MIGHT LEGITIMATELY BE AN ANNOYING TROPE BUT I'M NOT GOING TO BOTHER TO TALK ABOUT IT IN GENERAL TERMS BECAUSE THIS IS JUST AN EXCUSE FOR GRATUITOUS COMPLAINING ABOUT THE DARK KNIGHT RISES."

...Which would be a pretty big sign, but never mind.

edited 26th Apr '13 9:59:03 PM by nrjxll

Some of them I agree with, but a few I don't. Particularly number 2. Foreshadowing is an important thing. Not foreshadowing leads to accusations of Ass Pulling, which is pretty much never a good thing. Painting all foreshadowing as bad (what the point does) just because it can be done badly (what I'm pretty sure her example is) is using too broad of strokes. Regarding the specific example, I would agree that "little did (s)he know, ..." is a phrase that should only be used with a very few, very specific styles of writing (such as a first person, post-events-happening, at-least-semi-fourth-wall-breaking narrator who uses a lighter tone).

Four irritated me slightly because it ignored the fact that the intended audience of the work might actually be the author's friends and family, in which case in-jokes would probably be appreciated.

Ten irritated me because she ignored the fact that knocking people over the head is not the only way to render someone unconscious. It's just one of the more damaging ones. Chloroform and its ilk do exist. (They are not without risks (such as suffocation), but, as far as I understand, they're more "applied wrong" risks rather than "inherent to the method" risks.)

edited 27th Apr '13 1:36:02 AM by Nocturna

Yes, the thing about actual countdown clocks is that it doesn't actually matter when the countdown is for, because the scene can drag on as long as they want by movie magic.

But limited-audience works should only be seen by that limited audience. If you're going to make your work available to people outside of the circle it was written for, then it's an entirely legitimate criticism to say that it's in-joky.

There's nothing inherently wrong with writing wish-fulfillment work for yourself, but things won't go so well for you if you try to sell it to other people. Same principle.

I think in-jokes are fine as long as they're not intrusive to readers who are unfamiliar with them.

I tent to think that cliches are just badly written tropes. The solution isnt to kill the cliches, but to improve your execution.

"We learn from history that we do not learn from history."

If I may ask, what mindset is that, and what do you find morally objectionable in it?

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Maybe it's the idea that people only do great things because they were randomly chosen to, not because of hard work and talent?

Or how it's basically fantasy's counterpart to the Real Life belief in the divine right of royalty?

edited 28th Apr '13 4:50:01 AM by Wheezy

Project progress: The Adroan (102k words), The Pigeon Witch, (40k). Done but in need of reworking: Yume Hime, (50k)

You might find this interesting.

"The One Who Chooses is a heroine who isn’t chosen to fight evil and who doesn’t have some awesome destiny; she’s just an ordinary person who, through her own choices and decisions, becomes embroiled in conflict. Protagonists like this are just as magically inclined as “The Chosen One” but their adventures stem from choices they make in their everyday lives; often bad choices, but still choices they make on their own."

"We learn from history that we do not learn from history."

It's a bit tricky to explain something so fundamental in my worldview that I often take it for granted. But Wheezy's got it pegged. At the heart of it, there is the tacit assumption that those who are not The Chosen One or close to said Chosen One are, essentially, passive and powerless, fated to follow and obey their inherent betters. It brings to mind the claims of divine parentage/selection of many pre-Enlightenment absolutist monarchs and the subtler claims of modern authoritarian dictators.

edited 27th Apr '13 8:16:12 AM by KillerClowns

Is anyone here familiar with tarot?

So, basically, what's expressed here from Yahtzee's review of Fable III:

"Is anyone here familiar with tarot?"

What do you need to know?

"We learn from history that we do not learn from history."

Regarding the Chosen One:

I can see the potential connection, but I don't think that it necessarily follows.

To my mind, The Chosen One isn't necessarily someone who must be followed; they may simply have been chosen for particular suitability at a given task — defeating the evil overlord in single combat, for example. They needn't be the leader of their people, merely the one selected to enact a particular task. Special, yes, perhaps even empowered, but not necessarily better or to be obeyed in all things.

I can see the argument for preferring that the character have more agency in whether or not they are chosen, but that seems to me to be at least in part a matter of taste, and I think that being "chosen" may leave a fair range of narrative possibilities open (including having the Chosen One refuse the call and have an Un Chosen One rise, or evil win the day, or a forcing of a new choosing, etc.). I'm happy with having a number of ways for a protagonist to enter the conflict, including The Chosen One, I think.

I honestly don't think that I see this an an inherent implication of The Chosen One. I can see the trope being used in that way, but I can also see it being used alongside characters who each have their own important parts to play, without which the Chosen One may fail despite being chosen.

I can see a potential unfortunate implication in any suggestion of Omniscient Morality License that may occur — although I seem to recall at least one instance in which it was implied that the chooser was not certain that the chosen would save the day — but I daresay that reactions to that trope likely vary significantly.

Look, for example, at Stephen Donaldson's Chronicles Of Thomas Covenant:

As I recall it, Thomas is chosen — we even meet The Chooser of the One — but the other characters that he meets seem to me to have significant agency. They consider him to be very important, but nevertheless do things for themselves as called for: holding off the siege of Revelstone, fighting the war against Fleshharrower, etc. And Thomas does end up as the person for the job; in the end he defeats Lord Foul because of a trait that he has that the inhabitants of the Land lack: his unbelief. Yet despite this, people do argue against him, and do act on their own.

@ demarquis: Thank you for the link; I haven't read it in its entirety, but it looks interesting. ^_^

edited 27th Apr '13 10:08:26 AM by ArsThaumaturgis

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